Indi's Human

Four Truths, No Lie

2010-12-14T15:46:00.004-05:00

I've run away from "home"
I'm shacking up with someone else, bloggy speaking
This may or may not be permanent
I had to do something

http://remembergrace.wordpress.com/

Oh Look! A Post!

2010-06-08T14:02:00.005-04:00

Soooo long, no write again.

Stuff is percolating but nothing's ready to be poured yet, needs more brewing. No idea where the coffee talk is coming from.

Chris and I went to Mackinac Island last week, as part of a wooing session for me from work. It was lovely to be there with no real responsibilities (as when I go there for work I can never really relax and am almost always "on" in some way.) The biggest gift was that it was all free. We floated from one open-bar reception to another open-bar dinner with numerous "stations" (pasta, seafood, carving, etc.) to breakfast buffets that had enough bacon to make Chris whimper. The good thing about all that food is that one is pretty much guaranteed to walk it all off on the island. We walked downtown a few times and never took a single cab (horse and carriage) even though I wanted to.

We pretty much walked Indi's little legs into nubbins. She did really well and seemed to welcome being left in the room for a couple of hours at a time when we went off to eat. And drink. Did I mention the open bar? She was always more than happy to see us come "home" though, as evidenced by this video. Sorry the quality is so poor, it's on my cell phone and she was jumping all over the bed. Which, before you think we're slobs, we didn't have made up because we didn't want to subject the cleaning staff to a dog going crazy while they tried to clean. Thus the rumpled bed.

Also, you might want to turn down the volume on your speakers a tad because her welcome home yelps are about enough to pierce your eardrums. It's like she thought we'd gone forever, every single time we come back.

I promise a real post soon but pretty much, Indi's as real as I get these days.

Quatro de Mayo

2010-05-04T09:11:00.004-04:00

The last time I posted was 4/5 and now it's 5/4?! How does that happen?

Work has been nighmarishly busy. To the point where I'm finding that I am looking for patience with my boss. That never happens. Seriously, I just rarely get ticked at him but I'm finding that lately I just cringe when something comes up. I know it's totally me, but it scares me because work is the one constant that I've always been able to deal with. There are good days and bad, but overall, it's a safe place where I can function and feel productive. Not exactly a rip roaring testament to living one's dream there, is it? Uh yeah, more on that another time. I've had this nagging feeling about that for longer than I care to admit and I keep swatting it away but the buzzing is growing louder.

Right now I'm trying to maintain. My sanity and my peace, mostly.

My best friend Pam has moved back downstate and is back to being about an hour away from me. She is going through so much right now, and it's hard to see her in such a difficult space. Hills and valleys, I know, but her valleys are dark and scary for her now and it's hard to see that.

Chris and I are bridging the gap in some ways and the small signs of it feel reassuring in ways I had forgotten about. Maybe not forgotten, but hadn't experienced in a while. I am trying very hard to stay in the Now because my brain wants to look ahead at how much other stuff there is to get through and it takes away from the Now Moments. It feels like I really need to focus on those right now. To that end, we are going away for Memorial Day weekend (last weekend of May for my Canuck friends) and we never ever go away on the holidays. I can't stand the traffic and I'd rather just be home. But this is an opportunity to get away for free (another "wooing" perk I get through work) and I just can't pass it up. To be honest, without this we'd never be able to do it, we just don't have the money right now.

There's also an overnight trip to Chicago to see the inlaws coming up but I'm in total denial over that right now and am planning on recharging some batteries first a couple weeks before that, in order to deal with the whole thing.

A year ago right now, I was in a Two Week Wait. Even that phrase seems like a foreign language, and so incredibly far away. It was to be my last and if you recall, I went out in a blaze of melodramatic glory by proving that the last IUI failed when I started my period on Mother's Day. HA! That still kills me, universe. Good one! And no, I'm not still bitter at all, thanks for asking.

Ahhh yes, she still has the crazy in her.

I'm just looking to get through this weekend and I'm not sure what that's going to look like. I'd say there's a good chance it'll include wine and chocolate but seriously, this particular mode o' funk is immune to those. Scary, huh?

I feel such an urge to get all sappy here at the end so I'll make a quick getaway before I

I love and miss you guys!

Ooooh, and I was so close.

Weekend Update

2010-04-05T13:49:00.010-04:00

It was a weekend. I have some updates. Try as I might, I can't put a whole lot of positive spin on it. I got out early Friday, which was a beautiful day here. Indi and I sat outside for a couple of hours, just soaking up the fresh air and sunshine. I'm happy to say that's why these pictures are washed out. That and the fact that I was too lazy to go in and get the real camera so I used my cell phone.

She still loves her some sticks. More fell over the winter and so she gathered them all around her. A girl needs some choices. As you can see, the grass isn't what you can call green yet, but it's at least hinting at it.

Saturday I fussed with some baking for church. I made mini carrot cupcakes and further fussed with making little marzipan carrots for the tops. I should've put something down for scale, but just remember these are the mini muffin tins, so the carrots are about an inch long. Martha Stewart gets me into a lotta trouble sometimes.

Before I started, though, Indi and I were back outside for a couple hours, each showing our unified support.

Saturday night, I watched the Final Four and got just plain depressed. We - okay they - played like crap in the 2nd half but it was still hard to watch. I can't tell you how much the entire community gets into this whole experience, it's huge on every level.

Sunday morning I went to church and had a great time. The energy was amazing, the music was rockin (seriously, our church's band will blow your socks off some days) and I left feeling uplifted and at peace.

Of course I can't seem to maintain that sensibility so by late last night, I was in a funk. This is mostly because Chris and I are struggling. I'll just leave it at that because really, I think that everyone struggles sometimes. But I say that because I'm being honest and that's what is going on. When he and I are out of sync, nothing else feels balanced either and I hate it. The fact that he is on afternoons indefinitely only serves to make it harder since I don't see him during the week.

Anyway.

I feel really misunderstood on a lot of levels lately and it's making me weary. E-mails between other family members about nothing even all that important have left me clarifying and reclarifying and going back to read and reread what I said and still I'm left scratching my head and wondering how I seem to be saying one thing and others are hearing or translating it into another. It isn't that I don't see the possibility of my being (*gasp*) wrong, but seriously, it's about the smallest of things and it's still all screwed up.

I just don't know how it all seems to get so complicated.

I'm working on my 'tude here, I swear I am. And sometimes I think it gets a little easier as the week starts again and I go back to being solo. I dunno if that's good or bad, and I'm trying not to judge it.

Tonight is bound to get easier as I've slid into a regular volunteer experience that I love. Monday evenings I serve dinner at a women & children's shelter. These are women who are homeless, many jobless, and with small children. The dose of reality I get when I spend time there is the slap in my spoiled self's face that I need. And no, that isn't why I do it, it's just one of the things I see myself taking away each week. These women often have nothing more than what could fit into a couple of plastic grocery bags and yet they are there, taking care of their children, learning job skills, and trying to get to a place of safety and self reliance. I am humbled by their strength and joy and dedication to create a better life for themselves and their children, regardless of the hand they've been dealt.

And suddenly, my weariness seems a lot less important.

Why'd I Do That?

2010-03-26T13:22:00.011-04:00

I joined Facebook about a year and a half or so ago. Not exactly first to jump on the bandwagon but it feels like I've been around the Facebook block a time or two. I like a couple of the games, and I admit I like the pseudo voyeurism that it provides. I get a sense of what friends and acquaintances are doing via status updates and it does provide a sense of (virtual) community that I wouldn't otherwise have. So yeah, I like it for the bridge it seems to provide between people I wouldn't ordinarily mix it up with.

When I first joined, of course I started looking for my peeps. Friends, bloggers (usually one and the same) and family. It's that last group that was a big fat goose egg. I couldn't find anyone, not even any of the umpteen cousins I have. Nor could I find any of Chris' family, so I thought I'd check periodically and/or ask people about it.

Fast forward my forgetful brain to earlier this week and I searched for my BIL and other inlaws and was surprised to find scads of them. I instantly started clicking Add as Friend, Add as Friend! I was high on the prospect of getting lots of family (who are scattered throughout California, Illinois and Virginia, to name a few) connected this way.

It only took until the next day to see that my requests had been confirmed by my BIL and SIL and others. But those two are the ones that really struck me because as soon as I saw their profiles, I knew I'd made a mistake and I couldn't stop asking the title of this post. Why'd I do that?!

Understandably - and let me repeat that... I totally get it - their profiles are crammed full of pictures, stories and comments about their nine month old daughter. My heart was instantly in my throat and yet I was glued to all of the gushing and sweetness until I could barely breathe and that was only my SIL's page. When I clicked on Chris' brother's profile, the tears came when I saw the photo he'd posted as his profile picture:

I dunno if you can see without clicking to make the image larger, but the datestamp from the camera is New Year's Eve. And I thought about all the things my BIL could've been doing New Year's Eve. Or what I imagined he used to do on a typical New Year's Eve. The parties, dinners, evenings out with friends. And I wondered if it struck him on that cold last day of the year as he snapped this photo how he wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else but staging a photo of his enormous shoes alongside his baby girl's tiny ones.

It was then that I wished I hadn't even looked for them, hadn't found them, hadn't added them. But of course it's too late for that without invoking some big story about why I may be ignoring them. They may not even notice, it's not like they're particularly close to us or anything. But it feels like I just coaxed yet another big fat elephant into the room and it's getting pretty dang crowded in here.

Not to seem too pathetic in the irony department, but here's a photo I took of Indi the other day that sums up a good part of her waking life. When she isn't glued to my side, she can be found looking out the windows which, luckily for her, go down to the floor. She ooches her nose around the sheer curtains and just sits there, her head turning this way and that as she checks out the neighborhood.

This week marks five years of this blog being out there. Sometimes more out there than I'd wish, but hey, that's the way it is. It sort of seems as if that nice round number calls for getting a little sloppy and mushy. So much water under the bridge, after all but I can't focus on those oceans right now or I'll lose it.

Toodles.

Blogging Backwards

2010-03-16T14:15:00.016-04:00

It seems I do have things to blog about from time to time and I even think about writing a few of them down so that I can do the easy-out bullets. But I never get past that thinking-about stage until the next thing I know, it's been a month and I'm trying to remember what I was going to say and I can't think of a thing other than all the Crazy in My Head and that just doesn't seem to be the sort of thing to start with. So backwards or non-linear or jumping around, here we go.

I have my brackets done for the NCAA tournament. If you've been around here a while, you know I love me some college basketball. My beloved Spartans began the season with a school record 9-0 conference opening and then they just fell apart. I’m in an office pool (said to be responsible for nationwide plummeting productivity) that I’ve actually won or placed in a couple of times. But pretty much my only criteria for the pool is coming out ahead of Chris.

Just for the heck of it, I googled myself to see what came up and was more than a little freaked out that a link came up to an old Flikr account I made years ago that contained a link to this very blog. Can you say Yikes? It isn’t as though I’m naïve enough to think the internet is anonymous but I don’t want it to be that easy for anyone to find it, either. I went back and changed privacy preferences but it makes me wonder who’s lurked here before. I know it shouldn’t matter but it does. And I also know that if that particular door was open, there are probably others, too. I’m not sure I care enough to change the blog but I’ve led this double life for so long, I’m not prepared to completely out myself just yet.

I'm working on a something crafty that has an Easter theme and I've cracked a dozen and a half eggs so far. I see quiche and frittata in my future for quite some time to come.

I saw Pam last night for the first time in a long time. If you recall, she moved almost 4 hours away, back in December. We met at Weber’s in Ann Arbor, just like old times, and even enjoyed a beverage. They have some ridiculous specials on Mondays and I had an enormous bowl of mussels for less than three bucks. They also have a free hot-bar during happy hour which is one of the best-kept former secrets you could hope for when looking for cheap eats. And it’s actually really good, too.

It’s very bittersweet for me to be in Ann Arbor since it always used to mean going to the baby doc. I can’t even type that without my breath catching in my throat. Even walking in to Whole Foods yesterday (uhh yeah, some things just don’t change) felt like I should’ve just come from seeing him. I don’t think those associations will ever be totally gone. I need to write more about this but not today.

I’m getting the itch to plant things. I know it’s too early but I’ve taken it a step further and ordered some tomato seeds. I haven’t started from seed since I can remember and I don’t think I’ve ever done it totally on my own. The seeds I ordered are “iffy” at best because they’re considered heirloom and so they might not even come up but I wanted to try. If they don’t, I’ll have wasted little other than the grow light I want to look at this weekend. I hope my neighbors think something scandalous like I’m growing pot or something.

I had heard of them before but didn’t try them until a few months ago and now I’m both hooked and spoiled as these little beauties are absolutely delicious, for something that comes out of a can.

I am obsessed with Indi’s sister (her name is Missi) who lives across the street from me. A couple of months ago, I happened to notice out my front window that Missi was off her leash and wandering around her front yard. It was just after 6 a.m., and there was a couple feet of snow on the ground. I got up and looked over to see if one of her humans was just (irresponsibly) letting her out in the morning off leash but there was no one around. I was standing at my front door in my bathrobe as I watched her slowly wander down her driveway, her nose leading the way, as she kept wandering further and further from her house. When she slowly crossed the street, I ran upstairs and got some clothes on, shoved my bare feet in my tennis shoes and threw a leash on Indi. When I got outside, there was no sign of her and so Indi and I walked up to our corner and I started quietly calling Missi’s name. I struggled to cross the street because of all the snow at the curb and the snow instantly went into my shoe. We went about half a block and then out of nowhere, Missi came running up to see Indi. I’ve played this rescue game before and I know she won’t come to me but she comes to her sister every time.

So even though I’ve played the game before, I quickly realized I’d failed to bring an extra leash and Missi wasn’t enthralled enough with Indi’s presence to walk alongside us so I struggled to pick Missi up (easily smaller than Indi but still a handful to be carrying) and struggled even more to walk in now-wet shoes with one dog wiggling in my arms and another dog trying to jump up to the wiggling dog and not one bit happy that I was carrying her sister and limiting her access.

I finally get the 3 of us back to my house and had to set Missi down just inside the door for a second while I switched the leash from Indi to Missi. Then I closed the door and headed across the street. For the record, that is the moment I wish I could do over. But I trudged back through the snow and knocked on the neighbor’s door and one of the kids answered. When I told her I’d found Missi half a block away, she started to scold the dog and muttered, “thanks” and closed the door.

It was then that I started thinking I should’ve just put Missi in the house. I mean I wouldn’t have kept her forever. I probably wouldn’t have kept her forever. But I could’ve had a really fun day with both sisters in the house together all day. The people didn’t even know she was gone yet and if they had gotten a clue, I think a little fear might’ve been a good thing. I could’ve at least kept them for the day. Hindsight. Stupid, too-late hindsight.

There have been two other instances since then when I seriously considered just going over and getting her. It was only the few remaining shreds of common sense and Chris’ constantly telling me, even kindly, “You can’t,” that stopped me. But something tells me that it isn’t going to stop me forever, just up to this point. The Make Missi Mine plan is just getting started.

myTunes

2010-02-19T11:23:00.004-05:00

I won a new toy. I've had a Shuffle for years but quickly grew bored by it because it holds so few songs. This one isn't a huge capacity like some but easily holds 20 times more than I could before.

So now I'm loading whole albums rather than forcing myself to choose 2 or 3 songs from each one. It's kinda fun. And I know that I could become addicted to wanting to buy out iTunes (hiya Rox!) hehe, but I'm going to stick with what I have now. With maybe a few exceptions.

This thing also has a few gadgets like a pedometer and a video camera but I don't see myself using those much since I have them in other ways. We'll see. Right now I'm mostly amused with one of the "shuffle" options. If you get to a song you don't like, you just shake the iPod and it changes to a new song.

That's all I got, people. Just wanted to shake the dust off and say hey. Oh, and have a nice weekend.

Pour Some Sugar on Me

2010-02-09T11:45:00.005-05:00

When all else fails (or when you just want to play) make some mini cupcakes with chocolate hearts and then eat five of them because "the frosting doesn't quite look right" on those.

Note: If the frosting looks perfect on all of yours, simply bump into them with a knife and you will have instant rejects that must be eaten to save your co-workers the shame of imperfectly frosted cupcakes.

I'm here for you, people. I've got a sugar buzz but I'm here for you.

...

2010-02-04T12:46:00.003-05:00

Today is my MIL's birthday. Chris' brother, his wife and baby girl are out visiting her. I can hardly bear to think of calling her tonight and hearing the baby cry in the background. But I'll do it because I love her.

Pam has a conference in my city and is spending the night tonight. While I "should" want her near, my highest truth is that I just want to curl up in a ball tonight and sleep. But I got up this morning and cleaned the bathroom marinated some chicken to grill and put over salads tonight. I'll leave work a little early and put some brownies in mini muffin tins because everyone knows that it doesn't count if you eat brownies one inch at a time. I'll go to bed early, even though she'll want me to talk about it but she'll ultimately be okay with it because she loves me.

Two years ago today, we got confirmation that our (latest) baby's heartbeat had stopped. Anniversaries of such things are everywhere. Like landmines or a whack-a-mole, they literally pop up in my face without notice. Without regard to the fact that I'm in a meeting. Not caring that I can barely see or breathe enough to drive. There are missed due dates, missed birthdays, missed holidays. Because there are missing people. And today is the most glaring one of all because it is the most real to me and it has become the culmination of Hope Lost. Melodrama intended.

I don't talk about this much anymore (maybe that's part of the problem, Patricia) and I certainly don't blog about it much (it all seems like so much Lather, Rinse, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat) that I don't know how to get it to stop looping. The horror of it all, I mean. I have nothing to replace it with and little sense of how to do that.

Gee. I don't sound too healthy, huh? No argument here. And no filter here, either. Not today. Today is about surviving and maybe laughing at some recorded Idol tonight and eating too many brownies. Today is to be survived, but it is also for me to pause and acknowledge the pain as well as the strength God has given me to keep getting through it. Because the babies I lost are as real to me the other 364 days as they are today, one of the Big Fat Anniversaries. And so I put cryptic status updates on Facebook and I answer that I have allergies when two people say I sound stuffed up. I even come in and dust off the blog because I don't know where else to go with this but I have to go somewhere.

Because I love them.

Hands

2010-01-06T12:34:00.004-05:00

Blogging - or the thought of it - still seems like so much work but I resolve to just let it be. If I show up here once a year or twice a day or somewhere in between, then that's what it'll be. More being, less kvetching.

I had 10 or 11 (I can't remember) blessedly lazy days off over the holidays. Every single year, I make lists of things I'll accomplish. Cleaning closets, organizing drawers, rewriting recipes. You name it, I've planned to do it. And then come up short. So this year, I planned nothing. And I lived up to it. I pretty much did squat the whole time and I was ok with that. As a result, when I actually did do something productive, it was all bonus.

It came as no surprise to me when I came back to work that my closets are still messy, my drawers remain unorganized and my recipes are a thousand scraps of paper crammed into a file. But I slept and napped and rested and lounged. And after that, I relaxed. A bit too much, really, but that's for another time.

I left my office the day before Christmas Eve at 2 p.m. with that giddy, expectant feeling of a vacation just begun. The highlight of my break pretty much started ten minutes later. I met 3 friends at our local dive. I work in the same building, but not in the same place, with two of the women and the 4th woman moved out of state a year and a half ago.

The three of us who are all in the same building chat or try to touch base every day but we rarely go out. It's like that 4th person is the glue that we need in order to work. Not that we don't have fun when it's just the 3 of us, but it's not nearly the same. We all dearly love and miss this 4th person and so when she comes back and we get to hang out, it is Pure Girlfriend Joy.

We laughed and drank (yes, the two were related but we laugh ourselves silly stone cold sober, too) and had such a good time. I needed that so badly and wish I could have more times like that.

It's hard making friends as a grown-up, she whines.

At one point, the woman who now lives out of state explained that she was telling someone where she used to live in Michigan and she used the "Michigan Map" thing by pointing to the area on the palm of her right hand.

The next part is slightly less clear to me but the conversation quickly turned to planning a group trip to getting a tattoo of what we were talking about. So I took out one of at least 5 purple markers I'm known to have in my purse at any given time and proceeded to dole out the tats right then and there. The next thing I knew, all our hands were in the middle and we all had our camera phones out, clicking and flashing away. Four Dorks Separated at Birth.

It was the most fun I've had in ages and I've opened this pic several times, to remember just that.

Why don't she write?

2009-12-26T11:08:00.004-05:00

One of my all-time favorite movies is "Dances with Wolves" and there's a scene where they are traveling across the empty plains and come across a skeleton. One of them jokes, There's a family back East somewhere sayin' "Now why don't he write?!"

That's kinda where I am. Where I've been. Asking myself that same question and never coming up with a good answer. And so I waited. To be able to answer the question and make it a good answer. Somewhere around the two month period of waiting, I realized neither were coming and that while my thoughts about blogging weren't necessarily yet at the skeletal stage, they were definitely frozen and stuck.

It absolutely doesn't feel like I'm "back" but I'm peeking in for a moment because on some levels, I've missed it. And if I'm honest, because I've run out of ways to try to deal with some stuff and so it makes sense to revisit a place that once felt familiar.

I can't possibly go back and catch up, no matter how much the linear thinking planner in me might want to. So in no particular order, life, as always, has been happening. (I'm still comma crazy, some things never change.)

Chris turned 40 in October. Can I just say that it is about dang time? Uhhh yeah, I'm a wee bit older than he is and the big numbers are kind of a buzz kill when I get to them first. I threw him a surprise birthday party, a BYOB. It was a Buy Your Own Breakfast party. To be honest, it just didn't make sense to go into debt in order to celebrate, no matter how good the reason and so I thought, okay, people are apt to be willing to go out to breakfast and pay for their own so that's what I planned. It was at a nice restaurant and I had arranged for a tower of pancakes with candles in it to be brought out when we got there.

I still can't say for sure whether he knew what was up or not, but he was gracious enough to play along if he did know. What surprised us both, though, was that 24 people showed up on a Saturday morning to yell surprise and eat eggs and laugh together. It was a fun day.

Moving along and on a completely different note, we had mice in our house a few weeks ago. Yeah. gross, disgusting turd-leaving rodents got in through our laundry room which is oh-so-conveniently-for-them located next to our pantry. I was skeeved out time and again as I realized that they were getting in there and so we started setting traps. And one after another, we killed six of them. GROSS.

And then my wonderful now-40-year-old husband did what had been scaring the crap out of me for days. He removed every single item from the pantry, threw away about 75% of it, and sterilized the cans that couldn't be questionable as well as bleached the entire pantry from top to bottom. I could barely breathe through the bleach fumes when I got home and I couldn't have been happier.

I bought a couple of large plastic tubs and put the few things that were without question, because that had been the rule when cleaning out the pantry, when in doubt, throw it out. Turns out, pretty much everything that was in a cardboard package was questionable and really, it's the only way I could do it. Just toss it all.

So I've been slowly trying to restock the pantry with things as they go on sale. A couple of weeks ago, I saw boxes of dark chocolate brownie mix on sale for a buck and I like to have it on hand in case I have to take something somewhere so I picked up two boxes. But I'd wanted to wait to put stuff back in the pantry until I was 110% sure that the little ratfinks were gone, once Chris had blocked up the area where we saw they'd gotten in. (A small space around the water source for the washing machine.)

Soon, the bins sitting in the dining room got full and so I'd come home with grocery bags and set them on top of the bins. I went into denial about the growing mountain of things in the dining room, thinking that I'd clean the pantry shelves one more time over break, just to be sure, and then reorganize things when I had time. Except that two days before my break began, Chris came home to find the house smelling amazingly like chocolate. Dark chocolate, even.

