Mommy Hiker: fertility

So last week, I was in the kitchen cooking dinner as I do pretty much every night. I'm not a menu-maker when it comes to food at our house, I'm more of a meal composer. I look in the fridge about 4:30 pm and start feeling what tickles my fancy and make it up from there, deciding whether or not I feel like protein, what flavors I want to mix with which veggies, etc. That was the birth of this recipe. We loved it so much, it was so easy, nutritious and delicious that I just had to share it with you guys! Enjoy!

Ingredients
3 pounds of fresh Halibut
1 Spanish Onion
6 cloves of Garlic
1/2 of a large Heirloom Tomato
1 lemon
1 tablespoon fresh Thyme
1 1/2 tablespoons ground Mustard
2 Bay Leaves
1/4 cup of Olive Oil
2 tablespoons of Butter (optional)

Cut your Halibut into 2 inch cubes, thinly slice your onion and tomato, give your garlic cloves and fresh thyme a rough chop, then literally throw everything into a deep pot on medium heat, including the juice of the lemon. (Cut the lemon in half, juice it into the pot, then quarter each half of the lemon and throw it all in!) Let it simmer on medium, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes, then lower heat and let it cook for another 25 minutes to let all of the flavors come together. I served it over brown basmati rice, but it would be delish over pasta or just by itself! Enjoy!!

On a completely different subject, please check out this cool featurette we were interviewed for in which we discuss how we navigated the rough seas of our fertility challenges --> Read Article Here

Like most mommy’s, I wear my title proudly. I try to remind myself to enjoy every precious fleeting moment, because becoming “Mommy” wasn't easy.

We tried for 3 years to conceive and finally after 36 months of tears, we decided it was time to get some professional guidance. I was quickly approaching that certain age where woman are classified high risk and I just didn’t want to waste any more time! Lucky for us, one of Kerem's basketball buddies, Dr. Aykut Bayrak, just happened to be a leading fertility specialist, so off we went!

I’ll save you all the gory details, but after months of tests & exploratory surgery we finally got a diagnosis: A unicornuate uterus. I was born with only half of a uterus. HUH?! My first response was to completely melt down into a blubbering idiot, then I wiped the snot from my nose and ask the doctor, “When do we get started?”

For us, getting pregnant was, popping pills, needling myself in the stomach and ‘making love’ to a turkey baster on a cold pleather medical table with a virtual stranger between my legs. Not really my idea of romantic, but it worked! On the first try!! Then came BEDREST. Well, technically it was called limited mobility restriction, so not full on bedrest, but I wasn't allowed to be on my feet for longer than 30 minutes at a time. No exercise at all. Worst of all, no hiking! Boo!

I had always had this vision of my pregnant self, as I’m sure most people do, hiking up until my water broke! Yeah, well, I was going to have to get over that pretty quickly. I decided to look at this as my baby’s gift to me. Me time. 9 months of it. I started reading, meditating, cooking and just focused on keeping that little peanut safe inside. I did.

Photo by Kerem Hanci

On March 3, 2011 at 4:28 a.m. my grandmother died. She was my heart. At 10:10 a.m. Vivienne Emine Hanci was ushered into the world under the watchful eye of her new guardian angel. I wouldn't have been able to handle it any other way.

Hanci-Fontaine Family Photo

Even before her first breath, much to the dismay of my mother, we had already planned Vivienne’s first camping trip! Four months later, our new family unit was nestled together in a lush, green glen in BigSur listening to the lullabies of a babbling brook. We had found bliss.