Going in for testing

*This may be a TMI post.*

Yesterday I had my annual lady bits appointment. I had been looking forward to the appointment because I wanted to hear what my doctor thought of our inability to get pregnant so far. I came armed with five months of temperature-taking charts. After studying them she concluded that I am ovulating, but my luteal phase (the time between ovulation and my period) is probably too short. Basically that means that even if CP’s sperm meets my egg, then my uterine lining is not thick enough for anything to implant because my body is not producing enough progesterone.

CP and I will now be undergoing a few tests:

• On Day 25 of this cycle I will have blood drawn to check my progesterone levels. If they are low, then my 10-11 day luteal phase is too short.
• CP will go in for semen analysis. The clinic will check out the volume, sperm count, shape and movement to make sure his swimmers are okay.
• If both of these tests come back normal, then I will have dye shot into my lady bits and then I will be X-rayed. This is to make sure that there are no blockages in my tubes (i.e. I could be ovulating but either sperm can’t get to the egg or the egg can’t go anywhere). If there are blockages, my doctor said that often the dye test will remove the blockages.

These are the basic “infertility” tests that are not too invasive and not too expensive. After getting these done we will evaluate whether we want to continue getting tested or just hope for a surprise.

If my progesterone level comes back low, my doctor suggested putting me on Clomid. I asked her if there were any side effects and she said none at a low dosage. However, after doing some research today, I found that there are side effects. Hmmm. They are not major, but I don’t like doctors not telling me the whole story. CP and I also would like to stay away from drugs if possible.

The book “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” recommends taking B6 supplements instead of Clomid, however it does warn that you can take too much B6. Depending on my test results, I will bring up this idea with my doctor.

In the meantime, life continues….

Ready to go

So, I think that I am pretty set for my Quarter Marathon race in the beginning of April. The past two weekends I had to run 6 miles and although it wasn’t easy, I did it.

I was a little nervous the first weekend. I was scheduled to run 5 miles, which meant less than two times around the Reservoir. When I got there it was cold and windy. I had also drank too much two nights prior and had a horrible sleep. I ran the first loop (about 3 miles) and was feeling pretty good. I walked when I needed to (aka hills), but otherwise felt good running. When I hit the 5 mile mark I decided to continue to run because frankly, it was cold out and I had to finish the second loop anyways. :-) Towards the end of the run, I looked at my iTouch and saw that I could beat my previous 10k time (1 hour, 20 minutes). So I sped up towards the end and finished the run at 1 hour, 13 minutes. I’m not breaking any land records here, but it was nice to hear Lance Armstrong in my ear congratulate me on my new PR for the 10k. On a training run too! :-)

This past weekend, with the knowledge that I had run 6 miles the week before, I felt more confident. However, this time I ran the opposite way. I had no idea if this would affect my time and I wasn’t sure where the hills were so I didn’t know when my walk breaks would happen. It’s weird how something so silly can mess with your head. Not to mention when I started the run it was freakin’ 21 degrees out AND instead of having a rest day the day before, I had gone snowshoeing for an hour and then took an hour long yoga class. My legs weren’t exactly fresh. However, my first loop around was pretty good. I think that I hold myself back on the first loop to make sure that I have the energy to make it around the next loop! The second loop was going fine (I was even so hot that I took my running gloves off), when I noticed that I had to speed up if I wanted to beat my time from the previous week. My competitiveness (even with myself) is a sickness I tell you. So I did, despite the fact that the long runs are supposed to be fairly easy. I ended up shaving a minute off my time (PR is now 1 hour, 12 minutes) and continued to run the rest of the loop. So not only did I PR, but I had Paula Radcliffe (famous marathoner) congratulate me on my longest run ever (6.77 miles). YAY! I love that kind of motivation. Not to mention burning 1000+ calories in a little over an hour? I’m sold.

So yeah, I’m once again hooked on running. My 30-45 minute runs during the week are definitely easier and yesterday I pushed myself to a new 5K PR (33 minutes, 25 seconds). I don’t remember my previous PR from years ago (before running with the Nike+ sensor), so I’ll stick with this one and see if I can beat it in a few weeks at the St Patty’s Day 5k I am running on March 20. Again, I’m not breaking any world records here, but for a body that is definitely made for POWER and QUICKNESS, I am pretty proud of my long(er) distance running.

I even got in touch with the nearby Fleet Feet store to find out when the half marathon training starts. If I already have a 6 mile base, why not try for the half marathon???

Doggies

This past weekend CP and I headed to the CT Dog Show. Have you ever seen the movie “Best in Show”? That movie and the characters were pretty much spot on.

We didn’t go into the weekend planning on going to the dog show. But on Saturday afternoon I spoke to the CT Berner breeder to set up a time to meet with her. Not necessarily an interview for us to be puppy parents, but a chance to get to know us and make sure that we are good doggy parents in general. She mentioned that a couple of her Berners were going to be in the show on Sunday….we thought it might be a good opportunity to suck up, I mean, meet her.

