Movies

Haven't had much to post about lately. I feel like I've just been stuck waiting for this HSG tomorrow. Getting somewhat nervous. Still working on my list of things to talk to the OB about. I feel like lately I'm so behind in my to-do list that I'll never catch up. And the really bad thing is that 95% of the stuff on my to-do list is stuff that I really want to do!

A quick review of this week's movies:
Irresistible: I like Susan Sarandon but this movie was pretty lame. The storey line could have been compressed down to about 45 minutes and it would have been better.

Dr. Dolittle 3: Some movies should carry a big sticker that lists the maximum viewing age. This one's would have said about 13.

Memoirs of a Geisha: I have been saving this one for just the right time and last night was finally that time. Awesome movie. But do read the book first. There is so much depth and explanation that you just can't convey in a movie but add so much to watching the movie. There was a second DVD with a bunch of "featurettes" about various topics that were also interesting. I only watched a few as the movie was long to begin with but I plan to watch the rest of them tonight.

My daughter is becoming as much of a "movie" buff as I am! Sad but true. I do my best to limit it to 2 hours in a given day. Most days she watches 2 30 minute ones. Today we'll be hitting the limit though as the Y is not open and it's raining outside. I have to bribe her to play in between movies. How did we get to this point???!!!

Anyway, I thought I would tell you about the movies that she is most interested in right now. Up until she was almost 2, the Baby Einstein set sufficed for her. Then I made the mistake of getting a Teletubby movie from the library and the poor Baby Einsteins are collecting dust now (waiting for a sibbling!).

Her two favorite movies right now are actually very educational. She likes 123 Count With Me and Do The Alphabet, both Sesame Street videos. Within a week of getting the alphabet one, she was going around naming letters all over the place! Counting is coming along. Her other favorite is The Naughty Noo-Noo by the Teletubbies.

The worst part of kids movies is that you get all these songs stuck in your head. Unfortunately, G only knows one song right now: "the wheels on the bus go round and round". So we sing that one a lot.

Anyway, if you're looking for some good entertainment, I can highly recommend any of these movies. The Baby Einstein set was awesome and I have no regrets about sinking the money in to buying most of them. For any of these, check out half.com and ebay of course as they will be somewhat cheaper used althought not a whole lot.

Thanks (and E: I'm sorry)

Thanks to everyone who sent me well-wishes. They mean a lot to me. My Dad has an appointment next Monday with a lung specialist so hopefully we'll know more then. His appointment is about the same time as my HSG. I had a whole 5 minute appt today with the OB's nurse to do the mountain of paperwork for this thing. At least that's how she made it sound. I had to sign one form and then she read me the pamphlet on what an HSG is. Whopdedoo. She gave me a prescription for an antibiotic as a precaution.

I have to say that I have the most wonderful husband on the planet. This week he found himself on a 4 hour sit in Minni. Okay, for the non-pilot types: He had 4 hours between flights in the Minneapolis airport. He called me up and said he couldn't stand sitting in the crew lounge that long so he was on the train to go to the Mall of America. If any of you reading this know my J, you'll be falling off your chair laughing. My hubby does not like to shop and having him go to any store that doesn't sell chocolate or computer games is like pulling teeth. But he went to the Mall of America to kill some time. He asked if there was anything I wanted. I just happened to know that one of my favorite scrapbook stores is there and it's a huge one, as befits a store in that mall. He asked what I wanted and all I could think to give him to go one was that I like stamping. So he went in and braved "20 women all staring at me" and bought me a set of stamps that I've actually eyed a couple of times. The gift didn't exactly have the element of being a huge surprise, but it was a welcome gift.

I want to take this space to issue a "public" apology to my friend E. It seems that I gave E the address to this blog and then forgot that I had done so. Then I posted an entry when I was in one of my "moods" that wasn't very complementary to her and she was hurt by it. So E, I'm sorry.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming. I'm off to watch a movie. Either "Irresistable" or "Doctor Dolittle 3". I'll let you know.

Dad

Got one of those phone calls today that you dread all your life getting. Mom left a message for me to call. A little background first....

