2012 Recap

This year I started off my posting with a recap of all of the running I did in 2011 (ahem- a lot).  I guess I should recap my running just to show how far I have fallen off the running wagon!  I would say that posting about it may push me to remedy the situation, but with IVF and doctor-mandated no running/jumping/bouncing/etc. for two weeks every cycle, I can't imagine I am going to want to start/stop/start/stop/start/stop etc. through the cycles.  Maybe I should just focus on getting my butt to the gym and doing things other than running....

In February I finally got my period after fibroid/endo surgery the previous November.  After over half a year lost to Lupron, my surgery, and then waiting for my period, we were cleared for IUIs. The first half of the year was spent doing three IUIs (spoiler alert- none of them worked).  I went into my first IUI with a lot of hope and excitement thinking THIS COULD BE IT.  I COULD FINALLY BE PREGNANT AFTER THIS PROCEDURE.  I wish that my CT doctor had let me know of my FSH and AMH levels ahead of time because I wouldn’t have gotten my hopes up so much.  I’m not sure that we would have moved quicker to IVF because of the whole financial aspect, but still.  My hope diminished drastically for the second and third IUIs.  

Our only major travel of the year (at least together) was to the Dominican Republic for a wedding.  We had a great time and drank way too much.  

Sunset in the DR

We did a whole lot of work outside in CT on our front lawn, our back yard, and our garden.  I can't wait to install garden beds in our new house this spring!

CP drastically changed our lives by getting a random call from a headhunter in April for a fantastic job in Chicago.  After he got the job offer we were able to quickly sell our house and CP and I spent two months apart from each other while he started his new job and I stayed behind in CT to work and get the house ready for the closing.  All of the pieces fell into place for the move when I received word that my transfer to the Chicago office had been approved!  However, we were bummed when we learned that despite the fact that IL has a state mandate for infertility treatment, CP's new health insurance for the two of us wouldn't cover any treatments.  But HOORAY I found an insurance plan through my work that does cover IVF!  Coverage starts the second week in January!

The first full day of CP being in the Chicago area he went to an open house and ended up going back the next day to put an offer on the house with my dad.  I didn’t even get to see the house until after the inspection.  As soon as we moved in after our August closing, we started A WHOLE LOT OF WORK on the house.  We have fixed up the sunroom, the living room, the dining room (post coming after I get back from NY), most of the downstairs bathroom, and most of the kitchen (CP may have finished everything prior to me getting back from NY too).  Oh and we have a whole new yard after hiring an awesome landscaper!  

Meanwhile, we our older dog went in for emergency surgery for bloat.  Thankfully we caught it in time, but unfortunately the money that went towards her surgery we had hoped was going to go towards the house.

This year I learned NOT to schedule doctor appointments on the same day as birthdays and anniversaries.  Finding out that I had started growing fibroids again ruined our three-year anniversary.    Luckily, my doctor determined that I didn’t need to have surgery on the fibroids.  

This year was also my year of reaching out for more support with our infertility.  Despite CP making fun of going to a support group for infertility, the monthly meetings are informative and really helpful.  I will definitely continue going to them.  In addition, I have had some one-on-one meetings with other infertiles that have also been helpful.  In addition YOU GUYS have been supportive every step of the way.  I CAN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH AS I'M PRETTY SURE YOU KEEP ME SANE.

This past month I turned 34, CP and I spent a night going over IVF paperwork and making decisions, and I unfortunately learned that my FSH and AMH levels were not normal.   (I should have known better than to write this post calling myself “lucky”- I totally jinxed myself.)    I’m finishing out 2012 and starting off 2013 by working in New York helping out Sandy victims.  Hopefully that alone gives me some good karma going into 2013.

Overall it was a year of change that hopefully was for the best.  We enjoyed our two years of living in CT, but to be only 30 minutes from my family is amazing.  Plus, we have an awesome neighborhood and a house that will be awesome someday (hopefully in 2013).  CP is enjoying his job while getting to travel around the world via business class, while I am finally enjoying my job (most days).  Hopefully IVF is the way to finally conceive and the big hole I have in my life will be plugged up.

You should never fast-forward into the future.  Because every time you do, you rob yourself of the journey, the present moment, which, in the end, is all there really is.

-Alyson Noel

What was your high point this year?  What was your low point this year?  What are you looking forward to in 2013?

Working in New York

It’s Sunday so I’m not sure how many people are going to be reading, but I thought that I would post anyway.

·        I made it out to NYC this week without too much of a problem.  We did have to sit on the runway for over an hour before we took off which just meant that I was able to catch about four episodes of the Real Housewives of Miami (thanks for the free tv Jet Blue!).* I’ve now taken about 10 million forms of public transportation since I got here and as predicted, the people are certainly unusual.  Yesterday morning when I got on the Long Island Rail Road to head to work three teenagers got into the same car as me.  One of them was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, another was missing his t-shirt and just had on shorts (it was 25 degrees out).  All three had what looked like glow paint on their faces and bodies- I’m guessing they were at a rave last night.  Seeing them shivering and looking ridiculous was just another reminder to not do drugs.  :-)  

·        On the same train car an older man got on ranting and raving about nonsense while drinking Four Loko.  A couple months ago I decided to try Four Loko just to see what it tasted like and not only do I NOT want to drink it at night, but I have no desire to be drinking it at 7:45am either.  Yikes.