He found the empty bag and box somewhere on the first floor and Indi slightly cowering on the couch. He went upstairs into the empty bedroom to find the entire floor strewn with chocolate. The empty bedroom (it's the only thing I can call it, really, and yeah, if you've been around here for a while and think about it, you'll know what I'm not saying) was re-carpeted about 3 years ago and has had maybe 2 overnight guests per year in that whole time. I might start calling it the cocoa room.

I looked at it and was just stunned. Chris had waited to vacuum it so I could see it and yeah, it was the only way. It can't really be described. We need to rent one of the big machines to clean the carpet but I'm not sure it'll ever get it back to its new state. All the time Chris was ranting and raving, I was in a place of resignation. I mean, it was too late to get mad at her, we didn't catch her in the act of doing it. To yell and punish her then would've been a waste of time. More than that, I was worried about what all that chocolate might be doing to her. Not that it was a total surprise because in addition to the cocoa room, she'd been uhhh booting from both ends all. around. the house. We're talkin dark chocolate poop and puke, people.

So while Chris is still cleaning up, I called the vet and told them what happened. They said they'd check with the doctor and call me back and when they did, they instructed me to feed her nothing but plain rice 3 times a day for two full days. If she continued to be sick, she'd need to come in. So off to the store I went to get rice (because of course, that was one of the things lost in the pantry) and came home and cooked it for her. When I put it down for her, she just looked at it, tried a bit of it and walked away. She pretty much did that for 2 straight days. Wouldn't touch it. But she finally stopped puking and so we stayed with it and on the 3rd day, I'm pretty sure I saw a tear in Indi's eye as I placed before her the old dry stuff she was used to. She seems fine now. But I might be off brownies for life.

I'm off work until the 4th and have been pretty much lazing around. We had a very quiet Christmas with church services on the Eve and a lot of lounging on the Day. We made Asian dumplings/potstickers yesterday, to keep up our tradition of eating Chinese food on Christmas. They were delicious and Chris made a dipping sauce that I could've slurped through a straw.

Today I'm struggling to tell what day it is, always a good sign of being on vacation. And yet the day sort of creeped up on me and pounded me on the shoulder. I knew it was coming and yet the true anniversaries of things are sometimes not as hard when you halfway prepare for them. Vague much?

Like anniversaries of bad things, I mean. If I get it in my head, then sometimes it sort of comes and goes without much to them. Of course that pretty much ensures that it'll come out another way but hey, that happens anyway, no matter what I do. Vaguer much? Two years ago today, I got my ultimate gift, my 2nd positive pregnancy test. And then I enjoyed ten weeks of bliss until there was no bliss to be found. I thought about it yesterday and told myself that it's just another day. And it is. But it isn't. Even now, it isn't. Even now, it hurts with a sharpness I didn't know could still be here this far down this road. I can only skim the surface right now because the surface is overwhelming and painful and looms large today.

So I came in to my office to feed the birds and animals outside our building because I was going to a nearby store and the birds don't exactly understand a thing like vacation and are still hungry. And on a whim, I opened blogger and felt like I was revisiting old journals from years ago or remembering a dream that is half fuzzy and doesn't seem quite real. Even finding the link above, I began to linger in the posts of doubling betas and had to leave because it hurts too much.

To those who have sent e-mails both to me or to others on my behalf, I thank you for your concern and your love. I still don't have a good answer as to why I dropped off or even a reasonable promise that I'll post much from now on. But I'm doing the best I can and trying to get past the high emotions of the holidays where I know that both objects and emotions are closer than they appear. Some of you may still see me on Facebook, as a status update has proven much easier than a blog entry. If we know each other here in the blogworld and you'd like to add me, drop me a line. Otherwise, I'll catch you on the flipside sometime down the road in Twenty Ten. How weird is that?

Happy New Year.

2009-09-17T13:17:00.003-04:00

I made the call.

And was coasting along... and then my world sort of vomited and here's yet another cryptic post. I am seriously sick of the drama.

I hope your world is treating you well.

Accountability

2009-09-02T13:48:00.003-04:00

I know this won't make sense but I have to put it out there in order to nudge myself into doing something.

I have a phone call to make.

There, that's it. My big fat announcement.

I realize it's not so big, and it announces very little. And I hate to be cryptic but that's what I'm going to do for now. I've had this big scary thing hanging over my head for a while now and there's at least been some movement in the process and so it is time to act. Except I've been waiting to act for so long that my muscles feel frozen.

It's the reason runners and swimmers don't take their mark more than a few seconds before the starting gun goes off. They'd get stiff and be unable to react quickly and naturally. Well I feel like I've been in the starting block about something and the gun's gone off and I'm still just sitting here. I've been waiting for it, striving towards it and now that it's time to go, I'm stuck.

Inertia lives.

So I'm putting this out there, obscure as it can be, so that I'll at least come out of my denial and get real. Where's Dr. Phil when I need him? It's Wednesday afternoon as I post this. I'm giving myself until Friday afternoon to do it. And I swear, it's a good thing, it really is. No one's sick or divorcing or anything like that.

*sigh* Why can't I just be normal? Feel free to leave me the answer to that question in the comments and I'll alert Blogger that there will be a spike in comments.

Bullet Points Minus the Bullets

2009-08-20T13:22:00.005-04:00

I don't often crave the newest gadgets and such, but I find that I want an iPhone in the worst way. My current phone is a piece of crap. Has been since the day I got it and I've literally been waiting 2 years for the contract to expire so that I can switch because I didn't want to pay for a different one. I wish the iPhone wasn't exclusive to AT&T. I swore I'd never go back to The Man again and now here I am, trying my best not to bat my eyelashes at him and giggle and swish my hair.

Pam's youngest daughter is moving to Chicago to go to school. I am meeting the two of them tonight for dinner. I wanted to get her just a little gift to take so I got a box of magnetic poetry, the college edition. I really want to not cry when I see her. I go months without seeing her now, but somehow knowing that she is moving out of state is really making me weepy this week. It's not an overstatement to say that I helped raise her and her sister from the time she was a year old. I know I'll have to be a dork tonight and remind her that the first day I met her, Pam had decided it would be Anna's last day on the bottle. Anna used to love to have me tell that story and I never grew tired of repeating it.

Chris is going on the men's retreat from church this weekend. He leaves this evening (though I won't see him beforehand) and returns late Sunday afternoon. I'm looking forward to some alone time. Plus, he's been a complete turd lately and I hope that the time away does him some good and he comes home with a better 'tude. I can honestly say that I think my 'tude has been remarkable, considering how he's been acting.

I love Facebook FarmTown and I'm not too proud to admit it. I was telling the lovely Ally yesterday that it's like playing Barbie without the awful dolls. I know that doesn't exactly sound like a positive thing, but it is. I just like organizing the stuff; the buildings, the flowers and the designs keep me entertained for longer than I'd like to admit. Oh and I have $1.2 million dollars to boot. Errr, coins, actually. If only there were an exchange office for that.

I've decided not to subscribe to Sirius after my trial is up. If I don't go with the iPhone, I'm going to put that same subscription money away each month, toward an iPod. (I'll get an iSomething outta this somehow.) I have an iPod shuffle but the port in my car doesn't support it. It wants the real thing. And so do I. I use mine less and less because all the songs seem so tired; there's not enough variety.

My home computer died. From what I can piece together, it happened a couple weeks ago during a very nasty thunderstorm. I don't get online at home every day and so it had been several days since I'd tried. When I went to log on, it wouldn't boot up. Near as I can recall, the last time I'd used it was before the storm. Chris says he has a friend who might be able to look at it to see if it's actually dead or just mostly dead. I'm not terribly motivated to do otherwise, so I'll wait and see if he follows through on it.

Monday is a Yellow Sheet Day for me. I'm taking Indi to the vet for her annual exam, shots, etc. That's gonna be a pretty penny. Especially when I add on a few months of flea medicine. I can complain about the money all I want, but she's worth it. She still saves my sanity on a daily basis, I swear, and this weekend, it'll be just the two of us. I can hardly wait.

Peace.

It's Me!

2009-08-05T14:33:00.008-04:00

'Scuse me while I dust this place off for a sec.

PHOOOOOOO!!!!

*cough cough* Sorry for that cloud.

Once again, it's been awhile.

I am still in some Sirius love with the satellite radio. I've been surprised to find that it doesn't work under any kind of structure. I'm used to regular radio getting sketchy when in a parking ramp but it can't even handle the overhang at the ATM and skips out when going under certain underpasses on the highway. All in all, I'm gonna have a hard time going back to regular radio.

I got something else I never in a million years thought I'd have, much less enjoy.

Yes, I am now one of those annoying people who appear to be responding to internal stimulus and talking to themselves.

Acutally, I haven't used it much outside the car but having a 5-speed, it's a must if I want to take or make a call and it's totally hands-free since it's voice activated. You can't tell from this (giant) pic but it's positively tiny, about as big as my thumb, down to the first knuckle.

I'm still liking the car, too, and still learning things about it. A couple of weeks ago, I came home after dark and when I opened the door, I realized I hadn't switched the lights off. I was surprised and irritated that I wasn't hearing any kind of beeping noise to alert me that I'd left the lights on. A handy idiot sensor, in my opinion. Just when I was starting to think that I'd really have to pay attention to turning them off so I didn't drain the battery, I noticed the lights weren't on at all. If the door is opened while they're on, the car simply shuts them off. Nice.

I went to lunch with a woman from church yesterday. Took the day off and everything, so that I'd be able to take my time, as well as run a few other errands. This is someone I've often felt a connection with and almost always touch base with after church. But I'd been thinking I'd like more of a friendship with her than visiting on the way out the door allows. And yet I was unsure. That same feeling from junior high... will they like me? Will they want to eat lunch with me? Does that feeling ever leave? Well I finally just asked if she'd lilke to get together and she said yes and yesterday was the day.

We ended up sitting there for 3 hours, talking and laughing. Don't look now but I might have a new friend. Wonders never cease, since I don't do that very often or very easily. And... she's totally crafty!

Our new pastor has been on board for just about a month. He has done many things to get to know us all, one of which is a one-on-one conversation. We were invited to sign up for an hour with him, just to talk, get to know one another, and have some prayer at the end. Well the thought of it kinda scared me and so I took that as a sign that I should do it. My time slot was last night and sure enough, I started getting butterflies on the way to his house. But it turned out okay.

We hit the usual topics - family, work, school, hobbies, church, etc., and then came the one I had been waiting for. So I don't remember seeing any kids with you and Chris.

Even thought I knew it was coming, I still stammered my way through things. I told him how many years we've been trying. Told him that if he'd ever read about or seen on 20/20 those people who do all those crazy things for fertililty, I was that person. My voice got very thin when I told him we'd come close twice and I averted his eyes as I tried to just get through the absolute basics. When I thought I was safely on the other side, I glanced at him and saw such genuine compassion, that I had to look away again and couldn't begin to blink without the tears rolling down my face. I quickly - and obviously - changed the subject and he smoothly allowed me to do so, and I was grateful for that.

All in all, it went well and I'm glad I did it. One more boogie man bites the dust.

I guess that'll do it for now. Wouldn't want to spill all the beans at once, right? And trust me, there are no juicy beans left, but I'll try to come up with something sooner rather than later. Believe it or not, I miss this place. Which is weird to say because I'm the one that's kind of been staying away.

And as Renée Zellweger's character from Cold Mountain would say, that there's what you call a conundrum.

Obligatory Post

2009-07-24T13:45:00.002-04:00

Nothing much is going on. Seriously.

Well. Little things. Little, tiny, can't-be-counted-as-things things are happening, of course. But they don't count much for me, so why on earth would they count for anyone else? I suppose that sums up most of my blog though, huh?

Meh.

I'm just sort of in a boring and bored funk lately. And yes, I always remember that when someone is bored, it is often because they are boring. You know, because I always have to take on the guilt and responsibility somehow.

Eh.

That pretty much sums things up. I'm in a rut at work that is slow and boring. Nothing much going on and it makes for long, boring days.

*sigh*

I just can't seem to shake the lethargy, the boredom, the zzzzzzzzzzzzz. I am fighting the sense of a lowgrade crabbiness at much of life these days. I don't like this. I am not, by nature, a crabby person. I know I need to shake it off. Mix things up. Change my 'tude, change my scene. And maybe I will, just after I sit and rest a while.

I'm still doing stuff. Loving that my tomatoes are finally ripening. I had some with tuna today and the homegrowns are infinitely tastier than the plastic at the store.

I'm loving my free 6 month sample of Serius satellite radio way more than I thought I would. I'm constantly cruising between 70s, 80s, 90s, classic vinyl, all over the place. I don't miss the local DJs chatter a bit, not to mention the commercials. One particularly odd thing is to find all the old (literally) MTV veejays on there. Alan Hunter, who didn't used to love him? Martha Quinn still sounds just as annoying (sorry) and Nina Blackwood really needs to quit smoking, she's beginning to sound like Wolfman Jack.

Those are my small joys lately. Any ideas on how to shake things up would be greatly appreciated. However, you must not use the word "vacation" or "trip" or any other similar suggestion, it's just not in the cards right now.

Have a good weekend, peeps.

Reno Pics (Lots of After, Not So Much of Before)

2009-07-15T08:25:00.008-04:00

I think I might've mentioned that we painted the laundry room over Memorial Day. Chris really worked hard for two days. The thing is, there were about 12 days of work to be done. And so I did all the rest. I grumbled and mumbed about it but if I'd waited for him, I'd still be waiting. And I felt really good about finishing everything and about how it came out. The thing is, it just never ended.

When the walls were done, I couldn't imagine putting the nasty old wood cupboard back up on the pretty walls so that had to be sanded, primed and painted. And since I painted it red, it had to have umpteen coats. And then I decided that it might be nice if the tiny little trim on it were painted yellow to match the walls. This was PITA #1. And notice I've only allowed myself to store two items on top. This area used to be my own personal Jenga game.

Then when I saw the ugly doors up against all the clean paint, they looked horrid so they came down and I primed and painted them, too. All. Three. Doors. Within a six foot space, I can pretty much open up three doors to almost touch all of them at the same time. So they all had to be done. The back door, the garage door and the little half bathroom door. Thennnnnnnnnn when the gross looking brass hardware went back on them, I hated that so it had to come off and be painted, too. I mean, it just never stopped.

And this morning when I took these pictures, I saw three things that still need to be done, too. The bottom framing of the back door is plain wood and I think it wants to be painted white like the rest of the trim. I have to hang a silly little picture that was in my house growing up, just because it's one of those things to keep forever, I guess. And I have to caulk and paint holes left by the screws where the cupboard used to be. They had it way down low and off center. Eventually I want to get a shelf or small cupboard for more storage area under the cupboard. Oh and we also have to get a new light fixture. I just noticed that, looking at the next pic. We've replaced almost all of them in the house with the same style so why not one more in here.

It's a long narrow room so pics are hard to take but that's a couple of angles. The only thing I hate about the laundry room now (because can I just tell you how much I love a main floor laundry???) is the washer and dryer themselves. They came with the house and we were happy to have them but really, the people's sticker about a kennel has got to be painted over. I've ignored it all this time but no more. And it isn't as if painting the dryer can make it any uglier. But what's really needed in here are a pair of those fancy schmancy front loading machines. I'll take them in red, please.

I also got (and had to hem) matching curtains for the bathroom (pics to come if Chris ever finishes it), the window and the back door. They all used to have either nothing or these heavy, gross lined drapes. Now it's much lighter and airier. I also got the same ones to cover the opening to the pantry seen here. You know. The one where I keep the yogurt.

A Senior Moment Already?

2009-07-14T14:28:00.006-04:00

Watch out, two days in a row.

Saturday I went to an overpriced but interesting grocery store that has a lot of organic products. Just to look around, just because. I had gone to Kohl's to do some dreaded shopping and thought I'd treat myself.

I found some nice looking strawberries that were on sale because they were a tad overripe (althought I suppose I should've been looking at melons, eh?) I also picked up some sweet onions that weren't much more than the ones in the "regular" store. I was happily shopping along when my eye fell on the dairy case and lingered at the Greek yogurt.

I love this stuff.

It's thicker and tangier and just has more oomph than regular yogurt. It's just that the price tag always has more oomph to it, too. I've tried straining regular yogurt through a coffee filter and yes, it does make it thicker. But it just doesn't seem to have the same taste or consistency. So since I had such great looking strawberries, my mind went to thoughts of a yummy smoothie. I usually dump in some yogurt, berries, a banana, and depending on how ripe the fruit is, a little honey. Add some ice and whirl it up to frosty deliciousness.

So I decided that I was worth the price of a large - remember this part, it was a large - container of Greek yogurt. I put it in my cart and salivated at the thought of all the goodness that awaited me. Of course I balanced the goodness of the fruit and yogurt by also getting a package of Newman's cookies that I hadn't seen before. These were ginger sandwich cookies. Imagine an Oreo, only with gingersnapish cookies and creme in between. Two were good in the car on the way home. Two more were better the next day with some coffee. But I digress.

The next morning I remembered the smoothie and immediately went about hauling the blender down. Why it is stored in a cupboard on a top shelf, I'll never know. I mean I don't have counter space for it so it has to go somewhere but I always feel like I'm risking a closed head injury just pulling the thing down to use.

I got the berries out and carefully hulled them, tasting one and finding it as sweet as could be. I peeled the banana and added it to the berries and even added a splash of vanilla extract. This was gonna be good. I got out a couple handfuls of ice and then reached for the yogurt. But it wasn't there. Now I know Chris well enough to realize that the cookies might've been devoured but the yogurt was safe. Veggies, yogurt, fruit, all of it can be right in front and remain safe.

A nice piece of cheese, though? I've been known to "accidentally" put that in the crisper drawer underneath a bag of lettuce if I want it to last more than a few days. So I didn't understand why I was suddenly rummaging for the yogurt when I knew he wouldn't have gone near it. And then. Out of the corner of my eye. I saw it. Sitting there, just as lonely as could be.

In. The. Pantry.

I had somehow taken it out of my shopping bag with the other things I'd gotten and just stuck it on the shelf in the pantry along with all the other things. It had been sitting there all day and night and was clearly now spoiled (although Chris thinks it tastes spoiled to begin with and that's why it's safe.) Safe if I refrigerate it, that is.

I still don't know how I did it, but I'm pretty sure I won't be making that mistake again. And if I had to talk myself into spending more than five bucks on it once, can I really do it again? That means it's like ten bucks. The price of a smoothie is getting outrageous.

Weekend Update

2009-07-13T11:12:00.003-04:00

I met Pam for dinner Friday night at the place where her sister and her two daughters work. It was nice, but not a place where we could really talk. It was like a revolving door of people coming up to the table to chat. I admit I left feeling slightly disappointed, but it was good to see the girls, too.

Her youngest just turned 21 and used to love to have me "tell the first time you met me" again and again and again. And so I'd oblige, and share that the first time I went to Pam's house - always a big step in making a new friend - was Anna's last day on the bottle. Pam was just putting her down for a nap when I got there and made that announcement and it stuck. Now Anna is a few weeks away from transferring colleges and moving to Chicago.

After dinner we checked out Plum Market and while it was nice, my Whole Foods Market fetish is still very much intact. I avoided it, though, since we were on the other side of town. I had picked up a cargo tray and net that I'd ordered for my new car and so we decided to meet at a different place. I could've ordered the same thing from the dealer in my town but honestly, I just refuse to give them any sort of business.

Saturday Chris and I went grocery shopping and I putzed around the house the rest of the day until we were going to grill some steaks for dinner. I opened a bottle of wine and I guess the stars were aligned just right or something because oh my, did I ever enjoy that wine. It was a beautiful night and we sat outside and talked and laughed and drank our wine. We were standing near the car and I read on the roof rack that it said to place items "rearward" for less noise. Well I got it in my head that "rearward is a weird word" and I could not stop saying that over and over. "Rearward is a weird word" was just ridiculously funny to me.

I woke up Sunday none the worse for wear and after church I decided to take the old car and clean it out. Poor thing's been ignored too long and now has this fancy new thing flaunted in her face. So I took it to the car wash and vacuumed and cleaned the whole inside, did the windows in and out, the whole shebang. It made me a little crazy to go back to driving it, though. It felt like I was skimming along on the road after being up higher in the new one. Also, I must've put my foot down onto the imaginary clutch a dozen times since the new one is a stick. I'm loving the new one, by the way.

While I had fun outdoors Saturday night with my wine and my weird word, I was eaten alive by the mosquitos. Funny how the wine made them seem not to matter. Today, however, I'm an itching mess and so I'm off to buy some Pic at lunchtime. I remember having the stuff as a kid when we went to the lake for vacation. It seems so old fashioned but I remember it working and so I'm gonna try it again. I've done the Skin So Soft stuff and it works, too, but it's nice not to have to spray myself down with something. Just light a couple of coils and the bugs stay away. I've actually been looking for it in a few stores and found it online at Walgreen's so I'm hoping it's in the store.

That's all I got but hey, I technically posted twice in a week. It's a step.

Family Weekend Update

2009-07-07T08:28:00.008-04:00

This is post #777. Seems like it should be something more auspicious than just a regular old Tuesday post. Then again, my posting has been anything but regular. I wonder if they make a special yogurt for that. I'll have to ask Jamie Lee Curtis to get on that.

The trip to Chicago - not downtown, but not the 'burbs, either, just part of the endless urban sprawl - went okay. I'm just really glad it's over. The new car did well, but it sure is taking some getting used to. I like the fact that I'm up high but the center of gravity is also high, too, when I'm used to practically sitting on the ground in my Sunfire.

What didn't do so well - or should I say who - is Indi. She had a really rough time, even on meds. Which means that Chris had a rough time because her whining gets on his nerves something fierce. Which means that I had a rough time because it makes me crazy that he can't just tune it out and/or at least realize that she isn't trying to manipulate him, she's majorly stressed too. Add in the traffic and the anxiety of what was waiting for us and the drive was a bit exhausting.

We got settled in our room, including bringing in two comforters and 4 pillows from home. I wanted Indi to have scents she recognized so she'd be more comfortable when we left her in the room. And after that car trip, I didn't mind leaving her in the room at all for a couple hours because I knew she'd finally calm down and sleep.

We met the MIL, BIL, SIL and baby niece at a restaurant for lunch. We got there first and out of the blue, I had a minor meltdown. Just started crying there in the foyer, looking at the cutesy little gifts they had. It's a restaurant that my BIL works at, he's the manager. He and his wife are both professional chefs, although he has been enjoying "the front of the house" more lately than the kitchen.

I got myself together the best I could and we were seated. A few minutes later, my MIL came in and I was so happy to see her. She lives in California and I loved the fact that I could drive 4 and a half hours and there she was. I wish it was that way all the time. I pulled out the chair next to me because I needed her on one side and Chris on the other. My BIL came in next, carrying the car carrier with a little pink bundle inside. I didn't look at the baby for a good 10 minutes and could only glance at her throughout the meal. Luckily, she was pretty much out of my line of sight for most of the time.

I know I was there to face my fears and all that but it was never a safe thing to do. My SIL is basically a stranger to me, my BIL is a very nice man, but let's face it, when he and Chris get together they revert back to 14-year-olds and have the best time. Chris was very aware of what was going on for me and didn't totally bail on me but he wasn't having the same experience I was. My MIL "gets" it and bless her heart, did her best to just keep talking which okay she usually does anyway, but that was exactly what I needed.

We got through lunch, I finally looked at the baby - just three and a half weeks old - and was in awe of her perfection in a way that made my heart hurt just to be near her. I found myself looking for likenesses and family resemblances and then had to stop.

As we were leaving, my MIL asked what we were doing that night - our anniversary - and the others perked up like, Yeah, what're we going to do? Chris was a champ and said that we were just going out, the two of us. We had the perfect reason with it being our anniversary and I was glad not to have to make something up and/or endure another outing all together already. I know we were there to visit, but I knew from the beginning that I couldn't just be my real & honest self there. So I switched gears into survival mode, with the thought of at least being true with Chris, no matter how hard it was.