My Dad is 76 years old and has always been in good health. But he smoked for years and years and his Dad died fairly young of emphasema. Last year Dad got a cough that he just couldn't shake. After a round of xrays they diagnosed pneumonia. It took a couple of months for him to really get over it. A few weeks ago he started to get the same cough. They've been running some tests and taking lots of pictures.

So my Mom called today. My heart always skips a beat when it's their number because they hardly ever call me. I call them once a week to check in. They call when something's wrong. Mom left a message that they got the latest test results back and I should call her to find out what will happen next.

I could tell from her tone that things weren't terrible just yet but they weren't peachy either. The latest cat scan shows that he has a tumor in the upper part of his lung. This is the other lung than the one he had problems with last year so this tumor is new since his last round of pictures last year. Tomorrow they'll set up an appointment with a specialist to discuss what's next.

To top off all this drama, my Mom went to the doctor last week and turns out she's had walking pneumonia for a couple of weeks. She had to go back in yesterday for more drugs as it still isn't going away.

I'm just kinda blank right now. My Dad and I have always been close. He comes from a family with great longevity (his mother died at age 98) whilst my mother comes from a family laden with heart disease and 70 is considered old. I always thought I'd end up taking care of my Dad in his old age. I can't imagine life without my Dad. I don't even want to contemplate that.

I started this blog to deal with the issues of my faith in God. I haven't been the praying sort for quite some time now. I haven't had time to digest all this and figure out where it fits for me. But if you are the praying sort and want to throw a thought or a prayer out there for my Dad, I sure would appreciate it.

HSG and Movies

I have an HSG scheduled for noon next Monday. I go in Thursday to do paperwork and get drugs and instructions. I had hoped to have my good friend JE come to the procedure with me but as of yet I don't have anyone else to watch G so I might be going it alone. I'm nervous and excited all at once. I asked the lady scheduling and she said I don't need to make a follow-up appointment just yet. The OB will be doing the actual procedure and she will talk to me afterwards. I've read so many of you that had to wait for days afterwards to get the results and I'm so glad that I won't have to wait. So this week I'll be busy compiling my list of things to talk to her about for the next cycle, assuming that she doesn't find anything during the HSG. I've pretty much talked myself out of doing Clomid this cycle.

Last night I watched 2 of 3 parts of Wives and Daughters. I highly recommend it if you enjoy stuff set in Victorian England. I can't wait to watch the end of it tonight!

CD1

I don't have a whole lot to say today but I feel compelled to commemorate Cycle Day 1. I never thought I'd be so glad for my period to finally show up. A mere 56 days since my m/c started in earnest. So much better than the 90 days it took after the D&C! It does concern me a little that my luteal phase was only 11 days instead of my usual 12, but since I'll be on progesterone in the future I guess it doesn't really matter. So I'll be calling first thing in the morning to schedule my HSG. Still going back and forth on whether to ask them to do Clomid this cycle. Most of me thinks the HSG isn't going to reveal any problems but on the other hand, I don't want to waste a round of Clomid. I just can't decide!

Scrappin' and Hopin'

I've mentioned before that I really like to scrapbook. I was just looking over all my BlogLines subscriptions (great RSS reader by the way!) and I realized that my subs to scrapbooking-related feeds are beginning to outnumber my subs to infertility-related feeds. Hmmmmm..... I'm still trying to analyze what that means really. I hope it's a good sign that I'm not so totally focused on trying to have a baby that I'm missing out on the other things in life. I hope that's what it means. I'm sitting here at 11DPO trying to analyze my general outlook on life right now. I am so ready to move on from this last m/c. I'm ready to find out whatever the HSG is going to tell us. Mostly I'm ready to start trying again. I think J's schedule is going to cooperate very nicely for this next cycle. That gives me hope. Looking outside at all the greenery gives me hope. I just hope it's not an unfounded hope.

Sleep (This one's for you, Tendersoul!)

A while back, Tendersoul posted a comment on my entry about our overnight roadtrip with G:

How on earth did you get her to sleep so well?

Funny you should ask.... A few weeks ago Dooce reminisced about sleep training her daughter who is about the same age as G. After reading it I thought maybe I would write a similar post since we have similar stories.

Well, if you read Dooce's post, that's about my experience with G, except that I did it at 10 months and it only took 3 nights.

