Back from our trip!

We made it back from Branson yesterday. The trip went really well. The flights were about 3.5 hours each which is just at my limit for how long I can sit! The sleeping arrangements worked out well too. The first night G was so tired that I don't think she even stirred much. The second night went okay but she was up and raring to go by 6:45. Long day! This morning we both slept in till 10am!! I got to see one show in Branson which was nice but enough. The rest of the time we swam, played at the little playground and went out on the boat. My friend's family numbered almost 50, so G was in her element with plenty of people to get to know. Each family took turns providing supper and the second night was my friend's turn and her hubby made his specialty: Chinese. G and I were in a neck and neck race for gobbling up his chicken fried rice. I stopped after 3 plate fulls (but I was sharing it and I'm sure G ate half of it no kidding). The funniest incident was during G's nap when she managed to reach J's phone off the dresser. We were absolutely positive it was turned off because his battery was almost out. But first we heard the message tone going off and then a few minutes later the ringer went off. G had managed to reach it and turned it on and called several people. One guy called back! I know she was asleep good because she never even stirred when it rang and J keeps his phone on the loudest ringer plus vibrate. When she woke up, she was very distressed, saying "Where's my phone????"!!!!

I got my bloodwork done Tuesday. I really don't expect to hear anything unless something is abnormal. I told him it's been a while since my thyroid was tested so I'll be curious to see if that's off or not. I went and got my progesterone prescription filled and, will miracles never cease, insurance paid for it! I had to pay $10 instead of $5 because it specified the brand Prometrium instead of a generic, but I got 40 100mg pills out of it. I'll be doing them every 12 hours once I've confirmed ovulation.

I still haven't gotten around to getting on the phone with my insurance company about the HSG. I have to be in the mood to argue! But I did get the statements for the septum surgery. Almost $4000 was billed and the insurance company allowed a little over $2500 of it. They paid almost $1700, leaving me to pay $875. Not bad for surgery and considering that they don't technically cover infertility treatments!

So now it's just the waiting game for ovulation. I'm on CD10 today and I'll probably start OPKs in a couple of days. J has a 3 day trip right smack in the middle of what should be my fertile time but I've arranged with my friend JE to keep G one night so we've got it all covered. For not wanting to, I have already managed to invest a lot of hope in this cycle. I try not to think too much about the roller coaster of the last 18 months and facing the possibility of getting on it again for that long. But the fact is there. I always have hated roller coasters.

Appts and Trips

I had my followup appt today. What a waste of time! He didn't even want to see my insicions; he just asked if they were okay. But I did ask him about the bloodwork and he ended up ordering some. Nothing cycle-day specific so I will get it done tomorrow. Also got a script for progesterone that has 5 refills. So I guess he doesn't plan on seeing me for a while unless I get pregnant. I haven't been able to figure out why, but going there really depresses me. I think part of it is that he is so damn optimistic. He kept telling me there's no reason now why I shouldn't be able to get and stay pregnant and that I should get busy working on it. So next week I guess we will.

I am so excited for a good friend of mine. We've known each other since we were 5! Although our lives took very differen paths, we've remained in touch and now our lives our converging again in a way: she is doing her first IVF cycle this month and is just a few days ahead of me in the cycle. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for her success and I think it would be oh so cool if we ended up pregnant together!

We are heading to Branson, Missouri tomorrow. My friend J is down there for a family reunion and we are flying her daughter down and decided to stay a day or two and check out the place. We'll be borrowing a room in a cabin which means sleeping with G which means we'll be doubly tired by the time we get back! But it should be fun and I'm looking forward to the distraction.

Men And Women

A while back, one of the blogs I read mentioned a book, For Women Only. On a whim, I reserved it from the library and read it over the course of two sittings. All I can say is, WOW. Let me warn you: it's written by a Christian woman who holds Biblically-inspired ideals of what a wife should be. Having said that, let me also tell you that even if you disdain the kinds of images that statement may bring up, you're still apt to learn a lot from this book. I don't consider myself a feminist, but neither am I willing to let anyone, including (and maybe especially) my husband, walk over me in any way. I've gotten worse and worse about that as the years go by. Reading this book opened my eyes to the fact that the kind of person that has made me is exactly the kind that undermines her husband's self-image and makes life very difficult for him. I've felt for a while now that there is some distance between us emotionally. I attributed it to the whole journey of trying to conceive another child and all the bumps along the way. Now I'm revisiting it and seeing that it really has nothing to do with my quest for another child and everything to do with how I treat my husband.