We went back to the room and I walked Indi around and then we all lay down for a while and took a nap. When I woke up, I started thinking that I'd really like my MIL to go to dinner with us since we don't see her very often. Chris called her and she seemed really happy that we asked her to join us. We asked the hometowners where to go for pizza - it was what I wanted - and they suggested a local place. Turned out to be the best. pizza. ever. Seriously. I don't like the traditional Chicago deep dish so my MIL and I got a thin crust and then split it. I'm telling you, it was just the tastiest thing ever. Freshest tomato taste I can ever remember having on a pizza and the crust was thin but not like a cracker and very crispy, too. Super yummy.

We dropped her off around 9:30 and went back to our room and had a couple glasses of wine. About an hour later, Chris' brother came by and picked him up so they could go be boys and blow things up. We had stopped in Indiana and bought 20 bucks worth of fireworks. I couldn't care less about the do-it-yourself kind, but they just love it and I love seeing them together. Grown men, and yet when they're together, not exactly. The fact that my BIL - the "little brother" is a father now - still leaves me speechless.

I was fine with being ditched and went to bed around midnight, which was really 1 a.m. my time. Chris came home about half an hour later and we both slept horribly. Neither of us can sleep on different beds and even though I was only in bed around 5 hours, it seemed an endlessly long night. Around 6, I gave up and took Indi out on a long walk, careful to go in straight lines so I wouldn't get lost. We packed up most of the room and left just the blankets and Indi and went off to meet everyone for breakfast.

We went to a place where my BIL used to work and so - just like the day before - most of the workers in the place mobbed us to coo over the baby. Just as it should be, don't get me wrong. Both parents beamed and were in heaven to show off their daughter. I tried not to be too obvious each time, but grabbed my MIL's arm and we went and found a table. They actually put us in a booth that ended up being really crowded for the 6 of us and there was no avoiding the baby who once again, slept through the entire thing.

It didn't stop the proud daddy from picking her up a couple times and it was all I could bear to glance at him, this 6'2" man who looks so much like my husband, basically palming this tiny being against his chest with one hand. We finished breakfast amid many visits from the staff and then made our way to the door. He had set the baby down on a seat near the cashier and so I leaned in to look at her and he said something completely innocent but kind of dumb, too. He said, She'll be more fun when she's a little older. And of course I took it totally personally and wanted to snap back (but didn't) I can't think of anything more fun than your life right now so shut up and enjoy this time.

I wasn't actually angry with him, but more angry and envious of the fact that he has exactly what I want. I know he's happy and I'm sure he's grateful for a healthy beautiful baby girl. But does he really get how lucky he is? I don't know, but it's not for me to question. It was just yet another layer of what made the whole thing so difficult.

I couldn't get his words to stop ringing in my ears. Couldn't stop staring at this beautiful baby and then of course couldn't stop the tears that were instantly there. I made my way around everyone and went out to the car, taking all kinds of time to put the leftover breakfast containers in the cooler in the back of the car. I heard them coming up behind me, and Chris came up nearby. I couldn't look at him and then heard my MIL whisper to him Is she okay? I couldn't deal with that, either, and thankfully people were starting to say goodbye. We all gave our hugs and thank yous and within a couple of minutes, we were alone in the car and I could cry all I wanted.

We went back and collected Indi and made our way home through lots of holiday traffic. We unpacked the car, started laundry and caught up on some serious couch time. In the last couple of days since we've been home, we've each talked a little about how the trip affected us and what it means for us in the future. There's still lots to talk through but it feels like a good place from which to start.

Even though this is so blasted long - sorry about that - it really is the shortest version I could tell while still trying to convey how absolutely overwhelming it all was. But mostly I'm proud of the fact that I did it. I didn't hide and send Chris off alone. I went and I was functional and I'm so happy to have seen my MIL that it was all worth it.

Finally (blessed finally) here's a pic of the new wheels. I really like this car. (Click to make it practically life size.)

Checking In

2009-07-02T10:35:00.004-04:00

I swear I never saw this coming, the whole Struggle to Blog thing. Sure, posts were hard to come up with sometimes but I never just bailed for weeks at a time. Very weird. So if there's anyone left out there, here's an abbreviated update.

I went to my boss' dad's funeral a couple of weeks ago and it was, not surprisingly, difficult. And yet his dad was 96 years old and the place was packed. How cool was that? I mean, most people who live that long - let's be real - their friends have long since made the trip ahead of them. And yet this place was filled with people there to support the family and honor the man. I cried when I saw my boss struggle with the eulogy but what really got me - what always gets me - was the part with the military honors. Start playing "Taps" and I'm just done for. Watch the folding of the flag, the final salute and hear his widow sob as she is told Ma'am, on behalf of the president of the United States and a grateful nation... and I just lose it.

The dinner afterwards was at a restaurant and it was a great location. I'm so used to lunches in musty church basements, prepared (albeit lovingly) by the Ladies Auxilliary with rubbery chicken and many Bundt cakes. This was very nice.

After I got home, I told Chris I wanted a total distraction and so we went and looked at a new car. I've been thinking about it on and off for a couple years now. We've shared a car for more than half of that time and while it is in great condition, it's 12 years old and has 160,000 miles on it. And since it seems I never buy a car without the old one dying on the side of the road, having been beaten into the ground, I decided it might be nice to look while the old girl is still doing well. (The car, not this writer. Although I'm basically doing well, too.)

So to make a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng story short, after days of working and being ignored and fighting to get returned calls and being generally very displeased with a local dealership, I went online to do a search and found several of the vehicles that my local guys told me they either couldn't find or couldn't get. I made a few phone calls, confirmed their inventory, and took the info. back to my local dealership. To put it mildly, they didn't seem to give a flying freak. So I told them they'd lost my business but gained a lot of bad PR from all of the people who knew what I was doing and continued to wonder where my new car was day after day.

I asked for my deposit back, we took the truck back home that we were going to trade in, and chalked it up to a bad experience that was not meant to be. Monday I got a call from one of the dealers I'd contacted in Ohio. I told them I'd really only called to try to spur on my local folks and after talking with them a while, I got hooked up with a sales person I really liked and after a couple dozen phone calls on Monday, realized that everything was falling into place just as easily as could be.

I went home and told Chris what I'd been doing all day and he nearly fell over. We'd pretty much closed the book on the whole option and here I was, hauling out another edition from a library a long ways away. So Tuesday I made the trip to Ohio in the old truck, more grateful than I can say to have arrived safely. Chris couldn't get off work and so I made the trip solo. My nerves were a tangle of knots by the time I arrived, but I made it. A few hours later, I was driving away in a new vehicle and it felt like a dream. I've never in my life bought a brand new car. But the rebates and guaranteed trade in allowances pretty much closed the gap between new and used and it just made sense. Plus, the 10-year/100,000 mile warranty was extended to lifetime by this dealship. And no, I don't have to go to Ohio for service. However, that alone was worth the trip.

Here's the thing. I got a (gulp) foreign car. I know, I know! Believe me, unless you are in Michigan, you really can't imagine the sin that this is. I'm not exaggerating. Part of me will never quite give up the guilt, and yet I love the car and well, that's that. It's a Kia Sportage. And compared to my little Sunfire, it's huge, although it's really just a baby SUV. But it's a lot bigger than I'm used to. Heck, I've never even had 4 doors before! I've always had small cars and loved them. Now I'm up higher, have actual cargo space and can't reach across the windshield. Very weird. But fun, too. I'll take a picture soon and get it up.

It comes at a good time, too, since we are making the somewhat dreaded trip to Chicago this weekend. I had already rented a car, not wanting to worry about reliability from the old car. I was happy to cancel that reservation and am flabbergasted to think that I have trustworthy, not to mention fun transportation now.

We'll pop a pill into Indi early Saturday morning and take off. She does well if she's medicated. If not, then she's a pain and clearly not happy herself. After our first trip with her, I knew that one of us was going to be on drugs next time, it was just a matter of her or me.

We'll visit for a bit on Saturday and then Chris and I will go out to dinner - it's our anniversary. We'll get up Sunday and perhaps go to breakfast with my MIL who is visiting there, have another brief visit and then say our goodbyes. Quick and dirty, as they say.

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I wish all the stateside people a happy Fourth and I'll catch ya on the other side.

Weekly Update ...

2009-06-17T09:27:00.004-04:00

I blink and a week has gone by. It doesn't help blogging that I'm super busy right now. It does, however, sort of help my head that I'm so busy.

My boss' dad died this past weekend. He called me at home on Sunday and I instantly started to cry. What an idiot. I mean, I have a close relationship with my boss and it wasn't weird that I did that, but I felt like an idiot anyway. I feel so badly for him. And for his mom. His parents were married 72 years. That boggles my mind. If it were me alone after all that time, I'd want to be one of those stories you read where the surviving spouse dies soon after. I suppose that sounds morbid but that's what I think.

Anyway. Things at work have been incredibly busy due to his absence. We have a major annual meeting next week that will now get pulled together in a matter of a couple days instead of a couple weeks. It'll work out but it's going to be crazy busy.

I'm going to the visitation tonight and to the funeral tomorrow. I've never been "good" at such things. It doesn't matter if I don't know the deceased or even if I'm not close to the surviving family. I see sad people and I lose it. But when it's someone I'm close to, forget it. Loss of any kind seems so magnified to me. But it's not about me, I'm going to support him and his wife who is also a friend.

I'll meet Pam for dinner since it's in the Detroit area. Nice that it works out that way but a little weird to be looking forward to part of it.

In other news, I'm stunned to say that I'm actually considering going to Chicago to see the new baby. Stunning, eh? Yeah, that's pretty much where I am, too. Much like Mother's Day, I don't want this to become the Big Bad Boogey Man to me. I don't want to avoid family just because it's hard. But I'll take precautions to limit the fugly factor, too.

It isn't fully decided, but we're thinking about going for just one night. In, out, and back home. A short trip to say hello, see my MIL (and yes, the baby) and yet do it in a way that minimizes the gore. We'll stay in a hotel so that I can have a retreat. We'll take Indi because I don't want to board her and even though it hints of Crazy Dog Lady, it'll be good to have her there. An excuse to not be able to leave her alone too long, and she just plain calms me, even if it's hard for people to understand that.

We're thinking of going on Saturday the 4th. A little weird, but I don't want to deal with the traffic of everyone leaving on Friday. Weird, also, because the 4th is our anniversary and this is what we'll be doing? But it really works out the best for our schedules. And maybe we can go somewhere nice in Chicago for dinner. That part almost sounds like a normal/fun thing to do.

Then it's one more visit Sunday, and home by early evening so Chris can tend to some work things. When I look at it in pieces like that, it seems doable. Someone please remind me of this when I'm in the middle of it?

Time Flies

2009-06-09T13:06:00.005-04:00

Hmmm... Seems the last thing I blogged was Breathing in, breathing out, glancing at the blog.

Well, two out of three ain't bad. I just can't seem to blog anymore, even in small glances. More accurately, I can't seem to want to blog anymore. I know why, I just don't know what to do with it. The "why" is because I'm having a first class identity crisis. Who am I if I'm not chasing the dream of my life? Who am I if that dream has been denied? Yes, there may be other dreams, but this one.

This one is not up for discussion today, I guess. I just don't have the energy to go there.

I'm popping in so that maybe this can seem like a routine again.

I'm also popping in because I got a call from Chris that his brother and sister in law welcomed their new baby girl into the world today. My SIL was to be induced tomorrow. My MIL arrived in town (outside Chicago) yesterday and they all went out to dinner. Later on that night, they went to the hospital and the baby arrived this morning. Pretty perfect timing and scenario, but then I'm biased to think that just about any scenario that ends in giving birth to a healthy baby sounds like perfection.

I asked Chris how his brother was and he quietly said Tired. Excited. I didn't talk to him much. When I asked why, I got another one word answer. Jealous.

I didn't go too far here, but that was actually a welcome thing to hear. I told him that if that was his first true reaction, that we needed to have further conversations about... everything.

Here's a very brief confession. Actually, it's Chris' stuff so I guess it's a tattle. I suppose it isn't fair to tell this and honestly, I'm embarassed and still lost as to how to even process this. But Chris just can't believe that he'll feel the same way about a baby that isn't biologically ours.

Ugh.

I feel positively unglued even writing that. I want to scream to him that he's wrong. That it's such a short-sided viewpoint and that it just seem so - pardon me - ignorant! And I guess there may be other people out there who feel this way but I just don't get it.

YES I wanted and still want more than anything to be able to have my own baby. That is something that will never change, no matter what happens. But am I all or nothing about it? No. And it has appeared that Chris is. And it just makes me cringe every time I think about it. We've talked about it and I've tried so many different angles to find a way and it ain't happening.

Part of what is frustrating is that I think after all this time, I'll never be able to open his eyes on this. He thinks that I am so singularly focused and obsessed with having a baby that I'll say anything at this point to acheive that.

Wow. This has turned so messy, so ugly, so fast. So even as incomplete as this is, it's scratched the surface of a tiny bit of what's going on. Fugly, eh? Yeah. Try livin' it.

So I keep putting one foot in front of the other. And I enjoy the new grill we just bought. And I play a lot - I mean a lot - of Tetris on Facebook. And I take on a neverending painting project in my house. And life goes on. Better than the alternative? Yes. What I want? Not even close.

Breaking the Silence

2009-06-02T11:00:00.002-04:00

Ask Any Woman Who Struggles With Infertility (AWWSWI) what day of the year she most wishes she could find out she’s pregnant and she’ll list 366 options. Can’t forget leap year, after all.

But right up there is always going to be The Big One. Mother’s Day. And if AWWSWI isn’t a mom or pregnant on The Big One, she is almost doomed to have an incredibly emotional and painful day. This year, I felt like I was exponentially doomed. In the middle of a two week wait, I woke on Mother’s Day to get ready to go to church where I knew the service would probably be hard, but the hard part started a lot sooner. I went to the bathroom and saw the ultimate betrayal of blood.

Because there wasn’t enough pressure or expectation or desperate hope already built into this last cycle, I had to get the Big Fat No on Mother’s Day. On Mother’s Day. I started crying then and pretty much didn’t stop all day.

An hour or so later as I was pulling into church, I got a text message from Chris. Stay home is all it said. Before I could pull into the parking lot and respond, he sent another. It’s all she’s talking about, stay home. In all his infinite proclivity to avoid feelings, he was trying to protect me. But I knew that if I turned around and went back home (because I’d already had these thoughts while getting ready and on the drive to church) I knew I’d always feel like a chicken. Looking back, it probably would’ve been the wiser choice. But I’m stubborn enough and was all Don’t let the fertility terrorists win! enough to be unable to avoid it.

I walked in and up on the screen was a picture of 4 women, clearly a multi-generational family photo. I avoided making direct contact with the 4 beautiful women and sat down. I had purposely come very close to the time service would begin so I wouldn’t have time to dwell on my own. Chris was working the sound board so I had to sit by myself.

The music started and I fought tears as we sang songs, I don’t even remember what ones. And then the worship leader did her little “intermission prayer” and I struggled to maintain as she spoke, admittedly doing my best to not concentrate on her voice. Until I heard her say something like, And I don’t know what you’re going through right now, but God does. He sees you and He loves you and –

And I was completely gutted right there in the sanctuary. I could feel these huge sobs trying to escape and I picked up my purse and walked straight to the back. Our church service is actually held in a high school and so I walked back toward one of the classrooms and stood in the darkened hallway and cried. A few seconds later Barb, our Pastor, came back and hugged me. It was what sent me over the edge and sobbing. The music was still very loud and we were far enough away that no one really knew what was going on.

She just held me and said over and over, I love you. I love you. God sees you. I love you.

It was at that moment I felt more devastated and more truly loved than I have maybe ever felt in my life. The combination was both utterly wrenching and beautiful all at the same time.

I somehow managed to get out I just need to stay back here a while and she nodded and finally let me go and returned to the sanctuary where the service was now about to begin. Chris came back then and it started all over again but I felt a strong need to get myself under control. At least enough to be able to stand here for the rest of the service. He asked if I wanted to go into one of the classrooms and I didn’t. Then he asked if I wanted to come sit with him at the sound board and it was the first thing that had made sense all day. So I sat in back, a few feet away from him.

With a constant rhythm of breathing in, breathing out, and glancing at Chris, I somehow made it to the end of the service. When the music started again, I motioned to him that I was leaving. I didn't want to deal with everyone talking and visiting after service. I was sobbing again by the time I got to the car. Ahhh yes, the Safety of the Car Cry. I’ve known it many, many times.

Those first couple of hours set the tone for the rest of the day. I got it together enough to go to my mom’s for a bit. My brother and I met there and brought lunch for her and just hung out and talked. I was grateful that she didn't want to go out and do the big deal thing.

I got home around 5ish and I opened a bottle of wine. Chris didn't say anything, just kept cooking dinner. I sat at the table while he worked, something I like to do whether I'm cooking or watching someone else cook. We both consciously chatted about all things inane and much faster than you can imagine, I was opening a 2nd bottle. He was having some, too, but I'll admit he wasn't keeping up with me.

I drank another glass and felt my shoulders finally unhunch. Nothing felt good but the gentle numbing was appreciated. It was the first time I can remember truly drinking something in order to try to make something else go away. And I got a tiny peek at what true addiction might be like. Now don't go and get all worried. I drank too much. On purpose. And then I overanalyzed it. It's what I do, even tipsy. Moving on.

I had somehow had sense and forethought to take the following day off work. I spent it licking my wounds and trying to get my mind back to a place of functioning. It’s unbelievable how exhausting all that stress can be. Fearing that I’d toss and turn, I slept like a rock.

Going back to work felt strangely like going back to work after the last miscarriage. That’s the point I’ve been avoiding making. The correlation came to me almost immediately when I found myself going through such deep sadness and grief. It’s like I’m experiencing the loss not only of this cycle but of all the cycles, all the injections, all the lost potential, all the babies, all the hope. All gone, all gone.

And now what?

I know that’s the question everyone has. And I don’t have an answer. There’s more here. Hell, it’s been a month to the day since I posted. A month to the day since the IUI. I didn’t plan it that way. But of course I wouldn’t have planned much this way.

I can’t end this without saying that I’m truly sorry to have gone AWOB (a gold star to the person who gets that) or to have worried anyone. I started getting e-mails and more comments and realized that I was being really selfish by not at least checking in. Again, I’m sorry for that. I have literally been doing what feels pretty close to my best these last few weeks but I realize that came up short in many ways.

Writing my way through this has always been the thing that keeps me sane. That’s what scared me. When I thought about writing, I was completely EH. About writing, about almost everything. I’ve scratched open a few thin scabs by doing this, as it’s been really hard to get this post out but I don’t know what else to do.

Breathing in, breathing out, glancing at the blog. It's a start.

IUI

2009-05-02T19:42:00.002-04:00

Chris got home earlier than I expected and we had a quiet night. He enjoyed Chicago a lot, especially seeing his brother. He ate too much and spent too much and I know that's how trips usually go. Somehow I managed not to whine too much about this since I did neither too much eating or spending during his absence.

I slept like crap last night, which didn't surprise me. I can't turn my brain off for anything. I finally got up around 5:30 and showered and sat and watched the news until Chris got up. We left the house at 6:40 and were the first ones in the doc's office at 7:50.

I saw him at one point, behind the reception desk, while Chris was uhmmm, otherwise busy. I went through the motions of flipping pages of a magazine and was surprised to be called back within 45 minutes. I was further surprised when it was clear that one of the nurses (and I'll admit, my least favorite and consistently grumpiest) was going to be doing the IUI. I wanted to ask why the doctor wasn't doing it but I bit my tongue.

A nurse did it the first time here, so it wasn't like it was a total surprise. What was a surprise was how much it hurt. She just did not have the touch and I wasn't shy about letting her know it. At first I just winced a bit and then I sort of sucked my breath in and then I just came out and said, That really hurts.

I've done these enough to know that it has never actually hurt. She said something about my cervix being in the back and I bit my tongue not to say that every other person has said how easy my cervix is. Anyway.

She finally left and I lay there and just couldn't help but be overwhelmed by all of this. Sometimes I can put the blinders on and sometimes it just all comes flooding in and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I stayed there for 15 minutes and then we drove home.

Chris was tired and has the uncanny ability to sleep in the car, his head bobbing all around. So it was quiet most of the ride home and when we pulled in, he stayed out and began the process of mowing the lawn. I came in, scrambled a couple eggs and went back to bed. I watched When Harry Met Sally and evidently fell asleep sometime around their last breakup because there was something else on when I woke up.

The rest of the day has been lazy. I made chocolate ginger cookies to take to church tomorrow and was pretty much a bum the rest of the time. Not much to report, but here it is in cyberspace, for posterity.

Keep your fingers crossed and your prayers coming :)

Cycle Day 11

2009-04-29T08:30:00.004-04:00

The waiting room was packed. Eight uteruses (uteri?) and 3 corresponding peni. That's pretty much how it feels in there. We're just walking gnarly parts. While Doc A. is very kind, he excels at Speed Kindness.

Eight days on injections has put my estradiol at 657. I've heard that they tend to equate one follicle for every 100 points of that number. So I was looking at having at least 5 or 6 follicles. Turns out I only have 4. Although he had the typical trouble of finding my left ovary and so I'm not convinced he saw all there was to see there. But the ones we saw were at at respectable (for 8 days on meds) 16ish range.

At first he said we'd do a Wednesday/Friday schedule which means that I'd trigger tomorrow and IUI on Friday. I guess I hesitated for half a second (which is about a week in his world) and then he said, Or we could do Thursday/Saturday if that works better for you. I said the latter would be better and didn't dare take the time to explain that Chris wants to go out of town. He said he was very comfortable with that and that with follicles growing approximately 1 mm a day, I'd be around a good 20ish range by then.

And then whooosh, he was gone and I waited for the nurse to come in with written instructions of what he just said. I know it's necessary on their part but really, am I going to forget something like this? But I waited. And waited. And while I waited, I started to count and began to worry that waiting another day would increase the chance of my ovulating on my own, which I've done before.

So when the nurse finally came back, I explained my concern and she gave me a prescription for Gani*relix, to take last night and tonight, to make sure that I don't ovulate. I feel better about that part and there's often precious little to feel good about in this whole thing, so that's one less thing to wonder about. I'll continue meds through tomorrow morning, trigger tomorrow night and then we have an appointment at the ugly crack of dawn on Saturday.

I called Chris as I was leaving the doctor and heading to a pharmacy that carries the drug and I could hear him wincing at the mention of having to be there at 8 a.m. We'll leave the house by 6:30, just in case we run into traffic, but really, that early on a Saturday morning? We'll have the road to ourselves.

Chris left last night, which is what I like to do, too. And since Chicago is an hour earlier than us, he got there at a decent time and now has almost 3 full days to hang out. So that means Indi and I will be bach'ing it for a few days. To me, that means Chinese takeout, extra walks and some quiet time to, well, do whatever I like.

And what wild and crazy things might I have planned? Well, hold on to your hats because I'm going to hang two pictures in the den (that I've been asking Chris to do forever) as well as hang a thread holder thingie I got recently. I don't sew that often but when I do, I have to rummage through three separate bins to find the thread I need and this will organize it beautifully.

And you thought I was boring.

Today

2009-04-28T08:42:00.006-04:00

I got an e-mail from my BFF Julia yesterday. It began with GUESS WHAT?!

Gee. I'll give you three guesses and the first three don't count as to what news she shared.

Yup. She's pregnant. She had written me a week or so ago that she did a frozen transfer and that they had a trip to Jamaica planned where they would either be celebrating or licking their wounds. I'm thrilled for her that there are only celebrations to be had.

