Today

Today I am counting the hours until I can curl up on the couch under a blanket and probably break open a bottle of wine.  It’s windy today in Chicago.

Today I am also counting down the hours until CP gets home.  Unfortunately he arrives at the same time as a first birthday party for our friends’ twins, so I won’t see him until I get back from the party.

Today I am jealous of all of the women walking around downtown Chicago with riding boots on.  I’m not morbidly obese (just barely obese per the BMI), yet my ridiculously muscular calves keep me from fitting into boots.  I even went to DSW last night and tried on all of the “wide leg” boots.  Nothing fit.  Grrrr.

Today I am hopeful that I didn’t get the flu shot for the second year in a row for nothing.  It is free through work, but I generally wouldn’t get it unless I was thinking about getting pregnant this year.

Today I am looking forward to even more shows returning on tv.  Grey’s and Scandal last night, Revenge, Homeland, Dexter, and a new show, 666 Park Avenue all start on Sunday.

Today I am excited to have found a gym in our town.  It’s less than $70/month for the two of us to join and has a pool (with lap swim hours), a basketball court, an indoor track, plenty of treadmills, stair climbers, ellipticals, bikes, etc.  It also has classes and personal trainers that you have to pay extra for, but at least they are available.  Plus it’s not that far from my house so I hope to get up in the mornings and work out!

Today I am excited that I will have spring flowers next year!  Groupon had a special yesterday for Holland Farms and with it I ordered daffodils, tulips, and crocuses.  Even if we don’t have time to take down the awful 70s bushes in the front of our house before spring, I can still plant pretty flowers that will make me feel better about the outside of our house!

Today I am happy that my boss nominated me for a project and I’m really hoping that instead of the 2-3 hours a month we are expected to work on the project, it turns into a whole lot more so that I can stay busy.

Today, along with every other day that I come downtown, I am reminded that although I hate my job and I’m bored, I’m still lucky to have a job. 

What are you feeling today?

Lazy TWW

My lazy two week wait is still going strong.  CP and I had one day to make a baby this month because of his travel schedule- I’m fairly certain we timed it right, although I can’t be sure that I even ovulated because I gave up taking my temperature a while ago.  I guess that I could have used OPK sticks, but didn’t really remember in time.  Lazy, yes?  So, I’m not 100% positive that I ovulated, but the signs that I was getting close to ovulating were there.  Tuesday I had some cramping and so I fully expected to see my period yesterday or this morning, but so far, nothing.  I did end up taking a pregnancy test yesterday morning (negative of course)- I’m probably 11dpo or 12dpo?  I guess I will continue taking the progesterone which at this point is just delaying my period and test again in a few days.  But how long should I take the medicine?  And when should I decide to give up this month?  The progesterone could stave off my period for maybe as long as I keep taking it- so when should I call it in for this month?  16dpo if I am still getting negative pregnancy tests?  Tell me how long you would continue taking progesterone.

CP gets back from Europe on Saturday afternoon.  I found out yesterday that he is in town until Tuesday morning then has to fly to New Orleans for all of next week.  *sigh*  I miss my husband and know that he is probably going to cranky/tired/jet lagged when he gets back.  At least in NO I will get to talk to him on a nightly basis instead of the every two or three days while he is in Europe (it’s hard to get our schedules to match up with the 7 hour time difference).  I have no idea what we are going to do when he has to travel to Asia, but hopefully by then he will have his company phone instead of having to borrow a coworkers to call me.

While he is in New Orleans we will celebrate our 3^rd anniversary (boooo for him being gone on October 3^rd).  I can’t complain about it to him because there is nothing that he can do about it and I don't want to seem like the nagging wife.  Hopefully he is around for most of October though….  His company did say that his job would be 25% travel, but almost three weeks in a row is ridiculous.  I definitely worry about when we start IVF- is he even going to be in the country when I need him???

The only bright spot about CP not being here is that with him gone, I can attend my first RESOLVE meeting.  I finally decided that I would try to go to one of the support meetings to check it out.  While I do have two friends that are dealing with infertility right now, they are not in the same state.  It would be nice to meet some people face-to-face that are sharing some of the same feelings as I am.  I can’t imagine CP actually coming to a meeting with me, so I will check it out to see if I find the meeting helpful.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

This past weekend my sister and I did the Storm the Stadium race at Soldier Field.  We signed up for the half climb (3000 steps up and down) only a month ago and I walked up the stairs in my building (about 900 steps) a grand total of ONE time.  I'm awesome at training for upcoming races like that.

We clearly didn't die, but the first part was not a ton of fun.  If you can see from my Microsoft Paint lines on the picture above, we started the race on the 300 level (top section).  We went up and down 7 sections, then ran down to the 100 level (lower section) and did all of the stairs on that side of the stadium.  I won't lie, the first part sucked.  I knew that the going down would be painful, but the going up was definitely hard too. I'm not in great shape right now too which doesn't help.  But we made it through the first section and headed down to the lower section.

