2019 Goals- how did I do?

Let's check in on my 2019 goals!

1. Eat at least one vegetarian dinner every week. 

I don't really have control over this as CP is the person that cooks every night, but we did very poorly with this one. I would like to push for this in 2020.

2. Lose 25 pounds this year. 

Well unfortunately this fall I backslid into TERRIBLE habits when I couldn't run anymore and while 
I definitely work out more working from home, my daily step count is terrible. It has

turned into gaining weight....so now I have even more to lose in 2020. :-(

3. Work out for at least 30 minutes at least three times a week. 

This has gone pretty well. I started Morning Meltdown 100 (MM100) through Beachbody this

fall and all of the workouts are less than 30 minutes. Even when I travel I can do the workouts

that don't require weights so I should hit workout #50 TODAY! 

4. Continue monthly dates with CP.

We probably hit this.

5. Get our credit card balance to $0 this year.

Done! We hit this halfway through the year and have continued this even through 

Christmas. Woo hoo!

6. Get a new job. 

Done! I love my new job!

7. Continue to be politically active whether it is writing postcards to voters, contacting my

elected officials about things that are important to me, or participating in marches.

Still doing this. Will likely step up my game in 2020.

8. Run in at least three races this year including the Soldier Field 10 miler.

Done! This spring I did a 10k, Soldier Field 10 miler, and a half marathon. On Thanksgiving

Day I powered through a turkey trot 5k which left me in pain from plantar fasciitis for days (I did

not run at all before the race). I have new shoes (Hoka One One) but still find myself in pain 

because I do some jumping in MM100.

9. Run one race with Izzy this year.

Izzy sprained her ankle right before Thanksgiving so we couldn't do the turkey trot together (I

had signed her up for it). Maybe we can do a race next year?

2019 goals- check-in

Let's check in on my 2019 goals!

1. Eat at least one vegetarian dinner every week. 

Not doing well with this. I have less control as CP is the person to make all of our meals and we certainly eat less red meat than we did a few years ago, but we are not doing vegetarian meals as I had envisioned.

2. Lose 25 pounds this year. 

Ha ha. Dammit. Losing weight is not happening. I've got 6 months to make this happen.

3. Work out for at least 30 minutes at least three times a week. 

This has gone pretty well so far this year. Having to train for the races has kept me at least 

running three times a week but since the half marathon in early June. Starting to travel for 

work has screwed up my consistency but hopefully I can get back into it soon.

4. Continue monthly dates with CP.

We probably have gotten out once a month without the kids. 

5. Get our credit card balance to $0 this year.

Getting my vacation payout from my old job was amazing and it allowed us to pay off our 

credit card debt this month. Woo hoo!

6. Get a new job. 

Done! I love my new job!

7. Continue to be politically active whether it is writing postcards to voters, contacting my

elected officials about things that are important to me, or participating in marches.

8. Run in at least three races this year including the Soldier Field 10 miler.

Done! This spring I did a 10k, Soldier Field 10 miler, and a half marathon.

9. Run one race with Izzy this year.

Still need to find a race to do with Izzy.

Six more months to finish the rest of these!

2019 goals

Since it's almost March, it's probably time to write down my goals for the year. LOL.

1. Eat at least one vegetarian dinner every week. 
While we certainly have been eating less red meat with Weight Watchers, we are eating a lot of chicken. I would like to lessen my environmental impact this year.

2. Lose 25 pounds this year. 

I'm happy with the 25 that I lost last year and would like to lose 25 more to get down to my 

wedding weight.

3. Work out for at least 30 minutes at least three times a week. 

I have started strong so far this year, mostly with 21 Day Fix workouts. I am looking forward 

to Shaun T's new program when it comes out in March and when the weather gets nicer I 

will be spending time running outside.

4. Continue monthly dates with CP.

5. Get our credit card balance to $0 this year.

Recent news stories have me worried about whether we are going to owe taxes this year 

instead of getting a refund....that will certainly hinder our ability to meet this goal but I 

hate throwing money away each month.