·        These two weeks here helping Sandy victims are going to be quite emotional and mentally tough.  These people have lost so much and even two months later almost everyone I spoke to yesterday still wasn’t living in their house.  Contractors had come through to demo everything down to the studs, but because they were waiting on insurance checks, construction loans, etc. and their homes had no heat or electricity, they were still living in small apartments with too many people, hotels, or with friends/family/ex-family.  I’m glad that I am here to help but I wish that I could do more.  I guess it’s a good thing that my Lupron shot didn’t arrive into my clinic before I left for NY because I would probably be bawling along with the people here.

·        I have a couple of coworkers also out here in NY with me- one of them I met back in June when I was in DC for a training.  I’m glad that he is here because he is closer to my age than my other coworkers and he will be a fun guy to grab a beer with after work.  However, he has told me several times that things with his wife aren’t going well and he’s basically just sticking around for the kids.  I get the feeling that he is telling me this not just in a friendly way, so I try to work my husband into the conversation as much as possible!  I hope it’s just me reading too much into the conversation and his flirty ways, but I want to make sure to give him the FRIENDS ONLY I AM IN A HAPPY MARRIAGE signal as much as possible.

·        It looks like I will have New Years Day off so I am most likely heading up to CT tomorrow after work.  I’m looking forward to getting out of NYC, seeing friends, and stalking my old house to see if they have done anything to it since we sold it in August.  :-)

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend- I'm working all weekend!

*I don't usually watch RHOM but one of the episodes happened to focus on Lisa who has had three miscarriages while trying to have a baby.  I only saw the few episodes on the plane but it seems like she is representing infertile women well.

Christmas recap

In the end, my worry about what would happen on Christmas Day at my aunt’s house turned out to be nothing.  Two of my cousins ended up not being able to show up so I only had to deal with one infant (5 months old) and an almost 3 year old.  They were adorable and very well behaved and although I engaged in some wistful thinking while hanging out with them, everything went fine.  Thank goodness I wasn’t on any IVF drugs at the time!!

My aunt was also on good behavior.  I actually made a point to stay away from her unless there was a big group (although, she has asked about our plans for kids in big groups too) so that I wouldn’t get the dreaded question which ended up working out well.  No kid questions from anyone that day so CP and I survived the day!

I did find out that my step second cousin is infertile though.  Remember how she helped CP get his new job?   Well he now sits in the cubicle next to her and she does seem to give out a lot of personal information (and others do to her as well).  He has overheard that she and her husband can’t have kids but doesn’t know the specifics.  I watched her hang out with the little kids at Christmas and I swear I saw the same wistful look in her eye that was also in mine.  I doubt that we will ever get a chance to talk about our infertility as we all know how close CP holds the infertile cards to his chest, but I do feel for her.  :-(

What's a holiday recap without adorable pictures of the dogs??

Buster loves his new toy!

My sister and her boyfriend got Buster a bowtie collar so that he could look dapper for the holidays.  I love it!

Buster enjoying the Christmas snow at the dog park.

Koda laying with all of the dog toys.  I'm pretty sure the dogs received more presents on Christmas than the humans did!

Christmas Day picture with Buster, my sister's dog Fletcher, and Koda.  I have no idea how I was able to snap such a good photo, but I think I may have to frame this!!

Here is a preview of our new dining room ready for Christmas dinner!  I can't wait to show you the before pictures!  :-)

Wary of tomorrow

Often holidays are hard for infertiles.  The past couple of years haven't been too hard on me and CP because of our family situation.  Being out on the East Coast meant spending the holidays with his family.  Whether we were with his dad/wife/extended family or with his mom/husband/grandmother, we never were around babies or young kids because if there were kids around, they were all at least five years old.

Now that we live in Chicago, the family dynamic is going to change a bit.  All three of my cousins that I generally see at Christmas have kids.  Young kids (two are infants).  The oldest cousin has four kids and the other two both have two kids.  None of them have referenced any problems conceiving and the kids are "normally" spaced apart which leads me to believe that they did the weird thing and actually had sex to make a baby.

So not only are we going to be faced with fertile cousins and two infants tomorrow, but we also have to deal with my aunt.  I don't think that she  means any harm, but EVERY TIME I see her since we got married she asks when we are going to have kids.  I just know that the question is coming tomorrow- and I'm just not sure how I can react without tipping her off that we are having problems.  It's really none of her business, but I need some help in figuring out what my answer should be.  Or should I just ignore her all day?  Tell her that our dogs are our kids and change the subject?  Good thing I haven't had the latest Lupron shot yet or it could get ugly!

Tomorrow should be a happy day with family.  Instead I am dreading it.  :-(

Any suggestions??

Disaster

We had a lovely anthrax scare at work recently.  The Executive Secretary opened up a manila folder with her letter opener and white powder came out.  The folder was sketchy- our company name but no address and yet it still got delivered here.  One of my jobs has to do with emergency preparedness so the Secretary came to me to ask what to do.  My first thought was “Why are you bringing the anthrax over to me???”  I got her to go back to her desk and call security downstairs while I tried to strike a balance between standing as far away from her desk as possible vs. standing close enough to help her as she talked to the authorities.

As soon as security came up to our office suite, everyone, including my boss and her boss, were not allowed to use our computers or phones.  We had to write down our name, address, birthdates, and exactly what happened for the officers while sitting in an open area of our office.  The officers kept asking us if we were feeling odd in any way (one officer came into our office suite, the other way stayed behind the glass doors).  The Secretary became flushed, but I think that was partially because the building shut off the HVAC system (so that potential spores would not move to other floors in the building)  and she was a little scared.  After 20 minutes or so we were fairly certain that it wasn’t anthrax because none of us had any symptoms, but we still needed to find out was exactly was sent in the envelope.

