Bye 2011

While I kept saying that 2011 was a sh*tty year, in the end it wasn’t so bad.

We started off the year with CP’s mortgage problem out west. While that mess was a pain and we are having to pay more, the loan will get paid off sooner.

Fuzzy’s britches seizure was awful. Thankfully she hasn’t showed any signs of another one. Recently we took her into the vet to get sedated for Xrays and found out that while she doesn't have arthritis, she does have a partial tear in the ligaments in her hind legs. Poor baby. We have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to find out if surgery is necessary/possible or if there are other treatments we can pursue.

Fibroid surgery was a success and I am fully recovered. I'm crossing my fingers that I get my period soon and that we are successful in getting pregnant this winter/spring!

The jaw surgery and braces may not have to happen because my teeth are starting to move back together now that I am not wearing my mouth guard. This would be fantastic news! As long as I can chew on the left side of my mouth and stop breaking teeth I'll be happy.

The 13 DAYS we spent without power this year because of Hurricane Irene and the freak October snowstorm sucked (especially while I was recovering from my surgery). But having the power off meant playing cribbage with CP with a lantern, getting to know our neighbors a bit better, and getting to know our friends that did have power better after we spent every night at their house for dinner!

Amazingly, I completed a half marathon. I'm still not sure how I did it! Of course my heels are still giving me problems, but I have started to wear this boot to bed and the pain is lessening.

2011 brought Buster into our family. He was a HANDFUL in the beginning, but is a smart, adorable, cuddly and loving puppy. I’m so glad that we made the decision to get him!

Our friendships in our town are deepening. I have a great group of girls to go to dinner with, hang out with, etc. CP even likes their husbands which is great. In addition our monthly dinner club has been a huge hit!

My awesome healthy family. Even though I don't get to see them as much as I would like, I talk to my parents all the time and I will be eternally grateful to my Mom for flying out after my surgery. It wasn't necessary as it certainly wasn't life or death but it was nice to have her help around the house...especially because we didn't have any power.

Far away friends that are all doing well.

We were able to take two vacations this year. One to Southern CA/Denver for weddings and then another to the Bahamas. Can’t complain about that.

Our garden has been great this year. Bumper crop of cherry tomatoes (man I miss picking them right off the vine and popping them in my mouth!), sugar snap peas, swiss chard, kale, etc. I’m crossing my fingers that our winter garden continues through the cold months. So far we have had great lettuce and swiss chard. Everything is definitely taking longer to grow, but that is to be expected.

My weight has steadily increased this year. I look back through my monthly posts and cringe. But I have started to try to run again and on January 10th my friends and I are going to be doing a high-intensity month-long boot camp.

Basically after clicking through the most powerful photos of 2011, I once again realized that my life is not all that bad.

Looking back, how was your 2011?

Weird holiday season

In general this holiday season has been very weird. Thanksgiving was nice, but it came right after my surgery and recovery period. A scant two weeks later we left for the Bahamas. We had a week of work before Christmas, and then two weeks of four day work weeks. Let me be clear - I AM NOT COMPLAINING AT ALL. These past two months (other than surgery pain in November) have been pretty easy. Luckily it hasn’t been too busy at work because of the holidays or else I would probably be really behind!

But the random vacation in mid December, while it was fantastic, totally screwed me up. I rushed to get presents out the door before we left so that we didn’t have to pay extra in shipping. Despite the Christmas music playing during our vacation, the Christmas trees and decorations all over the Atlantis property, and the knowledge that Christmas was coming up, it didn’t FEEL like Christmas. 80 degree weather can do that to you.

So when CP and I got home? We put up outside lights, put the candles in the window (sooo New England-y of us), and neglected to decorate the inside of the house. Well, I guess the blame is mostly on me because as soon as we got back from the Bahamas, CP had to fly to OH for work and I was supposed to drag Christmas decorations out of the closet. But frankly, I was too lazy. We didn’t get a Christmas tree, we weren’t going to be around Christmas weekend anyway, so what was the point?

Maybe in some subconscious way I was displaying my unhappiness that our family hasn’t grown this year (in babies, not puppies). It would have been fantastic to put up a tree for a baby’s first Christmas or even to take pictures of me with a belly. But obviously that was not going to happen. Or maybe I’m just not a person that gets into the holidays that much. It takes effort. Effort that I hopefully want to expend once we do have kids.