6. Get a new job. 

I spent a lot of last year doing informational interviews and working on crafting a good 

resume. I have also spent a lot of time figuring out what exactly I would like to do and what

I have a passion for outside my current job. I have two paths that I am pursing and I would 

like to make 2019 my year to make the jump.

7. Continue to be politically active whether it is writing postcards to voters, contacting my

elected officials about things that are important to me, or participating in marches.

8. Run in at least three races this year including the Soldier Field 10 miler.

I have always wanted to do the Soldier Field 10 miler and I have some other friends on 

board to run this race with me. It's in May so I have some time to prepare.

9. Run one race with Izzy this year.

I need to find a 1 mile race to do with Izzy this year. I think that she would love it!

There we go! Now I have 10.5 months to get these done!

Wrap up on 2018 goals

Since it is February, it's a good time to see how I did on my 2018 goals. LOL.

1. Continue our part vegetarian lifestyle through the year. 

We did great on this for the first half of the year and then fell off the second half. 

We certainly continued to eat less red meat but still ate chicken, turkey, and fish. 

2. Continue to send paper cards to friends for their birthdays. 

Success!

I hear from my friends that they love getting a paper card, so I will definitely continue this.

3. The usual lose weight goal.

Success! 

I got down below 200 before my birthday. I didn't lose any more weight due to the holidays, 
but I at least hit my goal for the year.

4. Be more consistent with working out.

Success!

I really like Beachbody on Demand because whenever I have time I head down to the 
basement to work out. I certainly can't and don't work out every day but would say that I 
work out 3-4 times a week.

5. Continue monthly dates with CP.

Success! 

I think we maybe missed one month all year? The trip to FL for a long weekend without 
the kids was sooooo great as well.

6. Pay down our credit card debt.

Still working on this.

Christmas didn't help....and then being furloughed made it worse....but thankfully I have 
gotten paid again and we are back to working on paying it down. 

7. Continue to be politically active and contact my elected officials when necessary.

Success!

My elected officials have heard from me on lots of different subjects this year. :-)

8. Create a better and more consistent bedtime routine.

Mixed success.

This is certainly tough to do on a consistent basis.

9. Run in at least two races this year.

Success!

I ended up running in three races this year after battling plantar fasciitis most of the year. 
The 5k that I do with coworkers, the 5k that runs right by my house, and a Thanksgiving 
5k that is in another local neighborhood.

Overall, I was much more successful this year in my goals than I have been in the past. I 
believe this was due to making manageable goals and checking in with them quarterly so that
I don't forget about them.

2019 goals in my next post.

Checking in on 2018 goals

We are now halfway through the year so I thought that I would check in on my 2018 goals to see how I am doing.

1. Continue our part vegetarian lifestyle through the year. 

Wavering a bit. We have continued to not eat as much red meat but have started to eat more fish and chicken since CP joined Weight Watchers.

2. Continue to send paper cards to friends for their birthdays. 

On Track! 

3. The usual lose weight goal.

On Track! 

January- 1 lb

February- 2lb

March- 6lb

April- 3.5

May- 1

June- 6

Total over the last 6 months: 19.5 pounds!

Only 5.5 more pounds until I hit my first major goal!

4. Be more consistent with working out.

On Track! Currently working on the Beta section of Beachbody's T25 program and feeling stronger! Trying to figure out what program to work on next when I finish this one. Maybe do it over again? I really like the fact that it is only 30 minutes long.

5. Continue monthly dates with CP.

On Track! We just missed March (but made up for it with two dates in April). No dates planned for July but it will be hard to fit one in with our camping vacation, Wes' 2nd birthday this weekend, and then my surgery on the 20th.

6. Pay down our credit card debt.

Stalled! Our patio was finally completed and we had a few extra additions to our final amount due to the landscaper AND we bought new patio furniture so we are still working on this. 

7. Continue to be politically active and contact my elected officials when necessary.

On Track! Since joining the local Moms Demand Action group I have been busy contacting elected officials and going to marches. I have been calling our governor recently about a gun dealer licensing bill and calling elected officials about the immigrant family separations.