Of course it smarts. I'm just seriously tired of having these dichotomous reactions. Don't ask me where that word came from, it just fits.

I see Dr. A. this afternoon, which will pull us out of the holding pattern in terms of Chris' trip to Chicago. Although to hear him, there is no holding pattern. I know he's excited about going and all, but everything he says is in relation to the trip. It's a given to him and it's getting on my nerves. Now I know. Shooting up these hormones twice a day - on top of all the drama in general - and I freely admit that almost everything gets on my nerves.

I know I'm being whiney about this whole thing when in reality, I really do want him to go. And yet... (enter another dichotomy) part of me that I'm not very proud of just wants him to really be here. To be supportive and distracting and just here the last few days of this cycle. It feels like he's jaunting off to his fun, only to hurry back home just in time to make his physical donation. Big whoop. As always, I am so freaking needy right now, and he just doesn't have it in him.

So I'll see the doc this afternoon, along with also hopefully seeing some follicles. I know that something's happening, I can feel it. Then I'll have a sense of scheduling and I'm 99% sure that Chris will be able to go.

This past weekend, I dove in the deep end and finally got my SIL's baby bouquet done. And I'll admit to you here that I did it after two glasses of wine. And if I say so myself, the wine didn't hurt anything. The pic isn't that great because it's too close, but here it is. Just to remind you, these are baby clothes (bib, onesies, hat, socks, etc.) folded up to resemble flowers.

I'll update later about all the fabulous follicles and such.

My gratitude this morning includes:

You guys. Seriously. The support I get here makes all the difference in the world.
This totally fake but tasty Butterfinger "latte" I found recently.
The explosion of that unmistakable Springtime green that is slowly but surely creeping out everywhere.

Ends Soon

2009-04-24T10:35:00.005-04:00

I half-watched the movie The Holiday the other night. I had seen it before but wasn't in the mood to be particularly productive so I had it on while I was doing other mindless stuff. Cameron Diaz plays a woman who takes a vacation from a job where she makes movie trailers. As she's on the plane, she tries to settle down and sleep on her flight to England. Out of the blue, she hears the booming movie trailer voice, dramatically telling the awful plight of her life as if it's an upcoming blockbuster.

I hear that guy all the time these days. (The actual guy died not that long ago, but it's still his voice I hear.)

"In a world full of babies and pregnant women, Patricia is... The Last Infertile. Watch her navigate a world full of Bugaboo strollers, Pampers coupons, and Baby Gap commercials as she takes on ONE one one LAST last last CYCLE! cycle cycle. Opens Mother's Day everywhere, rated G for Generally-everyone-else-can-get-pregnant audiences."

Seriously. Life fairly drips with melodrama right now and it's got to stop. I go to the fridge in the morning to get drugs for an injection (that oughta prompt some lovely searches) and it's like I'm Princess Diana, walking down that endless aisle in the church with a billion people watching me. Steps are deliberate (but thankfully not quite with the bridal cadence) when they needn't be. Importance is implied when it's unnecessary. And "the last time" is a phrase that creeps into my thoughts Way. Too. Often.

I've got to stop making myself crazy with all the overemphasis but how exactly do I do that? How do I stop telling myself that this pretty much is my last chance? I wanted it to be on my terms and that isn't going to happen. I've pretty much made my peace with that. It isn't as if I'm going to go off in search of a third doctor and become infertility's version of a drug seeking uterus, wanting nothing more than a Menopur high.

When I saw Dr. A. last Monday, well, in all my juvenile defense, he started it! He literally walked in the door and said, "Well this is the one that's got to work."

Gee. No pressure there, doc. He said - again - that there was nothing he would change in terms of my response. I was "extremely predictable" and "performed beautifully" every time. No med changes would be in order, my consistent response was merely a matter of getting all the signals going at the same time.

He also said that since I am so predictable that he would look to minimize my trips in to Ann Arbor (technically Ypsilanti - and if you don't know, it's pronounced as if it's Ipsilanti, because it's nails on a chalkboard when people say "Yipsilanti" but I digress) and to that end, he wouldn't see me again until the following Wednesday. I quickly tried to add up the days and when I couldn't seem to do that, I used my fingers and got to nine! Nine days of injections with nary a peek at how things were going. Predictable or not, that seemed unbelievable to me. But I made the appointment and began injections that night.

Fast forward to this morning when Chris says that he talked to his brother last night and he'd like to go visit him next week. This is his brother whose wife is expecting a baby in about 6 weeks. They live outside Chicago. He and his brother have been talking about a visit for a long time and they know that if it doesn't happen now, the chances are even fewer once the baby arrives.

My first response was something along the lines of, Uhmmm remember me? Doctor? In need of swimmers? His first response (and I'll fully admit that I had already unfairly decided in a nanosecond that he wasn't going to win this one) was Well the doctor said you'd go 10 days and so if I leave on Wednesday, I'll be back on Friday.

He wanted to leave even before my appointment. In the best of scenarios, he marks every single plan with a giant TENTATIVE stamp on it and waits until after my appointment to find out, you know, things like a trigger date and IUI scheduling. Details!

But I remained calm and said that his leaving before my appointment just wouldn't work for me (all the while screaming in my head, WHERE'S YOUR PRIORITY?!) and said that the best I could offer was to call the doctor and see if I could reschedule my appointment for a day earlier. And that if there's any clear call on when to do what, that his trip might still work. Miiiight, I drew out with my best movie trailer voice.

And yeah, I immediately got a self righteous back ache from all the bending over backwards it felt like I was doing in order to facilitate what he wants to do. When in reality, I just want him to feel (and heaven forbid express) somewhere in the neighborhood of the same importance of all this.

So now I go see the doc Tuesday afternoon. If I really am as predictable as he says, I'll continue meds through the 10th day (Thursday), trigger Friday and IUI on... Sunday? I dunno about that because I've never had a Sunday appointment with him but I assume he would need to do them once in a while. Even Dr. NoMo did those.

Still. All of this has a whole lot of "IF"s to it. And secretly, I'm almost relieved to have even a little thing like this distract me for a minute or two. I'll selfishly probably never admit it to Chris, but at least it's something else to think about In a world where... well, you get the picture.

Treasures

2009-04-21T09:57:00.007-04:00

I have this shelf in my dining room. Neither the shelf nor the entire dining room itself is crooked but you wouldn't know that from my mad photography skilz.

Pam's dad made one for each of his daughters and he made one for me, too. That alone makes me love it.

Over the years, it has become a sort of catch-all, the likes of which I equate with an 8 year old boy's pocket. Or a 10 year old girl's secret stash of stuff that she hides in a box under her bed.

Precious treasures from the gumball machine, ticket stubs, cool rocks, whatever.

The contents of mine change from time to time. They evolve over time to reflect some of what's going on in life or when I just get tired of what's up there.

The last thing that got added was the big pink flower that I just couldn't part with. I don't know why, it's just fun and pretty and pink and I couldn't get rid of it. It was in the basket we received last summer.

But what I really want to share right now is the middle shelf.

Clicking on the pic will fill the screen, but for the most part, you can see what's there. The bottles are empty vials of medicine I take during cycles. The mugs have our names on them (although I still need to get Chris' middle name mug) and the "BELIEVE" thing is just a cutesy thing I found in a hospital gift shop. Do you know that you can find cutesy things in hospital gift shops? As often as I go to labs and such, I stop in from time to time. The Believe thing is being elevated by a cork we opened on a weekend getaway that I saved because, well it's a long story.

See that's the thing about the treasures of a little boy's pocket. Or the cherished items of a little girl's hidden cache. Or a woman who has outgrown neither the urge to hoard or display such treasures. Everything has a story. Everything evokes a memory. Sort of like a 3-D scrapbook. I pass it by every day and to others, I suppose it looks silly, juvenile, cluttered.

But go back and look again. Next to the empty bottles of medicine. See the little plastic baby? It's just over an inch high, has little definition, couldn't be considered "cute" by the biggest stretch of the imagination, and yet I love that the baby has lived on this shelf for the past couple of years.

This little plastic baby was on the cake at my mom's baby shower. When she was pregnant with me. It sat in an old jewelry box for ages after she gave it to me, being moved from one place to another, always precious cargo that I never wanted to lose. And now it sits on this shelf as part of a tiny little shrine to the potential of fulfilled dreams.

I saw Dr. A. yesterday. As a prep to my final cycle with him. Yeah. The F Word. I can't even let my mind process that right now and I don't know if that's wise, but it is my reality. I started injections last night. As Chris and Indi and the little plastic baby watched.

Little Plastic Baby has been on a shelf long enough. It's time for that butt to be in some frosting again.

Weekend Update

2009-04-14T09:47:00.004-04:00

Three day weekend? Whoooooooooooosh! Seriously, how do they go by so quickly? Three and a half days, even, since my lovely boss let us out at Noon on Friday.

In between, I had a relaxing weekend for the most part. Saturday - the one day I can sleep in - I whimpered when I heard Indi whining and peeked at the clock and saw that it was 6:30. We got up and went for a walk and then were lazy the rest of the morning as I puttered around. She is my constant shadow, moving with me from room to room. She loves me :D

I finally got the gumption to go do some grocery shopping and also bought a new trash can - with an all important lid - for the kitchen. Indi has taken to standing up at the trash and fishing stuff out of it. I kinda wish I could catch her at it because I'm sure it's a sight to see her standing on her tippy toes, trying to reach in there. I found one I like well enough (and I've been looking for a while now) and finally gave up on the one I really want. I just refuse to spend that much money on a trash can. A trash can!

The rest of the day, I worked on a recipe I'm entering into (no laughing allowed) the Pillsbury Bake-Off. That's right, I watch enough of those silly shows on the Food Network and such, I decided I was going to at least start entering. Too bad tens of thousands of other people have the same idea, but hey, I can't get the call if I don't enter. I've actually been telling myself to get off my butt and do this for years but I've never done it before. Coming up with an original recipe is harder than it seems. Especially when you have to be a Pillsbury Pimp and use their products. Anyway, this is a good start for me, and maybe it'll get me into researching some other smaller possibilities.

Sunday was church and then really I wouldn't have even known it was Easter, we didn't do a thing. My mom was going to hang out with my aunt all day so Chris and I just hung out like any other Sunday.

Yesterday we had been planning to go to the credit union to see about a possible refinance. *sigh* I wish I had steeled myself better for the experience. I kept hearing all this stuff about how umpteen millions of people are eligible for refinancing at incredible new rates, blah blah blah. The very short version is that the value of our house has plummeted to such a degree that we have zero options available to us.

I was stunned. I don't know why, but I was. Chris said he wasn't surprised and I wish he'd prepared me for that part before we went in. I wasn't thinking that we'd make any super deal but I thought we might lower our payments a little.

The loan officer woman was a cold stone wall. Granted, she's probably had to have this same conversation with countless people over the last year or so but when it's happening to me, I don't care a whole lot about the other people right then. She basically printed out an estimate of low, average and high end appraisals for our house, based on other homes in our neighborhood. I'm not sure that is really fair because our house is slightly larger and on a larger lot than most others in our immediate neighborhood but whatever.

What really pissed me off was that she said, "I'm going to print your numbers for you," and when I asked her just to tell me, she remained silent until she put the paper in front of me. Looking at the numbers, I could tell within a few seconds that clearly, the appraisal numbers were much lower than what we owe and that there were no options available. But I couldn't help myself, so I said just that. "So we have no options available to us." She said, "That's right." And I said, "And that's all I wanted you to tell me, not to make me figure it out with these numbers." I could tell that Chris was bristling next to me, not quite liking where this was going. I had remained very pleasant but he knows when I'm headed toward being pissy and yes, it was very possible that I was on my way.

What pisses me off is that he then goes overboard in the opposite direction of being all gooey and sweet, as if he's making up for his Big Bad Bitch of a Wife.

I know it's happening to everyone, I just hadn't ever felt so trapped before. We bought our house not quite 4 years ago. At the time, it appraised for what I thought was a nice amount above our purchase price. Today, even the high end is tens of thousands of dollars lower than that. Part of me wants to gamble and just see where it comes in but it costs $275 for the appraisal and if it comes in low, then we're out that money.

So we left and I was pretty instantly in tears, which just made me feel stupid. I mean, we weren't looking to put the house up for sale or anything, it's just the idea that this whole stupid mess of an economy leaves no one behind. And instead of building equity and increasing our options, we are stuck paying for something that is, worst scenario, worth half what we paid for it. I know/hope things will rebound at some point but right now I'm just sickened by all of it.

I went home and immediately began my Bad Mood Therapy. I cleaned my house like a madwoman. My lovely old backsliding house was shining within a couple of hours. I still have to get out and rake outside but that's going to wait for another day. Maybe I'll go revisit Cold Credit Union Woman to get some inspiration for that.

I know I'm lucky to still have a home. To have never had the stress of being late with a payment. And I am grateful. It's just like so many other things. It's all so much harder than I ever imagined. It all seems to take so much longer for me than I ever thought possible. I'm segueing here, aren't I?

I took The Last Pill on Sunday night. Now I wait for her and then go in to see if my ovaries are quiet. Meds are being delivered today. I have many, many thoughts on this next cycle but I've covered more than enough ground today.

Peace.

H(ar)ump(h) Day

2009-04-08T10:40:00.014-04:00

I go days and days without a whole lot to say lately. Things are okay. Nothing awful, nothing spectacular. Just rolling along, grateful for good days.

I have 5 more days on the evil, hated pill. Five sleeps til the headache subsides and I feel a little more like myself. I still bite my tongue a dozen times a day, in an attempt to not immediately say what really comes to mind. Too often, it just seems I have such a short fuse. And I fight hard not to see Chris constantly walking around, one giant match.

Sometimes it's like they're identical twins. I fantasize about heaving him up and striking the top of his head against a slate surface.

Five sleeps, indeed.

The weekend was relaxing for the most part. Saturday's game was, again, surreal. Monday's game was crushing, but the finish to an amazing run that was so much fun to watch.

A week or so into the run, I noticed that a couple of newspapers were piling up on the dining room table and when I looked more closely, I saw that Chris was setting up some sort of wannabe shrine so I left them. I was actually amused as he continued to add to the collection and couldn't resist taking a picture this morning.

The middle group is actually 4 separate newspapers, stacked on top of one another. Every day another one came in, they looked like the kind you have made up at a carnival. The whole front page was usually devoted to the games. Yes, there was/is other news in the world but it was a nice distraction while it was here.

They're in the recycling bin now, because Chris would be apt to leave this little shrine out until next season.

We got socked with 5+ inches of snow on Sunday. It's disgusting. And it's been cold enough that it's still around, too. I'm just so done with it, I could scream. But then I could scream at a lot of things these days so I might not be the best barometer. Right now, I'm just coasting to the weekend. It sure doesn't look like Easter time outside, that's for sure. I took a yellow sheet Monday, for no good reason. I haven't had an extra day since the inlaws were here and that didn't exactly count as relaxation.

Chris will be gone again on Saturday and I'm going to spend the day cooking. I want to try out a few new recipes and I just feel like putzing. So putz I shall.

I decided to make up a little Easter basket for Chris so I'll shop for that on Saturday, as well. We don't usually do anything other than church but I'm trying really hard to find kind things to do, even when I don't feel kind or giving. If I'm honest with myself, I think maybe I'm just doing this to justify a trip down the Easter candy aisle. Can you say solid milk chocolate?

Zoom Zoom

2009-04-03T09:53:00.005-04:00

Mazda ain't got nothin on me.

I'm not gonna lie to ya, I've had some caffeine this morning. Folks in my building all got the fancy schmancy coffee this morning because there were BOGO coupons so I went in. And since I went in, I went all in. An extra shot.

Go big or go home, that's what I say. And since my boss frowns upon my going home at 9 a.m., I decided to go big in the caffiene department.

What's that, you say? I shouldn't be drinking caffeine due to the potentially *cough* delicate condition that I so earnestly seek? Well all I have to say to that is PFFFFFFFTTTT. I've gone on the wagon before and yet both times I got pregnant, I was way off the caffeine wagon so I figure, screw it. Zoom Zoom.

The roiling rage I felt from the first week on the pill has calmed a bit. As has the constant headache the first week brings. I am grateful for both of these things because I was about to go postal on just about every breathing thing I came into contact with.

Chris ate tortilla chips and I wanted to whomp him upside the head with a frying pan. My mom complained about traffic and I wanted to scream very bad things in her ear. My coworker asked why I did a particular thing a certain way and I wanted to dropkick her 3 cubicles down.

I have sat in my office with the door closed at least half of the week. I have brought crocheting in to do at lunch and have gone over my lunchtime by at least 10 minutes every day, continuing the calming motion of my now beloved granny squares. I have cooked healthy and tasty meals each night, in order to not just sit and fume as well as to enjoy a nice meal. And it has all helped me maintain my sanity.

I splurged on a new MSU sweatshirt that I am wearing at work today. Funny how being in the Final Four can stretch the boundaries of anything remotely resembling casual Friday. It cost a small fortune but it's a really good shirt and will last for years. I had one just like it that I wore until it was practically in shreds. You know that one sweatshirt that just makes everything okay again? I just have to remember not to dry it. I have a hard time keeping the sleeves long on sweaters and such and I love that the cuff comes well past my wrist.

Such is my riveting post today.

The weekend looms beautifully before me. Chris has to work a good deal of the day tomorrow so I hope to get some things done during the day before settling down to watch the game at 6:07. Who sets the time for these things??? Everyone is talking about where they'll watch the game. Do you go out? Do you stay home? Do you go to a friend's house? What do you drink? What do you eat? Do you eat all during the game or plan to eat during halftime?

Seriously this is all Very Big Stuff in East Lansing. I'm not going anywhere NEAR downtown, it will be a zoo. I just hope that no matter what happens, people are wise and don't make dumb choices. Alas, there will always be a few.

So that's my world today. A little calmer and a little more hyped, all at the same time. Have a lovely weekend, peeps.

Weekend Update

2009-03-30T08:45:00.003-04:00

It was a bit of a roller coaster weekend. I was on my own Friday night and all day Saturday. Chris was at a friend's, doing the game geek thing. I loved it. I was able to watch the basketball game Friday night and was almost flying by the time it got over around 11:30. I didn't go to bed til almost 1, unheard of for me anymore, but I couldn't unwind after getting so revved up. It was such fun, but exhausting to watch.

I got up Saturday, feeling all smug and happy to have the whole day to myself. I set to washing all the blankets and sheets, I love me some Downy freshness and as long as Indi sleeps with us, that only lasts a little while before they take on more of a beagle funk that isn't necessarily bad, it's just a far cry from April fresh.

I made breakfast and sat and watched cooking shows while I crocheted. Lazy and relaxing and wonderful. I made a smallish grocery list but never quite found the motivation to make it to the store. I did go out to the library and got a couple of books that are a bit of a sharp transition from the fun fluff I've been reading. I started one and was so horrified by the reality of the emotional pain of it that I put it down. Maybe it's too soon to leave my fluff. I'm just not up for that much angst. Aside from the self imposed variety.

***

I just deleted a whole rant about Chris. Let's just say that I was prickly near him the rest of the weekend. The upshot of the whole thing is that I was able to pull myself back from a complete meltdown and just maintain. I feel like I need to justify this, but pluck it, it is what it is. The biggest "victory" seemed to be that I could literally feel all this stuff bubbling up as a result of the stupid pill I'm on. It took a while to put them together, but I'm convinced they seriously make me mental. And I'm not on it long enough to have it even out (which I know it does) but this on-again, off-again protocol makes me a raging lunatic. (Careful.)

So I kept to myself and walked Indi in the middle of a full-on blizzard Sunday afternoon. It was cold and blustery and somehow the biting wind cut through the crap enough to make me be able to enjoy hunkering down when part of me just wanted to bail. But how could I? I had a game to watch.

*swoon*

The game on Friday was a nailbiter. Back and forth, down by 13 at one point and yet they just kept clawing back. Sunday's game - against the #1 team overall - was surreal. I started out holding my breath, just not sure I was emotionally prepared to see the possible trouncing that many said was sure to come. And when they held their own and were even up by 3 at the half, I finally exhaled. And then when they came back in the 2nd half and just ran away with it, I squealed with delight.

That's right, I squealed with delight.

It was like a dream. Just about everything they did worked. Shots went in. Threes stretched in from the arc. Steals came easily. Stops were made. And you could see it in the grins on the faces of the players. As if they'd been transported back to the playground and could do no wrong. And it isn't as if Louisville didn't play well. It wasn't a cakewalk. But the Spartans just shone. Getting to watch that was amazing. Watching Magic Johnson soar to his feet and cheer - 30 years after he was on the same court, in the same uniform, on his way to MSU's national championship - it gave me goosebumps.

If you don't "get" March Madness, trust me, it is f-u-n. And sure, it is even more fun when it's my alma mater, my community, my team.

A lot of other teams get a lot of the attention. The North Carolinas, UConns, Dukes, and the rest. And yeah, they deserve it. But MSU is there, too. It just doesn't get the same attention. MSU has been in the Final Four 5 times in the last 11 years. More than anyone in the nation. And this Final Four happens to be in our backyard, practically a home court, just down the road in Detroit. Who knows what'll happen in the next game, but for right now, it doesn't matter.

Okay, I'll come down off the bball high. For now. And really, it's easy to do with just one glance out the window. It stayed cold enough for the snow to stick around. There's only an inch or so but I HATE that everything is covered in white again.

Although now that I think about it, it does fit in nicely with the whole "Green & White" theme.

IncreduList

2009-03-27T08:25:00.004-04:00

I Can Hardly Believe…

Winnie got married and it wasn't to Kevin.
How long fruits & veggies stay fresh in my new fridge. Big difference.
There are people who actually like Peeps. I have a major case of Peeps Creeps.
How expensive really good yarn can be; I will splurge on some one day. I also want to find a cool crochet group to join or visit once in a while.
I haven’t had a Diet Coke in 15 months. I never thought it was possible.
How easily I lose an earring. I have countless lovely single earrings and have no idea where the mate is. This is why I never buy expensive jewelry. (Yeah, that’s the reason.)
That people actually like the taste of teriyaki. I can’t stand it.
I’ve cut my own hair for a few years now. (I hope I didn’t just send Susan into cardiac arrest…)
I haven’t gotten off my butt about writing yet; what the hell am I waiting for?
How much I really love “a place for everything and everything in its place.” This hasn’t always been the case. And yet it feels like I fight a constant state of clutter, i.e., Chris.
How annoying I find it when people eat while talking on the phone. I don’t want to hear you chewing and swallowing, it’s gross.
How much I love my iPod and how much I hate the ear buds.
That horror films make money. I just don’t get it, why people want to have the life scared out of them.
What a perfect meal eggs benedict is, any time of the day.
People who read in the bathroom. I mean, ewww. Get in, get out, get on with your life, that’s my motto.

Third Time's the Charm(ing baby)

2009-03-25T08:40:00.003-04:00

I talked to Dr. A. this morning. He really is a very kind man. The difference between his manner is night and day with NoMo. He talked about this latest lack of success (trying to avoid the "f" word here) as a true disappointment. I know he's just empathizing with a patient but I don't care. It's the right thing to say and he does it well. I've simply got to let go of this comparison stuff but it's hard.

He was on the verge of saying we're done. I know he was, he all but said it. Well, done with this particular option I mean. So I took a deep breath and charged through, saying that I've pretty much wrapped my emotional makeup around a 3rd cycle. That I know it isn't the end-all to this whole process, but that when he originally told me that he runs 3 cycles before moving on - to whatever - I had put that in my head as my beacon. The thing by which I've been steering this treatment with him.

Okay so I didn't go all Metaphor Mary on him like that, but I basically said the same thing. He immediately said that if that's what would make me feel better, that we certainly aren't doing any harm and he's willing to work with me on this cycle.

