I was going to post about the mini-break Big Guy and I took to Palm Springs this past weekend, but I can’t.  I need to talk about my cleanse.  Otherwise known as The Cleanse. Today is Cleanse Day One.

I thought it would be a good idea to do a cleanse in an effort to assist my liver and kidneys in processing all the pregnancy hormones.  As of this morning my BBT is still elevated to a typical post-ovulatory temperature, and a pregnancy test popped up positive.  Sigh. Everything I’ve read alludes to the fact that, on average, it takes 7 to 10 days after a D&C for hormone levels to drop.  After the past two years I don’t have a lot of confidence in my body’s ability to be “normal”, hence The Cleanse.

I talked about The Cleanse with my acupuncturist/naturopathic doctor, and I decided to go with the system they use.  I made this decision primarily because I am done with this, and I didn’t feel up to the task of researching something on my own.  The only other alternative on my radar is the cleanse advocated by Hethir Rodriguez at Natural Fertility Info.   Also, FYI, Hethir is a featured speaker at the Fertility Focus Tele- Summit that is occurring this week.

I didn’t opt for that cleanse for several reasons.  One, it is a 30 day cleanse, and I don’t want to do a 30 day cleanse.  I want to ovulate in 30 days and get pregnant.  Also, before I started Met, I took a lot of the herbs within the cleanse at one point or another and in different combinations.  I actually think they exacerbated my hormonal imbalance, and I’m wary of using such powerful herbs again.

So, that led me back to my Naturopath’s cleanse, which I wasn’t too keen on because it involves drinking lots of crap.  I can swallow buckets of pills, but I hate drinking any type of crap.  And, believe me, I’ve swallowed lots of liquid crap in my quest to have a baby.  Gagtastic.

So, here is the Tower of Doom.

Check out the size of the bottom bottle.  I wasn’t excited when I picked it up.

The Cleanse entails a MediClear/MediBulk smoothie in the morning right before breakfast, as well as the TAPS supplement 3 times a day on an empty stomach.  The Cleanse advocates for a change in diet, as well.  Essentially the diet eliminates red meats, dairy, soy, gluten, corn and corn-products, caffeine, alcohol, tomatoes, peanuts, refined oils and shortening, all bad sugars such as soda, candy, cakes, etc., cold cuts, bacon, hot dogs, canned meat, sausage, shellfish, and eggs.

I went grocery shopping and here it is, my sustenance for the next week or so.

As I was checking out the diet plan, I saw smoothie and I thought, “Hey, I’ll do a fruit smoothie in the morning to get that nasty business out of the way.”  Here’s the smoothie pre-mix:

And, here’s the yummy, berry smoothie post-mix:

Looks delicious, doesn’t it?! I had visions of sipping my smoothie while making my breakfast.  That didn’t happen. It wasn’t delicious.  It was horrible.  In fact, it was so horrible that I threw it away.  There was no chugging of this smoothie, and it tasted so bad that the only way I was going to get it down was to chug it.  This shit wouldn’t move.

So, I started over.  I mixed 6 ounces of an Odwalla juice with 4 ounces of water and the prescribed amount of MediClear – two heaping scoops.  I would estimate that each scoop is at least 2 tablespoons, if not three.   Here it is:

You know what that looks like? Baby poop.  I chugged the thick, viscous shit, gagging and retching all the way.  It probably took 30-45 seconds, but it felt like an hour.  I repeat – Gagtastic.  And, I wasn’t done.  I still had another 8 ounces of MediBulk to chug.  The MediBulk was absent of flavor, but essentially it is just fiber.  As a result, it quickly turned into a gelatinous 8 ounces of goo.  This one actually made me fear that I may vomit.  But, success, I got it all down.

My goal is to do this for at least seven days.  The diet doesn’t bother me.  It isn’t too far from what I eat on a daily basis, and I have gone months without dairy, caffeine and gluten in the quest for fertility, so I can handle a week.  The real challenge is this liquid crap. I can barely handle it.  So, here I go.  CD1, not to be confused with Cycle Day One.  Gag.