Enter the hazardous division of the Chicago Fire Department.  Yes, the CFD has two of these divisions in the city.  They came in wearing full gear, face masks and gloves while carrying a bunch of plastic boxes with fancy machines in them.  They asked a few questions and then headed over to the offending envelope.  After some testing it was determined that the white powder was a protein and that there was a semi-threatening note in the envelope (the Secretary didn’t get as far as looking in the envelope after seeing the white powder). 

Meanwhile, the six of us caught in the suite were laughing and joking.  We wondered if anyone had alcohol in their desks as we might as well be drinking if we were all stuck there.  I started to call the Secretary “Patient Zero” and have continued to call her that through today.  J  I’m pretty sure the officers and the firemen were not happy with us, but what else are we going to do?

In the end, the suspicious powder was- get this- SHAVINGS FROM SOMEONE’S FOOT.  EWWWW.  I told the Secretary that as soon as she got home, she better take the longest and hottest shower of her life.  NASTY.  Who does that???  Two and half hours later, we were finally allowed to leave.  Phew!

I think that I need to send an email around to the rest of my company telling them if they get a suspicious piece of mail to NOT bring it to me!!

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Speaking of emergency preparedness, partly because of that job, I was asked yesterday to head out to New York to help with Sandy disaster efforts.  I’m leaving right after Christmas and will be gone for two weeks.  I’m happy to be going because it will be a great experience and I will be able to help people in need after such a major disaster.  However, this means missing New Years Eve with CP (we didn’t have big plans….just heading over to a friend’s house) and not really seeing him for a month.  You see, the day after I get back from New York CP goes on a worldwide tour of airports and countries.  He flies from Chicago to Tokyo, then Tokyo to Bangkok and stays in Bangkok a week.  Then from Bangkok he flies to Istanbul, then onto San Paulo (Brazil) for another week.  He will mostly likely miss some of my crazy hormonal mood swings from IVF drugs, but he also won’t be around to help me administer them.  :-(

Needless to say, I have heard I will be working 12 hour days so I may not be reading/commenting too much while I’m in NY- but I’ll be thinking of all of you!!

Consult

Today was our IVF consult with the doctor.  She (of course) was running 40 minutes late and did not come bearing fantastic news….but at least I felt as if she answered all of my questions (most of the questions came from reading your blogs so THANK YOU!).

The BAD:

No one told me this at the CT clinic, but when they did my bloodwork last August I guess my FSH level was 13 and my AMH was .012 (I think I wrote this down correctly).*  Normal FSH is no more than 10 and normal AMH is more than 1.  Basically, this calls into question my egg quality and why my CT clinic didn’t think to tell me about this boggles my mind (I should have asked for the specific numbers but everyone said things were normal and I was more shocked at the large fibroid in my uterus).  If I had known that I may have poor egg quality and that I might have low ovarian reserve I might have moved to IVF sooner simply because I knew I was running out of time.  My doctor did say that some of these indicators may be off because of my endometriosis, but still.  Plus we have to think about my age…… Motherf*c&^#g stupid body.

*If anyone has more information on either of these results please give me some advice in the comments. Should I be taking any multivitamins??  I forgot to ask my doctor if there was anything I could be doing.

The PLAN:

The doctor would like to see me take a one month shot of Depo Lupron.  It would be the same shot as the three month shot I had prior to my surgery, but (obviously) only last one month.  She said that it can help pregnancy rates with IVF.  I’m okay with it and can deal with one month of hot flashes.  I did mention that it seemed to really suppress my system after my surgery (it took three months and a progesterone shot to jump start my period), so hopefully she remembers that for the rest of my medications.  Fingers crossed my clinic can get the shot in before I leave for NY (more on that tomorrow).

I asked about endometrial scratching which a bunch of you lovely ladies have referenced recently with helping with implantation.  My doctor doesn’t recommend it with the first IVF but it certainly willing to try it if the first time around doesn’t work.  I told her she is the expert so I was fine with her decision.

Prior to any other medications I will get my bloodwork tested again (hopefully with better results).  Also, because I am moving to an HMO in order to get coverage for IVF, I have an appointment with a primary care physician so that I can get referred over to my clinic for treatment (sooo silly but whatever).

Other than that, CP has to freeze a sample next week just in case he is out of town for the retrieval process.  His travel schedule next month is quite insane.

And now I twiddle my thumbs and wait for my next period and my PCP appt on the 14^th. 

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To try to end this Friday post on a better note, did you guys see the 25 Best Autocorrects from 2012 on Buzzfeed?  Seriously, you will want to click over and check it out.  I was DYING at “Skittletits.”  Pretty sure that is going to be my new swear word.  Oh you are just now telling me I have a high FSH and low AMH levels?  SKITTLETITS!!

Issues

It’s Monday and I’m bummed to be at work so I might as well complain today.  :-) 

Remember my hair dresser that dyed the peach fuzz on my face back in September?  Well for some reason I went back to her two more times.  This last time I complained that my hair was losing the dye that she was putting in after only a week or two so she decided that she would put a darker shade of dye into my hair so that when it faded it would be more of the color that I wanted.  I’m not sure why I went along with this, but since hair stylists are the experts I generally agree with what they suggest.