We arrived not to find stadium seating as we were expecting, but plastic fencing to mark the borders of seven different “rings.” Seating was on the floor or camp chairs that you had to know to bring in advance. This was clearly not the Westminster Dog Show. We ended up standing the entire time. Mostly because dogs would pee/get so excited they would accidently pee wherever they were. So it was just safer to stand. :-)

Away from the fencing was the “prep” area. Dogs of all sizes, colors and breeds had their nails cut, their fur cleaned and then dried with a hair dryer. The poodles looked especially ridonkulous. It was crazy.

Picture found here

We focused on the bigger dogs- there were some adorable Great Danes, Great Pyrenees and St. Bernards, but we were (of course) partial to the Berners. We did find a new, very cute breed at the show- Leonberger. Ever heard of them? Adorable.

We didn’t quite know what was going on with the judging stuff, what they look for, etc. but one of the Berners wasn’t too happy when the judge had to feel his balls. Ha! We watched the agility stuff for a few minutes too- it was young dogs taking commands from owners. It included a jump over a fence to retrieve a toy which was adorable! Although the dog show stuff is not of interest to me, the agility stuff I could watch again.

Anyway, so we ended up meeting with the breeder and talking to her while watching her dogs compete. Luckily she was not over the top crazy as some of the other owners at the show. And our “interview” went well- she deemed us good puppy parents! YAY! So the next step is waiting for her current female to give birth (in about 2-3 weeks). She was in the process of breeding another female that weekend too, so if it doesn’t work out with the currently pregnant female, then there will hopefully be another litter in about 9 weeks. :-)

In the past month we have run into two Berner puppies- one at our beef CSA farm and the other at the dog show. OH MY GOD THEY WERE SO ADORABLE. I seriously wanted to steal them. Seeing them made me even more excited for the new puppy that we are going to have in just a few short months!!!

Fondue Night

Tonight I have almost 20 ladies coming over to my house for Fondue Night. The last couple of Girls Night Out events have been cancelled because of snow/bad weather so I guess that people are excited to get out of the house!

One of the ladies is bringing over a cheese fondue- not sure what kind. I’m going to make the classic cheese fondue, a Welsh Rabbit (cheese) fondue, and then a milk chocolate/white chocolate swirl fondue. CP was hilarious last night. Because it is GNO, he is going to hightail it out of our house before anyone shows up. But that means that I have to make all of the fondues myself. And he remembers what happened last time I made fondue…

I don’t exactly have a lot of patience. But you have to have that when making fondue. You have to slowly put cheese into the pot, constantly whisking. Last time I just got annoyed that it was taking so long so I dumped the cheese into the pot and then was surprised when it didn’t exactly “come together” as a dish.

So for about 10 minutes last night CP suggested what pots to use, which fondue to start first, when to start making everything, etc. At one point I was hilariously laughing at him with tears in my eyes because I KNOW that it is NOT HARD to make fondue, but the fact that he was taking so much time to give me hints simply showed how worried he was that I was going to screw it up. And despite the fact that he doesn’t go to the Guys Night Out events and has only been to one couple event with me, he doesn’t want his “chef” reputation to get ruined. Hilarious.

So I will do my best tonight to not screw up a couple fairly simple fondues. *crossing my fingers*

Have you ever made fondue? Do you also have hints for me? :-)

Recent happenings

I haven’t forgotten about this little ole space of mine on the interwebs….I just haven’t had much time to write! Here’s a little slice of what has been going on my life recently:

*CT drivers are the worst. We haven’t had any more snow recently, but the PILES of snow are still on the road. With the decreased number of lanes in and around our town and the city that I work in, drivers continue to break laws. Running through red lights (blatantly) is really annoying- especially because as a pedestrian, I don’t want to get run over as I am trying to cross the street. I understand that you are frustrated that you have been waiting at the light for 10 minutes in hopes that traffic in front of you would move enough, but if you just wait one more light cycle then you will get through instead of putting others at risk.

The other, even more frustrating thing? When drivers see the green light and coast into the intersection, despite the fact that traffic in front of them is probably not going to move enough…therefore blocking the intersection once the light turns red. This happens in EVERY.SINGLE.INTERSECTION near work and I have yet to see the police do anything about it. It makes me want to scream as I try to get on the highway to get home.

*CP and I went skiing the day before the Superbowl and had a great time. According to the Bodybugg, I burned 1400 calories while on the mountain! CP wondered why we weren’t thinner when we lived out west and went skiing a lot. My answer? We ate out too much. :-)

*Skiing was great, despite the fact that we got up at 5am to head to VT. After a long day skiing and then driving back to CT (with some dicey weather on the drive home), we arrived home to find FIVE LEAKS in our house. The 80 inches of snow that we have received so far this year finally got the best of our house. A leak in the sunroom, two in the basement and then two windows dripping water into the house. FUN! All we could do is put buckets and towels under the leaks that night. Not sure what we are going to do about it, but we probably have to caulk and seal the windows up at some point.