I read a lot of books before G was born and I was convinced that sleep would be one of the most important issues for both of us. I think my most favorite book was Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child because that's where I learned the 2 hour rule. Basically, if your child has been awake 2 hours, it's probably time for some type of sleep. Somewhere around 14 months G started to be able to go a little longer, but she was a good 18 months before she could really stretch to 3 or 4 hours. If I could impress on you the one most important lesson I've learned about sleep, Tendersoul, it would be that Golden 2 Hour Rule. Live by it. Set your clock by it. Everyone will be happier, I guarantee it.

So, for the first year or so of G's life, I lived in 2 hour increments, because that's about how long her naps would be. The advice I neglected to follow from the book was to train your child to be able to fall asleep on their own. I will admit it: I nursed and rocked G to sleep for every single nap and every night and all points in between. And I let her have a binky.

Life was pretty hunky dory until about 9 months. Then things started going South. My previously cute, adorable, good sleeping baby was suddenly waking up in the middle of the night and NOT GOING BACK TO SLEEP. Or when she did it would only be for 3 or 4 hours. Things got progressively worse. I vividly remember The Night. G woke up a little after midnight. I duly nursed and rocked her to what I thought was a sleeping state. I got up to put her in her crib. She protested. I sat back down. Repeat ad nauseum until something like 5 am. When she finally allowed herself to be placed in the crib, but only for 2 hours. When she woke up at 7 again I knew that things had to change.

That's when I implemented Ferber and we've never looked back. Ever since then, she's gone down willingly for naps and at nighttime. In fact, many times she will finish her lunch and inform me that it's time for nap-nap. Heaven forbid I ask her to wait a moment because then she will burst into tears. Generally speaking, she sleeps anywhere from 1-3 hours in the day and 10-12 hours at night.

Yes, I know I am blessed.

I know that part of it is that G is a pretty adaptable baby. But I think a larger part of that is the Routine. I'm a stickler about it. We do pretty much the same thing every day and she knows that lunch is ALWAYS followed by a nap. Yes, it cramps my style sometimes. There are days when I'd like to do something else. But then I remember those awful nights of sleep training and decide that sticking to the routine is more important. Much more important!

I will disagree with one point of Dooce's: they use the crib as a time-out area. I'm glad it works for them but it seems counteractive to me. In G's early days I would put her in the crib while she was wide awake and talk to her and play with her. I wanted her to get used to the idea that the crib was a safe, relaxing place. It seems to have worked. Most mornings I can get a good 30 minutes to an hour to myself after she wakes up because she's having fun playing with all the stuffed animals in the crib. Seems to me that using it as a place of punishment would go against that.

If the fates allow me another child, I will definitely follow the 2 hour rule again. I will also nurse and rock to sleep. That was probably the most enjoyable and memorable time for me from G's baby days. Even at 3am! But I will start much earlier getting the child used to making the transition from lap to crib in a half-asleep sort of state. I would still use the Ferber method but I probably wouldn't do it any earlier than I did with G (10 months). So much would depend on the child but I'm not afraid to let a child cry in the short term to achieve long-term good.

This is probably a pretty rambling post because I've been scrapbooking all day and I'm tired! So let me sum up the one most important rule: 2 HOURS OF AWAKE TIME! I highly recommend the Healthy Habits book (in your spare time, you know!) and I would also suggest the Ferber book. Even if you don't have the stomach for CIO (cry it out), he has some good information about sleep stuff in general. The first time I read the book I didn't have any intention of ever letting my child cry for any length of time but by the time we reached the impasse at 10 months I began to understand the wisdom of the necessity of sleep and achieving it by whatever means necessary.

I don't think sleep is necessarily a panacea but I do know that I have a daughter who's never had anything more than a cold or two, developed advanced verbal skills very early, and never ceases to amaze me with her range of knowledge. Is it sleep? Is it genes? Who knows but sleep is golden in this house!

Just Chillin'

I'm feeling rather compelled to make an entry here lest blogland think I've up and died or something. Everything on the TTC front is nominal. I'm halfway through the luteal phase and hopefully next Monday I'll be calling to schedule my HSG. I was looking back at all my charts on FF (all 14 of them!) and realized that not once have I temped through an entire non-pregnancy luteal phase. Well, not entirely true: my very first chart I did but I got a cold/sinus infection halfway through so my temps were skewed. And my second chart was a pregnancy one. So it's been interesting to watch my temps.