POOR, POOR choice on my end.  I ended up with almost black hair- but not on the roots.  It looked AWFUL.  One of my coworkers actually said, “Oh…you paid someone to do that?”  (In the nicest way possible.)  Not trusting in the first stylist to fix the mess, I made an appointment at a new salon (awful hair on my birthday made me sad).  The new stylist had no idea what the heck the first stylist was trying to do and suggested heavy highlights of a lighter color and then toning the hair.  Then in our next appointment she could get me back to the color that I want to be.  So I don't love my current hair, but it is at least better then the two-toned mess that was my hair only a week ago.  I should have listened to my instinct and not gone back to the stylist after her errors the first time….GRRRRR.

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For those of you that have been reading a while, remember how I was supposed to get braces and have my jaw broken and I was worried about timing with pregnancy?  First off, let me just LAUGH.  I could have had the braces put on last July, the surgery sometime late summer this year and possibly had the braces off by now.  But I thought that we still had a chance in getting pregnant once the fibroids were out of my body/once we tried the IUIs so I held off treatment.  Well, now we are here in IL and I thought that because my teeth started to move back together once I took out my night guard I would be all set.  But of course no….my new dentist and orthodontist both recommend braces once again and I won’t know if I need surgery until 9 months into treatment.

OF COURSE this rears its head when we are just about to start IVF.  *sigh*  For right now we have put off the braces but we are mainly just waiting until we can get some cash together….

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Finally, Saturday morning started off on a good note- CP was almost finished rolling the first coat of paint on the dining room ceiling when he had a back spasm.  I told him to sit down the couch for a few minutes, gave him some Tylenol and started to prime one of the built in cabinets.  After a while we could tell that his back wasn’t getting any better so I headed to Walgreens to get a heating pad and some Doan’s back pain medicine.  When that didn’t help, I asked CP what he was going to do about his flight to Columbia the next morning.  He couldn’t walk without holding on to a table, countertop, or me and couldn’t straighten out his body.  So I finally convinced him to head to urgent care.

This was my first time at urgent care and I have to say that it is an EXCELLENT idea.  Lower back pain is not something that someone should go to the emergency room for….but yet, where are you supposed to go on a weekend?  Enter urgent care where you don’t have to wait hours upon hours to get seen by a doctor and tie up the ER system.  We were quickly seen by a doctor and CP was able to get a prescription-strength anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxers.  However, the doctor did not appreciate CP’s joke about his upcoming flight to Columbia via Panama- “I’m taking a tour of all of the 90s drug hotspots.”  :-)

The rest of the weekend CP laid on the couch watching television and sleeping.  I have never seen that boy sleep as much as I did this weekend.  Meanwhile, I painted.  And brought CP dinner, water, his phone, his computer, etc. (he had to cancel his trip to Columbia and call his boss).  I walked the dogs.  And yesterday I baked 12 loaves of bread to give to our neighbors for the holidays.  And now I am tired.

How was your weekend?

I don't have any wise words on what happened in Newtown on Friday so I decided not to post on the tragedy.  However, I do hope that our country can come together and pass some meaningful legislation to prevent this from happening again.  Personally, I believe that is going to come in the form of tighter gun restrictions and more mental health dollars.

Last night CP and I went through the mountains and mountains of IVF paperwork given to us by our clinic.  We had to make decisions on whether we would be open to selective reduction (yes), what to do if one of us dies (donate to research), what to do if we get divorced (donate to research), etc.  We also read through the risks of the drugs, retrieval process, and transfer process.  Fun reading by the way.  ;-)  Afterwards I had CP watch a video I saw a few months ago which does a pretty good job of explaining the whole process and even shows the ICSI procedure.

View the video here (the video starts after about 20 seconds in or so)

Not that CP hasn’t been on board with IVF for a while, but he hasn’t shown much interest in the process so discussing it last night was nice.  I sort of went on a rant a few days ago when he complained about the multivitamins creating heartburn when he took them at night.  He agreed that he hadn’t been taking the multivitamins seriously because he doesn’t think that they are going to do anything. (Our RE in CT basically said that multivitamins just make for expensive pee.)  I told him that we had already purchased the multivitamins and so while he may think that he just has expensive pee, we are wasting money by him not taking the pills and if it doesn’t work than at least we tried.  It’s not like the pills are going to harm him or his sperm.  Needless to say, he has gotten better about taking his pills and that rant may have been why he was entertaining all of the IVF paperwork.  :-)

I’m headed into my clinic tomorrow for an ultrasound and bloodwork (CD 3) and am looking forward to our meeting with our doctor next Friday on our first IVF cycle!

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Also, I keep meaning to mention these resources for anyone interested:

First, Mo, Cristy, Shelley, and Jessica are doing an AMAZING job with their Podcast.  If you haven’t been listening, you can subscribe to “Bitter Infertiles” on iTunes.  They also have a blog.  

Second, if you have an infertility/loss/adoption blog, please think about submitting your best entry of 2012 to the Crème de la Crème List.  Head here for more information.   Get your post in before December 15^th!

Happy birthday to me

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

Today is the day that I move into my mid-30s.  I like to call it my "Pretty Princess Day"- mainly because CP hates when I use that phrase.  I am the complete opposite of a girly-girl so I just think that the phrase is funny.

Unfortunately I'm stuck at work today but I had a fun weekend.  Because CP and I are oh-so-fabulous and hip on Friday night we went shopping for my birthday/our Christmas present to each other: a custom closet system for our master bedroom.  Sadly we are not outfitting a huge walk-in closet but a shallow walk-in, but this new system will be much more efficient than the two rods we have now on either side of the doorway.  It's not the most spectacular birthday present, but once it's done (hopefully we can install it between Christmas and New Years) it will look great.