One. Last. Cycle.

On one hand, I'm naturally relieved. I was trying not to think about how I'd feel if he just said No. We're done. Nothing to see here, move along. Which he isn't. Even if this next cycle...

But that's the thing. I can't finish that sentence, either.

It's the same reason I haven't been able to answer the (honestly) frustrating question most people put back of Why not just adopt? I cannot walk the two roads at once! And honestly, that isn't what we're looking at next if...

Again. Can't go there. I can't automatically see this next cycle as a bust. Yes, I know about back-up plans. Plan B (although I'm pretty sure we're up to at least Plan L, M or N by now) is a wise thing.

But that wacky lady, Hope? She doesn't like two-timers. Won't abide by cheaters. And to begin wooing another option while I'm still walking this particular path just does not work for me.

So I'm on the pill. Which I loathe and I told him as much. I actually whined about it a little, somewhat testing the waters to see if he absolutely requires it. He said he was sorry I have a hard time with it, but that they absolutely see it as increasing good cycles. So basically suck it up and pop the pill for a month.

Pill x 28 days, period + 3 days, injections x 10 days, trigger + 2 days, IUI in early May = ? That's my new math. I hope I can solve the problem.

Weekend Update

2009-03-23T09:27:00.005-04:00

Four years ago today, I started this blog. Last year, I think the date went by unnoticed by me. I used to write in such fragmented sentences. Herky jerky snippets of thought, as if I wasn't worthy of complete sentences, I guess. We all know from some of my long@ss posts that I've turned that corner, huh?

To answer the question some people posed about my two week wait and how I could possibly know so soon that it was a bust... I had the IUI 10 days before I wrote that post to the 2ww. I just hadn't blogged much about the wait. And then pretty much the day after that post - because this is how the universe works - I started my period a couple days early. I've been putting off calling the doctor (with whom I need to have a post-cycle consult) in part because I dread what he may say. I'm pretty sure I'll be doing another cycle with him, but it also means that I have to go back on the pill for a month. This is seriously the worst part of the whole thing. Well. Other than the sucky results each time. I should've started a pack last night but I just didn't want to. Mature, I know.

My weekend was surprisingly relaxing. I read, I watched a lot of basketball, I cursed my brackets, I cheered for my Spartans, and I made chicken pot pie for myself and a pot of chicken soup - which I'll deliver tonight - to my pastor who isn't feeling well.

I called her yesterday about whether or not we'd have small group at her house last night and when I asked if I could bring a meal or do anything, I was pleasantly surprised when she took me up on it. So I made a pot of soup with lots of veggies and tons of chicken in it and the broth came out heavenly. (Fitting for a pastor, no?) This afternoon, I'll cook some noodles and add them at the last minute before taking it over so they don't get mushy. I also made some poppy seed cake to go with it. Not that it exactly goes with chicken noodle soup, but a little sweet cake can't hurt.

I love it when people are honest and don't say, "No, I don't need a thing." That's what I tend to do. And yet being on this side, being literally gleeful at getting to do such a small thing, I need to remember that when people offer, it's okay to accept.

Chris had a friend over to watch the game last night. This man has two very young kids and was, naturally, talking about them from time to time. He said that his son, D, had been ill but was better now. Chris relayed the tale of Indi waking us up by puking in our bed a week or so ago. Mark later said something about how papers can't be left out because their youngest, K, likes to shred and tear papers. Chris pointed out the two bottom shelves of the bookcase that are empty because Indi liked to chew books when she was a puppy.

I make the same comparisons all the time. Just hearing them from someone else made it all seem a little pathetic and put a huge spotlight on Look At How We Surrogate Parent A Dog! Don't get me wrong, I know that I do it, this wasn't an Aha Moment. And I'm really not looking to change any of those behaviors.

Maybe it's just because I'm thinking about the ol' blog. I didn't have Indi when I started it. We didn't own our house when I started it. I wasn't seeking fertility treatments when I started it, we were still in our "trying" years. So many huge things have happened, not as a result of the blog, but since its inception.

A blogaversary feels like a different level of New Year's Eve. There is an implied suggestion to go back over the previous year and leaves me prone to wonder about the year to come. I can't dwell on that, though. I already struggle with remaining in the present. Not borrowing trouble from tomorrow or revisiting things I can't change in the past. But living in the moment, day to day.

My gratitude right this moment includes

The funky shirt I'm wearing today is one of my favorites and makes me feel almost cool

I lay in bed this morning and listened to Chris and Indi snore in unison and was able to control my giggling so as not to wake either of them

I put up a few little cutesy Easter decorations around my house and it instantly felt as if winter really might actually be over.

Another "No."

2009-03-18T10:47:00.006-04:00

I found this pic from Christmas; it makes me smile. So does the hint of the guy holding her up.

She absolutely hates hats and yet I can't stop myself.

It's just the 3 of us for a while longer. I'm not pregnant.

Again.

An Open Letter to the 2 Week Wait

2009-03-16T15:33:00.002-04:00

Dear 2 Week Wait,

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write. It’s been almost 2 months since last I saw you. In some ways, that seems like so long and yet, just like old friends, once we reconnect, it’s like no time at all has passed and we can just pick up where we left off.

I know we’ve had our challenges in the past. Okay, so I said I loathed you. That was harsh and I apologize. But you were so new to me. Unlike anyone I’d ever met before and I guess I judged you too quickly. I saw you as the enemy, one to guard against and plot ways of quickening your stay. You, like the proverbial in-laws and fish, began to stink after 3 days.

And let’s face it. Your departures leave a lot to be desired. You stay with me, niggling at the back (and front and side and underbelly) of my mind until I think I’m about to explode with anxiety. You taunt me with morsels of hope until I think I’ll go out of my mind, waiting for you to leave. Because let’s be clear. I never, ever want you to leave as abruptly as you usually do.

In fact, I really hate that, you know. Most of your exits over the years have been simply brutal. You linger for what seems like forever and then I don’t even know you’re gone until that other visitor, The Monthly Bitch, shows up. You must be the biggest hematophobe in the universe. That part I pretty much understand, though. I hate that particular visitor more than I can possibly say. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful it’s still there. I just want it to take a break. A 9-month break. I want your visit to come to an end where there’s joy, not sadness.

I know you can do it, you’ve done it before. Twice, even. Remember that time, the day after Christmas? Man, that was some great timing on your part. You hung around for a couple weeks while I finished shopping and enjoying the tree and you were probably even packing your bags Christmas Eve while I was at church. I guess I just assumed you’d leave like you have most other times, pick up in a huff and go flying out the door, just as The Other One arrives.

But you didn’t. You just sort of vaporized into this unbelievably joyful time. That’s when I really turned the corner in our relationship. When I realized that it was possible for me to get something out of your visits. But even that only lasted a couple of months or so.

It has taken me a long time to see this side of you, but one of the benefits of your visits is a steely determination. I have gained strength and muscle in my emotional makeup that I didn’t know was possible. I’ve also hyper extended some of the corresponding grief and sadness areas when I thought I understood the signals you were sending me, only to find out I was reading them all wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.

But now…

I don’t know how to explain it. Call it my own twisted version of Stockholm Syndrome where the prisoner falls in love with her captor. I guess I see you in a whole different light because I know that you won’t be visiting in these same ways too many times longer. Oh sure, you’ll be around in some form until I hit the dreaded Men.O.Pause. But like this? All gussied up, summoned with a hand engraved invitation and everything? These times are numbered. And we both know it. And so I find myself clinging to you, wanting if anything, to stretch out your stay. Can you believe it?

I want the 2 Week Wait to go more slowly? Call the loony bin and make a reservation ‘cause this chick has fallen off the deep end! She ain’t right in the head!

I’ve taken to clinging to you because sometimes it feels like The Wait is close to being all I have left to put my hope in. I don’t have endless opportunities left. And so the few that I do have, I must savor. Now I know, I should’ve been savoring all along. Living in the moment, blah-ba-de-blah-blah. But I didn’t.

The first one or two, I was so green with Novicehood, I just knew that I could beat this. That I could win. And when you proved me wrong, it took the next one or two to get my feet back under me. But I got my sea legs and I learned to roll with it and I won. I WON. For a couple weeks until it all came crashing down.

Enter my period (ha!) of loathing you. You were the enemy. The one to endure, suffer through, and tolerate until I could lure you back into the game again. That’s the twisted part of all this. Can’t live with you, can’t live without you. And now you’re here again. With what appears very clearly to be another grab-and-go departure on your part.

I can feel The Bitch is near.

She’s due to saunter in toward the end of the week and so all I want to do is to keep you – my dear 2 Week Wait with whom I have such a complicated relationship – to stay awhile longer. To let me live in this area in between. The area where I don’t know either way.

While there is no lasting joy in this ignorance, a sort of pseudo bliss has developed in this foggy in-between place. I know it isn’t right, and I’m sure it isn’t healthy. But it’s my highest truth right now. My way of plugging my ears and loudly spouting LA LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAAAAAAAA until I drive away the realities, even if only for a little bit.

So. Where does this leave us, 2WW? I dunno. But I wanted you to know that I don’t hate you. That I have discovered how much I can learn from you and that while my feelings for you are a little twisted, I understand that you’re just doing your job. But if there’s anything – anything – I can do to persuade you to not let Her in the door, just name it. I’ll owe you forever.

Love,
Patricia

More Randomness

2009-03-11T09:36:00.012-04:00

Is it possible to consider returning a coffeemaker because you don't like the clock? I mean, it has nothing to do with the coffee and yet the clock on this thing isn't backlit so it's literally impossible to see the time (or program it to brew in the future) without getting right down in front of it and peering at it straight on. Such a little thing, but it bugs me. I could set our other one without even turning on the kitchen light. I don't think I put enough coffee in it when I programmed it last night either so I want to try again tomorrow because I need to at least love the coffee and this morning, I didn't.

Oh what little dramas I'll magnify in order to keep my mind off other things.

I got an e-mail from my BFF Julia yesterday. I haven't mentioned it, but we've been writing regularly, keeping each other in the loop about our current goings on. She is still with Dr. NoMo and doesn't talk about him much so I suppose that means things are pretty much the same. She did an IVF cycle last month and got a big fat negative for her trouble. Her trouble and her twelve grand, that is. I'm really disappointed for her. She has frozen embryos from the cycle and so she will try two more times and then... I dunno. But in her last mail, she mentioned getting together for lunch sometime and yes, I was all agog again. It's just so nice to have someone around who really gets it.

Know what I found yesterday? Peanut butter malted milk balls. Oh my. They're probably made with the tainted peanut butter and all, but dang they are good. So I decided I should eat a bunch of them so that I'd know for sure if they were okay or not. With half a box gone, I've decided that I'll need to finish them up to know for sure. The price we pay for science.

I've been trying to learn how to do some new crochet stuff and it's irritating as all get out that I can't seem to learn. I always learn stuff better if someone shows me, can't read a pattern to save my life. So I found a bunch of cool videos online that teach new stitches and patterns and stuff. And I watch them a hundred times and almost get it but mine never looks right. It's a stupid granny square, for crying out loud, why can't I do this? Oh, and if you're not yarn challenged and want a really easy way to learn (insert eye roll) check out the vids here. Mine ends up close, but just not quite right.

I can't seem to get into Idol this year. Last year was the only year I really watched it from start to finish and I found myself really liking it. This year they just all seem like clones of every other year and I can't seem to care. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that I was muttering curses under my breath while watching and trying to crochet.

I'm trying to stay positive and hopeful but I gotta admit, I mostly feel blah. This neverending gray sky is truly dragging me down. We had freakishly sunny days for about a week and now the sun hasn't been seen for days.

Once in a while, Chris has been borrowing the van of the family he provides care for. He parks it in the driveway and then has to move it each time I want to leave since his piece of crap truck is still in the other half of the driveway. One day, I went out to warm up my car and as the garage door opened, I looked out and the van was there and I finally noticed the license plate on the front: EXPECT A MIRACLE.

Expect a miracle. That doesn't come easily or naturally. But I'm tryin. And I'm thinking another peanut butter malted milk ball can't hurt.

Edited to add: One hour later - it is snowing. &#!~*^$@!

ViewMaster

2009-03-10T08:49:00.007-04:00

Random moments passing in front of my mind's eye today:

I'm geeked over getting a new coffee maker. That's probably a little sad, right? I'm going to pick it up at lunchtime today. Great coffee awaits tomorrow morning.

The IUI went very well. Chris' count was off the charts, for him. I swear, he physically puffed up when he heard the numbers. Men.

On a cool, rainy night, I went home yesterday and made a pan of goulash. My home canned tomatoes from last summer made it absolutely delicious.

One night during my MIL's visit, she was talking vaguely about my (pregnant) SIL, with whom none of us are particularly close, even after much effort. She trailed off her thoughts with I wish it were Patricia that was pregnant. Kind of a terrible thing to say, and a supportive thing toward me, but it still rings in my ears and hurts my heart.

I cannot seem to get enough sleep lately. Ever since the inlaws left, it's like my body is just a slug and can't function on less than 9 hours every night. When the alarm goes off, I struggle to get out of bed, knowing I could roll over and sleep even more. What gives?

I stumbled upon a new Evanovich book (a "between-the-numbers" novel) and was happy to have something so easily engaging at yesterday's appointment. The waiting there (close to 2 hours yesterday) always feels like forever.

It has been raining and gloomy and gray for days. I know that this will make the grass finally turn green. But for now, it is just dreary and drab and makes me, you know, want to go back to bed.

If A Follicle Bursts In The Ovary...

2009-03-06T14:26:00.006-05:00

and there's no one to blog about it... does it really happen?

This has got to be the most hush-hush cycle I've ever had. That isn't so bad. I can hear you all collectively agreeing.

In the midst of all the MILing about, I went to the doctor on Monday. (A lovely break, indeed. Quite sad to be so excited to get in those stirrups.) He did his usual head shaking and half snorting and said You shouldn't still be doing this well! But he said I had half a dozen great looking follicles and probably more on the left side which is always hard to see, as well as a few smaller ones.

Today, there are still half a dozen great looking follicles, ranging in size from 19-20, my lining is great at a little over 11, and he's going to push (me) another day. I trigger tomorrow night and have an IUI Monday morning. I wondered if he does them on Sunday and also if that has anything to do with my being pushed. Push away, I'm fine with it, but I still wondered.

Today was the 4th time in a week that I've driven back and forth to either Detroit or Ann Arbor and I must say that today was the least fun, even though I got good news. All the other times, I was driving a lovely rental car - a Ford Edge - and enjoying every bit of the new-car dreaminess. We rented something because I normally drive a two door Pontiac Sunfire. Not a good thing to be hauling 4 people in and out of. The rental was fun but gave me The Fever. Bigtime. I returned it this morning and when I got back in my own car, it felt like I was driving a skateboard, it was so low to the ground.

The only thing I'm going to do all weekend is go shopping for a new coffee pot. Uncle/Dad accidentally broke ours. Ahem. Ours was kind of on its last leg, but still. I'm thinking of getting one of the thermal carafe coffee makers, but I'll see what I find. I'm not going to do any other thing all weekend and that sounds like bliss to me. I hope you find your bliss, as well. Toodles.

p.s.
I'm not ignoring you but I'm incredibly behind on reading blogs...

I Survived

2009-03-05T08:04:00.003-05:00

Barely. And there were times when I wasn't sure.

The visit with the inlaws was much more stressful than I had imagined. Much. I had thought having two of them here this time would sort of buffer things. What it did was amp things up.

I thought about just coming in and saying It was wonderful! and changing the subject. But I just can't do it.

Here's one word of advice, especially to my sister cyclers. If you're ever going to be in the middle of a cycle and literally shooting yourself full of hormones during a visit from your inlaws? Rethink this plan. Rethink it long and hard.

To his credit, Chris really hung in there with me and was greatly appreciative of all the work I did. It helped a little. Actually, a lot if I think about the alternative.

I'll share more details later. Right now I'm back at work for a very busy day. Why I didn't pad on an extra recovery day, I'll never know. Consider that another piece of advice.

Yesterday afternoon after I got home from the airport and all last night as I sat on the couch, I found myself continuing to let go of all the stuff from the week. The more I let go, the more stuff came to the surface until I just sat there and cried.

Seriously. Cycling + Inlaws = What Was I Thinking?

More later.

Random Notes

2009-02-25T10:55:00.003-05:00

The nurse said my uterus was quiet yesterday so I was good to start injections. It's crazy hard to explain what a relief this is each time I hear it, and yet how I long for this to be the last time because it finally worked. Yeah. That last part is important.

Traffic was super heavy on the way home. Made me glad I'd stopped at Whole Foods and picked up a few things, including a tasty cheesy breadstick. (Yes, I'll find any way to justify stopping at that place.) I bought myself some salmon they had at a pretty good price. Tonight I'll cook it very simply with a little salt, pepper, garlic and olive oil and have it with broccolini. My mouth is watering already.

I keep reading again and again about the benefits of salmon as it relates to pregnancy. Might as well get started now, huh?

Chris has been given the opportunity (again) to pick up a lot more hours as a caregiver for a gentleman from our church who has MS. He's been working with him for, gosh, probably 6 months or so now, but the man has been in the hospital as much or more as he's been home. He is home again now, with a different care plan, and one that will hopefully keep him well.

It's hard because this man's health is clearly the priority. And yet... when he's healthy and home, it means hours for Chris, which means a lot for us right now. A lot. So it's hard not to feel weird about the whole thing, but there it is. Anyway, this means that for the foreseeable future, Chris will be spending days at the man's house, caring for him, until the man's wife comes home.

This coincides smack dab with Chris' mom's visit which means that the vast majority of the whole thing is now on me. Picking them up at the airport, being home during the day, taking them back to the airport. To be honest, it isn't as if Chris would do a whole lot even if he were home, but the idea of him not being there is disappointing to me. For one, I want him to have some real conversations with them. There's stuff that needs to be said and some of it just doesn't work the same way in an e-mail or on the phone.

It's just easier to think about getting up and starting dinner (I'm looking forward to cooking a couple of "real" dinners for people who are willing to eat more than just a slab of meat!) if Chris is still there and can chat with them while I work. It isn't as though I feel like I need to "entertain" them but it's going to be eight kinds of weird to be the only one home much of the time.

It'll be what it'll be and I'm sure it'll be fine but stuff like this always gets me a little itchy. Can't wait to see what A Little Itchy + Massive Injections of Hormones + Alone with the Inlaws equals!

Stay tuned, good times are ahead.

Weekend Update

2009-02-23T12:37:00.005-05:00

I got a lot accomplished over the weekend, something I can't often say. I cleaned out the front closet that's been a jumbled mess pretty much since we moved in to our house. Now it's nothing but a shelf full of games, an organized row of hooks for things like a flashlight, umbrellas, whisk broom, etc. Oh, and empty hangers for coats. Imagine! I tend to use it as an auxillary closet for things that I air dry. The good thing about that is that the closet now permanently smells ever so faintly of Downy.

I also organized and cleaned half an inch of dust from the top of the china cupboard, as well as from the top of the TV armoire. Both had become catchalls for stuff that didn't belong there. I reorganized the linen closet and can now actually see rows of towels, sheets, blankets, etc.

I did some shopping and crossed many things off that list, as well. New pillows for guest room (which I'll admit I didn't even give so much as a poofiness test, I just threw them in the cart), groceries - including all items needed for a few planned meals, and several "just in case" items.

Why the productivity, you ask?

My mother in law and her squeeze are coming to stay with us for a few days. They arrive Friday. For the most part, I'm really looking forward to them coming. I like her a lot and I know the feeling is mutual. I scored super lucky in the MIL department.

However.

Their trip also includes a stop before us to see her other son, Chris' brother and his wife. Who is pregnant. Almost 6 months, to be exact. I have written my MIL about how difficult my SIL's pregnancy is for me. That it's a painful reminder in general and also very specifically, as well. We were supposed to be first! (Said with total jealousy and immature petulance.)

We were first and then I lost the pregnancies.

Anyway. They are going to see them first, since they live in Chicago and we live beyond that. (They're coming from the Bay area of California.) My MIL wrote me a few weeks ago, as we went back and forth with plans and details for the trip and she said something like, "I know this is painful for you and when I get there, I won't talk about it, but I'm sure you can imagine I'm terribly excited."

Ouch.

I know she's excited. Of course she is. But even this statement, which is meant to be supportive, well, it stung. So imagine the sting I got when she called on Saturday and we chatted for about 40 minutes and mention of the baby came up no less than six times.

No matter what we talked about, it all went back to the baby.

MIL: I'm working on an afghan made up of squares and I'm almost done, except I can't find one of the first ones I did. It'll turn up eventually, but I'll have to redo one for now. And when it does turn up - it's blue - so I won't be able to use it for the baby!

Enter first knowledge that the baby is a girl. This one takes my breath away and I never quite recover.

Yadda yadda yadda

The airline isn't going to charge us for luggage, which is good because one of the suitcases has a bunch of stuff for the baby!

Yadda yadda yadda

I'm so looking forward to being there. Just relaxing and visiting. And while we're in Chicago, we're all going to one of (SIL's) doctor's appointments so I'll get to see the baby!

Yadda yadda yadda

I'm glad (her honey) is going because that'll give something for the guys to talk about since I'm sure most of the talk will always come back around to the baby.

Honestly! I know she doesn't even realize she's doing it. But I sat there on the phone with her, silently crying, just wanting quite honestly to scream to her to shut up already about the baby!

I know it's bound to happen when she's here. She'll come back to it and mention things that happened during their visit. And that's when I'll tell her that I just plain cannot talk about anything baby. Period. Chris offered to talk to her and I basically said no way. Having them talk about it without me makes me feel like an idiot. Like they have to go off without me and talk about what topics to avoid around poor fragile Patricia.

The whole thing just makes me want to vomit. And scream. And sob. Often simultaneously.

Yesterday was CD1. I go to the lab and to see Dr. A. tomorrow afternoon for an ultrasound. See if the girls are ready to be coaxed into coming out to play. If so, I'll likely start injections tomorrow. I hate that this is happening right in the middle of MIL's visit. Hate it. I've always felt somewhat judged by her. Some of it is probably in my head, but some of it isn't. I know for a fact that she thinks I'm too old to still be trying this nonsense.

But that isn't my problem. I keep telling myself that. Just five days with them (and hello, I really do like her, I swear!) and then they will be all the way back across the country. But for now, she's right in my house. Opening my fridge and seeing my meds. And most likely, waving goodbye to me at one point during her visit, while I have to go off and have a follicle check. If the office was still 10 minutes away, I could fake something well enough. Going away for the 2-3 hours it takes to drive there and back is much harder to fake.

I'm counting on Chris to back me up during their visit. He often reverts back to this dynamic with his mom where he doesn't really need to hear anything from her, so he starts tuning her out and disengaging. Not only do I not want to get caught up in that drama, I don't want him checking out. Because it's pretty hard to tune her out and not get caught under that same radar.

Anyway. I'm trying not to "borrow trouble" and just know that it'll all work out, but I'm also realistic enough to know that it's going to be interesting, to say the least.

My gratitude today includes:

The meds in my (new!) fridge are all but free to me;
My MIL loves me very much and wouldn't purposely hurt me for the world;
While cleaning out the closet, I found a sweater I love but thought I'd lost;
My boss brought me back a loaf of my favorite sourdough bread from San Francisco - I'm totally having butter-slathered toast for dinner.

A Tight Fit is Still a Fit

2009-02-20T11:21:00.010-05:00

The fridge is in and technically it fits, but it's a monstrosity in my kitchen. They had to take the bottom moulding off near the floor to squeeze it in, but it's there. It sticks out several inches and I knew it would, but it's going to take some getting used to.