*A good friend from college’s sister was diagnosed with leukemia. The whole family went in to get tested for a possible bone marrow transplant. My good friend is the closest match so as soon as her sister is done with chemo, she will be donating her bone marrow. I guess that I wasn’t a match, but will be crediting my next blood donation to her sister. If you haven’t signed up for the Bone Marrow Registry and are able to donate, will you do it today?

*The Republicans have decided that NPR and PBS are not worthy of funding in their new budget. Think that is ridiculous? Sign the petition here.

*This past weekend CP and I headed out to dinner with some new friends from the Newcomer’s Club. We had a fantastic time with them, laughing, drinking and eating decadent things. The wife and I have been meeting up quite a bit because we work close enough to have lunch together, but it was nice that our husbands also got along so well. All four of us were hurting the next morning though- unfortunately for them, they have three kids to deal with so their Saturday recovery was probably a bit worse than ours!

There is more, but for now, time to get back to work. What’s new in your neck of the world?

Superbowl

Did you guys watch the Superbowl last night? CP and I stayed at home, ordered a pizza and watched with a roaring fire. I was happy to see the Packers win as I HATE Ben Roethlisberger and his complete douchiness.

The best commercial of the night (at least to me) was the Audi commercial early on. The rich people in luxury jail, the call to “release the hounds”, then panning to Afghan hounds running towards the camera. Hilarious.

Christina Aguilera messing up the National Anthem? FAIL.

The Black Eyed Peas halftime show? What a mess. First off, I love running and dancing to BEP songs, but their voices sounded awful. It definitely made me never want to ever see them in concert. Were their dancers channeling the Beijing choreography from the Opening Ceremonies? Why were some dancers wearing boxes on their head? Weird. I was not a fan.

What did you guys think of the game? The halftime show? What was your favorite commercial?

Embarrassed

As most of you know, the Northeast is getting hit with yet another snow storm today (80+ inches already in CT this year!). Here in CT it was snow yesterday, then sleet/freezing rain today, then changing to snow again tonight. It should stop at some point early tomorrow morning.

CP and I shoveled our driveway last night in preparation for the latest storm. Since I am teleworking today, I was going to run out to the grocery store during my lunch hour to grab some food for tonight while there was a break in the storm.

I have a Prius. The clearance on the undercarriage is not that high. Add that to the fact that every time our road gets plowed we get tons of snow piled up in our driveway. So what happened? Instead of being smart and moving some of the snow to the already ridonkulously high snow piles on either side of our driveway, I decide to try to gun it through the snow.

I bet you can figure out what happened. That’s right I got stuck….my car half in the driveway and half in the street. It’s like I never grew up in Chicago or have ever dealt with snow before. *hangs head in shame*

Thankfully CP is also home today so he was able to help me rock it back and forth, put salt down and get my car back into the driveway. He then went back upstairs to do work and I started to shovel out the snow that I SHOULD HAVE SHOVELED IN THE FIRST PLACE IF I WASN’T SO DARN SICK OF SHOVELING SNOW. Then to add salt to my wounds of embarrassment, my elderly neighbor came out and helped me shovel some of the snow. He had clearly seen my idiotic move and was too nice to say anything.

One of these days I will learn that trying to power through everything DOESN’T WORK.

Are you dealing with this crazy storm wherever you are???

Running doubt

This weekend I headed out for my 4 mile run. Before the run even started I began to psych myself out. But why? Why did I think that 4 miles was going to be so difficult when I had a good 3 mile base? Would an extra mile really be that difficult? I actually started to feel strong in my weekday runs.

I have been running on a treadmill a lot because the weather has been so bad. Running outside is more difficult because you aren’t kept to a steady pace and the ground is not completely flat. Would I have the endurance to finish?

I tried to push the doubting thoughts away and started out on my run. Within the first .75 of a mile I had walked twice (up hills). The doubts came back. I put a peppier song on my iPod and pushed myself to run again. Despite my walk breaks up the hills throughout the 4 mile run, I had a pretty good run in the end. I felt slow, but my pace really wasn’t that bad considering the hill walking.

So why does this always happen to me? When I jump up to running 5 miles, then 6 miles, and then 7 miles are these doubts going to come back Every.Single.Weekend? The farthest I have ever run before was 6 miles, so why is the distance suddenly scaring me? And if I really want to do a half marathon am I going to get freaked out by those distances too?

This doubting feeling is SO FRUSTRATING. I don’t just do it with running. I did it before CP and I went scuba diving for the first time in Hawaii. And even though I survived (and enjoyed myself), I doubted myself AGAIN during our Scuba Diving Certification class. WTF? Despite my excitement to sky dive after college, as soon as I got into the plane I got nervous. I knew that I was going to make myself do it because let’s face it, I was already in the plane, but the doubt was forefront in my mind.

In the end, I always end up doing the thing that I am scared of. Whether it is CP making me or making myself do it, it gets done. If I ever get pregnant, I’m sure that I am going to have doubts as to whether I am going to be a good mother.

So what is wrong with me? Is it that I am getting old? Any advice?