It's finally over!

I don't know why, but I've totally not been looking forward to Christmas. I'm guessing it is because it doesn't mean much when there aren't little kids in the family. I have no nieces or nephews, and obviously no kids of my own, so it is just another day in my opinion.

However, I did have a really good day today. I made a pot roast in the crock pot with potatoes and carrots, and I baked a cherry pie. It was simple and yummy. Adam's mom, brother and his mom's boyfriend came over for dinner and we played Guitar Hero for about 3 hours. It was hilarious. There was a wide range of skill levels between the 5 of us, so it was amusing. It was just a nice night to hang out and spend time with the family.

My side of the family is getting together on Sunday to do our Christmas. My mom, who was stranded in WI, is coming home tomorrow night. It will be me, hubby, my bro and his girlfriend and my parents. We'll end up spending the day watching football and playing Wii.

I am glad though that all this build up to Christmas is over. This is the first year I had to shop on Christmas Eve. I had a good start to shopping (started in Sept.), but for some reason I just couldn't finish. Tomorrow I will start disassembling everything. I need to buy a couple of tubs to put wrapping paper/bags in and I need one for all my fall/Halloween stuff. OH! And I have to remember to buy a large bag to stuff the tree in. I've seen them at several stores, but I just need to remember to grab one.

I'm sitting here typing and talking to Adam at the same time. He just got done saying to me, "We need to have a baby by next Christmas for your sake and mine. Or else the holidays are going to be really miserable." I totally agree.

On a happy note. Remember in one of my early posts I talked about a friend of mine who was pregnant, but the baby had some deformities and just wasn't growing properly. Well, she was born yesterday, on Christmas Eve! That event, in itself, it a miracle. The doctors has suggested my friend abort the pregnancy since there were so many issues - they didn't think it would survive to term. They had a little girl, Daphne Faith. She still has a hole in her lung, so she's on a respirator. There are some other issues, but in my friend's email she didn't make it out to seem like such a huge deal. The doctors has told her not to prepare a nursery, since the baby, if born, would probably not make it home. Well, they are hoping to bring her home in two weeks. Wow, the power of prayer. It is such a miracle she is here. I just continue to pray that she is healthy enough to go home and live a quality life.

Alrighty, I'm off to spend the last hour and half of Christmas day enjoying my husband and the time we have alone together, because I'm hoping this is the last Christmas we will be alone!

I hope you all had a great day! Now we're on to the new year!

White Christmas?!?!?!!

I can't believe Christmas is four days away and we have a foot of snow. Could it be possible that we have a white Christmas this year???? For those of you who don't know. I live in the pacific northwest, more specifically, western WA. We rarely have snow. When we do, it is usually in January, only a dusting or an inch or two and it is gone in 24-48 hours. Well, not this year!

Last weekend we got our typical dusting, but it was COLD! That dusting stuck a round and then last Wednesday it started DUMPING snow. Seriously! We had about 6-8 inches on Friday and now I'm sure we are over a foot! Sadly, we had a minor casualty last night...our gazebo collapsed. I had thought about taking the snow off the top yesterday but I didn't do it. Well, last night, down it went. We heard a crash and hubby and I looked and each other and I said, "gazebo!" We went out and sure enough, it was crumpled. We tried saving it, but it is gone. It is beyond repair. Sad. I got it for my birthday last April from my parents.

Speaking of parents...this Christmas was destined to be a strange one. Initially, my brother (younger, 21 yo) was supposed to leave on Friday for Alaska for 3 months to work on a fish processing boat. We were planning to have our family Christmas before he left. Well, at the last minute it didn't work out so he didn't go. So, back to plan A, Christmas at my parents. Well, on Thursday my mom flew to Wisconsin to surprise her sister who's turning 60. My mom has a large family. There are 8 sisters and 1 brother. All but one was able to make it to the surprise party. My mom was supposed to be back on Tuesday, but she called this morning and said the Minneapolis airport was closed due to weather. She asked how I felt if she stayed there for Christmas. Since it is a very very rare thing that all of them (including my grandmother) are all together especially for Christmas, I told her to go for it!