8. Create a better and more consistent bedtime routine.

Working on it!  This week I put myself to bed at 9pm and according to my Fitbit slept for 8 hours that night. It was glorious. I do try to head upstairs by 9:30...especially on the nights prior to getting up at 5am to work out.

9. Run in at least two races this year.

Not completed yet! Due to my left foot issue which is more than just plantar fasciitis (according to my physical therapist), I haven't run any races. I dropped out of Tough Mudder because I haven't run in 8 months and thought that starting up running right now before the race would be a good way to have foot problems again. Currently I don't have any pain while walking so it's getting better but I want to keep it that way for a few weeks before I test out any running. I would like to do the Hot Chocolate race later this year...I'm assuming that I would do the 5K version and not the 15K version though.

Check in on 2018 goals

We are now quarter of the way through the year so I thought that I would check in on my 2018 goals to see how I am doing.

1. Continue our part vegetarian lifestyle through the year. 

On Track! I really can't take much credit with this goal because it is really CP that cooks most of our meals, but we have continued to eat meat only a couple nights a week for dinner (mostly Friday and Saturday). I have been trying to eat more fish when we are out at restaurants instead of eating red meat. We have significantly cut down on the amount of meat eaten in our household.

2. Continue to send paper cards to friends for their birthdays. 

On Track! 

3. The usual lose weight goal.

On Track! As I mentioned before, I was slow in making changes so January I saw a 1 pound weight loss, the same in February. However, March was a better month and I lost 4.5 pounds so I am down 6.5 pounds so far. If I can keep up even just losing 4 pounds a month I will definitely hit the weight that I wanted to hit by my birthday in December and even more! 

4. Be more consistent with working out.

Working on it! Last week I took almost a whole week off of my Beachbody workout because...well, I didn't reallyhave a great excuse. But on Friday and Sunday I was back at it for week 3 and feeling fairly good. My heel pain hasn't lessened with the inserts so no running anytime soon, but I will continue with my workouts as there is a low-impact option. 

I will say that a local mom's group did a pushup challenge for the month of March and I faithfully did my pushups EVERY DAY in March. On the last day we were up to two sets of 31 pushups which meant that I did 62 pushups on Saturday (on my knees of course)! So at least I was consistent with that. This month we are doing a combo of moves every day- situps, planks, leg raises, crunches, and pushups. :-)

5. Continue monthly dates with CP.

On Track! I think that we may have missed going on a date in March, but CP was in Ireland for two of the weekends and we were quite busy the rest of the month. We are going to make up for it by going out two weekends in a row this month. :-)

6. Pay down our credit card debt.

On Track! We are watching our spending and we are so close to paying off our credit card debt. Our work bonuses should be hitting our accounts soon and CP gets three paychecks in the month of May and I get three paychecks in the month of June so between all of those things we should be completely set and may have some money to put into our savings account.

7. Continue to be politically active and contact my elected officials when necessary.

On Track! Since joining the local Moms Demand Action group I have been busy contacting elected officials and going to marches. I also wrote a bunch of postcards for the Postcards to Voters group.

8. Create a better and more consistent bedtime routine.

Working on it! I really am a night owl at heart so I enjoy going to bed later on the weekends...but then it messes up my schedule for the week. Unless I am out and having fun with friends, I need to work on getting to bed on time.

9. Run in at least two races this year.

Not completed yet! I'm still not running yet and had to drop out of the Ragnar Relays (the race from Chicago to Madison, WI) in May. However I am signed up for a Tough Mudder with mom friends in August and there is always the local 5K that runs past our house and the 5K that I do with coworkers in September. Plenty of time to get back into running shape and hopefully with less weight on my body I will be able to run faster than last year!

2018 Goals

2018 Goals

1. Continue our part vegetarian lifestyle through the year. It's better for the planet and better 

for our bodies.

2. Continue to send paper cards to friends for their birthdays. 

3. The usual lose weight goal. I turn 40 at the end of 2018 and I would like to be back below 

200. At the beginning of the year I decided to join Weight Watchers since it helped me lose 

weight before my wedding, so fingers crossed it helps again! I have signed up for 6 months 

and so far it has been eye-opening.