In other news I have been hunkering down and getting on with my scrapbooking. Every month I do the previous month's pictures. I got snap-happy in March and took a ton of them. Usually I just do 2 pages for a month; this time I had to do 4. And I still have some more that I'd like to put somewhere. Yesterday I visited my SIL for Easter and the best part of the day was getting some awesome shots of G playing in the back yard. I'm already designing the layout for that day in my head! Plus I am trying to make a neat memory book for my Mom for Mother's Day. Last night I went and found all the photos I have of us together. Precious few: I came up with a grand total of 10. It made me realize that I really need to be more proactive on taking pictures of G and I together.

Yippieeeeee!

This is definitely not a "ducky" kind of day. The weather outside is beautiful. There is a gorgeous bluebird sitting on the tree outside my window. AND FF finally put crosshairs on my chart! I'm pretty certain I'm 3dpo. Which should put my HSG the first week of May. Right at this moment I'm feeling very upbeat and confident that the HSG isn't going to show any problems and that we'll be able to start trying again soon after. Plus get all the benefits of increased fertility after both the miscarriage and the HSG. We'll see.

I went shopping and bought a phone yesterday; a Samsung A920. It's a multimedia phone that plays video and music. Plus I have a Bluetooth headset for it. I feel so trendy!

Calories

I've mentioned before that I'd like to lose a couple of pounds but it just didn't seem to be happening. I decided this week to do something that has worked well for me in the past: I'm counting calories.

Yes, I know it's very 1980ish of me. Who counts calories anymore?! That's like, so, out dude.

But it seems to work. I usually only do it for 4 or 5 days and, while not long enough to actually seem much in the way of results, it's a long enough exercise to open my eyes. I quickly start to realize that the snack of cheese cubes, the extra piece of cornbread, and the cookies at night really add up over time. For my height and activity level, Dr. Google says I can eat just over 2000 calories a day to maintain my present weight. After the tabulation was in on the first day, it was quickly apparant that, even with daily trips to the Y, I was easily consuming enough calories to gain weight.

So I've been really good the past couple of days. I've made decisions about what to eat to keep me in the 2000 calorie range, assuming that the calories I burn while working out will bring down my weight a bit. Yesterday I even decided to forgo a chocolate snack at night in exchange for a second piece of cornbread.

I was doing really good.

Until tonight.

I picked up J at the airport and he said he had a surprise for me. He pulled out a little box and I immediately knew what he had done. No, it wasn't a piece of jewelry. Far better. Sometimes in his travels he happens upon a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory store. Sometimes he actually has time to get me something. My favorite something. Chocolate covered toffee. I love that stuff. I can't resist it. And it must be accompanied by a large glass of milk.

Is it possible that it's only 300 calories per 3" square? Because that's what I'm writing down on my calorie chart.

I think I'll just resume counting next week. After all the toffee is gone.

FINALLY!!!

Just got my results back from Monday: I'm finally down to 3! Last year, it took me 45 days after my D&C to get from almost 200,000 down to 8. This time it took the same amount of time to get from less than 6000 to 3. Go figure.

Yesterday I was having what felt like ovulation pains and my temp was up this morning. I'm not believing it though as my body has faked me out more than once in this journey.

I spent my afternoon today researching cell phones. Last year on the day between the Ultrasound of Death and my D&C, we walked into a Sprint store and I picked out a new phone to replace my ailing one. I ended up with an LG phone which has been an okay phone but I'm ready for a new one. I decided this time I would do some research. I've settled on one but I don't know if I'm ready to fork out the money for it. We get a hugely great deal with Sprint and we've been on the same plan for about 4 years now. We pay about $75 a month for 2 phones and basically unlimited talk time (I've never, ever payed for extra minutes and we don't have a land line so this is our primary means of communication) and that includes web access and unlimited text messaging. So as long as that plan is still available to us, going with a new plan is just not an option. Which means I can't take advantage of the great deals if you sign up with a new line of service. At any rate, I may go shopping tomorrow. You know - just to look.