I won't try to summarize the book or anything. Just, if you have a spare hour or two, give it a try. It's a light and easy read. But I think a lot of the principals contained in it will give you food for a lot of future thought. There's a companion book For Men Only. I've reserved that one too and I plan to read it before giving it to J. I also plan to suggest he read the woman's book and tell me if it's way off track. But I fear that his response will be that it hits pretty close to home.

Folic Acid

Lorem asked me to clarify what I said about folic acid. Here's one article on the study I heard about. So, extra folic acid can increase your likelihood of multiples during IVF, meaning that it appears to help all the transferred embryos survive. So, while it might not increase your chances of getting pregnant, it seems to me that it might possibly decrease the chance of a miscarriage. Of course, that's not a scientific fact and all the standard disclaimers go along with it, think for yourself, ask your doctor, blah, blah blah!

Saturday Night Ramblings

I'm feeling like quite the pill-head these days. At night I take medicine for my thyroid along with a low-dose aspirin and a folic acid supplement. In the mornings I take a prenatal vitamin. After every meal I take an acidophilus supplement. This is the stuff in yogurt that takes care of excess yeast bacteria. Lorem suggested taking it while on progesterone to ward off yeast infections. Since I'm prone to those, I thought it a good idea and I decided to start them early to make sure there's no side effects. I'm also choosing to take extra folic acid. There was a recent study that showed IVF patients on extra folic acid had higher rates of success. So I'm self-medicating!

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I spent the afternoon blanching and freezing green beans and snow peas. A friend of mine has a garden and brings me goodies. I hate to let all those free green beans go to waste so I'm giving freezing a try. Growing up my Dad gardened extensively and my parents would freeze and can a lot of stuff. I still remember the joy of opening a can of home-grown tomatoes or a container of frozen berries in the middle of winter. I don't think I could ever can by myself, but hopefully freezing will work.

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It's a long story as to how, but yesterday I took charge of my SIL's 3 kids. Do you ever find yourself wondering "how come she can have a child and I can't"? You'd ask that about SIL definitely. Anyway, their ages are 15, 13, and 10. You'd think during the summer nothing would be going on but it was my job to shuttle them all to their various activities: 15 to swimming, 13 to umpiring, and 10 to baseball. The baseball games ended up being cancelled due to all the rain lately, so I took them to the airport to watch the aerobatic competition. It was quite and afternoon of running here and there. I guess that's what I have to look forward to in a few years.

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The other night I watched The Wedding Singer. I was a sophomore/junior in high school in 1985 and this movie brought back some great memories! Last night J and I watched Syriana. If you ever have an opportunity to watch this movie, please run, don't walk, in the opposite direction. Not only does it feature the death of a 6 year old child, the whole movie probably requires being on drugs to understand the plot. There are still a few pieces I'm puzzling over.

Testing

The nurse finally called me back yesterday and said the doc didn't want me to do the CD3 FSH bloodwork. I don't really understand why he wouldn't run all the possible tests just in case. But I have an appt Monday and she said he would go over with me what bloodwork he wants for the rest of the cycle.

I don't know if the septum repair surgery radically changed things but this was one of the most painful periods I think I've ever experienced. It wasn't cramps; it was like the most painful gas pain you could imagine. Is this common for anyone else during their periods? I'm assuming it was something to do with the surgery but I guess I'll ask the doc about it. It was also a very short period which rather concerns me. I went ahead and started the low dose aspirin and I hope it will help.

Plan, does someone have a plan?!

Well, that was a quick call back. The nurse said that I needed to use an OPK and then the day after my surge start prometrium and low dose aspirin. He had mentioned the aspirin at the consultation appt; I think he does that as a standard procedure. She said I should take a test 12 days after starting the progesterone and stop if it's negative. I figured I would cross the bridge of a blood test later. Then she said that was it. I was like, that's it??? Geesh, I can go to my OB for the progesterone. I told her that at our consultation he had mentioned doing routine bloodwork to make sure there were no other issues. She said she didn't see anything about it in his notes. I mentioned doing the CD3 FSH and she said they don't routinely do it but he may want it due to my age. So she's going to talk to him tomorrow when he's in and see. Then she asked if I'd been back for a post-op followup and I admitted I hadn't. So we scheduled an appt for Monday. I figured it would be a good chance to discuss with him exactly what he would test this cycle and also to mention my concerns about confirming things with a bloodtest.