On a side note, at least I wasn’t crying and grumpy this year when heading to CP’s family Christmas Eve and Christmas gatherings like two years ago. It certainly helps that I know everyone better, but I think that my mood stems from accepting the fact that I do have to share Christmas celebrations with CP’s family now. Next year we are headed back to Chicago (unless I can’t fly from pregnancy)!

Do you have problems getting into the holiday spirit?

Decisions decisions

Last week was our latest doctor’s appointment at the fertility clinic. CP and I went to discuss our options with the doctor now that the fibroid and the endometriosis is out of my body.

Right now we have three options: try on our own, an IUI, or IVF.

From age 30-35 (I’m 33), a Fertile person has a 15-20% chance of getting pregnant in a given month.

Same age range, but with an Infertile person the percentage drastically decreases to less than 5% in a given month (my surgery probably knocks me up a few percentage points, but not all of the way to that of a Fertile person).

If we decide to go the Clomid/IUI route, the percentage for my age increases to 10-12%.

If we try injectables with IUI, the percentage increases a bit more to 15-18%.

If the 3 IUIs that my insurance cover don’t work then IVF is our next step (you have to have a major justification to jump to IVF without trying an IUI first). The percentage of pregnancies after an IVF procedure jump to 50%!! I had no idea that you had a 50/50 shot of getting pregnant after IVF. According to my doctor my insurance covers 2 IVF procedures, but I’m not sure that’s correct AND getting CP on board for an IVF might be very difficult. Boy is it expensive if insurance doesn’t cover it though- $15,000-$20,000!!

In general I’m a bit confused coming away from the appointment. The doctor that did my surgery said that the endometriosis was the reason that I wasn’t getting pregnant, while this doctor said that it was the fibroid. Both of them are now out of my system but what if there is something else wrong? From my research (and what the surgery doctor told me), fibroids generally don’t keep you from getting pregnant, they generally cause a woman to miscarry. As far as I know, I have never been even a little pregnant.

We have been told that the most fertile time for me to get pregnant will be the first few months after my uterus has healed. Depending on when I get my first period since early September, we can start trying sometime in February. The question is- do we try on our own or do we go the IUI route? I asked about any side effects of Clomid and the doctor said there are usually two. Hot flashes (OH BOY THOSE AGAIN!) and PMS-like symptoms. That’s nothing too major- especially if I am only taking the medication for 5 days. Meanwhile, CP and I both remarked that we aren’t getting any younger. CP will be turning 36 in June and if we want to have two kids we need to starting getting on board the pregnancy train. But it would be nice to be like a “normal” couple and get pregnant on our own.

Decisions, decisions. We don’t have to make the call right now but we do have to think about it in the next month. Do we risk my most fertile months by trying on our own? Not only do we risk fertile months passing us by, but every month I don’t get pregnant is a month closer to when another fibroid could form or endometriosis could come back. So should we jump onto the IUI train?

Happy holidays!

Happy holidays!

I hope you have a safe and wonderful weekend!

P.S. No animals were hurt during this photo shoot....except for maybe their egos! :-)

Almost Wordless Wednesday- Bahamas edition!

Our Bahamas trip in pictures (at least the ones that I can show because we are not in them)....

We had free access to Atlantis which was AWESOME because they had a fun water park. I didn't think that I would still enjoy a water park at age 33, but it's a blast. This was one of the slides in the park- you could challenge someone to see who hit the water first. On the back side of this "Mayan Temple" is the slide that is shown in the commercials for Atlantis. It is a huge drop off, then you go through a tube that is surrounded by sharks before you hit the pool at the end. Very cool. By the end of the week we went down all of the different slides (half you went down with just your body, half you were in a tube) at least once.

We also enjoyed the "Raging Rapids"- think lazy river except with rapids while you are floating down in a one or two-person tube. That was especially fun after a few mango daquiris!

Atlantis has a HUGE aquarium where you can view all of the various fishes, sharks, manta rays, etc. three different ways- outside near the pools, in tunnels, and in a tube where the animals can swim right over your head. Here we were outside watching a funny looking shark swim around.


Hammerhead shark

Reef shark swimming above us in the tube.

This was the pool and a view of the condos where we stayed.

A local Bahamian restaurant where we had a delicious conch salad (think ceviche just with conch instead of shrimp or fish). Mmmm.