The lower section was a lot more fun, but not really that difficult.  I was able to take the stairs two at a time both going up and going down and actually RUN the stairs.  The problem with both sections was that if you wanted to pass someone, it was quite difficult.  You either had to ask them to move into the seats or pass them in the little window you had before starting the next row.  I definitely liked the stairs climbs that I have done in the past in buildings for that reason- there is room for people to pass you or for you to pass others.

Unfortunately the race was disorganized and I would think twice about doing it again next year.  (I climbed 3000 steps and didn't even get a tshirt?  Boooo.)  They didn't have water at the end (only nasty chocolate recovery drinks), there was no bag dropoff (despite telling us that there would be a limited one in all of the emails), and the people working the event/volunteers had no idea what was going on.  But I successfully completed 3000 steps in just over 30 minutes!

Afterwards we went to the afterparty where we ended up seeing Ed from the Bachelor/Bachelor Pad fame.  I guess my sister sees him a lot out in Chicago.  The organizers unfortunately picked a bar where you had to walk downstairs to go to the bathroom.  Talk about poor organizing....

But the pain of going down stairs was even worse the next day when I went to the Cardinals/Cubs game.  I had free rooftop seats which was fantastic....but there are a lot of stairs when you want to go to the bathroom, get a drink, or get food.

Sadly, the Cubs couldn't even win for my first game back in Chicago since my bachelorette party three years ago!  Yes, you got your wish Nilsa.

Second day soreness was even worse on Monday, despite trying to stretch all the time.  I can't seem to find my foam roller or my roller stick which I'm sure would have helped.  But today is the fourth day and I am finally walking somewhat-normal again....although I am taking escalators up/down for at least another day instead of taking the stairs!!

Uterine transplants

I'm not sure how many IF bloggers this story would pertain to, but possibly some hope if you have a bum uterus:

Swedes Perform Pioneering Uterine Transplants; Americans Not Far Behind  (Story from NPR)

A Swedish medical team has transplanted uteruses from two women in their 50s to their daughters. Meanwhile, Shots has learned that an Indiana group is recruiting women willing to undergo womb transplants in this country.

"We could go ahead tomorrow if we found the perfect candidate," Dr. Giuseppe Del Priore told Shots.

Del Priore says he has already interviewed a number of women, and has the approval of the ethics committee at Indiana University in Indianapolis.

While the Swedes did mother-to-daughter transplants, the Indiana group plans to rely on cadaver donors. Del Priore says he believes there would be an ample supply of suitable uteruses from current multiorgan cadaver donors.

He says tens of thousands of American women are potential candidates for uterine transplants. They include young women who have had hysterectomies for cancer,endometriosis and uterine trauma. Another group is women born without a uterus.

 

Other medical centers in the U.S. and Britain also hope to begin offering uterine transplants after a decade or so of animal research. It's the latest frontier in a medical field launched almost six decades ago with the first successful kidney transplant.

The Procedure

Uterine transplants have one unique feature: They'll be temporary.

Once a transplant recipient has achieved a successful pregnancy — or two, in the Swedish protocol — she will undergo a hysterectomy to remove the foreign uterus. That way, she won't be exposed to a lifetime of immunosuppressive drugs with their risks of increased infection and other disorders.

A 10-person team at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden did the first mother-to-daughter uterine transplants last weekend.

I don't think it's a simple discussion by any stretch. You know, when you're the patient, then you fully understand the issues. When you're just theoretically discussing these things, unless it actually hits home, I think you don't really fully understand it.

- Dr. James Grifo, New York University Medical School

One of the recipients lost her uterus to cervical cancer. The other was born without a uterus.

"They're doing fine, both the donors and the recipients," transplant surgeon Michael Olaussontold Shots. "All four women are doing fine."

But Olausson acknowledges that the success of the experiment is far from assured. The recipients will be monitored for a year to see if the transplants settle in and behave like normal uteruses — cycling through menstrual periods, avoiding signs of rejection.

Then the doctors will implant previously frozen embryos from these women and hope all goes well. By that schedule, the outcome of the experiment will be known sometime in mid-2014.

Olausson says he's confident the transplanted uteruses can withstand the mechanical stresses of pregnancy, as well as undergo the growth and complicated remodeling necessary to carry and sustain a fetus.

A long series of experiments with mice, rats, sheep, pigs and baboons showed that these animals could accept uterine transplants and give birth to healthy offspring. "So we don't think there will be a problem," he says.

One of the women who donated her uterus to her daughter is past menopause.

"It does not really matter if they are menopausal or not because the uterus can be sort of refurbished with hormones," Olausson says. "So that's not a problem in itself."

'Don't Get Too Excited Just Yet'

Some experts are concerned about the risks of anti-rejection drugs during pregnancy — not only because of possible infection but also because of other problems, such as high blood pressure and premature delivery. But Olausson points out that as many as 15,000 women have had successful pregnancies after undergoing other organ transplants.

The Swedish uterine transplants are not the first. In 2000, a Saudi Arabian group transplanted a uterus from a live donor. But within three months, it developed blood clotting problems and had to be removed.

Last year Turkish doctors said they had transplanted a uterus into a 21-year-old woman from a cadaver donor, but experts in the field don't believe that has resulted in a pregnancy yet.

