PCOS Diva Success Story – Luke & Hailey
PCOS Diva Success Stories – Luke & Hailey
For something a little different, I received this email from a PCOS Diva husband!
I’m at the kitchen sink, washing individual extensions of leeks in cold water, making sure I get all the sand-like particles out before the slicing begins. I had seen leeks bound up in the produce section at the store and often wondered what they were and who it was that ate them. It’s about 10pm, on a weeknight- actually about the time I need to start thinking about going to bed before work tomorrow morning. I still need to combine the quinoa with the turkey for our turkey mini-meatloaf, and also box up a couple servings of quinoa for our blackberry quinoa breakfast porridge. It was Spring of 2016, about six months into our PCOS Diva meal plan experience; I was beginning to feel like I was getting the hang of it.
Flash back one year. My wife Hailey and I were settling into our starter home in Asheville, NC. We were excited about the future, especially having children. It was sometime in that year when we found out that Hailey had PCOS, and our dreams of children may not actually become a reality. We had been praying hard for a baby if it was God’s will: I was beginning to think maybe it was not. It was a difficult place to go in thoughts and conversations. Maybe God’s purpose for our lives was something different; maybe he wants us to foster, adopt, something else. It was confusing. Honestly, I would selfishly avoid thinking about it and more so try to focus on the fried gluten bread dinner I had prepared, which was also covered in cheese.
My skills in the kitchen could have been summarized as good enough. I was a chemist, so those skills slightly overlapped. I did most of the cooking in the house, almost always from scratch. Whatever it was happened to be good enough for Hailey and I to be satisfied, and then take it for lunch the next day. When I was presented with my first PCOS Diva recipe I’m pretty sure I said, “she wants me to do what?” The second or third recipe I prepared had me using vegetable scraps from the last few days and the leftovers from a whole rotisserie chicken to make my own chicken broth. “There’s no way I can keep doing this,” I thought that night. That next day we both agreed, that was the best chicken soup we had ever had. Making chicken broth that way, as opposed to opening the box and pouring, was no longer completely ridiculous. In the background though, I silently questioned the outcome. I was aware that diet was important but was skeptical that it would be as impactful as our expectations.
We didn’t give up. The cooking was a good challenge, and almost all recipes were dazzling dinners that were a pleasure to eat. Sometimes I would prep and Hailey would assemble. Some days I would cook two or three meals to eat over the next few days. We were eating things I had never even heard of; one night I’m pretty sure I remember cooking a chicken in an entire bottle of wine.
In January 2017 we started the year off on the Whole 30, which lasted a whole four days. Hailey was telling me how hungry she was, and I told her I felt the same way. It turns out she was in fact hungrier than me because she was pregnant! Our daughter was born on September 17 that year.
It’s 2020, and the sounds of our little girls fill our home similar to the aroma of one onion and two cloves of garlic cooked in two tablespoons of olive oil. God blessed us with two little girls and, in addition to prayer, I am confident the PCOS Diva meal plans helped us across the finish line. We have our recipes printed off in a binder. If I’m drawing a blank on dinner plans, I know where to go.
I’m also a ninja in the kitchen now.
I hope this will encourage others to keep crushing it. Diet, exercise, a healthy lifestyle, and any combination of other approaches/supplements worked for us – it can for others too.
*Used with permission.