4. Along with the weight goal, I would like to be more consistent with working out. In 2017 I 

did great for half the year, but didn't really start really working out until I finished breastfeeding 

and then got out of my routine as soon as I went to TX. I need to heal my heel before I can 

get back to running/high impact stuff, but there is plenty of stuff that I can do in the meantime.

17 days into the new year and I have yet to work out so this needs to change asap.

5. Continue monthly dates with CP to make sure that our marriage stays strong.

6. Pay down our credit card debt from rehabbing the house within the first six months of the 

year. Unfortunately due to a few unplanned things that happened with our rehab the project 

cost more than was budgeted. We are unsure how we are going to fare during tax season 

this year and CP's bonus will be a lot smaller this year at the new job, so we are going to 

have to stick to tight budgets.

7. Continue to be politically active and contact my elected officials when necessary.

8. Create a better and more consistent bedtime routine. I do think that with getting up early to 

work out, I need to make sure that I am in bed earlier as well. Some days it is great and I'm in 

bed and asleep by 10pm, some days I am up until 10:30pm and then the next day I am tired. 

It needs to be all about consistency.

9. Run in at least two races this year.

Good and Bad

Good: Izzy is feeling much better after her tough Superbowl Sunday ear infection. She is back to normal.

Bad: CP has now come down a fever/sore throat combo which kept him out of work yesterday and had him come home halfway through the day on Monday. He is headed to the doctor today and hopefully he starts to feel better soon.

Good: Last year we set up a dependent care account through my work. The max we can put in is $5000 but we almost quadruple that amount in daycare expenses. I submitted the forms last week and we already got paid! That money allowed us to pay off our car loan on the Prius (we had already paid the car off before but took out another low interest loan through our credit union to pay for siding our house a few years ago). Now we are back to one car payment again. YAY!

Bad: This weekend as I was backing out of our driveway in the minivan I was veering away from the Prius but hit a small retaining wall, scratching up and slightly knocking the front bumper (on one side) out of whack. I was so pissed. The leftover amount of money from the dependent care claim will likely go towards fixing it. Ugh.

Good: We leave for Hawaii in two days! Izzy is very excited to wear her "swimming suit" and to not have to wear a coat or hat. Me too kiddo.

Bad: Nothing bad about a vacation!!

Good: On Monday Izzy's daycare had an in-service day and I had the day off so we had a mommy-daughter day where we went to the local children's museum. Izzy spent most of the time doing crafts that she was super proud of. In addition, we went to the fabric store where Izzy picked out the fabric that I will eventually make into curtains for her new room. I also got blackout material to sew onto curtains in our sunroom to make them heavier to hopefully trap more heat in the room.

Painting with colored ice

Gluing onto a mixed-media masterpiece

Bad: She didn't take a nap that day so she was a little nuts that night. Her napping has gotten better though and I don't think that she is ready to drop her nap just yet (thank goodness).

Good: Recently we signed Izzy up for Highlights the magazine (High Five- the toddler version). Not only does Izzy love getting something in the mail on a monthly basis ("it's mines?"), but she loves the content in the magazine as well! CP and I remember getting Highlights as a kid so we were happy to order it for her. For our big plane ride we got Izzy a book of hidden pictures so hopefully that keeps her busy for a while. (Not being paid to promote this but thought it was a good idea for other toddler parents.)

Bad: We have to read the same magazine every single night. :-/

Good: I have now been outed to my neighbors as being pregnant and everyone is excited. We had a wine party on Saturday night and early on one of the wives noticed that I wasn't drinking. She quietly asked, I said yes, then she announced to everyone the big news (I didn't want to do a big announcement so I was more than happy for her to do it).

Bad: I had let one of the other IVF neighbors know the week before that I was pregnant (she is done having kids) and she was super excited, but didn't get to talk to the other one (tried to have a second kid through IVF and it never worked- now is divorced). I didn't get a chance to speak to her that night so I hope that she is okay.

Good: My job application went in last week and I was selected as one of the best qualified candidates so my boss received my application package (we have a weird way of doing things around here). Yay! Hopefully I will get scheduled for an interview soon.

