All the research I did about the LEEP procedure, my recommended treatment to remove the abnormal tissue, turned up warnings that I would probably be left with a scarred cervix which could lead to increased likelihood of miscarriage, preterm labor, and delayed dilation during delivery.  The last concern is the most common, and while not ideal there are ways to break up the scar tissue at that point.  Any of these issues are just possibilities, I have read many accounts of women having no issues whatsoever with scar tissue in their pregnancy and delivery.

Kath has been devouring all things pregnancy (of course!) and recently came across a Pregtastic podcast on cervical scar tissue and delivery.  Two things I heard during the 30 minute podcast kind of shocked me.

First, it’s not just the procedures to remove abnormal cells from the cervix (LEEP, Cone, and Cryotherpy) that can cause this kind of scar tissue.  IUD’s, abortion, and miscarriages (if there is surgical removal of tissue), basically anytime the cervix is manually dilated, can also leave the cervix scarred.

Second, doctors and patients aren’t talking about this!  It’s very common these days for women to have either had their cervix manually dilated for one of the above reasons before or during their “child-bearing years” and so to me it seems like one of the first questions a doctor should ask in a prenatal exam.  Why?  Because when scar tissue prevents the cervix from dilating correctly things can take a very long time to progress-or not progress-and intervention by way of pitocin and Cesarean section are much more likely.  If you have any reason to believe that your cervix has scar tissue and you see pregnancy in your future I highly recommend that you listen to this podcast.

Pregtastic Cervical Scar Tissue: The Silent Cause of Increased C-Sections

I am generally pretty good at not worrying about something until I am given cause to worry but I do believe that being informed it key.  When I become pregnant I will be armed with the information that there may be scar tissue that needs to be dealt with and you better believe that I will tell each and every health care provider that I come in contact with about my LEEP.  If you are in a similar situation I urge you to do the same, don’t expect that your doctor, nurse, or midwife will be able to tell or will think to ask.

Related Posts

• LEEP Recovery
• No News is the Best News
• Cervical Dysplasia

(source-because I didn’t actually have any white sugar in my house to take a picture of!)

Sugar is not evil but I do believe it’s less than virtuous.  I also believe that it is overeaten in a disturbingly high quantity.

Sugar is everywhere.   Everywhere except my kitchen.   I love dessert and make it regularly but instead of sugar my goods are sweetened with alternatives that also provide minerals and vitamins.

Stevia

Stevia is made from an extremely sweet herb.  You may be more familiar with the white powder version, which has been highly processed and concentrated.  In it’s natural, green, minimally processed state stevia is full of phytochemicals.  The green stuff is not as sweet as the refined, white powder, which makes it easier to work it (less likely to overdo).

Pros

• no effect on blood sugar
• calorie free
• green stevia is very minimally processed

Cons

• stevia’s super sweet taste can easily overpower, similar to artificial sweeteners
• doesn’t provide much nutritional benefit because you use such a small amount

Look for: green stevia powder and start small, it’s nearly impossible to counteract the taste of too much!

Uses: I like stevia best in baked goods or mixed into plain yogurt or unsweetened chocolate when I want it a little less tart/bitter.  Note that I never use an exact measurement for stevia on the blog, this is because the sweetness of stevia varies greatly depending on the brand and processing.

Recipes with stevia:  Sweet But Not Refined Chocolate Torte, After Lunch Mints

Molasses

Molasses is made from cane sugar but unlike refined sugar it retains many trace minerals and vitamins.

Pros

• great source of iron, manganese, copper, calcium, potassium, and magnesium
• rich and flavorful

Cons

• rich and flavorful (not very versatile)

Look for: blackstrap and organic.

Uses: As a kid I got warm milk with molasses in my bottle before bed.  My friend’s 2-year-old drinks this from her sippy cup  first thing in the morning and calls it her “special milk”.  My favorite way to use molasses these days is to drizzle a little over some plain yogurt and top with a few slices of banana and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Recipes with molasses: Snap Happy Ginger Snaps

Honey

Honey is made by bees from the nectar of flowers.  It contains many trace vitamins and minerals and has unparalleled anti-fungal, antibacterial, and antiviral properties.

Pros

• sweeter than sugar so you don’t need to use as much
• nutritious
• can be beneficial for allergy relief to eat local honey
• tasty

Cons

• most honey on the market is crap, i.e. mass-produced, refined, and supplemented with corn syrup, make sure to buy local, raw honey

Look for: local, raw, 100% pure honey.