So, this year, on Christmas day...I don't know what we are going to do. I've never in my 26 years missed a Christmas with my family. I'm thinking I will see if my dad and my brother want to have breakfast together or something. I can't imagine my dad being alone on Christmas. Sad! I at least have my husband and my brother has his girlfriend, but my dad would be home alone with the dogs.

I was also thinking that it would be nice for my husband and his family to all get together on Christmas day. I will have to propose that when he gets up. We were planning to get together on Tuesday, but Christmas day would be the best.

Well, I'm going to go make myself some cocoa, and sit and watch the snow keep on falling...

Vacation!!!

I just wanted to say how freakin' excited I am to have the next two week off! I really need it because work has majorly sucked lately!

Hubby is off with me and we have no plans and totally love it!

Merry Christmas y'all!

I wanna be average!

The average person is right handed - I'm left handed

The average woman in the US is 5'4" - I'm 5'11"

The average woman ovulates regularly - I rarely do at all

The average woman has a vertical uterus: mine is retroverted (tilted back)...

...yep, just learned that. Nice. Thanks gyno for telling me about this, just like you told me about my pcos. I remember the fertility doc mentioning it when she did my initial ultrasound a year ago. I got my records from them because I'm going to the new office in a couple of weeks. They mentioned it all over my records. It made me really nervous at first. I thought I had another obstacle in my way on my road to conceiving. Thankfully, it isn't really that big of a deal, but it just made me thing...geesh, I just want to be "normal" and average. I wonder what that's like - lol

Another thing I learned from looking at my records...my "doctor" did even review some of my appointments until 3 months later!! That's right, THREE MONTHS! What a bunch of crap. This is one of the records:

Performed: 1/18/08 Released: 1/18/08 Reviewed: 4/27/08 Reviewed by: Lorna Marshall

Marshall is/was my doc...

Anywho, just wanted to share. :0)

Here's to new beginnings at a new office! **cheers**

P.S. this is my 50th post! Woohoo :0)

Busy Bee

Whew! I have quite a marathon in front of me. Sometime between now and tomorrow I have to roll up a ton of little ham/cream cheese thingies (yes, technical term ;)), and bake some pumpkin pies for a Christmas party tomorrow. Then I have to figure out what the heck to do for my father-in-law and his girlfriend, AND my bro-in-law for Christmas before Sunday. AND between now and Monday I have 6 dozen cookies to bake. Oh my...busy, busy, busy. On top of that my mom threw me a curve ball. The item we got her for Christmas just happens to be the very same thing she got from her boss. I have to decide if she'd want two, or if I need to come up with something else. Oh my.

Maybe, with all these distractions I can go the weekend without crying myself to sleep, which has seemed to be quite the bad habit this week. Poor hubby, he's such a trooper. I guess that what he's here for, for me to drench his shoulder.

OH! I forgot to mention, I scheduled ANOTHER consultation appointment with the new baby doc. Hopefully this one won't get canceled or rescheduled. It's for January 7. It sounds so far away but really it is less than a month.

Well, wish me luck this weekend. I feel exhausted already! :0)

TMI Alert!

**warning, what you are about to ready may be too much information** -Cathy, you might want to sit this one out :0)

Okay, so I have to ask...has anyone else's sex life totally gone down the dumper since trying to conceive? We have only been married 3 1/2 years, and we are like 80 year olds in our sex life. I am no fiend, but geesh, more than once every 6 weeks would be nice. ESPECIALLY, when TTC. When we are going through a cycle on clomid and ultrasound monitoring we "do" what we are supposed to, when we are supposed to, but it is absolutely no fun. In turn, it has made any "fun time" no fun. It seems like a job.

I have talked to hubby about this several times. He says he gets into a funk - which I TOTALLY can relate to, but doesn't a man want it more often than a woman??? Seriously, back in September, we went 6 weeks. Now we are going on about 4 weeks. I guess the hope of conceiving on months when I'm not taking drugs isn't a possibility. I'm already on cycle day 22. I'm sure if I ovulated it happened already.

Anyway, I've been wanting to vent about this for a while...Ugh....