Random Thoughts

Last week I got an email from a good friend of mine who went through the whole course of fertility treatments years ago and never got a child to show for it. She mentioned that she would have liked to have adopted but that her hubby wouldn't go for it so they never did. She then said that I should consider it.

My first reaction was uh-uh, no way. Even giving momentary consideration to that idea was, in my mind, akin to giving up. One of the women on my blog list recently gave up on the whole fertility game and is now looking to adopt. When I read that I felt so sorry for her because, well, I mean, she lost the game, right? No child of her own.

I told my friend as much and she wrote back to say that I should still consider it. I admire her persaverance.

And for some reason, this issue has been on my mind a lot in recent days. I haven't talked to anyone about it and I'm not sure why I'm writing it here except maybe for posterity.

I've been giving consideration to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, perhaps, in some small way, adopting is not entirely "giving up". Maybe it's just a different path to the same goal: not wanting G to grow up an only child.

So there, I've said it: I am, in the remotest corner of my heart, beginning to give some small consideration to the possibility of adopting a child. Someday.

I'd be curious to hear from you: What do you think about adoption. Is it "giving up"? Is it "settling" for something sub-standard because you can't have a biological child? Can you love an adopted child as much as a biological one? Would the adopted child suffer because G is "my" child and the adopted one isn't? Would G suffer because I would try to "make up" for the adopted one by giving him/her more attention? I have so many questions and I have not yet even begun to work them out. As I said, this is only preliminary but I would love to hear any thoughts you have to share.

Random Thoughts

Last week I got an email from a good friend of mine who went through the whole course of fertility treatments years ago and never got a child to show for it. She mentioned that she would have liked to have adopted but that her hubby wouldn't go for it so they never did. She then said that I should consider it.

My first reaction was uh-uh, no way. Even giving momentary consideration to that idea was, in my mind, akin to giving up. One of the women on my blog list recently gave up on the whole fertility game and is now looking to adopt. When I read that I felt so sorry for her because, well, I mean, she lost the game, right? No child of her own.

I told my friend as much and she wrote back to say that I should still consider it. I admire her persaverance.

And for some reason, this issue has been on my mind a lot in recent days. I haven't talked to anyone about it and I'm not sure why I'm writing it here except maybe for posterity.

I've been giving consideration to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, perhaps, in some small way, adopting is not entirely "giving up". Maybe it's just a different path to the same goal: not wanting G to grow up an only child.

So there, I've said it: I am, in the remotest corner of my heart, beginning to give some small consideration to the possibility of adopting a child. Someday.

I'd be curious to hear from you: What do you think about adoption. Is it "giving up"? Is it "settling" for something sub-standard because you can't have a biological child? Can you love an adopted child as much as a biological one? Would the adopted child suffer because G is "my" child and the adopted one isn't? Would G suffer because I would try to "make up" for the adopted one by giving him/her more attention? I have so many questions and I have not yet even begun to work them out. As I said, this is only preliminary but I would love to hear any thoughts you have to share.

Oh yeah

With all the excitement of my road trip, I actually managed to forget about TTC for a few hours this weekend. But here's a quick update: Last Thursday I thought I might be somewhat close to ovulating. My OPK was where I would expect it to be a few days before a surge. The next morning my temp was up. I actually thought we were on to something. But then my temp went down again yesterday. And the OPK today was exactly the same as Thursday's. I didn't try to take my temp this morning at the hotel but I don't think I missed a whole lot. My CM has dried up though. I'm not exactly sure what an annovulatory cycle looks like. Anyone got any insights? How do you know when to expect AF with an annovulatory cycle? Is it about the same length as a regular cycle?

Road Trip!

I'm finally home recovering from a road trip. This weekend J had to go to a flying refresher class in Cincinnati (about a 3 hour drive from us). At the beginning of the week I asked my niece if she'd like to babysit G for the weekend so I could go visit J overnight and she said sure. Then at rather the last minute she tells me she's got a trackmeet and won't be home till too late for me to drive 3 hours and have any quality time. So I told her we'd just do it another time. On the way home from the Y yesterday morning, I was trying to decide how to tell J I wasn't coming because I knew he'd be disappointed. It took a while, but the thought finally hit me that, hey, I could possibly take G with me.