Bad: My boss literally just came to my door and said that they have to make a decision on the position by February 29th- the day that I get back into the office from vacation. So it looks like I might either have to interview tomorrow or while I am on vacation. Not ideal but if it has to be done, it has to be done. Guess I won't have to out myself as pregnant before the selection is made!

Anniversary

Yesterday was our fourth wedding anniversary (fun fact: we share the same wedding date as the Obamas!). Unfortunately CP had a work trip so he was out of state. I was busy most of the day doing stuff, but this shutdown crap has made me realize that I could never be a stay-at-home wife (especially without kids). I'm sure that I would meet other women that didn't work but it is simply not enough for me.

This year will be a very boring anniversary year. The whole not getting paid thing puts a damper on wanting to spend money on gifts and a fancy dinner, so we are headed out to a nice, but not too expensive restaurant tomorrow night to celebrate. And no gifts. Or maybe the new freezer that we have to buy will be the gift to ourselves. *groan*

Yesterday I also had a doctor's appointment. At this point in my pregnancy I am now going every two weeks. I was listening to an NPR story about the shutdown on my way over to the appointment which made my blood boil so I was certain that my blood pressure would be high. Amazingly enough, it was normal. My belly growth is also normal and the baby's heartbeat sounded good. I did lose a pound in the last two weeks (why can't it be this easy when I am not pregnant? I'm not even trying to lose weight?!?) which the doctor said wasn't a big deal. But she did say to try not to stress too much about my job- this may be a good time to take some extra naps and relax.

But it is hard for me to relax when I know that I have this extra time to get stuff done around the house. Call it nesting, but if I lay around sleeping and watching tv all day I wouldn't feel very good about myself or very accomplished. This is a definite change from a few years ago. Maybe I am finally an adult......

Snippets

CP left for Colombia yesterday.  He gets back late Friday and then is off to Brazil Sat night.  I can handle him gone for this month, but will definitely need him around more next month....  The sooner we get our IVF schedule down, the better so that he can block out dates where he can't travel.

Thankfully CP is leaving me with delicious and super healthy food to eat the rest of the week.  We decided to take a weekend off of home improvement stuff and have a fairly lazy weekend.  Sunday we ended up cooking most of the day, but CP finds that "relaxing."  Weirdo.  We had my parents over for dinner on Sunday night to a Lebanese feast.  Three kinds of hummus (regular, beet hummus and pumpkin hummus), chicken kibbe, small eggplants stuffed with lamb, a winter tabouli salad, fool moudamas, and a red curry soup.  Thankfully my parents took some of the food home, but I definitely have enough food for lunch AND dinner while CP is gone. 

Beets make for a very pink hummus!!

I went to my first fertility acupuncture appointment on Saturday.  Acupuncture is covered by CP's insurance (which I am still on for now), but it doesn't cover IVF.  My insurance covers IVF, but not acupuncture.  Weird.  Anyway, I have had acupuncture before (in high school for pain in my right shoulder.  Nothing else worked- I don't think I could have finished the tennis season that year without it) so it wasn't scary.  I had some fertility-friendly tea, told the acupuncturist way too much about bowel movements, my cycle, whether I had hot or cold feet, my diet, etc. and had a bunch of needles stuck in me.  It was pretty relaxing so I'm headed back next Saturday for another appointment.  CP thinks that I am crazy but whatever.

So technically my one-month dose of Lupron should be fading away as of yesterday, but the symptoms are sure deciding to stick around.  My headaches aren't so bad anymore (more like background headaches), but the body aches and the exhaustion are killing me.  I haven't really been working out too hard because even just a walk with Buster on Sunday made my body feel like it had been hit by a truck yesterday.  I wonder if it is the combination of the Lupron AND the birth control pills?

Our condo out west has been on the market for a month now without any offers.  It would be REALLY REALLY REALLY nice to sell it as we could really use the money towards our current house.  Not having renters in the condo for the past two months has not helped our bank account....

Nor is the $2600 my insurance company is telling me we will have to pay for our IVF meds.  I was expecting to pay at least a little, but the Gonal f is $1770.  I don't know how you ladies without insurance do it.