So, I still don't know a whole lot except that I get scared everytime I think about this cycle. I remember back when I used to troll the FF message boards, there was a lady who always had a pregnancy ticker and would reset it at the start of every cycle. So, sometimes it would say something like "I am 0 weeks pregnant". I don't think I'm quite that optimistic. I'd like to be but I'm not. Of course I just looked at J's schedule and he leaves for a 3 day trip on CD14. So I will probably have to work out a visit to him just in case. It seems so quick: there's next week and then the week after that will be time. Who knows, I could be 0 weeks pregnant today!

CD1

On Jan 6, 2005 I had my IUD removed so that we could start trying for a sibling for G. Here we are 18 months, 14 cycles, 2 m/c, and 1 surgery later. This is the first cycle where I've been hesitant at the start. Supposedly I'm all fixed up now. But can I go through another m/c? That's the big question. Lorem has proved that there are no guarantees. Even when you're supposedly all patched up, you can still lose a pregnancy. Is it possible to prepare oneself for that? Again? There's no question that, come ovulation time, we'll be "trying". But right now I feel rather like I'm on the edge of a precipice that stands at a very deep cavern. So deep you could fall forever.

Okay, enough philosophy. My doc said to call his office on the first day of my cycle "to set everything in motion". I have no idea what all will be involved. I'm assuming some bloodwork at least. I don't know if he'll do a mid-cycle ultrasound to check things out or not. I won't be doing Clomid this cycle but I will be doing progesterone. After Lorem's experience I'm going to insist on a blood test before going off the progesterone. I'll certainly be temping and using OPKs. I guess that's why I feel like I'm on the edge of the unknown: not only do I not know if I'll ever have another baby, I don't even know what's going to go on this cycle. Hopefully they'll call soon and put me out of my misery.

Can't a girl get a break over here?

It seems like I've spent the last 18 months on Aunt Flo watch. Mostly I've been hoping that she would NOT show up. A few cycles that I've been waiting out, however, I've been eagerly awaiting her arrival. Take this cycle for instance. I was hoping she'd show Saturday. I was sure she'd be here Sunday. I begged for her to come Monday. See, the problem is that, even though I wasn't temping, I was very sure of when I ovulated based on my CM. So 4 days after I thought I ovulated, we stopped using any protection. So now I keep manually moving my ovulation date and it is getting closer and closer to that BD X on the chart. Translated into English: My ovulation was probably later than I first thought and we're now running the risk of an unintended pregnancy if it gets any later. I might not mind except that this cycle I had lots of sinus/allergy problems and I felt completely free to medicate. With drugs and other things! I suppose the other option is that my luteal phase has lengthened. It went from 12 to 13 days last cycle.

The summary of this rambling post is that I have no idea what's going on with my body! I took my temp this morning but the result was ambiguous; it could have been a pre or post ovulation temp. It could have been an LP dip; it could signal the arrival of AF. No way to tell. No way to know. Only thing I can do is wait.

Insurance

I chatted with my BIL (former OBGyn, currently in private practice) this weekend about my insurance woes, having the HSG payment denied by my insurance company. First off, he agreed with me that in theory the HSG is an infertility diagnostic test that should be covered under that heading. I told him that I had spent time on the phone with both the insurance company and OB's office and got nothing resolved. I said that I guessed I would just have to pay it and continue to fight the insurance company. He strongly advised against doing that. For one thing, once you pay the bill you've lost the doctor's office as an interested party in trying to help you get it resolved. Second, you lose the chance to negotiate any discount. If I remember his explanation correctly (it was after a couple of shots and several glasses of sangria!) it's something about that the doctor's office can't give you a "discount" without offering the same discount to government-paid patients, which of course they don't want to do. However, if you don't pay the bill and it comes down to either sending you to collections or negotiating a lower fee with you, they'll oftentimes take what they can get. He said to delay payment as long as I can and when they threaten to send me to collections, call them up and say that I can't pay the full amount and can they help me out in some fashion. Most insurance companies don't pay the full amount that the doctor bills so most of the time they don't get that much money anyway. The other thing he suggested is investing some more time on the phone with the insurance company and basically stay on the line until you get someone high enough up to explain to me why the HSG isn't covered. He then suggested mentioning to them that they'd hear from my lawyer about it and to also tell them that I would be contacting my congressman about the whole experience. He said insurance companies don't like to get a lot of complaints like that; makes them look bad or something.