Here's the old thing. Notice how much room there is from the top of it to the shelf above the fridge. Chris ended up having to cut the bottom shelf out of that cupboard for the new one to go in. The doors will have to be re-cut in order to cover the now half-shelf, but I don't care about that, I could never reach that cupboard anyway.

Here's the new one, almost snug up to that shelf. There's only about 4 feet in front of the fridge before you hit the counter on the other side of the kitchen so it's impossible to get a good shot but this was my best attempt. And yeah, I need to go grocery shopping. I knew the light would be weird, every time I open the door I think I'm under interrogation. When you're used to a tomb, it's bright! But it does have a shiny new crisper, now devoted exclusively to my injectable meds. It's hard to see but it also has one whole pull-out drawer that's big enough for any tray I have. I'm pretty sure a sheetcake would fit in there.

This is the freezer. I like that you can compartmentalize stuff. There's a lot more room in that top pull out drawer, and the ice maker is back there somewhere. It's hard to see depth in this picture (don't get me started) but there really is a lot of room in there, and this picture doesn't really show that.

All in all, I think I'll like it.

The jury is still out for Indi. She sat on the couch with me last night as I was reading. Chris was gone so the tv was off. That meant it was quiet, of course. So every time the new icemaker plunked a few cubes into the tray, her head would pop up and she'd go flying off the couch, barking her fool head off into the kitchen. Mighty hunter.

I'm off to the grocery store at lunch today. It's a good time for me to go because I get it done in the middle of the day and I have to hurry along so it doesn't take forever. Although sometimes I admit I like to dawdle.

We're in for several inches of snow over the next few days so I'll be glad I went when I can just hunker down and stay home tomorrow if I want to. I have a major cleaning blitz in store, as my MIL and her squeeze are coming next week.

That's all I got, peeps. Have a good weekend.

Oh, and yes, I got squished. I know I'm supposed to say "it's nothing" and really, it is nothing. Except for those 5 seconds, it is something! It's squished! But I did it, yay me.

Mammy & Pappy

2009-02-19T13:07:00.001-05:00

I went in for the dreaded pelvic exam yesterday. I am ashamed to admit how long it's been since I had one. Easily before starting with Dr. NoMo and so that means it's been at least 3 years. Yikes.

But seriously. I've been in those damn stirrups an average of twice a week during those three years and not one stinking doctor or nurse could do a pap smear in all that time? It doesn't make sense. It also doesn't make sense that doctors would continue treatment without a clear test, but evidently they do.

I've been nagging myself to do it for ages now and have actually rescheduled three times, due to scheduling conflicts. Yesterday's appointment approached and I'll be darned, I couldn't find one good reason not to go. The appointment was at 3:45. Ew. Late day appointments for such things are just wrong. It is literally impossible to feel fresh 9 hours after the day's shower.

So I go in, and try to choose a seat that is the equivalent of No Woman's Land and I bury my head in a magazine. In all, I end up sitting there for 45 minutes while one hugely pregnant woman after another waddles past me and is called back.

The chatter was much as I'd expect it to be - How far along are you? I just found out it's a girl! This is my third, I feel like a pro by now - and on and on. I looked in my purse for my iPod in order to drown them all out but didn't have it with me.

By the time I got called back, I was in a foul mood so it pretty much didn't matter what the exam was like, I was just fighting my way through it, doing whatever I had to do in order to get out.

And then the door opened and a Nurse Practitioner came in and after about 3 minutes, she had melted me into this puddle of goo. She sat and had an actual conversation with me for almost 10 minutes. That alone was jarring. She asked questions, offered support that seemed extremely genuine, and had this amazingly caring presence.

I had a moment of thinking This is what it could be like if doctors took even twice the time - maybe 2 or 3 minutes - that they take now.

She completed the exam which has never really bothered me that much before, but still it was always something to give me pause. But now? Pffft. It's old hat. Someone else wants to take a look around down there? Be my guest!

The nurse shared that her sister just had a baby boy via in vitro last week and when she asked me questions about my protocol, I could tell that she actually understood what I was talking about. When she left, she wished me well and I swear if she had leaned in to hug me, I wouldn't have been surprised. Nor would I have turned away.

It is amazing and stunning to me the impact that someone's "simple" kindness can have.

She also prompted me to stop in to another office in the same building and schedule a mammogram, something I'm overdue for, as well. Turns out, they have zero waiting lists and so I go for that tomorrow. To get myself in the mood, I revisited How to Prepare for a Mammogram.

So I guess Valentine's week is now going to be my official homage to the girly parts. How 'bout you? Has it been more than a year since you honored your mammy & pappy?

Not Cool, Part Deux

2009-02-18T12:02:00.005-05:00

Remember the fridge ordeal from a couple days ago?

The fridge we searched for all weekend?

The one we loved and bought and then cancelled because the specs listed the depth as a certain measurement? 35 and 7/8 inches, to be exact. So let's call it 36". A full yard.

Well we went back out. Back into the trenches to search for a runner up. I went back longingly to the model I liked, teasing myself I guess. And the more I looked at it, the less it looked like it could possibly be a yard deep. So I asked for a tape measure.

The depth measured 31.5 inches.

I was certain I'd let the tape slip from the back, so I did it again more carefully. And came up with 31.5 inches.

I called Chris over and asked him to measure the depth, which he did. When he came up with 31.5 inches, he excitedly said, Cool! What model is this, do you think we'd like it?

I said Yeah, I think we'd like it a lot. I think we bought it two days ago and then cancelled the order because the bleeping specs said it was more than 4 inches deeper than it actually is!

He just looked at me dumbstruck. He's good like that.

We asked the salesperson to help us, explained our sordid, too-deep recent past, and he said, Well that measurement often includes the handles.

I had seen this before and looked for the "without handles" measurement. Even with the handles, it wasn't coming anywhere near 36".

So after I banged my head on the 31.5" deep floor model, I went through the process of repurchasing the fridge we originally liked. It was all terribly deja vuey. And terribly not cool.

It'll still be very big for our moderate kitchen, and it'll stick out further than the countertops, but I'm pretty sure I can live with it.

The salesperson was the same one who'd sold it to us (and the same one when Chris went back to cancel) - I mean, of course it would be the same guy every single time, right?! - and he was very nice about the whole thing. He got the catalog out and said that there might be "more accurate measurements" there than online and I thought, Then why put innacurate measurements online?! But the catalog contained the same measurements, that were clearly off.

He also said that when the delivery people arrive (tomorrow) and it's all set and installed, we still have the option of "refusing" it. If it's in the space and I just can't abide by it, if it's simply too big or whatever, I can ask the delivery people to take it back.

My first thought when the salesperson was explaining this was I could never in a million years do that after they'd worked to get that in the house and all set up.

But now? I'm pretty sure I could do it. I just hope I don't want to and won't have to. There's no reason for me to leave work and go home tomorrow for the delivery but you better bet your sweet crisper (does anyone else in the world call it a hydrator?) I'll be there.

(Oversized) pics to follow.

Always An Adventure

2009-02-17T12:15:00.004-05:00

I went to bed around 10:30 and the next thing I knew, Chris was talking to me and I couldn't drag myself out of sleep enough to concentrate on his words. Something about a dog and a bag of trash and then the words that finally registered, "He's downstairs."

This had me sitting bolt upright. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was just after midnight and then I stumbled out of bed and made my way downstairs. I still couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. A small, very adorable beagle was walking around my kitchen, his tail a constant wagging metronome, back and forth, back and forth.

I asked for the story one more time, still staring at this dog and now, sniffing him too and plugging my nose. This dog smelled. Smelled bad. Stunk to high heaven.

Chris had been on his way home, just a few blocks away, and turned onto a nearby side street to see this dog in the middle of the road, eating out of a bag of trash. He stopped the truck and opened the door and the dog came walking up, a tag jingling on his collar. Chris said he looked around, saw no one (it was after Midnight, remember) and as he walked back to the car, the dog followed him and jumped up inside with little coaxing.

In the light of the house, the dog's tag was from the local humane society but there was no identification tag. We'd have to wait until morning to call and I couldn't see putting this dog back outside when it was 20-some degrees so we blocked off the laundry room, put a towel down, gave him food and water, and eventually went to bed.

Indi sniffed me up and down when I came back to bed, but surprisingly went right back to sleep. Clueless, lazy thing. I was worried that the dog would bark or howl that infamous beagle yelp, but it stayed quiet all night. I got up this morning and peeked at him and he was curled up on the towel we'd left and he picked his head up and stretched. Clearly, he'd had a good night. Better than he would've otherwise, that's for sure.

We let him outside and reluctantly put him back in the laundry room. He continued to softly whine from the laundry room and when I peeked around at him, I had to fight not to let him out.

But he stunk so much, I just couldn't let him in the rest of the house. Chris meagerly said We could give him a bath and I snorted. Yeah, like I was going to give a bath to this strange dog I don't know. He could have fleas or mites or anything and he stinks. I mean at this point, he stinks, he stinks bad. I was adament that he was not going to be out in the rest of the house.

Twenty minutes later, I was elbow deep in strange dog funk and he was sudsed up and I was cooing to him about what a good boy he was. (Stop laughing!!) He just stood there and took it happily. Even he knew how much he reeked. After his bath, he had a predictable wild attack which woke Indi up. She'd been upstairs still asleep, still clueless.

She was clueless no more and wanted out Now. She actually did pretty well with him, but was clearly jealous. She'd bark and stick her butt in the air and chase him around and just generally be a very unwelcoming hostess.

The humane society didn't open til 9 so we had quite a while of this. It took about 2 minutes for him to find what we refer to as "Dog TV". Evidently there was something good on one of the channels.

Indi continued to chase him around until he finally got tired of it and jumped up on the couch with us. I didn't scold him, who could scold this face?

He was being so good and he finally smelled better, and now he was rooting his head under my hand, wanting to be scratched and petted. C'mon, only a cold, empty soul could resist his ways!! Here he is on the couch, making himself to home. I did have enough sense to at least cover the couch, which he seemed to greatly enjoy sprawling on.

It finally got to be 9:00 and Chris called and after a little bit of checking, he was told that someone had already called 3 times this morning to report a missing beagle in the location where Chris had found him. The owners called us a few minutes later, an older couple, and the woman said her husband was back out looking for him, that they'd been up most of the night, frantic with worry. They had let him out into their fenced back yard last night before going to bed and he had evidently found an escape hatch through the compost pile. That's why he smelled so awful.

Uhmmm does this sound vaguely familiar? Remember Chloe?

I kept whispering to Chris, What's his name? What's his name? After a minute, Chris said Jack and the dog's head whipped around and the tail started again.

Jack!

The woman agreed to come by for him as soon as her husband stopped back in. Since I was clearly late for work (I'd called, though) I said my goodbyes to Jack and gave some extra goodbyes to a petulant Indi, and made it to work. Chris called later to say that the couple had come by shortly after I left, were immensely grateful to have Jack back, and that all was well.

Score another one for our Foster Care for Dogs.

For those of you who see me on Facebook, you might have noticed that I recently listed my status as "Has puppy fever."

Jack showed up a week later.

I think I'ma go change it to "Has baby fever" and see what happens.

Not Cool

2009-02-16T13:47:00.006-05:00

How did I spend Valentine's Day, you ask?

First, let me say that I have totally debunked this holiday. Either I'm getting extremely cynical in my old age or I've learned to lower my expectations pretty much down to squat. I think it's a little of both. It just doesn't have a whole lot of meaning to me anymore which is fine by me. It's a whole lot less drama and no disappointments. Well. Of the Valentine variety, at least.

I woke up Saturday with a wild hair to have a new fridge. We have the crappiest refrigerator you can imagine. The seals around the doors are shot, you can hold your hand near the door and feel cold air. The thing is tiny, always looks dingy no matter how much I scrub and the icemaker died about a year ago. Oh, and the light? I seriously can't remember the last time that worked. And yes, we tried changing the bulb, jiggling loose connections, none of it was going to illuminate the situation and so we have devised some sort of blind spelunking behavior, whenever we must locate something in the back of the dark, much loathed box.

Saturday, I'd had enough. As soon as I declared my mission, Chris was in. He's the Best Shopper Ever when it's an item he's interested in. It's safe to say I had his interest for the duration, as long as it took. But just to get us off on a good start - and it was that dreaded VDay, afterall - I suggested we go to breakfast. We ended up at this little Mexican joint for a couple of super tasty burritos. Extremely fresh tortillas, killer salsa, and a little chorizo.

Oh, did I mention it was 9:30 a.m.? Yeah. As the day progressed, I was to have lingering memories of that burrito inside every home improvement store known to humankind. The salsa revisited me in Lowe's. The onions in Home Depot. Sausage made several appearances, most notably Best Buy and Sear's.

I'm like this when I shop. For anything. Do you recall the torture of simple pillow purchases? Make it a major appliance and I'm rabid with needing to know my choices. All of my choices. Sure, if money were no object, it'd be a lot easier. But alas, a girl on a budget's gotta look at a lotta side-by-side toads before she finds her French-door prince.

Armed with notes (I've been snooping around online for a couple days) and a tape measure, we set off to see what's out there. Believe it or not, I've never bought a fridge. So we set out to learn about cubic feet, energy star ratings and ice dispensers.

I took notes, wrote down model numbers and compared features. It didn't take long before they were all swimming in my head but we stuck with it and finally, finally, came to a decision. A beautiful model with French doors, the freezer on the bottom, without the icemaker in the door. That added several hundred dollars and took away other options for the doors.

Before we placed our order, I asked Chris again if he was confident of the measurements. He checked his notes and assured me that, yup, we were solid. We placed the order, were given a delivery date of Thursday, and left the store positively giddy. It's all we could talk about. We were exhausted, having traipsed from one end of the city to the other, but we had won. We'd made a decision and bought something.

Now all that was left to do was wait til Wednesday night when we could empty the old beast of its contents and prepare for the new beauty to arrive. I was secretly hoping for an extended cold spell so that we could just pack the stuff into laundry baskets and set it on the back porch all night.

I got home and collapsed on the couch, with model numbers and crisper drawers still spinning in front of my eyes. I kept telling myself to put it out of my mind, but yeah. Not so much. So I got up and checked the dimensions of the New Cool Guy because I knew it was going to be a tight fit and I wanted to see if there might still be room between the fridge and the counter next to it to continue holding our cast iron griddle and pizza stone. They fit in there nicely now and it's an easy storage solution.

I measured the width and while there was enough room for the new fridge, I'm pretty sure the other stuff will have to go down the hall in the laundry room. No big deal, I can do that. And then I wanted to see where the front of the fridge was going to be and so I measured depth.

Let me tell you. Depth can be a real buzz kill.

I measured and measured again and couldn't believe my eyes. I pulled the old thing out to where the new one would come and it was literally half-blocking the area out of the kitchen. I was sure I'd measured wrong, so I checked again.

The monstrosity was pretty much going to be in the middle of the room. I called Chris in and showed him. He winced and muttered something about depth, depth, did I account for depth?!

I had a Big Fat No to launch at him, but bit my tongue. We looked at it again and again, with me saying that it would look ridiculous to have such a large fridge in such a small space and him saying Do we really care if it looks funny?

Uhhhh, yeah! We do! Hello, welcome to our home, won't you come in? I'm sorry, you'll have to put your packages down in order to clear the narrow space in front of the fridge here and if you suck in your gut a little, it hardly even brushes against your clothes!

Yes, we care what it looks like! Here's the living room, here's the dining room, here's the kitch - YES! FOOD IS OUR PRIORITY AND THIS IS OUR MIGHTY REFRIGERATOR, ALL HAIL!

Enter plummeting disappointment and despair at the thought of having to pretty much start all. over. again.

That is where I am today. Looking online, comparing depth, finding that some measurements are "with handles" and some without and hoping that they're telling the truth. I also found this lovely thing called "Cabinet Depth Refrigerators" and while they're a bit on the small side, they would do wonderfully. The same style, same brands, same everything, just not as deep and so less cubic feet of space. And you wanna know what else? They cost about $600 more. MORE! For less space!

And so we are now looking again, at some of the runners up. If you have a fridge that you love, one that is not of gargantuan proportion, please do tell what and why and most importantly, go in depth with your comment. Thank you.

Change is Coming

2009-02-12T09:50:00.001-05:00

Our Pastor announced a few weeks ago that she is retiring. In the back of my mind, I knew it was coming and yet it was still a shock. She had said things about it in passing, but I refused to think about it at the time.

Hello, lovely sand, I’m an ostrich!

When she made the announcement last month, I immediately went into denial and then later that night when I was at her house for my small group, I started to talk to her and just cried. I seriously love her so much.

Shortly after we started attending this church, the whole congregation was going to read a book at the same time and break into small groups at people’s homes to go through a study guide for the book and discuss it. It seemed like a good way to get to know some people and I’m all about smaller groups of people where I can build up some knowing and trust. But the only time slot that worked for us was a Sunday evening group and it was at the Pastor’s house.

No way! Go to the “teacher’s” house? Nuh uh. But we went and it was actually great. It was lovely to get to know her on a personal level and to have all that rich information right there, just waiting to be tapped. I never felt dumb for asking questions and she really seemed to appreciate my presence in the group. That always seemed like such a generous thing, to help make someone feel truly welcome and appreciated. I have since attended another 4 or 5 groups with her since it continues to be the one time slot that works best, especially since we still share a car. But honestly, that’s just a side bonus. I’d work pretty hard to be able to be in her group.

It makes me sound like a teacher’s pet, I guess, and that isn’t what I mean to imply. Neither the group, nor she – of course – is perfect. We go off topic and I tap my foot, impatiently waiting for someone to pull us back on track, sometimes even subtlety doing it myself. And some Sunday evenings when it gets close to the time when I have to leave, I sputter and mutter and say that I really don’t want to go out again. But I do. And when I’m there, I feel connected and tuned in and I leave feeling lighter and just very content. Of course this isn’t due solely to the pastor and her husband, but they’re right up there in the fact that they help create an environment where it’s almost impossible not to end up in that space.

This woman "planted" our church some 9ish years ago. Literally built up the program from nothing, starting with meetings around her pool in the back yard of her house. She had been an associate pastor in a nearby church and was given the charge of starting an offshoot. She’s talked about the work it involved, and I can’t really imagine all of the thousands of details that went into it and the work that it continues to be to sustain a new church when most new plants die off within the first few years.

I know it's never easy when a congregation loses a pastor, but it's never happened at this church, and it's just a huge deal. It turns out that the powers that be think it's a pretty bid deal, too, because they have already assigned someone and the pastor said she's never seen something move that quickly and easily.

We met the new pastor and his wife (weird that it's going to be a man, now, although I can see that most churches might think it weird to have a female pastor) a couple of weeks ago. Some of the Board members (not the right term) got up and introduced them, and said there had only been a small glitch in the whole process. It was then that the new pastor opened up his knapsack and pulled out a windbreaker with the big ol' Duke D on it.

We all gasped.

Immediately after that, one of our folks brought out a bag and pulled from it two beautiful Spartan green windbreakers with the lovely and beautiful “S” on them. They seriously need to know where they’re coming. He put the jacket on to be a good sport, but I’m pretty sure I saw him flinch a little, as if he were pulling on a scratchy wool sweater. Okay so maybe he didn’t actually flinch, but I do hope he works on the whole Home Team Loyalty thing.

He went to Duke and his wife is still a student there. They won’t be back up until summer, when our pastor officially retires but it was nice to put a face to the concept of “new pastor” so that I can start to mull it over. Honestly, I have to say that I was a little terrified of getting some old stick in the mud who wouldn’t be a good fit for our very contemporary church.

The new pastor looks about 22. I’m sure he’s much closer to 30, but still. Not a geezery bone in his body. Not that old=geezer. Our pastor is of a mature age, but is just such a good fit. I’m hoping this man will be, too.

Still, no matter how good the fit, change is hard when it comes to losing someone we love. Lately, knowing that they’re limited now, Sunday evenings have been a whole lot easier to leave the house.

iPod Meme

2009-02-09T13:26:00.004-05:00

It's interesting how often these things work out. Some are off base, some are right on target, and some are just plain weird. A lot like life.

RULES:
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
4. Tag 10 friends (Or not!).

IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY?
"Kodachrome" (by Simon & Garfunkel)
I should start using this as my answer 'cause this song makes me smile like few others.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
"Cell Block Tango" (by Chicago Soundtrack)
I seriously hope this isn't a premonition.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
"Fever" (by Madonna)

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"Living on the Edge" (by Aerosmith)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
"Head Over Feet" (by Alanis Morrisette)

WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?
"Feelin’ Groovy " (by Simon & Garfunkel)
I gotta work on this one.

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"Ticket to Ride" (by the Beatles)

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
"Running on Empty" (by Jackson Browne)

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
"Amazing" (by Aerosmith)

WHAT IS 2 + 2?
"Escape" (by Journey)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
"Still Crazy After All These Years" (by Paul Simon)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
"Stone in Love" (by Journey)

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
"Iris" (by Goo Goo Dolls)

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Drive" (by Incubus)
This is actually the ringtone I use for Chris' calls.

WHAT WILL/DID YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
"If God Will Send His Angels" (by U2)
We didn't exactly dance but this is a sweet thought.

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
"Keep Pushin’ On" (by REO Speedwagon)
Geez, I was hoping maybe I'd be able to rest then, but noooooooo.

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
"The Long and Winding Road" (by the Beatles)
Sure feels that way sometimes.

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
"How Deep Is Your Love" (by the Bee Gees)
Okay, should I be laying on a couch, paying someone $300 an hour?

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
"Circle of Life " (by Lion King Soundtrack)

WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?
"I Do Not Want This'" (by Nine Inch Nails)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
"Ray of Light" (by Madonna)

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
"Lovesong" (by the Cure)

A Beaut of a Ute and An Ugly Mood

2009-02-05T09:35:00.004-05:00

A week has zoomed by in the blink of an eye.

Winter is catching up with me. I'm sick of feeling so cooped up. We've had snow on the ground for 2 solid months without a break. I want out.

Work has been a small nightmare lately; I know it isn't helping my mood.

Yesterday was my MIL's birthday. It was also the one-year anniversary of the day... there are so many ways to finish that sentence. The last miscarriage. The confirmation of the heartbeat being gone.

I hate that those days are forever linked in my mind, but they are.

Ironically on the same day, I saw Dr. A. yesterday. Of course, he didn't know what day it was, but it was a bit surreal to me. He said he's willing to try another couple of cycles with me. He also said 3 separate times that my uterus is beautiful. Just beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

I get that it's a good thing to hear, but it didn't make me feel a whole lot better. The consult was positive, I'm just having a hard time shaking all the other crap off enough to feel it.

Chris is getting fewer and fewer hours. The drone of gray days seems endless. And I can't seem to find the energy to crawl out of this funk but I am trying. Stopping in here for a minute is a step in that direction and so I search for things I'm grateful for, including:

the fact that my meds are practically free, which is not remotely the case for so many other women;
being able to call my mom and ask her to whisk me away to lunch later; and
knowing that no matter how much I whine and complain, I am still blessed beyond belief.

Stuck, In More Ways Than One

2009-01-29T10:03:00.004-05:00

I'm back from Kalamazoo and feeling... I dunno. Better than I was, for sure. But just out of sorts, still. I think a lot of it is this feeling that winter is never, ever going to end. I'm sick of the cold, I'm sick of winter coats, I'm sick of slipping and sliding on the ice.

I got stuck in my driveway this morning. Stuck, as in I was certain I'd need help getting free. Chris had used the snow blower to clear the 4 or 5 more inches of snow we got yesterday while I was gone, but the city snow plow must've come through overnight and created a nice little trench at the base of the driveway. Usually I pretty much gun it out of the garage to get over the hump but I slowed down this morning without thinking, when I realized the trash needed to go to the curb.