One leading U.S. obstetrician-gynecologist, Dr. Michael Green of Massachusetts General Hospital, cautioned against premature enthusiasm about uterine transplants.

"Don't get too excited quite yet," he told Shots. "[It's] too soon to make a judgment."

Green questions whether this kind of transplant is really necessary. When doctors began transplanting organs in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, they started with organs essential for life — kidneys, hearts and livers. Lately they've been doing what Green calls "optional" transplants — of limbs, voice boxes, even faces.

"Nobody needs a uterus to live, OK?" Green says. "Nobody needs a hand or a face to live, in fairness. It's a quality-of-life issue. This is in that same category. So we've opened the door. We've stepped through it. And this is one of the next logical things that people might do."

He wonders whether health care dollars should be spent on uterine transplants when a woman who lacks a uterus can turn to a surrogate mother to provide her with a child — if she can afford it, that is.

But Dr. James Grifo of New York University Medical School says he hopes the Swedish experiment and other such efforts succeed.

Grifo has done his own research on uterine transplants but abandoned that work to pursue other priorities. He said in an interview that he was uncomfortable with the possible risks. But he sympathizes with women who might want a uterine transplant.

"I don't think it's a simple discussion by any stretch," Grifo told Shots. "You know, when you're the patient, then you fully understand the issues. When you're just theoretically discussing these things, unless it actually hits home, I think you don't really fully understand it."

The Swedes plan to do 10 more uterine transplants. The next two could be in a matter of weeks.

How I cope with pregnant women

Recently I was talking to a good friend of mine that had a 2nd trimester loss (22 weeks) last year. She is a few years older and has since had another (earlier) miscarriage. We were talking about infertility and she asked how I have stayed so calm throughout my TTC journey (or calm compared to her).

Please note these are my opinions and thoughts on how I try to stay positive/cope with infertility. I have never suffered a miscarriage or loss so my viewpoint may be different.

Infertility is a nasty beast but you don't have to let it drag you down. The following are things I try to remember in each situation when faced with a pregnant woman.

Random Pregnant Woman on the Street

Whenever I see a random pregnant woman on the street, my first thought is jealousy. I want to be her; I want to be pregnant. But then I try to step back and put myself in her shoes.  Maybe this stranger has been working for years to attain the pregnancy.  She could have had a number of pregnancy losses before getting pregnant. Because she is a stranger I have no idea. She could be super fertile, or she could infertile like me. Either way, as long as she doesn't throw it in my face (which would be hard to do as a stranger that I wouldn’t talk to), I try to push down my jealousy and be as happy as I can for her because I don’t know her story.

Fellow Infertility Blogger
Of course I feel the twinge of jealousy when a fellow blogger gets pregnant. I want to be able to post a positive pregnancy test!  But the one thing that I try to keep in mind is that every IF person that gets pregnant is a win for all infertiles. A pregnancy means that treatment is working! It means that no matter how many problems that couple has, their doctor has somehow worked around those obstacles!  In addition, a surprise natural pregnancy is hope for the rest of us. So I continue to follow the blogger throughout their pregnancy, supporting them, and hoping that they get their take home baby.

IRL Family and Friends

Again, here comes the jealousy.  But whenever a friend gets pregnant I am very excited for them.  I want to see their belly pictures; I want to hear how they are doing.  (Hopefully this is research for a future pregnancy!)  I have expanded the number of people that I have told about our infertility- certainly not shouting it out to the world, but at least telling people that I see or talk to fairly often.  Recently I had dinner with one of my friends from college whom I hadn’t seen in a few years (someone that I hadn’t told about our troubles).  I noticed when I ordered a drink that she didn’t (but didn’t say anything) and after she asked the waitress if a cheese was pasteurized, I knew.  After ordering, she gave me the low down- that she and her husband recently decided that they wanted to try for their second child and got pregnant the first month.  Ahhh a super fertile friend (her first pregnancy was an oops).  But she happens to have a sister that is infertile and had to go the IVF route, so she quickly followed it up by saying that she realized that she was VERY lucky and that not everyone is as lucky as her.  I do believe that because I have told more friends what is going on, it has been helpful as they are more sensitive in what they say to me.  And if they do say something that upsets me, I try to recognize that it is coming from a good place and/or educate them as to why their comment was hurtful/not helpful.

A lot of my college friends had kids early on so they have been done for a while.  A bunch of my law school friends have recently finished having kids and others are on the cusp of trying.  But no one that is trying lives around me so I won’t have to deal with hanging out around a lot of friends with pregnant bellies and/or going to baby showers.  And people at work are generally older and done having kids so no worries there.  So maybe it helps that I am somewhat protected and in my little bubble of not having to see friends that are pregnant?  Maybe it is just easier to see them on Facebook feeds and not in person?

As far as family in the area, most of my cousins are done having kids.  I have one aunt that I will see at Christmas that now has 8 grandchildren and every time I see her, she asks me when I am going to get pregnant/when CP and I are going to have kids.  I’ll be honest- it makes me want to punch her in the mouth.  Maybe I should tell her about my surgery last year- that has seemed to quiet CP’s family who no longer ask if/when we are going to have kids.  For the most part, family members are respectful and don’t ask over and over about when we will spawn although with our third anniversary coming up, I’m sure most of them are asking the question to themselves…..