Uses: I love honey and think it’s good for anytime you want to add a little sweetness.  Think coffee, salad dressings, yogurt, smoothies, as well as baked goods.

Recipes with honey: Almond Delights, Mint Chocolate Bark

Dates

Dates are grown on a type of palm tree and do especially well in the Middle East, Northern Africa, and the Southwest USA.  Like all dried fruits, dates are full of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytochemicals.

Pros

• great to eat as is for a simple, sweet treat
• good source of potassium, magnesium, phosphorous, and calcium
• the fiber content helps to slow down the absorption of the sugar, resulting in steadier insulin release and energy levels

• strong flavor can overpower more subtle desserts
• dates take some processing to use in the kitchen, either chopping by hand or in the food processor

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• On the Spur Carrot Cake
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A gorgeous Saturday drove us to the mountains and we spent the day covering 10 miles of trail, marveling at waterfalls, and admiring sweeping valley vistas.

Note Natasha’s bare arms: it was that warm.  We passed a bunch of people out for the night.  I’ve never been a winter camper but the Springiness of the day made me jones to go backpacking.  There’s nothing like waking up in the woods!

Virginia is beautiful through all seasons but I miss green!  Not a live leaf in sight…

24 hours later…

February is like a pre-teen, one foot planted in the past and one in the future.

I’d better go dig my lettuce out…

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I am so looking forward to planting my garden!  It won’t be long now, starting next month it’s on!  I’ve been very pleasantly surprised to be able to pick collards, kale, mustard, and lettuce all winter and it’s just deepened my love of gardening.

Growing my own food appeals to me on so many levels.

I’ve always loved creating things; as a child I drew pictures and wrote poems, a little later on I started making dances, and as an adult I’ve added cooking, blogging, and gardening to my list of creations.    Watching a seed germinate and grow is like magic every time and is so satisfying!

I am super thrifty and gardening is a low-cost way to get high quality food.   Yes, it takes an investment of time but honestly I’m a pretty lazy gardener.  The seeds go in, maybe I remember to water them, they grow, maybe I weed a few minutes a few times a week, I pick them in less time then it takes me to decide what kind of toilet paper to buy at the grocery store.   Take those winter greens I’m still picking as an example; I spent about $5 on seeds back in September, it took 5 minutes to plant them, and now we eat the equivalent of $5 of organic greens every week.

Food from a home garden is inevitably fresher than you will find at any store and the fresher the produce is the more nutritious it is.   Many studies suggest that produce loses up to 45% of it’s nutritional value in the time it takes for harvest, processing, transportation, and storage.  Occasionally I’ll pick enough greens for a few days but I usually try to pick them right before eating, optimizing the nutrients (now if only I could keeps my paws out of the reduced veggie bins at Cville Market!).

I still have almost a month before I can put seeds in the ground so for now I’ll have to be content to daydream over seed catalogues…

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Last week herself and two other Niche ladies joined me for class.  They are a great group of women and I love the “live.love.local” mission of the blog.  Here’s what they had to say about my Pilates class.

Total change of topic; it’s been almost four months since my LEEP procedure to remove abnormal cells from my cervix.    I haven’t written about my recovery since about a week afterward, when I got the results that the margins were clear and the cells were not cancerous, but I’ve thought about this area of my body every single day for the last four months.

I’ve thought about it daily because I’ve felt it daily.  It’s not pain but definite discomfort through my groin and pubic bone that comes and goes with no apparent triggers.  I talked to my doctor about it the week after surgery and he had no clue but told me to come in if it got worse.  It didn’t get worse but stayed persistent.

On Valentines Day I went in for my three month follow up (delayed a few weeks because of my trip to Portland).  The doc again said that he saw no reason that I should have this irritation and that everything looked good to him.  The doctor-patient relationship is a hard one!  On one hand I like that he is really positive and acts like none of this is a big deal at all.  On the other hand I detest that he acts like none of this is a big deal!

I experienced a lot of anxiety leading up to that appointment. I suppose I feel a little better knowing that the daily discomfort isn’t a symptom of anything scary but at the same time it’s a constant reminder that my organs aren’t perfect and I had my reproductive parts scraped with an electric wire.