Some of you might wonder why this thought didn't occur sooner. Let me just say that after 16 good months of sleep training, I am still leary of breaking the sleep routine in any way, shape, form, or fashion. I just rarely ever do anything to interfer with regularly scheduled sleep times and the thought of being away through 2 naps and an overnight just filled me with much trepidation.

But, I'm pleased to report that I decided to do it and have survived to tell about it. G slept about an hour on the way up there and then we didn't get her into bed until almost 10 (this is the child who is up "late" at 8pm!!!). And she was up at 7am (usually it's more like 9am) and she only slept a little on the ride home. But by golly, we're surviving.

Before G was born I considered co-sleeping. J wasn't too keen on it but he agreed to give it a try. Within a week that child was in her own room in a crib. I admire parents who succeed at co-sleeping because I still think there are some huge advantages to it. But it just wasn't for me. And an overnight in a hotel room reminded me of that. Every few hours, my normally solid sleeper would sit up and say "hi hi hi hi". Until one of us rolled over or made some noise to assure her we were still there. I'm sure she'd be a better sleeper if she was used to that situation. But I am just dead tired today. I may be in bed by 9pm!!!!

At any rate, you can read all about G's take on the day in her own blog: Mary Grace. All in all, we had a lot of fun and it was like a mini vacation for us. Now, though, it's time to get serious and lose those few extra pounds!

Living in Narnia

Well, my temp was up to post-ovulation levels today so we'll see what tomorrow's temp holds! I was busy this afternoon and didn't get to POAS!

Last night we finally got around to watching The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's been years since I read the books so I can't say how close they were. I didn't think the series hit you over the head with the underlying Christian theme; in fact, if you didn't know the basis of the books, I'm not sure you would pick up anything more than a tie-in to magic. The special effects were really believable and the characters lovable. I highly recommend it!

POAS OPK

Wow - 3 posts in one day! This was the most cryptic title I could think of. It felt weird to be peeing on a stick again. But it reminded me of how much I hate doing OPKs. I always have a bottle of water sitting around and I have been trying to drink even more than usual lately. I had to remind myself all afternoon not to drink, which, of course, made me even thirstier. And holding the pee is tough for my weak bladder. But I'm happy to report I survived. And I might even do it again tomorrow ;->

If I am rightly interpreting my OPK, I am still a day or two (or maybe more) away from a surge. Although I do rather wonder what effect the lingering HCG has on the OPK.

The main reason I thought I was so close to a surge was my CM. I've had a straight 7 days of very fertile eggwhite CM. I haven't really been able to trust my CM since after my first m/c. Seems like I have fertile CM all the time now. I don't know if that's due to the m/c or having had a baby before or if it had something to do with my Mirena IUD. At any rate, I've certainly got an abundance of it - all through my cycle; even after ovulation. This week has been somewhat enlightening for me because I always wondered if I was confusing CM with semen (hey - they even sound sort of alike!). Now I know for sure that I am not. Dr. Google hasn't provided much insight on this topic. Anyone else have this.... I don't know if problem is the right term for it. Condition?

Car Talk

Yesterday, the price of a gallon of gas at the corner station we usually frequent was $2.39. This morning: $2.75. That's a 15% price increase overnight. And it's not uncommon. I don't know if it's unique to this area or if it's unique to the midwest in general or what, but we never had such dramatic price increases on the Gulf Coast. You might get that kind of increase over a week, but never over a night.

Which got me thinking some more about a new car. I'll admit I've had new-car-itis for a while now. Ever since G got heavy enough that lifting her into the back seat of an Xterra caused back strain. Let's see, that's been almost 2 years now! I've been wanting a plain, 4-door sedan that gets good gas mileage.

For a while I did the research on Hybrids. After a while I decided not to go that route for a variety of reasons (higher upfront cost not really balanced with fuel savings with highway driving). Then I turned my sites to diesel. Back in Houston, we had some friends who owned a Volkswagon Jetta diesel. They had done some aftermarket mods on it and it got upwards of 50-60 MPG highway driving.

Doing a little research today, I learned that the diesel market in Europe is exploding. It's a cleaner burning fuel and much cheaper to produce. Plus diesel engines can be tuned to get much better gas mileage. There are a number of diesel options in Europe. In the states, the only option at the moment for a sedan seems to be the Jetta.