Facebook Friends

Jealousy blah blah blah.  I’ll be honest, there are a few people that I am Facebook friends with that I didn’t really get along with when I went to school with them.  (I guess a good question is why am I FB friends with them???)  When I see them get pregnant and post kid pictures on their walls, I kind of want to punch them.  I don’t cope very well with pictures of their baby bellies or their kids, so maybe I should just unfriend them?

But for people that I was friends with that I don’t necessarily keep in touch with all that much, I am happy for them, while of course jealous.  Only ONE person out of my 590 Facebook friends has mentioned having trouble getting pregnant/going through infertility treatments- and it was shockingly a guy!  He mentioned once on his FB feed about going in for IVF the next day.  But other than that, I have no idea if other friends had trouble getting/staying pregnant so I try to use the same rationale of the random pregnant woman- who knows what their story is so you can’t hate them.  I also try not to worry about status updates- I can always hide people if need be and they may not know an infertile person.....so I take their posts with a grain of salt.  My view is that I wasn’t sensitive to infertility before we started trying so I shouldn’t expect others to be if they have no life experience with it. 

In the end, I can either let infertility control my entire life and be bitter about everything, or I can continue to live my life.  (While jealously is an ongoing theme, I make sure that it doesn't take over my emotions.  There are positives to not being pregnant.)  Just because I am having a problem doesn’t mean that I want other people to have to go through infertility as well.  So unless someone throws their fertility in my face or says something stupid/ignorant, I am as happy for them as I can be.  We all have our own battles and things to deal with…infertility is mine and I do my best to not let it affect others.

What do you do to cope with infertility?

ICLW

Wow I can’t believe that I haven’t participated in ICLW (aka International Comment Leaving Week) since April!  Well, let me get you up to speed in what has been going on in our life since then.  (If you want the very basics about me they can be found here.)  

Sadly, IUI #2 and IUI #3 in May did not work. But we had other things to worry about because my husband CP got a job offer in Chicago.  Amazingly, we were able to sell our house in 8 days, I was able to get my job transferred to the Chicago office, and we had a final consultation with our RE before CP left for IL. 

A day after CP got to Chicago, he went to an open house for a place that had been on the market for 60+ days, then brought my father back for a second opinion the next day.  He then put an offer on the house without me even seeing it in person.  I was stuck in CT for six weeks while waiting for the sale of our house to go through while CP stayed in an extended stay hotel and started his new position.  Because we were away from each other during the right time of the month, we had to suspend baby making activities.  We were also saddened to find out that CP’s company somehow gets around the mandated infertility coverage requirement in IL and we had no coverage for IVF.  

In the beginning of August I started my new job (well, transferred job) and am still hoping for more work.  We moved into our new house and I posted pictures showing just how much work needed to be done on our new house.  After about a month in the house we finally had one room complete and a working kitchen.   Then just last week our older dog had to go in for emergency surgery for bloat. Thankfully she made it through the surgery and is doing much better.

This month we are hoping that we have a surprise pregnancy, but not counting on it.  We are looking forward to our appointment with our new RE on October 1^st.

Non sequitur thoughts

Thanks to all that played PLAY MY DOCTOR!  In the end, I decided to take it because after spending thousands of dollars, what's a few more in the grand scheme of things?  The leaking still sucks.

With CP in Europe, progress has slowed down on house. I thought that I would have a ton of time to work on the house while he was gone and was quite ambitious in promising all of the projects that I was going to get done.  HA HA HA.  Whoops.  Although last night I did unpack a box of blankets because I was cold while on the couch watching tv.  (FAIL)  I planned a couple of activities this weekend which means I am going to be busy in the city instead of at home doing more work.  

Speaking of this weekend, my Storm the Stadium race is coming up on Saturday.  Wanna know how many times I have done stairs?  I total of ONE time.  Another FAIL.  My excuse was that I didn't like to sweat during my lunch period and that it was too annoying to bring workout clothes on the train/commute/etc.  I did have a thought about starting to run again this week but now I don't want to tire my legs out for the race.  Here's hoping my EXTRA EXTRA RESTED legs carry me through the race.  (Buries head in shame)

Also on Saturday is an exciting day for Fuzzy Britches- she gets her surgery stitches out!  Once they are out we have to wait another day and then we can start to talk her on walks again and she will be allowed to climb stairs. I really can't wait for her to be able to climb stairs again because it has been really weird to not have the dogs in our bedroom at night.  If Buster has been around I have been keeping the two of them downstairs (so that he can keep her company), if he has been away I have been sleeping on the couch.  The one thing that she is going to miss is the Trader Joe's mini meatballs....we have been hiding her pain pills and antibiotics in them to mask their bad and bitter taste.

Quick rant here: time zones seriously suck.  Having CP in Europe 7 hours in advance is no fun.  His company hasn't given him an international phone just yet, the calling card his coworker gave him also hasn't worked so the past two days he had to borrow a coworker's phone so that he could give me a call.  And of course I'm at work so I can't talk for a long period of time.  We both downloaded Skype on our phones and hopefully that works for the rest of his trip.