All that hesitation was more than enough to get me stuck in the snow. I did the forward/reverse/forward thing about 10 times and I wasn't even able to get the car rocking. So I called the house, sticking out into the street, with cars going around me, and Chris didn't answer the phone. He worked last night and so was in bed, but I'd just said goodbye to him and I knew he was still awake.

Did I mention that I had just left him? And that the house phone (which we don't use much) was on my nightstand, next to the bed he was currently laying awake in? The machine comes on and I know that when I get home tonight, my message will probably still be flashing there. I'm stuck out here, pick up the phone. Hello?! Pick up the phone, I need help. Helllllooooo. The phone is right there, pick up the phone, please come out here and help me, SHIT! And then I hung up and called his cell phone.

Which he answered - luckily - for both of us. Him for his bodily safety and mine for my mental health safety and avoiding the whole prison term thing.

Hanging up on the house phone and dialing his cell phone got me mad enough that I tried to get the car rocking again and while his cell phone was ringing, I could tell that I'd probably finally be able to get out on my own now. So of course I considered stopping, just so he'd have to get out of bed and come out in the cold and help me.

I was still so irritated, I kept going and when he answered, I told him through gritted teeth what was going on and ended by saying But of course, I'm fine now, thanks, though!

Yeah, not one of my more gracious moments.

Freaking snow. I'm done with it!!!

So evidently all the crabbiness is still right beneath the surface and I can tap into it anytime I want. Or don't want. Moving on.

I called Dr. A. on Monday to tell him - or rather, a nurse - that I'd started my %$#*! period and asked about next steps. I left a voicemail and every other time, they've been really good about calling me back the same day. I had wanted to talk to someone sooner because if I was to start the pill again, I should've done that Sunday. All of Monday went by and I never heard a thing. Early Tuesday afternoon, the nurse called back and said I'd need a consult with Dr. A.

I don't know if this is a post-cycle thing they do every time, or what. I've heard that other places do that, but Dr. NoMo certainly never did and I still don't know what to expect from the new place. So I asked if it was something I might be able to do on the phone and she said No, with sort of a snort. Fine. Even though the doctor himself had said that it would be an option when I first met with him.

So I go next Wednesday. He could've seen me yesterday, but I had to be out of town. I rather dread going and I'm so sick of dreading going to these things. I'm afraid he's going to say he's done with me. That's the fear I live with now, ever since getting blindsided by the other guy. I mean, rationally, I don't think he'll say that. I responded well, and I think it's worth another shot or two (or 20 if you want to get literal about the shots.)

The nurse said I could start the pill anyway, so I did. Whoopie.

Three friends are undergoing procedures tomorrow (geez!) and I ask for your good thoughts and prayers. Perri is having surgery, Ally is having surgery and Hollie is having her embryos transferred to their new home where I hope they'll hang out for a nice, long 9 months. You are all in my thoughts and prayers.

Today I am grateful for

January being almost over;
A (dusty, drafty, in-need-of-work) home that I love, to come back to yesterday;
Good friends to pray for; and
Hearing the old spunk come back into my mom's voice again, as she moves through the grief of losing her brother.

Crabby

2009-01-26T11:39:00.009-05:00

Lucy Van Pelt ain't got nothin' on me.

I feel irritated, annoyed and cranky. Most people are bugging me to the point where I just want to act out, yell and scream.

I'm preparing for a major meeting on Wednesday, I have to go out of town overnight tomorrow. This timing sucks butt right now. I have negative desire to be away from home, from Chris, from Indi, from sitting on the couch and just zoning out.

My boss has procrastined to the point where everything is waiting on him. Add to this the fact that our color printer went down today so that our receptionist can't make the packets for the meeting. I fantasize about just walking away from it all. Just getting up and leaving.

Of course I won't. I'm just so blasted mad right now - mixed with being on the verge of tears every single moment. I'm a lot of fun to be around.

No

2009-01-24T09:38:00.001-05:00

Not pregnant.

For everything, there is a season

2009-01-21T11:32:00.002-05:00

So have you noticed how completely casual, how nonchalant, how Oh, I’m in the middle of a two week wait? I completely forgot! I’ve been?

You haven’t?! C’mon people, I’m looking – no, I’m totally fishing – for praise, here!

It actually hasn’t been too bad. But the longer I keep quiet about it, the more I start to internally obsess and we all know that obsessing is much better done in public blogging, so here we are.

I’m trying not to fixate on symptoms or the lack thereof and that is basically impossible. I’ve been having cramps pretty much every day since the IUI. The first few days afterward are pretty typical since the ovaries are stimulated to just shy of bursting and ovulation is happening as if on 400% zoom.

The biggest thing that has my attention is that I’m peeing at least 2, sometimes 3 times a night. I never do that. Unless I’m on progesterone, which I’m not. So the next (to me) logical thought is that my body is producing extra progesterone because I’m The P Word. I don’t see that it’s related to an impending period because, if anything, I retain water then.

So yeah, I have another week to wonder. And pee a lot. And the thing is, every time I go back to bed after peeing, I end up laying there wide awake and wondering and it seems I just get back to sleep when I’m awakened because I have to, you know, pee again. Very restful, let me tell you.

However, there’s also been another distraction - a serious one since I've been a smart aleck so far in this post - and that’s the death of my uncle, my mom’s older brother. He’s been ill – sometimes gravely – for months and has rallied more times than anyone ever thought possible. For over a year, he’s had one thing after another, in and out of the hospital, and it’s been a very stressful time for my mom and his family.

I don’t mean to sound cold or distanced from “his family”. Growing up, I was friends with one of his daughters/my cousin but as often happens, we grew up, she moved about an hour away, got married, had kids, and we lost touch.

My aunt was one of my mom’s good friends when they were in high school and my mom introduced her brother to my (now) aunt. High school sweethearts, they were married 60 years and had (get ready) eleven children.

Yeah. When good fertility genes was passed out, they clearly got extra helpings.

Tonight is the visitation, tomorrow is the funeral. Chris will meet most of my cousins for the first time since I haven’t seen many of them, myself, for over 20 years as they are scattered all around the country.

I feel so sad for my aunt, and my mom and the kids too, but mostly my aunt. And yes, selfishly, I just dread going. The sadness, the funeral mass, all of it, I just don’t handle it well at all. I can be absolutely fine but the minute one person starts to cry – I don’t even have to know the person! –I lose it.

I know I shouldn’t joke about this. *pause*

But.

Between all the peeing and all the crying, I’m thinking I’m pretty much going to dry up and float away.

And, as always, life goes on. Turn, turn, turn.

Weekend Update

2009-01-18T18:09:00.003-05:00

I'm really getting kinda sick of all the snow. Where's our January thaw? I know the month isn't over yet, but the forecast doesn't show much in the way of variety for at least the coming week. Chris has been unbelievably good about dealing with it. That hasn't always been the case. But this winter, he's been out there every single time there's been snow. And did I mention? There's been a lot of snow. It's getting so that he whimpers when watching the forecast.

It's been a very quiet weekend and I feel rested and as ready for a Monday as I guess I'll ever be. Yesterday I was on my own most of the day, as Chris was off with his game geeks. I watched my Spartans pull off one of the ugliest wins I've ever seen. Their last game had me pacing and on the edge of my seat for the last half an hour. This one, I was lulled almost into resignation but they pulled it off and are unbeated in the Big Ten conference. Woo hoo! I do love me some college basketball.

I also went to the library yesterday and got another fluffy book. When I went to see Marley & Me, I was confused by one of the previews because it looked so familiar. I kept thinking that it couldn't be a movie, because I was pretty sure I'd already seen it. Then it hit me that I was reading the book at the time. Confessions of A Shopaholic.

A cute book, I'd started it weeks earlier and for some reason, couldn't really get into it. But when I saw it was going to be a movie, I went ahead and finished it because it looks like a renter to me. Sorry, Sophie Kinsella, if you find my little corner of the blogosphere, I guess that isn't exactly a rousing review. On the other hand, I did borrow another of her books from the library so that's gotta count for something.

I also borrowed The Audacity of Hope on CD, read by Barack Obama. I think it'll be cool to hear him read his own story. I'm not much for books on tape (an outdated phrase, but still what I tend to call them) but when they're read by the author, it seems to make a difference.

I'd love to plop myself in front of the tv all day Tuesday and just watch every minute of the coverage. Even when it's not "my guy" I'm so intrigued by all of it. The rituals, the traditions, the whole shebang. Instead, I'm pretty sure I'll settle for having cnn.com minimized on my desktop most of the day and listening in.

As boring as ever, but that's all I got, people.

My gratitude for today:

A good job to get ready to go to tomorrow;
Safe travels thus far on all this snow and ice; and
A steaming mug of hot chocolate with mini marshmallows on a cold winter night.

And Now We Wait

2009-01-16T09:19:00.004-05:00

The IUI is behind us, and all went well. That's the short version and ultimately the only one that matters.

The hardest part was getting there. It's been so frigid lately (-11 this morning) that the roads have been a total nightmare. On Wednesday, there were continuous reports of dozens of cars just flying off the highway. It's too cold for the salt to work on them and there was black ice everywhere.

We left the house at 7 a.m. to get to a 9:30 appointment with the thought that if we were there early, we'd stop for coffee or something to eat. What should've taken about an hour and 5 minutes had us walking into the doctors' office at 9:20. It was partly due to the roads, and party due to one stretch of the highway (oh how I loathe thee, US 23!) was literally a parking lot most of the way.

To say that Chris does not handle traffic jams well is beyond an understatement. I could feel him brewing and boiling in the seat next to me and I knew he was already nervous about his "part" in our appointment. It was hard, but I pretty much kept my mouth shut. Experience has taught me that trying to talk positively or give a pep talk just makes things worse. And this is not easy for me. It's in my DNA to try to talk positively or give a pep talk.

Again, God's a funny, funny guy, putting Chris and me together. Anyway.

Chris gets called back almost immediately and when he returns (okay this is a little weird to write about) we have to wait an hour and a half. That is one very long time when we've just spent the last two and a half hours trying everything we can to hurry, hurry, hurry.

Finally I get called back and the nurse pops in and says that there is a new nurse, and do I mind if she peeks over her shoulder during the process? I shrugged and said Sure.

After all this time, there is zero modesty left, there simply is no room for it anymore. So the two nurses come in and I sign the form that claims both the swimmers and the donor of the swimmers to be mine and I realize that the doctor isn't coming in. So I ask about it and the nurse says Nope, he doesn't do these.

Huh.

So she does the IUI, with the other nurse looking on, and then says I'm gonna put you on your head now and she starts adjusting/tilting the reclining table back until I can literally almost see the door behind me. Well this is certainly a new perspective. We wait our 20 minutes and spend it quietly contemplating the possibilities, but mostly I'm just feeling so relieved that we made it there and were able to complete the procedure, that I'm not feeling very contemplative. Oh, and I'm half naked, doing a headstand, too. Not feeling too terribly contemplative.

I am, though, feeling hungry. When we left early, it was with the thought that maybe we could stop and get a quick breakfast but both our nerves were so shot that even if we'd had time, it wasn't going to happen. Afterwards, though, we were both all about Bring on the bacon. So even though it was almost Noon by then, we went out to breakfast and could finally relax a little.

Before we left the doctor's office, I asked about progesterone, thinking the nurse had failed to ask me if I had any or needed a script. I was floored to hear We don't do that. So floored, that the only thing I could do was repeat back what I'd heard. You don't do that? I got a Nope in response and then an even gaze. I'm pretty sure this is Nurse Sunshine's sister.

I mean, c'mon, clearly I was asking a legitimate question, one she's had to have heard before, and yet she wasn't budging with anymore of an answer than Nope.

So I'm left feeling very strangely surprised and relieved at the same time. Does anyone else not do progesterone after IUI? I'd love to hear. On the one hand, I can't help but wonder why. Why not do it? It's supposed to make the uterus a softer, cozier place for that little fertilized egg to implant. And if it's his practice not to give it, why not at least check progesterone levels at some point during the 2ww? I dunno, he must have his reasons so I guess I have to trust them once again.

On the other hand, no progesterone! Yessssss! No progesterone to give me all the symptoms of pregnancy, to make me get up and pee every night, to make my boobs hurt, and all the other stuff.

And now? All I want is all the symptoms of pregnancy, to have to get up and pee every night, for my boobs to hurt, and all the other stuff.

Thirteen days and counting.

Today

2009-01-14T11:47:00.005-05:00

Today is a curious day. Empty of anything to do for this cycle, except uhmmm wait. Yeah, that's new and different. And yet the day is filled to overflowing with this overarching and dramatic intensity.

A day without injections or the pill or anything tangibly connected to cycling. And yet the day fairly bursts with.... something. Something that I can't put my finger on. Like trying to grab a fistful of fog, I feel compelled to reach out even when I know there's nothing there to grasp.

That's the thing about potential. It just sits there and waits and dares me not to notice it. Oh sure, it can sit in the corner of the room not bothering anyone, but I feel it's presence. It may as well be dressed up in a huge elephant suit, sticking its tongue out at me and winking.

The possibilities once again all lay out in front of me and for at least this very moment, everything is as it should be. The meds are finished, the trigger administered (and yes, we have movement, as evidenced by the feeling of someone playing marbles in my nether regions), and there is nothing else I can do today.

Tomorrow, of course, is another story, filled with Possibilities of Another Sort. Will we have a safe hour-long drive to the doctor's office? Will Chris' sample be okay? Will the ova (thinking positively with the plurals here) remember how to flirt with those rather hermit-like swimmers? And will those swimmers have the strength to go the distance in order to dance with the lovely ladies?

Countless possibilities, endless scenarios. All for tomorrow and beyond. And yet today, the elephant still winks and blows me a kiss.

Where tomorrow is about immeasurable questions and unknowns, today is the apex of hope. I've clawed my way up here, the view is spectacular, and I can only trust - as always - that tomorrow will take care of itself. That's the part I'm not always so great with. Living in the moment.

While this moment - this day - feels strange because it is void of a to-do list, I can allow myself the luxury of that fact. A day to breathe, dream, pray, hope, and be. So that's my plan. Sure it took me half the day to get here, but I'm basically a glass-half-full kinda girl so there's plenty of time left.

I'm hoping Chris doesn't get called in to work tonight so that we can share a quiet evening. In any case, that'll be my goal. Dinner, maybe a (last) glass of wine, and a relaxing night. That's my plan at least, but the elephant, well he may have other ideas.

Lefty Has Been Sighted

2009-01-12T13:35:00.003-05:00

I left the house around 7:30 and went to the lab here in my town and then drove the hour to my doctor for an ultrasound. He said that my lining looks wonderful and it's not like I can control that or anything, but I inwardly (very inwardly) gave it props for thickening nicely. He then went to the right ovary and found 3 follicles, one at 18, one at 19, and one around 15. He took a few seconds and more pressure than I was liking to locate the left ovary and found that it had about 3 follicles, all in the medium range, none of which would probably be "mature" in time.

Then he kind of snorted a little and shook his head and I couldn't really see his face but it seemed like he was smiling when he started talking. He said he was sorry he'd given me grief about my age, because everything about my follicles, lining, mucous (ew), etc, looked really great. I felt a little more relieved then, and told him I'd been disappointed at producing fewer follicles than almost ever before. He said that he was very pleased and said that I could get dressed.

I also felt good to remember that they'll probably continue to grow to around 19-21 in the next couple of days.

I sat up and said I had a question, so he came back from being almost to the door. He may be a lot kinder, but he's still in a rush. Is there no doctor who will even take 3 minutes to have a conversation anymore?

I told him I'd been meaning to ask about whether his general rule is to do one IUI or two. He immediately shook his head and said that with this technology (motioning toward the ultrasound machine) and being able to pinpoint things so clearly, there was absolutely no need to waste money on a second IUI.

Enter thoughts of just how many times I wasted money on Dr. NoMo's standard practice of two IUIs.

He said I'm to continue meds tonight and tomorrow morning and then take the Ovi*drel trigger late tomorrow night. IUI is scheduled for Thursday morning. I asked something else I had neglected to find out, and something Chris keeps (understandably) asking about. I asked if we were to bring the "sample" with us and the doctor said Whichever you're comfortable with, you can bring it in, if you like.

Being 10 minutes away from Dr. NoMo, bringing it in is all we've ever done. And that's when Dr. A. remembered that I am a lot more than 10 minutes away. He said that considering where we're coming from and that it's so cold (even though I usually tuck the specimin bottle in my bra. I know, TMI, but it's a little late to be holding things back now, wouldn't ya say?) we should really plan on coming in and doing the whole thing there in the office.

I know this is going to weird Chris out, but hey, a great big welcome (finally) to the Being Weirded Out Club, honey!

They also don't do a standard bloodtest for pregnancy. If I haven't had a period by the 29th, I'm to call in for a lab. I gotta say, I finally found one thing that I prefer from the other place. Twelve days after IUI, I had a bloodtest confirming things either way. Let's just hope I have to call them for the lab. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Right now I'm just going to try to enjoy the rest of my free afternoon and know that my trio of follicles will continue to grow over the next day and a half. Beyond that, I'll wait and see.

My gratitude for today includes:

Being happy that I have the go ahead for the IUI (and saving money, to boot);
Feeling an overall calmness about the whole process and being better at staying in the moment, and;
Knowing that I have a turkey bratwurst waiting for me in the fridge to cook for dinner tonight from you-know-where. (C'mon, you knew I'd go.)

Ugly Ultrasound Update

2009-01-09T08:58:00.003-05:00

In a nutshell, I came away from the doctor's office and the ultrasound very disappointed.

They had called earlier in the day to switch the location of the appointment, which didn't bother me that much, and had said that Dr. S. (not my doc) couldn't make it to the one closer to me. I clarified that it isn't Dr. S. that I see and they said Oh. Hold on. The woman came back to the phone and said she'd arranged for Dr. A's nurse to be there. I thought that was a little odd, but figured maybe they do that to provide a sense of comfort and continuity. Enter first dumb thought.

When I got there, I realized that it meant that the nurse would be doing the ultrasound. She found the right ovary and there are only 2 follicles there. A 10 and an 8. I can't remember ever having only 2 follicles. But that turned out to be the best part when she then went on to spend the next 5 minutes trying to locate my left ovary. Dr. NoMo used to have trouble finding it sometimes. Dr. Mrs NoMo found it every time and Dr. A. found it quickly at my first ultrasound on Saturday.

But the nurse couldn't find it and she wouldn't accept that. She kept poking and prodding and looking and saying things like Well gosh, it just bugs me that I can't see it. That's what irritated me the most. I finally said, You know, it's so early, I'm coming back in a few days, do we really need to keep looking??? She apologized several times but that wasn't cutting it. It was the most uncomfortable exam I've ever had and after a while, it seemed almost creepy. I dunno, I just couldn't wait to get out of there.

I go back Monday and the doctor will be there. I'm disappointed that there are only 2 follicles that can be seen and yeah, maybe he'll see more Monday. But right now I'm kind of in a funk about it.

So I soothed my wounds by going to Whole Foods (I know, I know, I gotta quit) and bought some Greek yogurt with fruit on the bottom. I hope it's good. I also bought some garlic chicken sausage and came home and cooked it with onions and peppers and put it with some pasta and parm. Delish.

Nothing much going on this weekend, just recovering from the first full week back to realilty. I hope yours is great!

Hope Upgrade 726.2

2009-01-08T10:21:00.004-05:00

The alarm went off at 6 this morning and I slammed the snooze. In what seemed like a matter of seconds, it went off again. I booted myself up into a walking/stumbling state and made it to the bathroom. As I robotically leaned down to turn on the shower, I remembered that I had to go to the lab this morning and to the doctor this afternoon.

Almost instantly, I was aware of a question coming at me.

Patricia, your Hope reserves are not up to date. Failing to upgrade could result in episodes of dashed hopes, hopes delayed and, in severe cases, a complete system takeover by Despair. Would you like to upgrade now?

Damn skippy I want to upgrade! So I quickly got in the shower (where I do some of my best thinking and all of my best singing) and thought about this old, yet very familiar, process. It's beyond pulling on your most comfortable pair of jeans. It's pulling on your most confortable pair of jeans ever that haven't fit for 6 months. You remember how good they felt, how good you felt in them, and yet it's been so long that it's like a whole new level of satisfaction. Way better than buying a new pair of pants in a smaller size. Getting back into something you love - something that fits again - brings a familiarity and comfort that little else can.

And for those of you who never fluctuate between sizes, please leave this blog immediately and never come back. Thank you.

So as I showered, I could feel this slow, bubbling up of... yup. Hope. For the most part, it's pretty much always around but when I'm cycling, it's like there's another layer of it that comes up out of hibernation and reinforces the hope that's already there.

It's the subtle kind. The one that makes me gingerly reach out to touch it, to see if it's real, to feel if it's strong enough to support me. What if, while I'm reaching for it, it suddenly pulls it's hand back, throws its head back and yells PSYCH!!

But it doesn't. It is patient with me. Waiting for me to fully grab hold of it and accept it.

Remember how tentative TwoSocks was when Dances With Wolves first tried to hand-feed him? That's me. One shaky step forward, two supposedly safe ones back. But then I get a whiff of that bacon or whatever it was and I cautiously inch forward again. (And yes, I have formed my new-found hope into a piece of jerky.)

Without it, though, this process doesn't work. At least it doesn't work as well for me.

So. Hope is an automatic upgrade download and Hope is an old pair of jeans that fit again and Hope is a slab of cured meat being fed to a wild wolf.

It is just elusive enough to be all of those things and so many more on any given day.

The message at our church this weekend was about Hope. The following was printed in our bulletin.

A number of years ago researchers performed an experiment to see the effect hope has on those undergoing hardship. Two sets of laboratory rats were placed in separate tubs of water. The researchers left one set in the water and found that within an hour they had all drowned. The other rats were periodically lifted out of the water and then returned. When that happened, the second set of rats swam for over 24 hours. Why? Not because they were given a rest, but because they suddenly had hope. Hope that, if they just kept swimming a little while longer, someone would reach down again, pull them out, and give them rest.

So today, even though I have been swimming for a really long time and I go through periods of exhaustion, I keep on swimming and I keep on cycling and I keep on hoping.

Please Vote

2009-01-06T09:27:00.010-05:00

Mel, aka Lollipop Goldstein, aka one of the warmest, most genuine women you could ever hope to read is up for an award.

I've never done this, never asked people to blindly (or if you know Mel, not so blindly) vote for someone's blog to win some award. But here I am.

In this case, it's an award for the best medical/health blog. And did I mention that Mel's blog is titled Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters? C'mon! The name alone is worth the time it will take you to click over and vote for her.

Mel explains it better than I can

Why does it matter to me? Because the winner gets attention to their cause, introduces the greater public to their corner of the blogosphere. My corner of the blogosphere is a well-organized, highly-articulate, emotional, intelligent group of 1600+ men and women on the blogroll. We are a corner of the blogosphere that deserves attention.

I can't begin to express all the resources, support and sense of community that Mel's blog provides. There are categories for every part of the world of adoption/loss/infertility so that no one ever has to feel alone or lost or stupid (all things we've felt during this journey) when it comes to going through this process.

More than anything else, though, is the intensely deep passion that Mel has for this community, her blog, her family, and life in general. Her writing gives me goosebumps, her honesty makes me aspire to that kind of openness and her heart and soul are poured into each and every post so that it truly feels as if she is reaching through the screen at any given time with understanding, care and an amazing presence of strength.

I have wept at more than a few of her posts, because it feels as if she is reading my mind and my heart. But what connects me most to Mel and her writing is the visceral presence she is able to convey to each and every reader. Her caring presence comes to life through her words of encouragement, her suggestions and her humor until it feels like she is sitting across the table with a cup of coffee, sharing her wisdom and her failings, her triumphs and her flubs.