At this point the best thing for me is to be grounded and satisfied with my choice to have the LEEP but it was a really hard decision.  It is not my place to give medical advice to anyone else but I hope that by sharing my experience I can help encourage women in a similar situation to do their homework before making a decision.  The LEEP, for me, was a very painful procedure that took over a month to recover from the most noticeable side effects and I am still waiting for this nagging discomfort to dissipate, not to mention that my cervix will, literally, be forever scarred.

If you’ve had a LEEP, cone, or cryotherepy I would really appreciate hearing about your experience!

Related Posts

• Cervical Scar Tissue
• No News is the Best News
• Cervical Dysplasia

They’re not as pretty as Berry Bliss Tarts or as simple as Mint Bark (almost though)but they are insanely tasty.

Were you wondering what to do with all that leftover mint extract that you bought to make Mint Bark?  Yeah, me too.

I figured out exactly what to do with it.  Make ‘after lunch’ mints!

After lunch is usually when I crave a little something sweet to top off my palate and these little mints are perfect.  Sweet and minty, they provide the dessert factor and leave my breath nice and fresh!

After Lunch Mints 

Makes 14 little mints (or one serving )

• 1.5 ounces unsweetened* white chocolate
• 1/8 teaspoon pure peppermint extract
• stevia to taste*
• 1.5 ounces unsweetened* dark chocolate
• 1/4 teaspoon virgin, unrefined coconut oil

Melt white chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave in a small bowl.  I recommend the microwave for this because it’s such a small amount of chocolate.  To microwave start with one minute, remove and stir.  If over half of the chocolate is still hard then put it back in for another 30 seconds.  When most of the chocolate is melted, stir for a minute or two to melt the rest.  Add peppermint extract and a pinch of stevia.  Taste and adjust stevia to desired sweetness.

Spoon melted chocolate mixture onto a silpat or parchment baking sheet in 14 little disks (about 1/2 teaspoon each).

Set in the freezer for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt your dark chocolate in the same bowl using the same method you used for the white chocolate.

Once melted add coconut oil and a pinch of stevia then stir until oil is melted.

Remove tray from freezer and peel the white chocolate disks away from the surface.

You must work quickly for this next part.  One at a time, drop a white chocolate disk into the melted chocolate, flip with a fork to coat and quickly remove, setting it back on the silpat/parchment paper.  Repeat with all 14 white disks.  If you take too much time the white chocolate will melt and dark chocolate will start to harden!

Set tray in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes to set the chocolate.  Devour!

*I limit my sugar intake and like to get my (near daily!) sweet fixes with honey and/or stevia as much as possible.  If you aren’t concerned about minimizing your refined sugar then these could totally be made with sweetened white and dark chocolate and eliminating the stevia.  You could also experiment with using honey for the white chocolate inside and leaving the dark chocolate unsweetened.  I didn’t have any honey or I would have tried this.

These little mints remind me of Andes-except free of hydrogenated oils, soy lecithin, and artificial colors, and much tastier!

Related Posts

• Almond Delight
• Sweet But Not Refined Chocolate Torte
• Chocolate Cravings
• Kiss Me…
• Open

And it’s sort of our anniversary.

In January 2000 I went to visit Tate in Montana, where he was living for the ski season.   We’d been casually seeing each other on and off for a year and a half but during that time we were more off than on.  As much as we told ourselves and each other that it was casual we just kept coming back together.  We both knew that we didn’t want to go 5 months without seeing each other so even though we weren’t really “dating” I planned a trip to Montana to break up the long winter apart.

During that cold, glorious week twelve years ago we fell truly, madly, deeply, head-over-heels for each other.  We weren’t together for February 14th that year but we celebrated a few weeks early.

This year, our 13th V Day as a couple, Tate brought me coffee in bed this morning and made me eggs and potatoes for breakfast.

We learned our lesson early on about the hassle of going out to eat on Valentines Day so tonight we will order in sushi and  enjoy a quiet night together.

Gotta go snuggle my Valentine.

Have a heart-filled day!

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Friday night was full of Mediterranean food, parents visiting, and a dance performance.

Saturday was full of bloggers and sweet treats!