The amazingly turquoise waters of the Bahamas.

The horses in downtown Nassau all wore hats. Adorable!

One afternoon CP and I wandered around Paradise Island. I was ready to head home because my feet hurt when we came upon this place. Very pretty, even though we have no idea what this place was or who owned the property.

We did a total of three days of diving with Stuart's Cove Dive Shop. The reefs weren't that amazing, but we did get to do some wreck dives which was cool. A lot of celebrities dive with this shop so they had pictures all over the place with the various celebs (Matt Damon, Heidi Klum, Andy Samberg, etc.). One of our dives took us to an underwater Cessana plane used in one of the James Bond films.

View from the dive shop

Our last day of diving we went SHARK DIVING! The whole experience was very cool. We were surrounded by ~30 reef sharks for about 40 minutes. The dive masters had to wear chainmail because they fed the sharks the chum via a long stick. No cages for us which made me especially nervous, but after a while I relaxed and enjoyed the experience. The dive masters stressed keeping our hands as close to our body as possible, no sudden movements, etc. Towards the end a shark was gliding past me and I bravely stuck two fingers out to touch its body as it glided by. Very cool.

Overall we had a fantastic time at a very beautiful place. :-)

Back from vacation

Our Bahamas vacation got off to an awful start on the 9th. We show up for our 10am flight at 8:15am. We park the car in the economy lot and head to the check in desk. There is no one lined up and no one behind the desk, so I swipe my credit card into the Jet Blue machine.

That's funny. The machine is telling me that I can't check in earlier than 24 hours in advance or within 30 minutes of my flight.

CP walked over to the departure screen....there was a 8:15am flight down to Fort Lauderdale, but nothing at 10am. He glares at me, then asks if we are supposed to be on the 8:15am flight. I check my iPhone calendar and confirm that we are supposed to be on a 10am flight. But then I check the Orbitz travel reservation printed out just a few days prior (that I clearly never glanced at) and OH NO we were supposed to be on the 8:15am flight. WTF??!??

With no one at the desk, I dialed the Jet Blue contact number and grabbed a baggage handler to ask if they could get a Jet Blue person at the desk. A Jet Blue representative comes out and proceeds to tell me that the flight time had changed and that I should have received an email from Orbitz telling me about the flight change (she also said this happened to someone yesterday so I didn't feel so stupid). Luckily there were seats on the late afternoon flight out to Fort Lauderdale and we were able to get on that flight for no cost.

I was thankful that CP didn't get angry because really, what would we have done? Yes we were arriving in the Bahamas a few hours after our originally scheduled time, but it could be worse.

With no flight for hours, CP and I went out to breakfast and did some Christmas shopping before heading back to the airport. The flight to Fort Lauderdale kept getting delayed and we only had an hour between flights as it was. Halfway through the flight I asked the flight attendants to see if people would stay in their seats so that we could run to our next flight (I would have thrown in a "but it's our honeymoon!" if needed). Thankfully the people in front of us complied and we ran to our next flight, making it just in time!

The rest of the trip was smooth sailing after the rocky start. I had a great birthday- a wonderful facial at the spa, fun at the water park, many mango daquiris and then an amazingly delicious dinner at the Mesa Grill, a Bobby Flay restaurant.

Other than the HIGH HIGH HIGH prices for food (we got a little bitter towards that at the end), we had a great week. Pictures to come tomorrow!

Bahamas baby!

After a flight to FL that leaves this morning, a three hour layover, and then a flight to Nassau, CP and I will be in 80 degree weather for the next 8 days. I can’t wait. I will most likely get sick due to the weather change, either when we get there or coming back but WHO CARES!

The past couple of years I have been calling my birthday my “Pretty Princess Day” because it annoys CP (ha ha). I will be turning 33 (!) tomorrow while we are in the Bahamas….so I think that calling it my “Pretty Princess Week” is in order. :-) We don’t have anything specific planned, probably just head out for a nice dinner. We don’t have ANY part of the vacation planned which usually works out well for us. I will be getting a facial at some point in the week (CP said that he would give me one for free- HEY-O) and we will do at least a day of scuba diving, but in general our plan is to RELAX.