I thought I'd share this with you; advice from a doctor about insurance! He went on to say what a crock insurance companies are and how much time his staff spends trying to get them to pay. I told him my experience with trying to get the OB's office to return my call. He didn't seem that surprised. I don't hold out a whole lot of hope that my OB's office is a very "interested party" to begin with, but I am going to take his advice of trying to delay payment as long as possible and then asking for a discount. I am also going to get on the phone one day this week with the insurance company and persist till I get an answer. It'll give me something to do to take my mind off the fact that CD1 should arrive anytime now but doesn't seem to be anywhere in sight!

Pics # 2

I swear blogger is editing my posts behind my back! Okay, here is the picture of our plane:
 

Eeyore

G's favorite movie of late has been "The Tigger Movie". Every time I see Eeyore I have to watch. I found a quiz and sure enough....

Which Pooh character are you?

As one of life's pessemists you always see the gloomy side of situations. But, your enduring and patient nature does mean your decisions are always thoroughly considered before they are made, but once they are, you still lack confidence in them.Life is tough, luckily, so are you.
Take this quiz!

Pics

Can anyone else not see the photos in my previous post? I was trying out Google's new Picasa web albums and Lorem said she couldn't see the photos. At any rate, here are the pictures:

 

Airplanes!

I don't think I've ever blogged about something that, around our house, is a huge deal: airplanes. Not only is J a career airline pilot by day, but he flies our airplane around during his time off. You could say he's obsessed.

So this morning I was driving to the Y when I spotted 3 Stearmans in the pattern. If that carries no name recognition for you, here's a sample:





I've always had a love affair with this plane, even before I met and married J. To me, just seeing one evokes images of a simpler place and time. Yes, I know they were developed for the military and primarily used as military aircraft, but I love them nonetheless. I once told J that if he bought a Stearman I'd get my pilot's license.

Now, mind you, we have a perfectly nice airplane:





It's called a CJ-6A and it's a Chinese military trainer. Ours was built in 1982 which confounds most people; most want to place it in the 50s or earlier. That's probably what attracted J to it: it looks old. It's a great airplane that's relatively cheap to own and maintain. Plus, it's capable of aerobatics which means J can go up and do loops and rolls in it.

But I'm afraid that seeing the Stearmans at the airport today has re-awakened J's desire to have one. It doesn't help that an airport buddy told him a couple weeks ago that there is a Stearman sitting idle in someone's estate that the lawyers just want to get rid of. He's promised J the right of first refusal. He's been talking about it for weeks now and seeing these today, he was practically drooling.

So, there may be a new old airplane in our future. I don't know how things will work out. I may have to start studying for my pilot's license test! I'll let you know.

Happy Happy Happy

I was so incredibly excited late last night to read Lorem's wonderful news: she's finally knocked up again!!!

I first came across Lorem on the message boards at Fertility Friend after I had my first m/c. She had had her first one not too long before that and she was very active on the boards dispensing wisdom and advice from her experience. It didn't take me too long to start reading her blog and coming to the conclusion that I really wasn't alone. Then she had her second m/c. Then she was diagnosed with a septum and had that fixed. The story began to sound strangely familiar as it mirrored my own. Now she's pregnant. For some odd, strange reason, it gives me a ray of hope as I sit awaiting the next cycle to start so that we can start trying again too.

Last night I watched a wonderful Judi Dench movie called Mrs. Henderson Presents. Dench is one of my favorite actresses and this movie did not disappoint. It was wonderfully funny.

The Sky Is Falling

I'm not sure my mood could get much blacker than it's been the last few days. Most cycles I don't have a noticeable problem with PMS. Then it comes from nowhere out of left field to give me a double whammy to make up for lost time. And the roller coaster ride is one hell of a trip. Over the last few days I've vowed to both have no more kids and to have 2 more kids. Depends on which minute, no second, you ask me. J got home last night and all I can say is that we're semi-speaking this morning. After almost 10 years of marriage I have long given up the hope that he can understand that my moods are controlled by and large by uncontrollable hormones. All he knows is that he's not getting any right now and so life just generally sucks for him. I told him if he's lucky in a few days I'll come down on the side of having at least one more and he might have some work to do. If he's lucky.