{thanks for the picture Kath!}

Pictured from back to front

Back Row

Brittany of Eating Bird Food

Gabby of  Gabby’s Gluten Free

Lauren of Vegology

Kristen of Kristen Finn Photography

Kath of Kath Eats Real Food

Me

Front Row

Liz of I <3 Vegetables

Jess (friend of bloggers and awesome chick)

Alex of I Eat Asphalt

Sarah of The Smart Kitchen

Sarah organized this awesome VA is 4 Bloggers meet up at Feast!  Thanks Sarah!  Besides hanging Kath, I don’t have many ‘real world’ friends that understand the blogging world (as if I understand it myself!) so it’s really fun to get together with folks who share a common interest.

Sarah, Brittany, and Lauren even brought everyone treats!  So thoughtful of them.

Gearharts Chocolates from Lauren, Homemade Peanut Butter from Sarah, and “Heady Goo Balls” from Brittany!

After the meet up I busted over to West Virginia in time for a nurturing dinner with my momma, brother, and sister.  Although dinner was lovely, it was not the main reason for crossing the border.  I went to West Virginia to work on my dance piece that is premiering in a show there next month.   I’ll post a video link after the concert but all I’m saying for now is that it involves vegetables, food photography, and me on a table…

I dashed back to Cville in time for sunset and a little ladies get-together hosted by my friend Julie.

Julie is an amazing cook and made a ‘spa dinner’ for three grateful guests.

You know you’re in for a treat when your hostess says “I just need to whip up a little creme fraiche drizzle for the soup”.

The soup was an on-the-spot creation geared at getting “the most possible nutrients into one bowl”.  It was incredible.  There’s no recipe but I did hear that it included 4 pounds of carrots, parsnips, and coriander.

Mmmmm Kale Salad and acorn squash…

We picnicked on the living room floor and each had seconds of both soup and salad.

Post dinner we treated ourselves to foot baths and scrubs and remarked several times that we need to do this more often.

Dessert.  Julie, you outdid yourself with this one.

Blood orange tart with Salted Whiskey Caramel Sauce, no recipe in sight.

Yes, indeed, we need to do that more often.

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I love it when a spur-of-the-moment idea works out.  Like really works out.

After lunch yesterday I wanted some little sweet treat.  At first I thought chocolate but my second thought was lemon and vanilla.  I’ve been trying to come up with an awesome carrot cake alternative for a little while, something full of real food and serious nutrition but with all of the moistness and natural sweetness of a good carrot cake.

Carrot Cake Balls are born.

Tate ate lots of these yesterday and remarked every time that they tasted like cream cheese frosting.  You can thank the vanilla and lemon zest for that one.  He often finds my “sweets” not sweet enough for his palate but these got two thumbs up.

Carrot Cake Balls

Raw, can be gluten free when made with gf oats, refined sugar and flour free

Equipment needed: Food processor

Makes 12 balls

• 10 dates
• 1 cup oats
• 1 small-medium carrot finely grated
• zest from one lemon
• splash of vanilla
• pinch of salt
• ~15 almonds crushed

1. Put the dates in the food processor and process until date pieces are about the size of raisins.  NOTE: your food processor may sound like it hates this, mine jumps around a little at first.  To help this process along or if your blades aren’t very sharp you can chop the dates before putting them in the processor.
2. Add the oats and process until the oats are floury.
3. Add grated carrot, zest, vanilla, and salt and process until the ‘dough’ comes together in a ball.
4. Use clean hands to form a dozen balls.
5. Roll in crushed almonds and store in a jar or tupperware in the fridge until devoured (or freeze for longer keeping!).

(yeah, there’s not a dozen balls there because several landed in my mouth before the camera came out…mmmmm….)

What spur-of-the-moment kitchen creation has turned out better than expected for you lately?

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• Sugar Alternatives
• Almond Delight
• Kickin’ Cranberry Sauce
• Not-So-Traditional Pumpkin Pie
• Ego Checked

I am passionate about moving.

No matter how I might feel about the superficial aspects of my body I am fascinated by and derive great pleasure from moving it.  Running, dancing, walking, hiking, biking, it all makes me feel alive in a way nothing else does.  I love to spread this love, this passion, for moving which is why I teach and train and blog.  It’s also why I am thrilled to be a FitFluential Ambassador!

FitFluential is a “network of fitness enthusiasts” who aim to spread the love of moving across the world every day of the year.  The Ambassadors are a group of writers, teachers, trainers, and athletes who are particularly passionate about sharing their knowledge, expertise, and advice on all things fitness.

If you are a FitFluential blogger, ambassador, or enthusiast let me know!  I’d love to hear about your experience and connect!

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