What are your non sequitur thoughts for the day?

Play my doctor

Come on down!  It’s time to play PLAY MY DOCTOR!

Here is the scenario.  I ovulated this weekend and CP and I correctly timed our bedroom activities.  I have a short luteal phase which means that I need the drug Crinone to extend my luteal phase to even have a chance of an embryo to implant in my uterus.   The dilemma is this- in the two+ years that CP and I have been trying both naturally and through IUIs, we have failed to become pregnant even ONCE.  (I guess it’s possible that an egg did fertilize at some point, but there was no implantation because of my luteal phase defect, but we will never know.)  So if we have any chance of this month becoming a really happy month (aka I finally get pregnant month), I have to use the Crinone.

HOWEVER, we already know that IVF is going to be expensive and possibly the only way that we get pregnant.  Insurance covers NOTHING.  I have heard that the drugs are the most expensive part, and I would think that Crinone would have to be part of my drug regime when we finally start the IVF process.  I have maybe a box and a half of Crinone left (there are 15 sticks per box) and I would have to use one a day.  Not to mention the mess that comes with using Crinone…  I haven’t met with our new RE just yet (Oct 1^st) so I don’t feel comfortable calling her to ask what she thinks.  She probably hasn’t even looked at my medical records yet.

So what would you do?  (tick tock tick tock)  Your options are:

1.        Take the Crinone.  You never know when it could be your month!

2.       Don’t take the Crinone and hold onto your stash until IVF treatment.

Blog friends- what do you think??

                              -----------------------------------------------------------

On another infertility note, with CP galavanting around England and Ireland for work, my next door neighbors invited me over for a casual BBQ with friends.  It ended up being a small gathering with my neighbors and two other couples, along with all of their kids.  When everyone found out that I didn’t have kids, I got the usual “our kids probably make you NOT want to have children.  Ha ha.”  UGH!

While the kids played around us in the backyard, one of the men started talking about Iowa and doing his residency there.  Turns out he is an OBGYN.  Actually, to be more specific, he is an infertility specialist.  I froze when I heard that.  I was wondering where this conversation was going to go and if I would have to excuse myself.  I just shut my mouth and decided not to talk for fear of outing myself as an infertile in front of our new neighbors and their friends.  The doctor then started talking about the practice and I realized that it was the practice that I would be going to in two short weeks.  Luckily his offices are not in the location that I am going to, but the doctor that I am scheduled to see on Oct 1^st shares an office location with him downtown.  I’m sure that doctors talk about patients within the practice (hopefully not with names or addresses!) to bounce ideas, get advice on treatment strategies, etc., but hopefully they don’t talk that much and/or give away identifying information. 

The conversation never took a weird turn and I didn’t end up saying a word.  Most likely the people around me had never needed fertility treatments as they were all, “oh that’s fantastic my friend X probably went to your clinic” and didn’t say anything about having troubles getting pregnant (they all had 2 or 3 kids appropriately spaced apart).  But I would have expected the doctor AND his wife to be a little more sensitive about what they said to me regarding kids.  They have no idea my age, but a married couple in their mid 30s that doesn’t have kids?  It wouldn’t have crossed either of their minds that we may be trying and not succeeding??  Or why not (on account of your job) realize that you  need to be more sensitive in general because who knows what my story is??

Friday bullets

I have been sleeping on the couch on our first floor the past two nights so that Fuzzy Britches doesn’t have to sleep by herself downstairs, but it hasn’t made for a completely deep sleep.  Because of my sleepiness, you guys are getting bullets today!

·         I picked up FB on Weds night and she is doing better than I thought she would be doing.  I had to lift her in and out of the car and could tell that she had dropped some weight.  I told her that just because she felt fat next to Buster, she should not have created the need for this surgery in order to drop some pounds.  ;-)  For the next two weeks she is not allowed to go up and down stairs (other than the two in/out the front door so that she can go to the bathroom), no playing/jumping/etc., and she must be on a leash at all times outside.  We are to keep her safe by not allowing fast movements.  For now that seems to be going okay.

·         I picked Buster up from the boarder last night.  I guess he was fine during the day while playing outside, but they had to move him to a smaller cage at night because they were worried that he was going to break down the door.  I guess the bigger room reminded him that FB was not there with him and it upset him.  WTF are we going to do when FB dies????  He is going to be so distraught.  Even when they are in doggie daycare together he will play for a while, then head over to FB to check on her and make sure she is okay (awwww).  [Just the thought of this is making me cry at work.]  Once I got him home last night he was very gentle with FB (which is not normal) and wanted to snuggle quite a bit with me (that is normal).

This is how I have caught the two of them sleeping before- Buster needing to get as close to FB as possible (he is on the left) while FB tolerates him touching her.

Buster seriously loves to snuggle.  He is bigger than this now, but still tries to get into this position on my lap as much as possible (and I love it, despite his 80 lb weight).