Anyway.... yesterday I finally got a phone call from the OB's office. This was 14 calendar days / 10 working days from the time I left my first message. The lady left a message saying she had just talked to my insurance company. She said it like she was very proud of herself for actually calling them and then calling me right away. Or maybe I misinterpreted the whole tone. At any rate, I'll be drafting up a letter to the office manager letting her know my story. I don't expect them to do anything to make it better for me; it's way too late for that. But there's a lot of things they can do to make it better for future patients. And I think they deserve to know that. Or at least the future patients deserve that I should try.

The bottom line of the message was that my insurance company simply does not cover an HSG. Even though it's a diagnostic test for infertility and they supposedly cover diagnostic testing. So what, might I ask, is left? They wouldn't pay for the sperm analysis and they won't pay for this. Unless I'm missing something really big, besides bloodwork, there's not a whole lot of testing to do to determine infertility. It just makes me mad that they'll shell out money for birth control and they'll probably even pay up for terminations but they won't pay for the basics of diagnosing and correcting problems. I mean, if I kept trying to get pregnant without knowing about the septum, the chances are very high that I would continue to have miscarriages and the chances are also very high that most of them would require a D&C. So how is it not more financially advantageous for them to pay to correct my problem? I know, it's a losing battle and I'm preaching to the choir. I'm just trying to vent some of my blackness here rather than on my family. I'm still going to try and get them to pay for the HSG. There are other routes I can take to protest this. In the meantime, I'll have to ante up the $1100 for it.

Oh yeah, did I mention that they just raised our insurance premiums? Again.

Let's Eat!

G has finally picked up on the fact that the different meals of the day are called different things. She just can't seem to keep track of what is served when. Like any good Southerner, she came into the kitchen around noon today and announced that she wanted to eat dinner.

I stepped on the scale yesterday and saw that I was up a couple of pounds and outside the range where I like to be. Yesterday I was pretty good in limiting my portions and foregoing the sweets. Today PMS has kicked in in full force and I type this with a bucket of cookies in front of me. At least I had a small portion for lunch and a plate full of farm-fresh tomatoes doesn't have that many calories, does it?

One of the things I like about living in a small town in the midwest is the close proximity of farms and ready availability of fresh-off-the-farm produce this time of year. One of the farms sets up a big trailer in the local Rite-Aid parking lot and can always be counted on for an everchanging buffet of good things to eat. Today was strawberries, early tomatoes, and cucumbers. I passed on the onions (having 2 in the cellar right now), the new potatoes, and the cantelopes. Everything looked so good; it was hard not to go a little wild.

Which brings me to the real reason behind this post: to tell you about the book I just finished. The Omnivore's Dilemma : A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. I don't remember exactly how I came to place this book on my reserve list at the library. By the time it came in, I had forgotten all about it. It's a huge, several-inches thick book. One day I picked it up from my to-read pile and was going to put it back in the bag to return when I started flipping through it. I was hooked. I read almost the entire thing in a matter of a few days. He lost me on the last section but the first three sections were utterly fascinating to me.

I won't spend time reviewing the book as the reviews are pretty complete on the amazon page. If you have any interest whatsoever in the quality of your food or in organic food, I would highly recommend checking it out. Prior to reading the book, I was a die-hard "organic wherever possible" type person. I've since shifted my view a bit and would now classify myself as having more an "eat local wherever possible" view.

Sorrows

Tonight I drowned my sorrows with a second glass of wine and a movie. Saving Face probably wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea but I thought it was a great movie.

Shy

I was a shy child.

Painfully shy. I couldn't bear for others to look at me, much less talk to me.

As I got older, I learned ways to cope. There are a few souls in this world who can take pity on the painfully shy and try to help them. I was fortunate enough to make friends with a few of these people along the way. They in turn introduced me to other people and eased my way into new friendships. I was very fortunate.

Now I find myself at an impasse. At the ripe old age of 37 with a toddler in tow, most people don't think you need any help at all. Certainly you shouldn't need help in something so basic as meeting people and getting to know them.

I have often thought that shyness is a lot like depression in that there must be chemical things going on. A person cannot "positive think" themselves out of a genuine depressed state. Nor can a person wish themself to be less shy and more outgoing.