A plan!

Yesterday was our consult with our new RE.  We had a couple of hiccups- the doctor ran an hour late because of a patient emergency (the nurse called us ahead of time so that we didn’t sit in the waiting room the whole time), the office never received my new patient forms so we had to fill out all 10 pages again, and my previous office in CT never sent over my records, despite the fact that I contacted them months ago about doing so.

Despite the hiccups, the visit went well.  I did some homework prior to the appointment and found out that I may be eligible for a health insurance through my job that would cover IVF and fertility drugs.  I probably don’t need to tell you that THIS WOULD BE HUGE.  Like SAVING SH*T TONS OF MONEY huge.  I am crossing EVERYTHING right now that I will be eligible (I should know in about a month).  If I am able to sign up for this insurance, it wouldn’t kick in until January 1^st.

With that January 1^st date in mind, we discussed an IVF timeline.  I know that CP is chomping at the bit to get going on IVF treatments, but we have three months left in the year and that’s it.  

My current insurance is diagnostic only.  Tomorrow I will go in for baseline bloodwork and the oh-so fun dildo vaginal ultrasound to make sure that my fibroid hasn’t come back (it has been almost a year since my surgery).  Next month I will have a saline ultrasound to make sure that everything is good to go with the first round of IVF.  I will also start birth control pills.  Ahhh the irony of taking birth control pills while infertile…..but they do have a purpose- to shut down my ovaries.  I guess the reason for this is so that all of the follicles (when stimulated with drugs) will ripen at approximately the same time.

Meanwhile, I have to run to the drug store today to grab CP some vitamins that the clinic suggests:  200 mg of Coenzyme Q10, 500 mg of L-Carnitine, and 500 mg of Acetyl-L-Carnitine.  He’s not great about taking his multivitamin so I’m going to have to keep on him to take all of these too!

A plan!  Hope!  Moving forward!  Yay!

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.

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??

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.  

Holiday weekend

Overall, CP and I had a lovely long weekend.  I took off Thursday from work to be home while carpet was installed in the sunroom (pictures of the now-completed room tomorrow).  The same day I met with a chimney inspector who ruined my day by telling me that the fireplace/chimney is unsafe for use and we are going to have to completely rebuild it.  Add another cost to the list!

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were spent at my parent’s place in MI.  It was fantastic to relax, have a few drinks, play some golf, etc. with family and not think about house work.  Everyone on my side of my immediate family knows that we are trying and have been for a while.  I made sure to tell my sister after my surgery about the endometroisis because my doctor did say that it could be genetic.  My sister has always wanted kids (even when I didn’t) so I wanted to tell her about the possibility that she could have endo too.  Right now she and her boyfriend are not thinking marriage or kids so it’s not on her radar quite yet…..which is probably why she made some flippant comments about kids/pregnancy/etc.  The comments hurt me and I will definitely have to talk to her about being a bit more sensitive about the subject around us.

It’s amazing how infertility can seep into everyday life even when you aren’t thinking about it.  CP and I were playing Scattegories with my parents.  The letter was P and the category was medicine/drug.  What does CP come up with?  Progesterone…as in what I took back in February to bring on my period after my fibroid surgery.  Sad but true.  I’m amazed that he even remembered the name of the drug.

On the way home Sunday night CP and I were talking about various things and I didn’t realize that CP had told his sister not just about my surgery, but also that we had been trying for a while without any success.  I’m fine with CP telling her about it because she is not the type to keep secrets.  I don’t think that she is telling the world about what is going on with us, but we are sure that she told her mother and father because we suddenly aren’t hearing any “when are you going to have kids” comments or jokes from either of them….which is actually kind of nice.

Yesterday we were busy with house stuff.  We decided that we hated the paint color we originally picked out for the kitchen cabinets, so we bought a new paint color and I painted everything all over again (grrrr I hate wasted time).  Meanwhile CP built a soffet, hung a microwave/hood from the soffet, then vented the microwave/hood outside.  We then put up the new mount for our tv before crashing on the couch watching Family Guy.  Yes- we finally have internet and cable!!

How was your holiday weekend?