·         CP was in LA for work this week and took the red eye home this morning.  He will be around until tomorrow afternoon when his flight for England leaves.  Yep, CP’s first international trip for work (England and Ireland) is coming up.  Two weeks in Europe; I am so jealous.  I’m trying really hard to not be too jealous and bitter of where he is going to get to go for work…..  I have to keep reminding myself that even though it is going to suck that he is gone, that I will enjoy the hotel points and airline miles at some point in the future.  And maybe he will bring me something back from the trip!

·         Luckily I am close to ovulating- so we have tonight/tomorrow morning to make something happen this month.  Of course I don’t think that I will actually get pregnant, but I won’t see CP for two weeks so we might as well have some fun before he leaves anyway.

·         Not sure how much home improvement work is going to get done with CP gone.  We were thinking that I would paint a bunch, but I may just want to get the kitchen in order and clean the house a bit….

·         CP and I are trying to enjoy the perks of living near Chicago without breaking the bank.  While he is gone in Europe I will be attending the Cardinals/Cubs game with my sister, her boyfriend, and one of my friends.  I’m really excited because the tickets were free AND they are rooftop tickets- which means free food and beer all game long (my first rooftop game!). (Usually rooftop tickets are at least $100 a game.)  Yesterday I was emailed a special through work to go to a Bulls game, so CP and I will be heading to a game in October.  The seats are in the nosebleeds and preseason, but oh well.  The last time I was at a Bulls game Michael Jordan was still playing….so yeah, that’s how long it has been for me.  Finally, Book of Mormon, a play that CP and I have wanted to see for a while, is coming to Chicago!  We are going with my parents in January for my dad’s birthday.  I can’t wait!

Are you looking forward to anything either this weekend or in the next few months?

Emergency surgery

·         After such a happy post on Friday about being really close to have a working kitchen, that happy feeling was delayed a bit. Saturday the contractors from Home Depot showed up at 4pm and were able to hook up the new garbage disposal and the dishwasher, but no one told them that we had put in a new cooktop so they weren’t prepared to hook that up.  They also couldn’t hook up the new faucet.  *groan*  Luckily, CP thought that he could do it, and do it he did.  Color me very impressed.  So yay working kitchen!!  (no thanks to the HD contractors though)

·         To shoo away skunks we bought solar lights to put in the backyard.  We also will be putting in motion detection lights in the hopes of keeping them away (skunks don’t like light).  We’ll see if it works.

·         Now that we have our cable hooked up we get all of the Premium channels for free for two years.  Last year we saw the first episode of Homeland as a teaser, but we didn’t get Showtime so we missed the rest of the season.  Well we have now seen 2.5 episodes and we are hooked!  What a good show.  Can’t wait to catch up with the rest of the first season and watch the upcoming season!

·         The reason that we have only watched half of the third episode is because we were relaxing last night after a long day of home improvement (with a three hour break to watch football- GO EAGLES!), when Fuzzy Britches started acting weird.  She licked her chops and couldn’t get comfortable.  She puked up a small amount of white foam which I have never seen before.  I felt her stomach to see if it was distended, because if it was, then that most likely meant that she had bloat.  Her stomach didn’t feel tight, but as we listened to her labored breathing, we knew that something was wrong and we needed to take her to the emergency vet.

FB in her younger days

The emergency vet immediately took her back for Xrays while CP and I waited nervously in the waiting room.  After a while they led us back into a room and the vet explained that Fuzzy Britches had bloat.  Her stomach hadn’t fully turned and they could perform a procedure where they stick a tube down her throat to try to fix the problem (sorry don’t know the technique), but the vet did say that the technique could work, but then FB could have bloat again tomorrow.  The other option was surgery to correct the bloat and then tack the stomach to the side of the dog’s body so that bloat could almost never happen again.  The vet recommended the surgery over the tube.

We both agreed that despite the ~$5,000 surgery cost, we were going to have the vet perform the surgery.  Although we weren’t expecting this expense, our puppies are our kids right now and FB is still a lively and happy dog (thankfully she hasn’t had any more seizures).  We weren’t going to risk her life to save some money, knowing that bloat could happen again (and possibly at a time when we were not around and not able to respond as quickly as we did).

We walked out of the room and I did my best to hold back the tears as there were others in the waiting room.  CP joked, “well, there go our new windows” but I could see that he was trying to hold back tears too.  We paid for the surgery and then were able to go back to see her before she went into surgery.  They had already given her a sedative so her tongue was hanging farther out of her mouth than usual, she had an IV in her front leg, and I’m not sure that she recognized us.  I was continuing to try to hold back tears, but tried to give her encouragement and tell her that she was good dog.

As CP and I walked out of the building and to our car, I broke down.  I was so worried about her and whether she would make it.  We knew that we caught it early, but was it early enough?  She was an older dog- would that affect her in coming out of surgery?

When we got home it was midnight but I couldn’t sleep until I found out how the surgery went.  I folded clothes, I packed for my work trip, and I tried to busy myself.  Finally at 1:30 the vet called to tell us that she was out of surgery and doing well.  They saw some bruising on her gums which might indicate a problem with clotting, but so far she was doing okay.  They explained that they also took out her spleen because they saw an odd-looking nodule on it and felt it better safe than sorry.  The nodule will get biopsied and we should know the results by next week. 