Needless to say, no blogging until I get back. Try not to freeze too much while I am gone. :-)

Nook books

I have continued to read a bunch of books on my Nook. All ratings out of a possible 5 stars.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen
2 stars
A woman whose husband leaves her for a man he met on gay.com only a week after a horrible car accident heads home to her Mennonite family for solace. I wanted to like this book. The author has a sharp wit and remembers minute details about various stories. However, she jumps around so much while telling stories I would often get lost. The book needed to be more structured.

Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man: A Memoir by Bill Clegg
4 stars
I am such a sucker for stories about addictions. Bill Clegg was a literary agent who walked away from his job, boyfriend, and home to go on a two month crack binge. As usual, I was horrified but couldn’t put it down.

Run by Ann Patchett
3 stars
Two families come together unexpectedly after a traffic accident in a snowstorm. I think that this may be the last Ann Patchett book I read because nothing compares to Bel Canto. The story was interesting enough, but I certainly wasn’t rushing back to the book.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
4 stars
In the days following the Hurricane Katrina Syrian-American Abdulrahman Zeitoun travels the city by canoe, feeding abandoned animals and helping elderly neighbors. On September 6th police officers armed with M-16s arrest Zeitoun in his own home. Some of the background information on Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his family dragged at times, but overall this true story makes for a riveting book. It’s so amazingly sad that this actually happened in the US.

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
3 stars (basically 3.5 stars)
Golden Richards, polygamist, is having a midlife crisis. His family is in turmoil, his business is failing, and he hasn’t dealt with the deaths of two of his kids. I wanted to like this book more, but didn’t like Golden, the main character in the book. When the author told the story through one of Golden’s sons and one of his wives I found the book to be a lot better.


Have you read any good books lately?

Restless

This weekend I felt restless. Walking was just not cutting it.

On Thursday CP and I had taken the dogs for a walk and let them off their leashes at a park. I started to jog to get the dogs to run around a little more and lo and behold, it didn’t hurt! So on Saturday I decided that I would go out for a jog to see how it felt. Technically I am not supposed to run for another two weeks but I was feeling pretty good.

I decided to start allllll the way back at the beginning. Week 1, Day 1 of Couch to 5K. I haven’t truly been consistently running since MAY when I ran the half marathon, so there was no need to kill myself. Plus I figured that if my body could handle it, I would try to run at a 10 minute/mile pace instead of my usual 11.

I’m proud to say I DID IT!! With no pain near any of my incisions! The only pain I felt was afterwards- in my heels of course. This plantar fasciitis is killing me! It’s already been a year of pain….maybe it’s time to think about the boot that I can wear at night…

Oh yeah that is sexy- aka poor CP

I stretched out when I got home but was definitely sore yesterday and was sore when I woke up today. Today during lunch I ran Week 1, Day 2 and it also didn’t hurt.

I guess I should start thinking about goals. Three days a week of running through winter? What will be my first race back?

The State of NSC- November 2011

A monthly take on my world.

Weight: 211. YIKES. I’m not sure if I am getting ready to get my first period in a while or if I really have gained that weight (I guess it’s possible although two weeks ago I was around 204). Looks like I need to start weighing myself weekly and post it so that I am paying more attention to what is going in my mouth because this is EMBARASSING!

Current Feeling: Fat. I am wearing the same black pants into work on the days that I go into the office because I am nervous to try on some of my other work pants. I’m pretty sure they are not going to fit. (Thank goodness for Jeans Friday even though I can’t fit into my jeans right now…). I have been walking at least once a day but it doesn’t seem to be helping.

Running Stats (taking a break until the new year from running to rest my heels/recuperate from surgery)
Total Miles Run: 0
Time Spent Running: 0:00
Longest Single Run: 0

Current aches and pains: Despite my lack of running, my plantar fasciitis is back! It’s so ridonkulous that I have been talking about this for A WHOLE YEAR. JUST GO AWAY. Other than sharp stabbing pains at random moments near one of my incisions (good times), I don’t have much pain from my surgery anymore.

Current Favorite Song: Fitz & the Tantrums- “Moneygrabber”

Looking forward to: Our trip to the Bahamas in 8 days!! My birthday in 9 days! Christmas in 24 days!

Annoyed about: I am going to look like crap in a bathing suit for our trip. I curse my MIL for bringing down the apple pie and pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving as I’m sure it didn’t help with my current belly.

Proud about: Frankly, nothing right now. Booooo.

How are you feeling with the start of this new month?