There was something I really wanted to do today. Really, I did. I wanted to go join a group of ladies like me - ones who have kids. I even drove over to the house where the group was meeting. But in the end, I just couldn't get out of the car. I was paralyzed. After sitting there for 20 minutes I drove home and cried. I hate myself for being this way and yet I am powerless to change it. No matter how much I wanted to get out the car today, I physically could not. I might as well have been quadriplegic.

I've written about a lot of my raw emotions on this site and I really hesitated to write about this one. I know that some of my friends read this blog. This is as raw and open as I get. This is the real me. I'm not happy about it. In fact, I'm downright ashamed of it. But there it is, out on the table for all to see. I hope that someone reading this might somehow recognize themselves in this story and be able to tell me that I'm not alone. J says that I need to just "go out and meet people" but, introvert that he is, even he does not fathom the crippling burden that true shyness brings. I guess you'd think I'd be too shy to share my emotions so freely on such a "public" forum. But because I don't really "know" most of you, I don't find it that hard to do. Now, if you ever invited me over to your house, I'd probably sit in the driveway for half an hour composing myself and even then I might not come in.

Insurance Woes

I haven't even gotten to the specialist bills yet and already I'm having insurance woes. Actually, I strongly suspect that the specialists office has more practice in dealing with thorny insurance issues and will probably likely succeed in actually getting them to pay something.

Anyway, my insurance company denied the $1100+ bills for the HSG, even though my Summary of Benefits clearly states that Infertility Diagnostic Treatment is covered. The first call to my insurance company didn't get me anywhere. The very unhelpful rep suggested I call the OB. 12 days ago I left the first of half a dozen messages for the OB's billing department and am still waiting for a return call. Today I happened to notice that the insurance statements contain the billing codes, so I looked them up. Sure enough, they both related to an HSG. So I got back on the phone with the insurance company, determined to get somewhere. After a very long wait and a return phone call, the answer is that the codes my OB's office used indicate that the HSG was an infertility treatment rather than a diagnostic test, hence the denial.

So I'm back to the OB's office. I just wrote them a letter detailing the problem and exactly what they need to do. I was very nice and professional. I'll save the scathing "no one ever returned my phone call" for after they fix the problem. If I haven't heard from them by Friday, I'm gathering up all my paperwork and showing up at their office. This is ridiculous!

Celebrating # 200

This is post # 200 for me. That made me think of the Bicentennial on July 4, 1976. I was 7.5 years old and my Mom made me a special Bicentennial dress that I wore to school for a parade. I was so very proud of it; can you tell? I guess she was proud enough of the dress to have professional portraits done. This may be the only professional one of me after the age of 2.

The weird dreams continue for me. Last night I discovered an attic; I think it was in the house of my childhood friend. It was filled with treasures from my childhood except that they were treasures I had never seen before. But the dream me seemed to remember them. You'd think if you were going to dream about things that were special to you, you'd actually dream about real things. Go figure. Anyway, I had lots of fun running around pulling out things and telling everyone why they were special to me. My whole family was there of course.

It used to be that weird dreams that I could actually remember were a definitely sign of pregnancy for me. Since there's not even the remotest possibility of that right now I guess it means either that I am changing or that I'm not sleeping well. Maybe some of both.

Anyway, happy 200th!

Good Deeds

In my childhood, one was taught to not draw attention to one's good deeds. Because if one did, one would not receive a reward in heaven for them. And that was the ultimate: the heavenly reward. So, seeing as I have dubious thoughts on God, let alone a heavenly nirvana, I am going to shamelessly plug my good deed for the day.

I have this SIL. She is not the kind of person that I would seek out as a friend. There's many things that she does that I do not approve of or admire. The more I get to know her, the more I don't really like her. But she's family. In fact, she's my husband's twin sister. So I have no choice but to put up with her and no way do I complain to Significant Other. I put up with a whole heck of a lot from her by the way. My hubby knows her for what she is but chooses not to confront her and basically plays to her pretty much.

Recently said SIL has done a string of things that have really pissed me off. Royally. I won't list them here because it's just not worth wasting breath on. A lot of things she does are petty slights intended to wound. And wound they do but if you give word to the hurt, I feel it's somehow giving her a small victory. So most of the time I do my best to ignore her.

Thursday evening she called me up and said that she was going to have surgery on her knee the next day. She wanted my husband (her twin brother) (who also has a phone, mind you) to pick her up afterwards and then take her somewhere Saturday and basically to play nursemaid. I'm sure she had an agenda by calling me instead of him but I quickly cut her off and handed the phone to J, who just happened to be sitting there (note to self: contemplate the possibility of small miracles). There's so much more I could write about this subject but let's just close it with saying the whole incident did nothing to allay my pissed-off feelings towards her.