Poor FB is going to be on pain meds and antibiotics for a few days and needs to rest for the next 10 days.  We will hopefully be able to pick her up from the hospital on Weds when I get back from my work trip.  My parents are thankfully taking Buster to Michigan with them this weekend and during the week we will take him to doggie daycare so that FB can rest during the day.

So my PSA for the day is if you have a large breed female dog that is not spayed yet and the breed is known to bloat, while they are getting spayed you can have them tack the stomach to the side of the dog’s body to prevent bloat from ever happening.  I know that if we ever get another female dog we will be doing just that as I’m sure it is less expensive, the dog doesn’t have to go through two surgeries, and you can have peace of mind for the rest of the dog’s life.

Thank goodness this story has a happy ending….I’m not sure what kind of state I would be in otherwise.  

Making progress

You know how I was complaining that we didn't have any countertops?  Well, I called the company yesterday to tell them that CP had installed the metal piece and asked them to work their magic because we really need a working kitchen.  Work their magic they did- the company called late yesterday afternoon to tell me that the installers would be arriving this morning.  Happy dance!

Get ready for pictures!!

Here is what the kitchen cabinets looked like before spray painting them.  At this point we had the floors refinished and the new double oven installed.

Here are the top cabinets- same ugly yellow color yet they inexplicably have wood cabinet doors.  You can see the wood side piece on the right side of the picture.  

CP worked hard to spray paint all of the metal a creamy white color.  We also took out the hood and the cabinet on the left in the previous picture (hood wasn't working).

CP then built a soffet between the cabinets so that we could hang our microwave/hood combo.

Yay for a working microwave (he still needs to finish the soffet but we need to get the electrician in the house to install a socket in the soffet to plug the microwave in.  CP tried to do it himself and when we turned on the power we heard a POP!  We then decided to leave it to the professional....

CP was then able to vent the microwave/hood out the side of the house (the black vent).  (Side note: how did my husband get so handy??)  CP did take some of the siding color off (whoops) when trying to remove excess caulk on the sides of the vent but we have to replace that anyway....  The other  HUGE vent is the old and now abandoned kitchen vent which is ugly and nasty.  We will have to get a professional to come in, pull it off, and somehow patch up the hole on the side of the house.

We thought about painting the wood cabinet doors the same color as the creamy white metal doors but decided that the color might look odd because of the two different surfaces.  Then CP and I saw a picture of a baby blue wall with white shelves in a kitchen- that was our inspiration.  We decided that we would tie in the creamy white from the metal parts into the wood cabinets by painting the trim white.  As you can see, the result was awful.  What a waste of time.

Originally I was worried that gray wood cabinet doors and the stainless steel appliances would be too industrial looking, but my dad insisted that they would look good.  As you can see in the picture above (the left cabinet), they look much better than the blue.  I still don't love them, but maybe I will change my mind after the room is complete.  Also notice the lovely laminate countertops.

Here's what the house has looked like the past two days without any countertops.

Here are our new granite countertops just installed today!!

Yay for our new cooktop with five burners!

And yay for our new undermounted sink!

Plumber comes tomorrow to hook up the cooktop, hook up the sink, install the new faucet and install the new garbage disposal.  After that WE WILL HAVE A WORKING KITCHEN!!!!  I can't tell you how excited that makes me.  We won't have to eat out every.single.meal!  We can unpack all of our kitchen boxes and free up some space in the garage!

We still have some things to do in the kitchen including figuring out what we want for the backsplash/how to install a backsplash (mental note: must learn how to tile), what color to paint above the top cabinets, painting the window and the ceiling, putting down contact paper so that the paint doesn't scratch off the metal cabinets, and installing all of the cabinets pulls.  But A WORKING KITCHEN!  Big step.

Oh!  And CP and I finally decided on new plates for our house.  We decided to give our old plates away in CT because we had broken a few and they were really large.  We read somewhere that if you eat off smaller plates/plates that have a smaller surface area, you tend to eat less.  While it's hard to find smaller plates these days (especially ones we liked), we went looking for plates that had a raised rim and our goal is to only put food within the smaller circle.

We ended up finding these at Pier 1....and we mixed it up a bit by buying pieces from two different sets.  We bought the large and small plates pictured below...

Martillo Dinnerware in Creme Brulee 

But because we were not huge fans of the bowls and mugs and wanted to spice it up a bit, we bought bowls and mugs from this collection:

"Sanctuary Dinnerware" from Pier1 

Pattern inside of the bowl.

Mugs!

The sets actually go really well together and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the pattern on the sanctuary bowls and mugs (the plates didn't have the raised rim that we wanted).

Doing the happy dance this Friday afternoon!  Have a great weekend!

Skunk

Last night as I got into bed, CP took Buster out for one last pee before bed.  I wish that I hadn’t insisted on it.  A minute later CP yelled into the house “Buster just got sprayed by a skunk!”  At first I thought that CP was joking, but sadly, he was not.  All I wanted to do after watching Clinton’s speech at the DNC was to go to bed.  That was clearly not going to happen.