Funky

Well, here we are December 7. I can hardly believe it. It does not feel like Christmastime. I've been baking cookies, buying gifts, listening to holiday music and decorating the house, and yet, I still am not in the mood.

Christmas is very weird this year. The weather been mild and mostly sunny. My brother is heading off to Alaska for 3 months on the 19th. So for my side of the family, our Christmas will happen next week. My mom is also heading out of town for a few days right before Christmas, so our extended family Christmas party will be happening early this year (next weekend). Then since my husbands parents are divorced we get to celebrate with both of them separately. They were already separated when I met my husband, so I'm used to them not being together, but even after all these years, I think my husband still finds it odd during the holidays. It makes me sad, because he says he never even saw them fight while he was growing up, so their separation and divorce was kind of a shocker.

Me on the other hand grew up with my parents fighting constantly, and many times they separated and threatened divorce. Now, not only are they still together, but they are stronger than ever. Strange how life works.

Anyway, back to my point. The reason I brought it up is because every year around the holidays there is always all this drama between the two of us on our schedule of who we visit when. It is no fun.

So, with all of that on top of this IF crap, I'm not feeling very Christmassy. This last week has been especially bad for me. I don't know if it is PMS, or what. On Thursday night I had a breakdown. I got home from work and I was instantly pissed off...for no particular reason. I was really snippy and finally at 9pm I decided to call it quits and go to bed. I was miserable and I was making A. miserable. I went to bed and just started sobbing.

I've always known that God is in control of my life, and when I need direction or help or whatever that I need to send it up and ask for guidance. I also know that I need to be thankful for things I have and even trials that I go through. The trials part is hard for me. So during my sobs I was praying to God that I was sorry I can't be thankful for all this IF stuff. I am trying and it's not working. So I asked for patients, and I asked that He be patient with me while I try to get my mind straight.

I have no spiritual support from my family or husband. For about three years I was really consistently going to church and I even attended a 1 year bible school. That was a good time in my life. I feel like now that things are seemingly falling about for me, I need to go back to church. I can't support myself alone. I need to surround myself with good Christian people. That is not to say that my family are not Christians or not good people. I just need to go to a place where I can talk freely and openly about God and have people understand or relate. I can't do that at home.

On top of all my frustration with IF, I am really really not happy with my job. I keep going through these phases. I have topped out at my office, there is not where for me to go. I can't see myself in the same position forever. I feel like all I do is get up, go to work, come home, go to bed, get up, go to work...and around and around I go. I have no hobbies, or activities that I do. My husband is gone all week long at work. I don't see him for any amount of time generally until the weekend.

I also feel like a failure. I am having a really really hard time getting started on my exercise routine. I have no excuse. I have a ton of work out equipment set up in the garage. I have exercise videos. I have three dogs that would love to go on walks, AND we have a park four houses away. Then I get pissed because if I would lose some weight I could probably improve my fertility. Ugh.

So, that is why I sobbed. It was a pity party. I ended up getting out of bed and asking my hubby to come and lay down so I could cuddle with him. We talked and he has the same frustrations with work and IF, but he is just not as emotional about it.

There are a few other things that I could rant about, but I'll save that for another time. Dinner is almost ready.

I hope you all have a great week. Two more work weeks until my two week vacation!!! Yahoo!

It's everywhere! It's everywhere!

I just can't escape it. It's everywhere.

Today, I was in Seattle for a seminar my office was putting on. I normally check everyone in and then chill out for the remaining time. Today, I headed to the lobby. They had huge overstuffed chairs, fireplace, etc. I curled up with a book.

WELL...I was sitting there minding my own business, when I heard it. There were two people sitting in the corner. It sounded like a job interview. For some reason I was really distracted by them talking (even though there were people all around rolling their suitcases and music playing). I kept trying to listen. Turns out it was a pharmaceutical company interviewing sales reps (or that's what I got from the convo). And not just any drug...but fertility drugs! I was tempted to go up to them and see if I could get a discount - lol

I heard them say how business has slowed down with the economy, since fertility treatment is an elective treatment. My though was it isn't elective to me...I feel like I have to do it. I want to do it.