Saturday was spent at a Christmas coffee event for the women on my block, then to our favorite home improvement store for paint, and then home to wipe the wallpaper glue off the ceiling in the dining room.  We had to rush to finish it all before our next door neighbor's cocktail party.  We were the guests of honor because we were the latest on the block to move in.  Boy are our neighbors fun!!  We had a taste of our neighbors on Halloween when the couple across the street took out the fire pit, beers, and folding chairs to hand out candy and check out all of the costumes.  But Saturday night everyone on our block got rip-roaring drunk!!  The party was only supposed to last two hours...but five and a half hours later I went home from drinking too much wine and CP soon followed an hour later.  Mind you we are one of the younger couples on the block (and the only ones without kids) and thought that we were drinkers!!  Our neighbors ended up partying until 1:30am while we were passed out in bed.

Needless to say, I think we are going to have a great time in our neighborhood.  There is an annual Cubs trip, they close the street every Fourth of July for a block party, and the whole neighborhood seems to get together when it's nice out for BBQs, random Saturday nights, etc.  CP already has a smoke-off using three different types of meat with a neighbor planned for mid-April!  Good neighbors definitely make our decision to move to Chicago that much better.

Unfortunately now that I am 34 years old, I had quite the hangover on Sunday morning.  We ended up mustering enough energy to prime the walls and the ceiling in the dining room and hang out with our friends watching football, but that's about it.  :-)  At least the Eagles decided to eek out a win for me yesterday!

Tonight we don't have much planned but Wednesday night we are headed out to dinner with my family to a Peruvian restaurant.  I hope it's as good as the one we used to go to in CT!

Almost 34

My last weekend as a 33 year old is this weekend.  I will officially move into my mid-30s and have one more year before I move into the 35-and-still-trying-to-conceive category (AKA when all of the IVF live birth stats drop).  I truly hope that this is the last birthday where it is just me, CP, and the puppies.  I’m not asking to have given birth by my birthday next year (although that would be nice), but at least to be pregnant by my birthday next year.

I got an early birthday present from CP- he was able to hop on an earlier flight home yesterday from Atlanta.  There was also a possibility that he was going to have to go to Atlanta yet again next week but it looks like he will be home.  YAY!  Of course the following week he will be in Columbia (the country, not SC)……

I don’t really have anything exciting or interesting that I want for my birthday…..other than a finished house.  Ha!   But today we now have TWO working toilets.  This is fantastic news because then I can hit up the second bathroom if when CP stinks up the other one.  :-)  

We have a busy weekend planned with various neighbors and friends, but we also need to pick out the paint colors for the downstairs bathroom AND the dining room.  I’d love to get the rooms painted before we have family over for Christmas….

Have a fantastic weekend!

Christmas cartoon

Does anyone else subscribe to The Oatmeal?  The guy is seriously talented and hilarious.  He re-posted a cartoon he drew a few years ago on how different age groups celebrate Christmas.  The "30-somethings without kids" cartoon is especially spot-on.

View the cartoon here.

ENJOY!

Yet another dream

Is having upsetting dreams one of the side effects of birth control?  I don't remember these dreams being par for the course for the 12+ years I took them....but yet here they are!  I guess I shouldn't complain because otherwise I am not having any other symptoms....

Last night I had yet another dream about others being pregnant. This time the dream was not about my sister but of three different friends from law school.  The first are close friends here in Chicago that have twins and have had discussions about having a third child, but are most likely not going to take the plunge.  The second friends also have two kids (the second kid was an oops) and have discussed having a third.  The final friends M & R don't have any kids yet but told us last year when we saw them that they were going to start trying in a year or so- they were planning to start trying at the same time as yet another law school couple.  The wife in M & R has already started a Pinterest board and has pinned stuff like "baby on a budget" and how to do the monthly stickers for pictures.

In my dream all three of my friends were pregnant and one by one, they told me their good news.  As I had to congratulate them face to face, I choked back my tears.  I realized that all three of them would have babies the same age, while I would be left behind.

The kicker of the dream was that I found out that I had not been invited to something- a kid's birthday party or something like that because I was not pregnant or already a mom.  It wasn't them sparing my feelings or thinking that I wouldn't want to go....it was simply because I was not a mom or soon-to-be mom.  So of course I felt horribly left out.

I woke up from the dream smelling sh*t. Literally sh*t.  Fuzzy Britches decided that despite taking her out before we went to bed and instead of waking us up to go out, she would just poop in the hallway at 3am. Awesome.

First I am still upset about the dream. Why do I keep having these dreams?  

Second, I hope this is not a sign for Fuzzy Britches. She is coming up on her 9th birthday next month...which is getting up there in years for Bernese Mountain Dogs.  I don't even want to think about this.....not now.....

Decorating

On Saturday CP and I bought our Christmas tree and decorated it and the living room while listening to the Christmas station on Pandora.  We enjoyed an awesome dinner of smoked trout with a mint sauce and a bottle of the wine we were drinking when we got engaged.  

Our tree this year!

                                                    

For those of you that have been reading long enough, you may remember that our 2010 tree experience wasn't the best because we bought a tree that was WAY TOO BIG, so this year we decided to save ourselves the hassle and buy an already cut tree (last year we decided not to buy a tree because we were just coming back from the Bahamas).  The tree was marked as a 7 ft tree, but we think it's a little short.  At least it fits in our living room and we didn't have to break out the electric hedge trimmer this year!

