Goodbye and Hello

I can't say that I'm sad to say goodbye to 2008. It's been a hell of a year. After many months of thinking I would end the year the same way it began - in limbo, I am so relieved to be moving forward. Many disappointments this year, mostly relating to infertility. But there have been many good things too. I am married to the most wonderful person I have ever known. In November our country made a choice to believe in hope and change and in itself. I am comforted by the many connections I've made in blogland.

I have hope. And that is the best gift I can think of. Bring it on 2009. We are so ready.

Happy New Year! Thank goodness for new days, new years, and new chances.

There and back

We had a lovely Christmas Day at home this year. I made cookies and toffee the day before. My Dad came over in the afternoon and I made dinner - walnut crusted pork chops with roasted veggies. Yum.

We had not planned on leaving town, but had a semi-family emergency and flew down to Arizona on Friday. Just returned last night. Phew.

The cycle day 12 ultrasound is tomorrow. It will actually be CD11, but close enough. I am getting nervous that the Letrozole/Femara didn't have any effect. Please let there be some follicles growing! I finished the pills on Saturday with (fortunately) very little side effects. I had a killer headache the first day, and felt a little jittery the first two days. After that...nothing. I feel pretty fortunate, especially since we had to travel.

Hopefully I'll have some good news tomorrow.

Happy Holidays

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas or Happy (belated) Hanukkah. For all the girls that are TTC, I am hopeful that we will all find our babies this year. I'll be toasting to that tomorrow.

Peace and Love.

Random things

Evergreen tagged me on her blog this week to post 7 random facts about myself. I'm terrible at these, but here goes...

Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about you.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end, and include links to their blogs.

Randomness:
1. I lived in 22 places before I was in 2nd grade.

2. When I was almost 5 I fell off a slide head first onto gravel. I had to have stitches and it took the doctor, 2 nurses & my mom to hold me down to give me a shot. I hate needles.

3. I used to play "mother nature" with my best friend in elementary school and we would rescue wild animals and "sweep" the forest floor with branches.

4. I didn't ride on a plane until I was 18. And now I've lost count.

5. I'm allergic to strawberries.

6. We don't watch TV/have cable.

7. I've had dogs, cats, rabbits, pigeons, parakeets, ferrets, a guinea pig, a turtle and fish. Not all at once. :)


OK, sorry if you've done this already! I'm tagging:
PJ, Shelly, Sarah, Missy, Leslie, G, and Shinejil

The after photos

After playing in the snow for about 15 minutes:



His entire underbelly and legs begin to look like the abominable snowman. We actually have to rinse him off in warm water or he gets water all over the house as they melt.

Snow day

It's been snowing for a couple days now and I stayed home today. Yesterday was a bit of a fiasco. Dave and I took transit to work, which requires walking a mile to the bus stop. It was fine in the morning when the snow was only a couple inches. By the time I headed home (early) around noon it was about 5 or 6 inches. A lot to trudge through with my arms full and snow pelting me (yes, pelting) straight at my face. And wouldn't you know it, I left my brand new umbrella on the darn bus in the morning! Grrr.

Other that that, I love the snow. It is so beautiful and the dogs love to play in it. It's quite an adventure taking them out to do their business. We spend about twenty minutes hopping around in it (them) and throwing snowballs (me). Bubba, the schnauzer, likes to eat snow. Especially snowballs. Good times.

Speaking of doggie outtings, they are calling me now. :) Hope you are enjoying your day wherever you are.
Love.

Day 6

Today is the sixth day of our diet. So far so good! The first two days were pure torture! I thought I might beat someone up for a good piece of bread or a potato. :) After the second day it was pretty easy. I do miss things. Especially the beer. I really appreciate all the feedback from everyone. I'm not sure if this will be the right diet for me, but it's worth a shot. I really need to get the cookbook though. I'm getting a little bored with the meals. Although, after the 2 week mark we move into phase two and get to add some foods back in. That makes me happy!

The only problem is that I don't think I've lost any weight. My husband says he can tell, but I just think he's being nice. The scale actually went up a pound. We aren't totally sure that our scale works properly, and that could be the issue. If I haven't lost anything by two weeks, I'm throwing in the towel. They say you should lose 8-13 pounds by then. Humpf.