Anyway, I just thought it was very interesting of all the conversations I could have overheard it was about fertility drugs.

I know I'm a little early, but HAPPY FRIDAY everyone!

Lies all lies!!!...maybe...

I realized recently that I really despise when people try to be positive when talking about this fertility stuff and say "Don't worry, it'll happen someday" - BS! Now, don't get me wrong. I welcome ALL positive thinking...but don't make promises you have no control over.

Today I had my pap...and my gyno was commenting on how good it was I had my period a few weeks ago. She assumed I had taken Provera...then I told her it was from Clomid. She asked who was prescribing it...HELLOOOOOO! You recommended the sh*tty doctor. I told her it was Dr. Marshall. She said "Oh, ya Lori". I almost corrected her and said her name is Lorna, but it wasn't worth it.

Anywho, at the end of the appointment she wished me happy holidays and said that exact thing "Don't worry, it'll happen - and you'll have to let us know when it does". Whatever! IF (and yes, I mean IF) it happens, they'd be the last to know.

I didn't tell her I'm not going back to her "recommended" doctor. I'm moving on - I feel like busting out into the Rascal Flatts song - lol

I've decided that is just plain isn't nice to tell me it will happen when you have absolutely no idea if it will or not. And I'd rather be on the pessimistic side, that way I won't be so disappointed when we decide to call it quits or when the doc says to give up. I've got to hope for the best, BUT prepare for the worst. There have been several people who have said that to me...ugh...

That's all, I just had to vent a tad.

Holy Cannoli!

Wow, I had quite the holiday weekend! All I can say is busy, busy, busy! I had my grandma and a cousin fly in from Wisconsin for the week (they actually fly home tonight **sad**)

Wednesday: I was "released" from work at about 4pm (yay, and hour early!). I went home and made pumpkin pies, cooked the turkey brine, went to the grocery store and picked up the house. Stayed up until after midnight.

Thursday: Went to my parents around 1pm (after doing about 4 loads of laundry). Had dinner with the family (there were 11 of us). We stayed until about 8pm. Came home stuck the turkey in the brine.Some how I stayed up until 1 or 2 am.

Friday: Completely decked the halls for Christmas, did last minute cleaning, prepared Thankgiving dinner for 4 of us. Mmm...it was so tasty! Mom-in-law and her BF came over. They hung out until aroun 8 or so. Again, I stayed up until after midnight.

Saturday: had nail appointment, went to Costco, came home cleaned - AGAIN - made tacos, had 6 of my aunts, cousins, and grandma over. We played Wii for about 6 hours straight...and it was a blast (we may or may not have been a little tipsy **wink**)! Again, went to sleep around 1:30...

Sunday: didn't get out of bed until 11:30!!! Was a complete slug until 2:30 when I forced myself to get into the shower because I was going to my aunt's house for the final dinner with all the family. I didn't stay very long since I was so pooped. I left around 5:45 and came home and put my pj's on and laid on the couch until....about 11pm! I went to bed but the hubby followed. We laid in bed and talked until about 12...yes, MIDNIGHT! My alarm went off this morning and I about started crying. I'm soooo tired today! Thankfully it's been a fairly busy day at work, so the time has gone by fast.

Now tonight, when I get off work (about 15 mins) I'm driving my mom's car back to her house and getting my car back! YIPEE!!! We traded on Tuesday because my mom drives a Jeep Rubicon and my poor little grandmother couldn't get in and out of it. I have a CR-V, so that was a little easier for her. They are flying out tonight and are taking my aunts car to the airport, so I FINALLY get mine back. I miss it SOOO much!

Things I learned this weekend I'm thankful for:
1. Family (I've always been thanful for them, but I discovered how much more thankful I should be)
2. not being pregnant (I got to drink caffiene, drink alcohol, and not have to take pills or drive to Seattle)
3. last and not at all least - my hubby. He was such a trooper with going to my parents' for Thanksgiving. He really really wanted to go to his mom's, but we compromised. PLUS, he dealt with all 7 of us crazy ladies on Saturday night with all of our A/V needs.

I hope you all had a good holiday weekend. I am counting down the days until my two week vacation. December 19 can't get here soon enough!