Buster was wary of the moose stocking which was hilarious.  Poor guy  had a bunch of new things to contend with in the living room.  So far the tree and the stockings haven't been touched by him....

Yesterday CP and I joined my sister and her boyfriend at the Bears game.  Our FANTASTIC idea while tailgating was to shotgun beers...something that I haven't done in a few years.  I mean, of course CP and I rocked at it as usual, but it most likely led to my downfall later on that day.  CP made smoked cajun ribs and smoked chicken legs which were ridiculously delicious- at least we ate some good food in addition to drinking ourselves silly!

After getting home from the game CP and I made it until 7:30 and then finally crashed.  Advil and Tylenol weren't working on my monster headache, but Tylenol PM made it all better.  Definitely paying for all of that drinking today though.  Poor CP had to wake up early to fly to Atlanta for work- hopefully he can survive today without passing out in meetings!

How was your weekend?

Holiday weekend

I hope all of you had a fantastic Thanksgiving.  I had a great long weekend with my parents, my sister and her dog, and of course CP and our dogs.  As usual I ate too much but at least we took a family hike with the dogs at the Warren Dunes State Park prior to the big meal.

The dogs swimming in cold Lake Michigan

Over the weekend my sister and I also did some crafting via Pinterest:

We each made a wine cork wreath:  

Actually, this is my sister's wreath but mine looks very similar

We each made jingle bell snowflakes to hang off our mantles: 

Picture from the website

I made a holly wreath for our front door:  

It was fun!  I could see us using the long weekend to craft again next year! 

On Saturday we went to local antique stores to try to find a coffee table and a painting or mirror for over our mantle, but didn’t find anything that worked.  My Dad LOVES doing this kind of stuff so he was over the moon that we wanted to go antiquing. 

Sunday morning CP and I woke up bright and early to head back to IL to work on the dining room.  For some reason the seller WALLPAPERED the CEILING and INSIDE THE HUTCHES so I had a nice 8 hour day of stripping wallpaper off the walls.  My shoulders are still sore!  I swear the seller did some of this just to f*ck with the next owners (aka US).

Stripping the seriously UGLY wallpaper out of the hutches

Tearing the wallpaper off the ceiling.

CP is on a major tear with the dining room.  He is going to be traveling for work quite a bit in December and really wants the room finished before we have family over for Christmas.  We'll see if that happens....

Thanksgiving

It's been an annual tradition here at the Non Sequitur Chica blog to talk about our Thanksgiving menu.  This year will be a little different because CP isn't making the whole meal (I know- shocker!).  This also the first year in a while that we won't be hosting Thanksgiving.  Right now we are in the process of stripping wallpaper in our dining room and the room is quite a mess.  It's not too conducive to having people over....maybe next year.

This year we will be heading up with my sister to my parent's house in MI for the long weekend.  We leave tonight after work and hopefully we won't hit too much traffic.  Buster is going to be EXHAUSTED after a weekend of playing with his puppy cousin....while Koda will just be annoyed with the two of them.  I went on a Michael's shopping spree and will be making a bunch of Christmas decorations (via Pinterest of course) with my mom and sister.  The menfolk will just have to find something else to do while we are crafting.  :-)

On to the menu (for a grand total of 5 people- which means LEFTOVERS!):

Turkey
Gravy
Mashed potatoes
Stuffing (I can't WAIT for my mom's stuffing- it's the best)
Squash soup*
Brussel sprouts and kale with bacon*
Wild rice salad*
Pear tart

*CP and I prepped all of these last night.

For previous year's menus: the menu in 2009, the menu in 2010, and the menu in 2011.

What will you be doing for Thanksgiving?  Do you have anything exotic on the menu this year?

Odd dream

Last night I had the oddest dream.  In my dream my sister was getting married (something that she and her boyfriend aren't completely set on doing in real life).  I thought that it was odd that it was such a toned-down affair with a small number of people because my sister will absolutely be having a large wedding if she and her boyfriend ever get engaged.  I was running around trying to put everything together and make it the nicest wedding I could for her, despite her poor planning.  I realized that she didn't even book a photographer, so I grabbed a camera and started taking pictures for her.  

When the wedding was over I looked over at her and noticed her stomach was a little larger than usual, then it hit me: she was pregnant.  It was like a punch in the gut because not only is she not sure that she will ever marry, but she and her boyfriend are pretty sure that they are not going to have kids.  So while CP and I are running around for 2.5 years trying to get pregnant, they are not even sure they want kids and of course get pregnant.  After that I woke up.

This dream is coming on the heels of three other pregnancy-related things.  

First, I got a shower invite for a good college friend's wife a few weeks ago.  He had mentioned that they were going to start trying fairly soon after the Olympic Trials (this past June) and what do you know, they must have gotten pregnant on the first try because she is due in February.  I'm not only jealous of how fast it took them to get pregnant, but she booked slots at the best daycare only a few months into her pregnancy and sent out shower invites two months in advance.  Now that's someone that is not worried about her pregnancy at all.

Then, last week I found out that my friend that I talked about in the beginning of the year is 10 weeks pregnant. I am rooting for her as just getting pregnant is a problem because she has PCOS....but in addition she can't get excited for the pregnancy until she gets back test results on potential genetic defects in a few weeks.  She was worried to tell me about the pregnancy, but it doesn't make me sad to hear of her pregnancy.  She has been through enough and I REALLY REALLY hope that this is the one.