So please. Take a moment and click here and then click on Stirrup Queen. Just two quick clicks is all it takes. I'm going to keep this entry at the top of my blog for a week. If you're so inclined, please vote daily. Thank you.

Marley & Me – SPOILER ALERT

2009-01-05T15:58:00.002-05:00

If you want to see the movie and don’t want to know anything about it, then skip this post because I’m gonna talk about it. I’ll give you a moment to move on. And then I’m going to spill the beans down the page a bit.

Are you still here?

Because I’m going to blab.

About the ending and everything.

So don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I went to see the movie with Chris and my mom on Christmas Day, the day the movie hit the theatres. My mom has some trouble walking and so once we got tickets (still with plenty of time to spare) I told them to go in, find 3 seats, and then asked Chris to come back out and hover at the door that was right at the exit. I was going to go move the car to the back of the building where no one parks because you can’t get in the door. But with Chris there, I’d be just a few feet away from the door. A perfect plan.

Well I dunno what wild hair was bugging my mom on Christmas Day, even, but she was in a mood. I didn’t get it, but I could just hear the ‘tude in her voice and I could tell that nothing was going to change it. But of course I never inherited that gene so I have no idea what that would be like.

Ahem.

But it was Christmas and so I was determined not to let her crabby pants put me in a bad mood. I was also stubborn enough to think that I could woo her into a good mood. Surely moving the car to such a primo spot would help in that regard.

Nothing doing.

When I got back from alllll the way around the building, I found them both right where I’d left them. Why didn’t you go in and get seats?! I asked, sure that the theatre would be filled by now. My mom said something about waiting for me and Chris was standing behind her, silently putting his hands up and shaking his head. I started to object, but decided to shuffle them into the theatre which, by now, was sure enough, filled almost to capacity.

There was one seat in the open row before the stadium seating begins, exactly where my mom likes to sit because it gives her more room to stretch out. Chris and I looked around and saw a few seats waaaaay up on the top row. I hate the top row but we trudged up, only to find that a couple had been saving the seats for the couple that were trudging up behind us.

We hiked back down and found that the only seats together were in the first 6 rows, super close to the screen. I saw one in a decent area and suggested he sit there because I honestly didn’t want him complaining about being so close the whole time. I was afraid that my mom’s crabby mood would switch over to him and I’d have to kill my family on Christmas day.

He sat down there and I went up to the 2nd row and sat alone, thinking about what a fine how-do-you-do this was. A few seconds later, Chris came up and sat next to me and said This isn’t a movie to see alone, it’ll be okay up here.

I was so happy. Until I looked at the screen. We were sitting on the end in the 2nd row, looking all the way to the right at what appeared to be a very distorted rectangle. It was almost impossible to look at for just a couple minutes, much less the whole movie. So we said, How much worse can the front row be? and moved up to the very front, but at least we were in the middle. Much better, comparatively speaking, but SO FREAKING CLOSE, EVERYONE LOOKED LIKE GIANTS THE WHOLE ENTIRE TIME.

If there was text on the screen, both our heads could be seen turning all the way to the left and reading all the way across to the right and then tracking all the way back again. It was so ridiculous, it was funny. Thank God it was funny.

The movie started and after I got used to Jennifer Aniston being 20 feet tall right in front of me, I settled in. But I never did get used to Owen Wilson’s nose being THAT big and THAT close to me. Too much.

I had started to read the book when it first came out and then ditched it after just a couple of chapters, something I rarely do. But when she hit infertility – or even small signs of it – I thought, nope, I don’t want to go there.

The thing is, I’d forgotten about that part when we went to the movie. So there I was, with literally a front row seat to this woman getting pregnant, going for an ultrasound at 10 weeks, and seeing no heartbeat. WAY too close to home. I was sobbing before Marley had barely graduated from Puppy Chow.

But being in the front row, there was really no one to see me, so I bawled on as quietly as I could and Chris held on to me as much as he could, and we pulled ourselves together.

I know it’s not what the movie was about, but hello? She didn’t even grieve. She went home and cried with Marley for a minute and then she’s off to Ireland. And of course. She has the luck o’ the Irish and is instantly pregnant again. I was pretty much okay with that part from then on, I mean it’s the way life works for 90% of the planet.

And I knew what was coming for Marley, and no matter how you can try to prepare for it – even in a movie – it just was incredibly sad to watch the dog age when I’ve done that in my own life.

They gave a couple of false alarms when we thought for sure that was it, and then he rallied. And that happens sometimes, too. But when it actually came, there was no doubting it and anyone who’s ever been in that position with a dog they really loved is instantly taken back to the experience.

I sat and cried and heard everyone else cry and I thought of Indi who I will probably have to face that same moment with. I thought of my beloved Oliver, who I did face the moment with after 16 years of being bound at the hip (or calf, since he was pretty small) and it all came out in these floods of tears that wouldn’t stop. Chris was crying. People all around us were crying. The whole theatre was sniffing and blowing noses and bleary-eyed as we made our way out the door. I was glad I hadn’t seen the last showing exit the theatre like that.

I haven’t really heard or read anyone else who’s seen it, so if you have, what did you think? And if you have a dog, how long did it take you to go home and give them a hug?

Balance

2009-01-04T13:27:00.006-05:00

Things that are bugging me today:

There are 8, count 'em, 8 geeky guys in my house today, being very loud as they play a game. I'm feeling selfish, but I just want a quiet house on my last day of vacation where I can do some laundry, rent a movie, and get ready to go back to reality.
The Gon*al F pen. I can't stand it. Up until now, I've always had the ampules of medication that I mix myself. The pen makes it much harder to see exactly what amount I'm injecting. I hope I don't have the need, but if I have to do this again, I'm going to ask for the other stuff.
How much junk I ate over the last two weeks.

Things I'm grateful for today:

iTunes in my ear, drowning out all the testosterone currently emanating from my dining room.
Chris is having a really great time with his friends.
A warm and cozy bedroom where I will almost certainly take a nap later this afternoon.

All Systems Go

2009-01-03T17:17:00.003-05:00

I was able to convince Chris to haul outta the rack and go with me to Ann Arbor to see Dr. A. this morning. I think the lure of Whole Foods – just one exit from the doctor – was as strong as my telling him that it would be nice to have him go with me for this first time. We are complete Whole Foods geeks. I was strangely nervous as we drove, feeling oddly like a newbie in this very old routine.

We got there early and had to wait about half an hour. I was pleased to see modern looking offices, not plastered every single inch with pictures of babies in the waiting room. Then again, Little House on the Prairie is modern looking, compared to Dr. NoMo’s offices. When I finally got called back, I was led into an ultrasound room much larger than I’m used to. It was warmly decorated with tapestries on the wall. And there on the dreaded stirrup lounger (there’s just no way to make those things look good) was an honest to goodness, real cotton sheet. No more trying to cover up with a crinkly paper towel!

Dr. A. came in shortly thereafter and said hello and said that since my FSH number had been so good, he was happy to try this treatment but wanted to remind me of my probable slim chances. He then said, “But we’re not going to be shy with meds, we’re going to push you hard and see how far we can get.” I agreed and he said that he’d ultimately like to see 4 or 5 good follicles. Inwardly, I felt relieved because I’ve done this and more just about every cycle.

He was unbelievably kind and gentle with the exam. He pointed out a thin lining, which is good at the start like this, and very quiet ovaries. Big grin there. He then said that I’d meet with the nurse to go over med dosages and that he’d see me later in the week, at the slightly nearer location.

The nurse didn’t exactly instill confidence as she contradicted herself twice when explaining dosages before finally going back and checking the doctor’s notes. I think I also irritated her by asking several questions and repeating back to her what she was saying because it’s all very different from the way I’m used to doing things.

I’m to take 225 Go*nal F in the morning (when I usually start with 300 and then end up tapering down to the 225) and then 225 Meno*pur in the evening. I only had the added Meno*pur that last time with Dr. Mrs NoMo and I was only on 75 so this is three times the amount.

I confirmed that the meds are to be taken separately and the nurse said that yes, they are to be taken 10 – 12 hours apart and are never taken together. Complete opposite of NoMo’s protocol. I realize that doctors will do things differently, but it always makes me wonder the rationale and if taking them apart will be more effective, then why was I taking them together before? It’ll be interesting to see how I respond with not being shy with the meds.

I begin injections tomorrow morning and see him again on Thursday. I left the office feeling so completely relieved. To have gotten the first appointment in a new place over with, to have the go-ahead, and to feel like I’m back on track.

Then we set out for our shopping and started at Trader Joe’s first, for some uber classy three-buck-Chuck, formerly known as two-buck-Chuck but hey, the economy’s in the crapper so even Chuck has been feeling the pinch. It’s surprisingly good wine for the money. Not that I don’t love the actual good stuff, but this isn’t bad and we don’t have a Trader Joe’s in our city so we got a few bottles and will open one tonight. Then we headed to WF and *swoon* drooled over all the meat cases and produce and cheese. Well not literally, because that would be gross.

It’s been a good day, one in which I’m especially grateful for

Being able to start a cycle (even with twice the injections);
Finding super yummy goat cheese on sale, even; and
Having a husband who can be playful enough to keep hollering down to me every five minutes, Can we open the wine yet? Can we open the wine yet? Can we open the wine yet?

The One Where I Admit I Haven't Had Chocolate All Year

2009-01-02T11:46:00.004-05:00

So everyone's talking about being so glad that it's time to get back to a routine and a schedule and leave vacation behind. Call me a slug, because I still haven't had enough. I'm loving this break. The way you love a cool glass of water in the summer after mowing the lawn. You knew you were thirsty but didn't realize just how thirsty until you felt that cool water going all the way down the back of your throat.

Yeah, so we got over 30" of snow last month (I know, not a lot for some of you, but still, c'mon, that's a lot of snow) and I'm using summertime analogies. Winter, I'm done with. Winter vacation, not so much. I feel like I've let these days soak into my bones and I truly feel rested and relaxed. That's the part I wasn't expecting. I didn't know how ready I was for a break until I felt myself continue to sink deeper and deeper into a restful state. Monday's going to be a hell of a rough transition and re-entry into the atmosphere but I'll deal with that when it comes.

Chris got called into work New Year's Eve and I felt a mix of disappointment and glee. We had plans to go to a very casual party with a few other couples, but I was okay with not going, too. And I was pleasantly surprised to be very okay with being alone. He left for work and I was like Yessss! Alone at last! A little peace and quiet and alone time are good for my soul. His too. He won't admit it, but I know he'll be happy to get me back to work, too.

Yesterday, however, was a different story. He wanted to go to a friend's house (about an hour away) with other friends to watch the football game (congrats to Jen's husband, R, on his team sadly beating mine) and hang out and play games. I was clearly invited but I know this group. You don't just get together for 3 or 4 hours, it's an all day thing. And for the most part, I really despise all day things. It's too long! Too much talking and smiling and playing and everything. Just too much.

So I told myself that I was going to have a good attitude about it and not be pissy. I succeeded more than I might've in the past, but not totally. I felt like a spoiled brat for being crabby about it, but part of me really wanted him not to go. I wanted him to want to stay home and do what I wanted to do. How childish! But I love watching the Rose Parade and we do it every year. Get up and make breakfast and oooh and ahhh over the floats.

I dropped him off at one of the guys' house where he was catching a ride and kept willing myself to drop my attitude but I didn't really succeed. As soon as I was driving back home, I was fine, but when he called later in the day, it crept back into my voice. Why do I do that? It's something I really want and need to work on. More on that another time.

In Nether Region News, we have spotting, people! It finally dawned on me yesterday when I wondered what was taking so long, that Dr. NoMo used to just put me on the pill willy nilly and so when I'd go off, I'd start immediately. Dr. A. had me start at the "right" time and so here I am, 27 days later, at CD 1. It makes sense.

But in terms of scheduling, I couldn't have started on a worse day since I have to be seen on Day 1, 2 or 3. I called the office this morning to schedule an ultrasound and was given an appointment tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. And of course they don't keep weekend hours in the office that's only 45 minutes away, I have to go to the one that's a good hour away. But this is what I wanted, and this is what it takes, so I'm good with that. If my ovaries are "quiet" as they put it, I'll be on schedule to begin injections Sunday or Monday. I've been shushing them for weeks now, I'm hoping they are cooperating.

I've been working for a while on an attitude of gratitude. When I focus my energy here, it changes my outlook and so while this is a blatant rip-off from a couple of other blogs I've seen, I want to try it as well.

Today I am grateful for

God's presence in my life, to nudge me into things like voicing my gratitude;
The hope I feel in seeing and being treated by a new doctor; and
Maxwell House French Roast coffee (and may I be kicked off it very soon.)

New Year's Eve Eve

2008-12-30T17:25:00.004-05:00

I went to the eye doctor today. Clearly when I made the appointment, I didn't remember that I'd be on vacation. I draggged myself out of the house at the same time I'd usually leave for work. Very poor planning.

The way the place works is that you see a tech, tell them what's going on, he/she types it all into the file and does a basic eye exam. Then the doc comes in and looks at my eyes and makes a diagnosis and prescribes as needed. So I told the tech that if I were to continue the antibiotics (which appear to be the only thing that finally killed the infection) I wanted to switch to something that was a little more trying-to-get-pregnant friendly.

I had wondered all the way there how I'd say it and never came up with anything better than that. I looked up my current antibiotic and learned that it's a Class D, the worst possible for pregnancy. And since I have to at least think positively, I asked to be switched. He ended up saying that he wouldn't put me on anything, which I know is the safest, but makes me wonder if the infection is totally gone.

I had called Dr. A. last week when my eye infection was still going strong to see if I could just stay on the pill without going off a week for a period. When the nurse asked why and I told her I was on an antibiotic, she said that it wouldn't matter, as long as I was on a safer one. This surprised me but I took her word for it.

So today when the eye doc read my chart with the request to switch, he said, So you are trying to get pregnant, good luck. I mumbled thank you and then he asked the dreaded question. Will this be the first baby for you?

I froze. He wasn't really paying attention, he was getting a file together. The question seems easy, but even if you don't understand it, the answer for me is not.

But I finally eeked out the "appropriate" answer of Yes but as soon as I did, my eyes filled with these big stupid tears and I tried to get my coat before he turned back. It didn't work. He had turned back and started to wish me Happy New Year and my strategy of not blinking was over and it all came spilling down my face.

I felt like such an idiot. He asked if I was okay and I eeked out another Sure! and tried to smile. He made it worse by saying that he didn't mean to upset me, which required that I say something else when all I wanted to do was get out of there. And I still couldn't get myself together. I kept saying that I was fine, and he said again that he was sorry to have upset me and then I felt even dumber. He was really trying to be kind and I felt like I wasn't getting out of there without saying something so I said that his question had just caught me off guard, but then I could see by his face that he felt even worse.

So I couldn't seem to shut up and kept going out on that creaky limb and said that I'd had a couple of miscarriages and didn't quite know how to answer the questions. That made him get way too nice and he put his hand on mine and said that his wife had had a miscarriage as well. And then I saw it coming. The fact that he didn't take a breath, I could see the "but" coming a mile away.

But as soon as you see that baby in your arms, you won't remember anything else.

Let me just say, that helped the tears go away because it got me pissed. People think this is the right thing to say. That it's helpful. And I have no doubt that he wanted to do both of those things. To find the right thing to say to a seemingly irrationally emotional woman and to be helpful as well. But he wasn't.

Anyway.

I got out of there and went to fill the new script he gave me. It's yet another eye drop, he took me off the one with steriods. I think this clinic plays it very safe with pregnancies. This is the same place that got me out of having my eyes dialated earlier this year when I went in for an annual exam while I was pregnant.

He described the new drops as basically antihistamines for the eye. I hope it works. The good news is that he said I can go back into my contacts whenever I want to. I'll probably stay off them through the rest of my vacation, just to make sure that they stay clear.

In Nether Region News, I'm waiting to start my period. Drumming my fingers at my uterus to get this show on the road. When I used to be on the pill, I would start within being off the pill for a day or two. And I've certainly messed up with the pill and had that same thing happen. This time, I took the pill like clockwork, am off it now, and still I wait.

It's okay with me, though, since I wondered how the holiday schedule might effect things. Looks like I'll be going maybe Friday, but I might call them tomorrow, just to see how they schedule things. He's only in the office closest to me (still an hour away) a couple of days a week. Also, I have no idea how he works things like weekends. Dr. NoMo just routinely made appointments on Saturdays and Sundays and I have no idea how this new person does things.

I still haven't taken down my tree. This is the longest I've left it up in years. It also appears to be the healthiest tree I've had in years. It's been up for almost 5 weeks and there are only a few needles on the floor. Of course that'll probably all change the minute we touch it. I kinda wish the Putting Away Fairies would come by and take care of everything. It doesn't much bug me to still be up, but I just don't feel like doing it, either. I'm waiting for motivation.

That's all I got, people. Be safe out there tomorrow.

What's On?

2008-12-27T10:43:00.002-05:00

I stayed busy yesterday. Mostly because I didn't want time to think about the day after Christmas last year. Of course I didn't succeed completely, but I didn't wallow in it, either. That's a victory in my book.

At my office Christmas party a week or so ago, I sat next to someone who works in my building, but not in my particular area. I had hitched a ride with her and we went in with the plan to save seats for a few people. It always feels like the junior high lunch table, but hey, I wanna sit with my friends no matter how old I am.

At one point in the afternoon, she mentioned that she was getting a new tv delivered the next day and we talked about how exciting that is, blah blah. She said, I just need to find someone to take the old one. I asked how much she was wanting for it and she said that she and her husband just wanted someone to get it out of the house. My heart did a little flip flop and we talked more about it.

She said it was a monstrously heavy thing and that with the exception of a tiny line that sometimes appeared at the top when the picture didn't quite fill the screen, she thought it worked fine. I asked if she knew about Craig's List or our local "Wheeler Dealer" paper for selling things and she said she did, but that they really weren't looking for money for it.

So then she pulls out her cell phone, calls what I soon realize is home and I hear her saying, How much do you want for the old tv? And then she said, That's what I thought, okay, see you later. Now he might've answered several hundred dollars and she just said Uh huh, but the long and short of it is I have an unbelievable new television set for free.

Chris and I went over yesterday morning and our friend Alex met us there. To say that this television is monstrous sort of minimizes monstrosities. I mean the case and depth and girth and poundage of the thing. It's only 5 years old, but man, we're talking ginormous. And of course, it had been used downstairs in their family room. Alex sort of whimpered when Dianne led us downstairs and he looked over his shoulder at Chris with much sadness as she led us down the steps.

After 15 minutes and much, much grunting, they finally had the beast upstairs. These are two strong men and yet they truly had all they could handle, just getting the thing up the stairs one at a time. They got it loaded into Alex's truck and we made our way home. It was much easier getting it into our place, because it was just straight in the door.

The set is still sitting on our living room floor, since we were unsure where it was going to live. All along, I had thought it would go in the bedroom and replace the little 19" set we have in there. I know it's being greedy, but it's impossible to watch any kind of game on that set. Chris gets relegated there sometimes when I get tired of sports every night and want to stay downstairs. I easily go up and watch the little set more often than he does. But it's almost impossible to follow a puck or even a basketball on that little thing.

But after seeing the new-to-us set, I really started thinking that we should keep it downstairs. Not being able to wait for another friend to come help us move it here in the house (we're spreading the pain and potential hernias around to several friends) I pulled the cable down from the bedroom and hooked it up to the new set even as it sat on the floor.

Oh my.

The sound alone is like going from two tin cans to super-stereo. And we have a decent Sony television in the living room already. But the new one - also a Sony - is truly all that and a bag of chips. If they're the best chips you've ever had. It's 34", which is bigger than our current set and it just does all these things that you guys probably already know about but we were like little kids last night, testing it out.

Dude! Check it out!

It was pretty funny. One thing it has is this "Twin View" feature that's sort of like picture-in-picture, but it's two full size screens that can be zoomed in and out. This feature both excites and frightens me. I just know that it means from now on Chris will be watching two sporting events simultaneously.

It also has a scrolling index of channels where you can see a small screenshot of each channel scrolling up the side of the screen as you continue to watch your current channel. On and on it goes, all this newfangled-to-me technology is fun. I told Chris that when we ever do get to the point of buying a new tv, we'll have to take a valium first because we are about wetting ourselves at the 5-year-old technology we've been gifted, who knows what else is already out there and/or will be waiting for us in the future.

It is an amazing gift and it just all happened so easily. It's a blessing for which I'm grateful and yes it's just a new toy, but gosh, it's fun.

Chris and I went out later to walk around the mall. We never do that, but I was getting a little antsy and didn't want to start wigging out so he suggested we get out of the house, which was a good idea.

We came home and watched a movie and then went to bed. Today he is returning the favor sooner than he thought, after getting a call from Alex about ice dams and water leaking through his room. They're over there now, seeing how to fix it.

So I'm going to clean up a little and start a load of laundry. Then I might tackle this cake recipe I saw when oh-so-carefully going through the Cooking Light magazine I gave as a gift for my office.

Beyond that, no plans. Unless you count eating Sticky Date and Coconut cake on the floor in front of the new tv a plan. Which, come to think of it, I do.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T10:09:00.003-05:00

I spent most of Christmas Eve cleaning my house. I suppose I should've done that a day earlier, but it just didn't work out that way. Chris was gone from late morning until night, helping set up and run the sound for 3 services at church so I was on my own, anyway. I put Christmas music on and just worked and worked. I love that feeling. The being done part, not the actual doing part.

Pam came into town yesterday afternoon and joined me at church. Afterward, we came home and made dinner (a yummy steak she brought) and a cherry cobbler I bought. We yacked and lit all the candles and stared at the tree and it was a perfect evening. Chris got home around 9ish and ate and I ended up going to bed around 10:30.

At 1:30, I woke up and was too hot. From a recent post, you know this is rare, but I had turned the heat up for Pam being here. I'll freeze myself but if you come visit me, I'll pop for some heat. I'm generous like that.

I took a blanket off and got cooled down but not before my mind had a good chance to stroll around and wake me all the way up. I started thinking about some of what I'd talked about with Pam. Whenever I see her, I get the full effect that I miss on the phone and she points to my nether regions and says What's goin' on in there?

I caught her up on the fact that I'm on the pill and then surprised myself as I told her that I'll be ending the pack this weekend, which means an ultrasound early next week and if the ovaries look okay ("quiet" enough) I'll start injections mid-week.

Hello!!

I guess I hadn't realized all that until I heard it come out of my mouth. And laying in bed at 2:00 this morning, it was floating around in my mind, waking up all sorts of other thoughts until I was positively wide awake. I came downstairs for a couple hours, feeling like a little kid for not being able to sleep on Christmas morning. I made myself go back to bed around 4 and set the alarm because I knew Pam would be up early and I didn't want to waste time sleeping while she was here.

I got up at 7:30 and found her down in the den, playing a game online and I told her she may as well have put a bow on her head and crawled under the tree because it was such a treat to wake up and have her here.

We made our usual for breakfast (toasted english muffin, a slice of "real" ham that we fried in a little butter - gotta get it all gooey - topped with a perfectly poached egg) and visited a little more and then she left too early, of course. Her kids are coming over later this afternoon and she wants to get dinner going. She lives a little over an hour away now, and even though they predicted otherwise, it's snowing again today. She has that tiny little Z4 which does not do well at all in snow, but off she went.

Chris went up to the hospital this morning to see the man he assists a few times a week. Sadly, he had to be admitted again.

Later today, we'll go get my mom and take her to see Marley & Me and then we'll go out for Chinese food for dinner, our slowly-building tradition.

As for right now, it's a little unorthodox, but I'm thinking Indi has the right idea. My belly is full, everyone's gone and my bed is calling me to nap.

Merry Christmas :)