I threw on my flip flops and headed down the stairs.  Poor Buster ran into the house, blinking his eyes furiously as I’m pretty sure the skunk hit him straight in the face (we are watching him closely to make sure he doesn’t get an eye infection).  He started trying to go upstairs but I wouldn’t let him.  I finally got him outside once again and I started looking up the homemade recipe for de-skunking a dog.  CP grabbed his shoes, got in the car and headed out to find an open store for hydrogen peroxide (1 quart), baking soda (1/4 cup), and liquid dish soap (2 tablespoons).  I kept Buster outside, trying to console him without actually touching him and also got him a wet towel to wipe his head and hopefully help his eyes.

Luckily Walgreens was open at 11pm on a weekday and CP was able to grab all of the supplies (and a bucket).  I poured everything together and mixed it up with a stick.  CP claimed that the smell was making him nauseous so I grabbed Buster and rubbed the homemade concoction all over his body, (focusing mainly on his head and neck) massaging it in for 10 minutes as per the internet directions.  After washing him off with the hose (thank goodness we had the plumber re-do the piping for the outside spigot AND that we had already hooked up the hose), I dried him off with a towel.

Buster got to sleep in the kitchen last night (poor buddy).  I jumped in the shower while CP took the towel and our stinky clothes and started the washer.  I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to shower with so I used a scrub, regular soap, and body wash.  :-)  We opened all of the windows in our house that we could and kept a fan going all night in our room (it still stunk).

This morning when I got to work I realized that although I took another shower this morning, I still have a little skunk smell on me and oddly enough, on my phone (ewww).  Hopefully it comes off soon.  Buster has a bit of a smell left on his muzzle, but otherwise smells fine.  I’m hoping our house smells better than when I left it this morning.

I’d love to say that Buster has now learned his lesson, but he is still young and I don’t know if he will learn as quickly as FuzzyBritches did with the toad a few years back. Unfortunately, our town seems to be skunk heaven as we smell them ALL THE TIME.  We may need to think about getting motion detection lights in the back of our house to scare away skunks….or else have a lot of de-skunking supplies on hand.  *sigh*

Yesterday in general was a bit of a sh*tshow because CP stayed home in the morning to meet with the guys that were supposed to install our new granite countertops.  After that we would finally have a working kitchen- a cooktop!  A dishwasher!  A new sink!  But after they took off the old laminate countertops, they said that they couldn’t install the granite because one of the metal/steel support pieces was missing.  WTF.  CP was able to go to Home Depot to grab a piece of steel, cut it with his new reciprocal saw and screw it into place last night.  So now we have no countertops and no working sink…..

……and no idea when the installers can come back.  Fantastic.

Sunroom is finished!

WE HAVE A FINISHED ROOM!!!!  It's only one room out of the whole house, but still.  I am so freaking excited I can’t stand it.  It will be my sanctuary away from the mess, ugliness and general outdatedness (yes that is a made-up word) of the rest of the house.  We still need to put things on shelves, buy curtains or blinds, maybe put something up on the wall, but that's for later down the road.

The 14 x 16 sunroom has taken more time than we had hoped for the transformation.  Every day we worked on the room I cursed the person that thought that wood paneling on every surface was a good idea.  

Dirty, nasty carpeting

Poor picture quality, but wood paneling everywhere

Thank goodness for our electric sander because sanding the ceiling was difficult enough with it!  

Sanded sunroom

Then after taking out an ugly bookcase, CP had to get some use out of his miter saw and make two pieces of crown molding.  Let’s just say it took him a few hours to get the cuts right and for two 2-foot pieces he used the entire 12-foot length we bought at Home Depot!  We are learning as we go….

As CP knows, I HATE taping and all of the prep work that goes into painting.  I know that it makes it easier, but I would rather just get to painting!!!  But I reluctantly did it and then primed the stupid walls and ceiling.  That was especially annoying because the roller didn’t cover the separation between the boards….which meant having to do it all by hand with a small brush. 

The primed sunroom already looks better than the wood paneled sunroom.

As we started painting we realized that we would need to figure out what to do with the gas heater that was abandoned back in 1979 (the old man stuffed newspapers from 1979 in it which is how we know it has been AT LEAST that long since he has used it).  CP confirmed with the plumber that the gas line was abandoned and was able to pull the heater out.  But then that left a hole that went straight through the siding.  

Hello sunshine.

What does my brilliant husband do?  He creates a fake access panel (in my biased opinion I think it looks amazing!).

We still have to get someone to do something with the outside though…construction plastic won’t be appropriate come winter time, even with the insulation stuffed into the hole.

Please don't look closely at the siding....we know that it needs to be replaced.

In the end, the blue we picked is brighter than we thought it would be, but at this point it is too late.  It still makes the room nice and cheery

New paint on the ceiling, windows, and walls.....now to just get rid of the carpet.

Last Thursday the carpet installers came, quickly ripped up the old brown/orange nasty carpeting, and installed a stain resistant carpet.

Buster was a fan of the new carpet.

Phew.  The couch fits in the room.

This weekend we mounted our big tv and it's a little big for the space, but there is nothing we can do about that.

So....one room down.  Only 10 more rooms to go.  *sigh*