So I'm trying to do all my homework and work the numbers and see where they fall. Basically I have to see if the numbers would actually convince J to give up our sporty Miata because that's what we'd have to do to pay for a new car.

If any of you have any advice or anecdotes to offer on this issue, I'd be most interested to hear them. I'm by no means settled on any one particular thing at this point and I'll take anything into consideration.

No good title for this exceptionally boring post

Finally got a call from my OB's office and they want me to go ahead and do one last beta test next week. Actually, I had decided to do it anyway, just to hopefully see a number finally below 5. I'm hoping anyway.

The last few mornings I keep expecting to see my temp go up to indicate ovulation but I've been disappointed so far. Twice I've had eggwhite CM tinged with red which Dr. Google says is an excellent fertility sign. But mine doesn't seem to be related to ovulation so who knows what it's a sign of. I have decided to break down today and do an OPK just to see if I'm anywhere near a surge. If not then I can stop getting quite so excited over taking my stupid temperature every morning. Of course, if I am in a surge, it'll be that much harder to not "do" anything about it!

As I write this I see a bunny rabbit hopping across my yard. Must be spring. It's the second rabbit I've seen of late. Hope that's a good sign.

11

When I went for my blood draw yesterday the nurse and I were joking about how my number was probably going to be almost there but not quite. The gods must have heard us: my number was 11. Exactly half of last week's 22. I feel like all the signs are there for me to ovulate soon. I'm not going to do OPKs but I am temping. My temp took a nosedive yesterday which in the past has been a sign of impending ovulation for me. So now I'm just waiting for a call from the OB to see whether I need to go get stuck again next week. It's not like it's a huge deal but it does serve as a constant reminder of what once was. I'd really just like to get over that and move on with things, if only my body would let me.

Party Time

I was missing in action this weekend - too busy partying! Saturday April 1st was J and his twin sister's birthday. That night we went out to a local restaurant that serves enormous amounts of food. There were 7 adults there and we went through 2 bottles of wine; I think BIL and I finished off one all by ourselves! And of course, don't forget the huge chocolate cake for desert. G stuffed herself (especially on cake and ice cream!) and she didn't make it to bed till after 9pm. The next evening was another party and we had cake and ice cream again. This morning we had a huge breakfast with my in-laws who were in town. I'm stuffed and I'm sure I gained at least 10#.

Lorem recommended a vegetarian cookbook, Quick Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin. I have to second the recommendation. That one will go on my shelf as a favorite, as will The New Moosewood Cookbook. Last night my BIL dropped by with his sister for a quick tour of our house and I was making one of the recipes from Lemlin's cookbook. I can't remember the name of it but it is with barley and soybeans; not a likely combination but it turned out really good. She commented on how good it looked and smelled. Come to find out, she was once a professional chef. She was probably just being nice but it felt good to be complemnted on one's cooking.

This morning I went for what is hopefully my last beta for a while. I've been keeping careful track of all my expenditures to date this year for trying to get and stay pregnant. So far, I've been billed a little over $1600 of which the insurace company has allowed almost $1200. I've paid not quite $300 of that. Right now, that's 16% of what was billed and almost 25% of what was allowed which seems a bit high to me considering that only $39 was required to meet my deductible and the plan pays 90% of what is covered. Of course, $67 of it was the semen analysis which, in retrospect I shouldn't have had to pay for, but I'm letting it go.

The thing I will be interested to see is progesterone coverage. I've already called and been told they don't cover it but if I do get pregnant, I wonder if I can successfully make a case for them covering it since it's related to sustaining the pregnancy. Anyone have any experience with this? I thought about posting on the FF forums but I never have much luck with getting questions answered on there for some reason. Guess I'm not in the "in" crowd!

I'll close now and get to work on my scrapbook. At the start of every month, I scrapbook at least 2 pages of the previous month's pictures. It's the only way I can keep up with it. When Gracie was about 10 months old I decided to scrapbook all her pictures to date and it was such a pain. By the end of it, I wasn't even enjoying it; it was just too overwhelming of a project. So now I do a little bit each month and it stays fun. I would highly recommend this approach. Even if you don't scrapbook, just organize your pictures on a regular basis. Otherwise things will get out of hand!