Of course, being raised in above-said religious tradition, my guilt-feelings are overly developed. I started to feel guilty that I was feeling such..... dare I say the beginnings of hate..... no, that would be too much. But intense dislike. Definitely intense. So I sat down and made her a get-well card and cooked her some cookies. Of course I made J take it to her. And that folks was my good deed for the day. I feel slightly better about harboring such ill-feelings towards a family member. Like I can hang on to those ill-feelings until the next guilt-unburdening ocassion rolls around.

Checking In

It's been a boring last few days really. My only excitement has been trying to get my OB's office to return my phone calls in reference to the HSG bills that my insurance company denied because it was coded incorrectly. I've been leaving messages for them for over a week (the calls always go directly to voicemail). I guess next week I will start making a real nuisance of myself and try calling twice a day.

I woke up one day last week and realized that I had no idea where in my cycle I was. Amazing given how anal I am about tracking it. But I gave up temping while I was sick with the sinus/allergy thing. I thought back and filled in my chart to the best of my memory. Hopefully week after this one will see the start of a new cycle.

I've been cogitating on something for a while now and thought if I blog about it, maybe someone will hold me accountable to actually do it! It was a thought that started with all the problems in trying to find someone to take care of G during my surgery. Out of that, I came to the inevitable conclusion that I really have very few friends close by. I've never been all that good at making new friends, mostly because I've never had the need. I went to school with all the same people since 5th grade. College was hard but I fell in with a few outgoing people and managed. When I went to work, it was in a fairly closed community where everyone seemed to know everyone else and it was just natural to form friendships and hang out together outside of work.

Moving halfway across the country to a new town and a new job was enlightening to say the least. For one thing, I could not have picked a worse company to work for in terms of my fitting in. I was branded a rebel almost from day one and it only got worse with time. Then I moved again to a small town and became a stay-at-home mom. Hence my current position of having very few friends and even fewer venues to meet new ones.

So I've been mulling over what to do. I've decided to make more of an effort to check out the social happenings for Moms and kids. While looking around for events, I came across an organization called MOPS (Moms Of PreSchoolers). There's a local chapter right here in town and another one at a smaller church about 15 minutes away. Now, if you've been reading this blog any length of time, you'll wonder why I'm looking into church organizations. My answer: a very resoundingly firm, I have no idea. I have a very good friend back home (I'll always consider Texas "home") who has never quite given up hope on me. She's a pastor's wife and about the most spiritual person I know. She's still my best friend because, even through this painful journey, she has never once condemned my questionings, as would most people in mainline Christianity I think. She never harasses me about it; just ocassionally encourages. So partly I think I may be doing this to make her somewhat proud of me. Or maybe part of me wants to see if I have any vestiges of faith left.

At any rate, going into an organized group of people like this is so absolutely not my thing. But I'm going to give it a try. Maybe even as early as this week. I figure if nothing else it will help pass the time and give me fresh blogging material ;->

Dreamin'

I think Lorem's weird dreams are spilling over into Ohio. I'm not one to usually remember what I dream and I certainly don't carry images of a dream with me into the day. Last night was different. I dreamt that all of a sudden it was just G and I. I don't know what happened to J. But we were sad so something bad must have happened. I decided that I was going to pack up just a few of our things and hit the road. I told my Mom that I couldn't live with them because that would be disaster. In my dream I went through all the stuff in my house and took only what was necessary: clothes, some toys, my computer, my scrapbooking albums and supplies. Funny what necessities you can boil a life down to. Then I held an estate sale and sold everything that was left over. In my dream I bought the car I want: a Jetta. But somehow we managed to pack all our stuff into it. Maybe I pared down more than I thought. Then we drove off into the sunset I guess. When I woke up, my mind was still going over the lists of keep/don't keep. Just now, cleaning up after lunch, I found myself in the kitchen debating whether I should actually keep one of G's baby forks or just take a picture of it.

While mindlessly walking the treadmill at the Y today I had a lot of time to reflect on what this dream really means. Of course, the first thing I analyzed is why my mind would suddenly put J out of the picture. Granted, this is not a huge leap since, as a pilot, he is gone more often than not. But it did make me stop and think that perhaps I should consciouly devote a little more time to making sure our relationship is as secure as it can be.