Finally, on the same day that I found out about my friend above, I found out that I had officially been lapped by a good friend.  A friend from high school's wife got pregnant quickly and announced the pregnancy when CP and I were beginning to realize that our journey was not going to be so easy.  Well, his second daughter just arrived into the world.  *sigh*  I'm of course happy for him, but I can't believe that his family is complete when CP and I haven't even made it to a positive pregnancy test. 

Anyway, so a weird and rough dream (thank goodness I woke up and knew that it wasn't true as my sister had quite a few drinks on Saturday night), coupled with other pregnancy-related items has me feeling a bit down.  But hopefully a long family weekend will brighten my spirits.

Good news

Good news on a Monday?  When does that happen?

Today was my saline sonogram and as expected, it was not painful and over quickly.  I saw my doctor for maybe five minutes after she made me wait a while and subjected me to awkward small talk.  I know she's busy but seeing her for a total of 15 minutes since moving to IL as we are about to embark on IVF isn't instilling tons of confidence that we are going to be anything more than a number to her.

Anyway, after checking out my uterus, the doctor determined that the surgery scheduled for next Tuesday is no longer needed!  WOO HOO!!!!  She said although my fibroids are still there (size of them: 10mm and 20mm), my uterus otherwise looks perfect.

Next up?  A December 21st consult.

Lucky

Last night I had dinner with a woman that is usually part of the local RESOLVE group, but has decided not to attend anymore because after five years, she thinks that all she will do is depress people.  However, she did agree to meet with me as the facilitator of the group thought that we would get along.  After hearing people’s stories at the RESOLVE group and then this woman’s five year quest for a child, I have decided that my journey (by the way, I hate that I use that word for this- I feel like I am in an interview segment on the Bachelor) has been easier than many others.

So far CP and I haven’t gone into debt paying for infertility expenses.  At most we have probably paid $5,000 so far?  (Mostly on my fibroid surgery.)  And for our upcoming IVF, my new insurance will pay for most of the medications and the process.

I haven’t had any losses and I think that this makes a WORLD of difference.  Those of you with losses…well, I just think that you are STRONG, AMAZING ladies.

I have a normal shaped uterus, normal hormone levels, I ovulate regularly, I have open tubes, and I have two working ovaries.

CP has a bit of a sperm problem, but at least he has sperm to give.  He doesn’t have any blockages and doesn’t have to undergo surgery.

Sure I went through a painful surgery for the large fibroid, but after the pain went away, I don’t have lingering problems….just 5 incision scars on my stomach.  I wasn’t planning on wearing a bikini any time soon anyway. 

Sure I have a short luteal phase, but my friend Crinone (ugh) helps me to add progesterone to my body to lengthen my cycle.

Sure I had endometriosis, but it was only Stage 2 and I didn’t have any scarring. 

Sure I have two new fibroids in my uterus, but I’m not worried about the upcoming surgery because it is going to be SO MUCH EASIER than the last one.  And it shouldn’t sideline me for the January IVF start date.

Next month I turn 34.  Not ancient by IVF standards so we still have a little time to play with.

I guess what I am trying to get at is that I feel lucky when I compare myself to others.*  And that worries me.  There are still other things that could pop up when we start the IVF process.  Right now I am blissfully unaware of those problems.  And as much as I try to tell myself not to get hopeful about IVF….well, the hope is still there.  As much as I try to tell myself that the doctors will have no idea how the medication will affect my body and thus I should almost use the first cycle it as a “test” cycle, well, of course I am still thinking that I should get pregnant.  I should know better….the logical person in me knows better.  The logical person also knows the statistics on miscarriages.  *sigh*  But the closer I get to January and as the number of birth control pills in my cabinet dwindles, the more that hope is chipping away at all  logical reasoning in my brain.

I want to believe that this is going to be the answer.  I want to finally get that positive pregnancy test.  After 2.5 years I would KILL for a positive pregnancy test. 

Please let IVF be the answer to our infertility problems.  

*Annnnnd here is where I jinx myself.

MIL visit

My mother in law has been in town since Thursday night.  While I really like my MIL, spending 6 days and 5 nights with her has been quite enough.  Because CP was traveling last week, I had her all to myself on Thursday and Friday until CP walked through the door around 9pm. 

I don’t want to be mean because I really do like her but this is a looooong trip.  I haven’t even had one hour to myself (or with CP)- other than sleeping of course- since she got here.  My hope was that yesterday CP would take his mom to the Botanic Gardens and that I could claim that I wanted to do something around the house and just get some alone time.  Nope.  My MIL decided that she wanted to help out with the home renovations so she helped me strip wallpaper in our living room.  It’s great that she helped out because she has experience with removing wallpaper, but still.  It’s definitely something that I could have figured out myself.

This has been a tiring weekend, not just because I have had to be “on” for the past six days.  I have found myself a little testy- possibly from the birth control pills?  Maybe from the same stories that are told over and over again?  (Thankfully, this phenomenon has been a little better since we moved away because there is more to “catch up” on.  If CP and I had to hear the same story about my MIL and her husband holding hands and then their cat coming over to place her paw on their hands so that she could hold hands too….well I was going to SCREAM.  We actually used to have bets on how often the story would get told in a single weekend when we would go to see them.)  I have definitely had to use my “take a couple deep breaths” technique a few times.

The bright spot of the long weekend?  Well, now the trip is almost over and we won’t see her again until some time in 2013.  Also, these:

My new slippers from the Field Museum.  They are AMAZING.  Both warm and hilarious at the same time.  They definitely make me giggle every time I look down.

BEST. PURCHASE. EVER.