It's been 10 days since the surgery and I feel pretty good. Mostly back to normal. We go back to the RE today to find out the next step. Keep your fingers crossed that we get to cycle again!

I asked for it...

Well, I'm back at work today. So far so good. I'm pretty tired though and will probably only make it until lunch. Still a little sore and definitely moving slow!

In addition to the post-surgery recovery, I've decided to add a diet to the mix. Crazy a little? Yep. I think it will be OK though. Dave and I are both doing it, and that always makes it easier. Since I can't exercise for a few weeks, I need to do something.

We decided on the South Beach diet. Anyone had any luck with that one? It's supposed to be good for people with PCOS because it's low carb. I wrote our meal plan on a dry erase board near the kitchen and we stocked up on meat and veggies. I purged the fridge of all the no-nos like sweets and bread. I am not usually a big meat eater, and I pretty much live on carbs. This will be a big change. I think the hardest thing to give up will be beer. :( Apparently, it's worse than straight sugar. Bummer.

Recovering

Thank you so much for all the sweet comments and emails. It is so nice to have such a supportive community. You guys are the best!

I am doing really well. Surprisingly very little pain. I did start to notice the shoulder pain from the trapped gas they use in surgery, but I've been keeping my feet up since we got home last night and that seems to help a lot. I have my trusty pain killers too and that doesn't hurt! :) Also, Dave has been amazing and pretty much won't let me lift a finger. I could get used to this! ;)

The surgery went better than I had even hoped. The doctor said, "best possible outcome." As it turned out, the fibroid was a polyp. I'm not totally clear on the difference yet, but I guess that's good. I need to read up on that a bit. And he didn't have to take either of my tubes!!! What we thought was a diseased tube was actually endometriosis (I need to research this some too), and it had attached to the end of my right tube and caused a blockage. The doctor was able to remove all the adhesions and scar tissue and says that both of my tubes are open and ready for business! I was in the recovery room when he told me, so I don't remember all the details, and all I could do was smile. He was so excited to tell me, I don't think he could wait until I was more awake. It was pretty cute.

So, I go back the week after next and I think I'll get to stop the BCP then. So, our next cycle may be much closer than I thought. We'll see how that goes. For now, I'm going to bask in the joy of keeping all my body parts and being (hopefully) fully functional after my recovery.

Big day

Tomorrow is the big day. Surgery is in the afternoon and I can't eat anything after midnight tonight. I can't even have water! It's going to be a long morning. I'm looking forward to getting it over with. I've been running through the possible outcomes and most of them aren't too bad, but you never know what they are going to find in there. Definately nervous about the unknown.

Not sure how coherent I will be, but I will try to post something on Saturday with (some of) the details.

Tonight we are off to our adoption info session! We got our home study packet in the mail yesterday and I've already read through the whole thing. We'll start filling it out this weekend. :) We've had really positive feedback from all the family and friends we've shared this with so far. I appreciate everyone's support and good thoughts.

Well, see you in a few days less one tube and a fibroid!

New plan

It's amazing how fast things change. On our way home from my Mom’s house after Thanksgiving, (we had a good 5 hours in the car) Dave and I had a long talk about this whole infertility experience and whether or not we want to continue with ART (Assisted Reproductive Technology) after my surgery. It’s pretty daunting to think about spending thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars to get pregnant and then have the possibility of failure. This led us to the next step… adoption.

I’ve long thought about adopting. Even if we were able to have biological children (which we still hope to), I believe adoption would be a wonderful thing to do. So, we’ve decided to foster-adopt! I’m so excited about it, and for the first time in quite a while, I have hope.

There is a lot to do before we get qualified, but the process is started. I made the call on Monday to our local DSHS. I was pretty nervous – my hands were shaking. I talked to a social worker and found out about an info class this week! We are going to that tomorrow night, we are already signed up for the required 30 hour class, and our home study paperwork should be in the mail today! After having been in the eternal wait of TTC (trying to conceive), this feels like progress.

I am still having surgery on Friday. After the recovery time, we will continue TTC. I can’t give up on the idea of being pregnant. It’s something I’ve always wanted to experience. I hope that we will be able to experience both.

Hope!