Then my mind turned to analyzing why I would dream about getting rid of most of my stuff. When we bought this house, I was so excited because we went from 900 sq ft of living space to over 2000. In the almost 2 years we've been here, we've managed to cram most of the empty space full of stuff. All very justifiable stuff of course. Earlier this year I embarked on a goal of cleaning out the basement and I have a sun-porch full of boxes to prove that I actually did get rid of a lot of stuff. But there's still a lot of stuff I've kept. And maybe part of me wants to shed even more stuff. To not feel so tied down. To feel a bit lighter.

I've gone through phases like this before. It will end in one of two ways: A) a massive cleaning session or B) waiting it out till it passes. I've done both. I'm really not sure where this one will end.

Strange but True

I was sidelined this weekend with an attack of allergies that turned into some serious sinus problems. One of these days I'm going to remember to start taking the Allegra before the allergies get that bad. The last time I had this a couple months ago, I spent 4 nights in a row sleeping up in the chair because my head was so congested I could hardly breath. Last night I laid down and within 5 minutes I was completely and totally stopped up. Not fun. So I consulted Dr. Google. He led me to lots of possible home remedies but the most promising was Hydrotherapy: Wet Sock Treatment (about halfway down the page). Basically you take a hot shower to get your feet all nice and warm. Then you cover your feet with a thin pair of socks that have been soaked in ice water followed by a thick, dry pair of wool socks. I figured it sounded crazy enough to work. It did! The hot shower broke up the congestion and I went to bed with the socks on my feet and the congestion didn't come back all night. Even this morning, it is still gone. Now, I don't think this would be advisable if you were pregnant. But I am a believer in the wet sock treatment. You can bet I'll be doing it again tonight!

The best laid plans

One of the thorniest points of contention in my marriage is this: J always wants to be doing "something fun" and he always wants me to come up with all the ideas and do all the organizing. Mind you, this being expected from a wife whose ideal day consists of sleeping in, reading, and scrapbooking. Inside. All day. So J was so pleased with himself yesterday to come up with a "Plan" for today. He was gonna catch the 9 o'clock flight, we would pick him up at 10 o'clock, then we'd go get breakfast and eat it in the park. Then he and G would go for a run while I sat and read my book. It's a plan we've done before and it actually works well to combine our interests.

So I get up this morning to the sound of heavy rain and my phone ringing. J says the 9 o'clock is oversold and overweight so it's likely he won't get on. And, oh yeah, it's running about half an hour late. From G's room I hear more coughing as she has been congested and feverish all night. Plans just weren't shaping up for the whole park thing.

In the end I drove twice as long as normal through heavy rains and picked J up at almost 11. We went and had Mexican and then on the way home we stopped by SIL's office to get G checked out. Of course she was like the car that doesn't make the weird sound for the mechanic: she was running around, squealing, having the usual amount of fun she has seeing everyone at the office and running in and out of the chart stacks. SIL says it's just a normal summer cold but if the fever persists more than 3 more days we'll give her something.

So that's been our day. Not at all what we'd planned. You'd think I'd be used to that by now....

Speaking of plans, we've got some vacation coming up the end of September and I'm thinking to ditch the kid for a week and explore Nova Scotia. It'll have to be a light trip since, of course, I'm planning to be several months pregnant by that time. Anyway, has anyone done any travelling up that way? Any insights or suggestions?

Pictures!

GRAPHIC PICTURE WARNING!

I can't believe I'm about to post pictures of my insides for all the world to see. But I think they're pretty interesting and I'm sure someone out there will find them interesting too.

This first one is the view looking at the top of my uterus. I'm not sure if at this point they had already puffed it up with carbon dioxide or not. The doc did say that they did the lap first and saw right away that my problem was indeed a septum as opposed to a bicornate (heart-shaped uterus). The skinny brown thing in both pictures is some sort of hook thing attached to the lap.

This one is a close up view of the left side. I've labeled it with all the interesting parts:

Anyone else think that the ovarias are larger than what you would have thought? Anyone else amazed that that little ball of a uterus actually contained a 7lb baby at one point?

The labels are all according to my BIL who is a former OB and presumably knows what he's talking about. The only thing I take issue with is his explanation of what all that yellow stuff is. He claims that's fat. I'm maintaining that it's just yellow tissue.