Should I start wearing these to doctor visits?  :-)

A whole new yard

Those readers that have been around long enough know that CP and I like to work outside on our house.  In CT (other than taking down big trees- we obviously leave that for the professionals), we enjoyed completely overhauling the front of our house, organically trying to revive the grass on our front lawn, making and installing raised garden beds, making and installing homemade greenhouses so that we could have winter crops, and working on an amazing garden.

So when we bought our new place, we were looking forward to beautifying the outside, as well as the inside.  But as time wore on, we realized that there is so much that needs to be done....so maybe hiring professionals was the way to go.

I can honestly say that the work that our landscaper and his guys did in the past four days was nothing short of amazing.  It would have taken CP and I MONTHS to do it ourselves (especially with CP's travel schedule).

BEFORE- Front of the house.  The first weekend we chopped down the large bush on the left.  It was so big that when we would back out of the driveway we couldn't see if there was a dog, kid or adult so we were really worried that there would be a bad accident.  

AFTER- This is from a different angle, but here is the new front of the house.  I wish that the boxwoods were a little bigger and that we had the money to put some more plants in, but this will suffice for the winter.  This weekend I plan to plant tulips for the spring too.  :-)

BEFORE- Back of the house.  Yet another overgrown bush (that the seller used to meticulously TRIM WITH SCISSORS), nasty and overgrown ground cover (in the shadow), and overgrown lilac shrubs on the left.

HALFWAY- Ugly evergreen shrub is gone!  Lots of concrete pieces found in all of the ground cover/overall mess though.

AFTER- Who knew our patio was that big?  And although the lilacs look sad, they should come back just fine in the spring.

BEFORE- This was the "view" of the backyard from our sunroom and the patio.  I never understood why someone would plant four large evergreens making it close to impossible to get to the backyard.

AFTER- Ground cover, stumps (CP and I cut down the four evergreens back in August to give the dogs access to the backyard) and all of the other crap GONE.  Sod and mulch put down.  Fuzzy Britches was literally jumping up and down with excitement because now she has a place to play.

BEFORE- Everything is overgrown in the backyard.

AFTER- Holy crap I can see the neighbor's fence.

AFTER- I can see the back fence too!

BEFORE- Yep, more overgrown crap on the side of the driveway.

AFTER- A blank slate for spring.

Yes, this work did cost money but if you ask me, it was desperately needed and now the landscaping makes me happy instead of anxious (just thinking about everything that needed to be done made me tense up).  It definitely needed some TLC and the landscapers did a fantastic job.  I can't wait to fill it in with flowers and plants!!

No way to sum this one up

Happy Wednesday everyone!

I'm very happy about the results of the election, except for two things.  

1.  People of CA- WHY O WHY did you defeat the GMO labeling initiative???  I know that companies like Monsanto threw tons of money towards misleading ads but the fact that it got defeated is so disheartening!!!  Especially when most people FAVOR the labeling of GMOs.  *sigh*

2.  People of MN- really?  Michelle Bachman is still in Congress?  The same woman whose husband practices conversion therapy (trying to transform homosexuals into heterosexuals) despite not having a license to practice in the state and the same woman who claimed that the HPV vaccine caused mental retardation?  How the heck does she still have a job???

On the other hand, gay marriage is now legal and recognized in a few more states and that is really exciting.

Moving on...

I have a bunch of post ideas sitting in my email, but they are "thinking posts" and this week I just haven't felt like sitting down and writing them.  I was going to show you our new front and back yard, but Blogger is being a meanie and not allowing me to upload pictures right now.

Other random things on my mind....habits are hard to break.  Although I am on birth control and will be until the end of December, I can't stop checking every time I go to the bathroom.  Speaking of birth control, so far I haven't had any weird mood swings so that's good.  Hopefully that continues....

CP has been in LA all week but flew to New Orleans today and will be there until Friday night.  Meanwhile my mother-in-law arrives from NH tomorrow early evening so I will get to spend some time with her.  Luckily, we get along.  But I have to work on Friday so I'm not sure what I am going to do with her....maybe she can help us paint or strip wallpaper?

I'm pissed about my upcoming surgery later this month because if I didn't have it coming up, I had the chance through work to head out to the East Coast to help with the disaster efforts.  Grrrr f*cking fibroids.  CP and I agreed that we didn't want to push back the surgery.  Luckily there are tons of co-workers that are ready and willing to head out there.

First RESOLVE meeting tonight and I'm looking forward to it!  :-)

Is this my most non sequitur post ever?

Monday funnies

Today I have been slammed with trainings, emails, and conference calls so I don’t have a proper post for you.  However, I do have two funny things to brighten up your Monday.

1.  We take Buster to doggie daycare 1-2 times a week.  It’s expensive, but he gets to socialize with other dogs and comes home EXHAUSTED.  It’s well worth the money we pay.  I dropped him off as usual on Wednesday and realized that Buster would be one of the only dogs not dressed up (CP doesn’t allow me to dress up our dogs- boooo).  Thankfully, the daycare had a few extra costumes and snapped this picture.

Buster the dinosaur.  Adorable, right?   I shared it with CP on Facebook and he said that he was embarrassed for Buster, but I think that Buster is loving it.  :-)

2.  Your cooking and sex tip of the week:  If your husband is cutting up hot peppers, washes his hands a lot, but still has some of the oil/residue on his fingers, sexy time may not be the best idea.  I know that my loins only burn for CP (*groan* bad joke alert), but they usually don’t burn for 30 minutes!!