Now We Wait

It happened. Now we play the waiting game.

Planned Pins for December's Pinstrosity Challenge

Pretty excited to try these babies out this month (click picture to be taken to website):

Peppermint Bark Cheesecake

Chocolate Cupcakes with Mint Chocolate Chip Frosting

Peppermint Popcorn Bark

Peppermint Whipped Cream

Fun Times with Pinterest

Anyone who knows me knows I love Pinterest. At least, most of the time I do.

At any rate, I frequently peruse the blog Pinstrosity to see which pins people are doing (and which ones I should stay away from!). They do this challenge thing every month(?) where they give you a theme and you find something you've pinned and do it. It's great for me because I have a lot of pins that would otherwise just sit there. So far I've done October (pumpkin theme) and November (giving back theme) and I have four (yes, four!) pins picked out for December (mint theme).

The fun thing is that when you're done with the project, you send them what you did and they put it on their blog! You can see mine here and here.

Happy pinning!

You're Not Alone

Several years ago when I first started on this infertility journey, I felt very alone. Very, very alone. I had all these questions and it seemed like no one, besides my doctor, to talk to. Over the years, I've become more and more open with people about what we're doing/going through. And to be perfectly honest, it's helped me. A lot.

It used to be when I got the dreaded, "Do you have kids?" question, I'd just say "No." and that word would hang in awkward silence as we would both try to think of the next thing to say. Now, depending on the person I'll say, "No, we've been trying for a long time, but it just hasn't happened." This does two things: 1. It opens up further conversation. 2. If it makes the person uncomfortable, GOOD. I want people to know that that question is more complicated than they realize and sometimes just plain inappropriate.

Thankfully (and not thankfully), I have three friends who were also diagnosed. I say 'thankfully' because having them to talk to has been INCREDIBLY helpful. Sometimes you just need to vent about something that happened and it's nice to have someone to talk to who's going through the same thing as you. It's like a sisterhood.

It's also nice (again unfortunately so, because you don't wish these troubles on anyone) to see things like this video and be reminded that you're not the only one having to deal with this. PREG is where I go for my treatments and they are a wonderful group of folks.

Our fourth IUI didn't work, so we're moving on to IVF. I'm on birth control until November 24th, then I have a baseline ultrasound and bloodwork done on the 26th, start Lupron on the 27th, and start ovarian stimulation on the 29th. From there the doctor monitors how my body responds to the medications I'll be on and schedules the egg retrieval based on that.

Here we go!

Update: FYI...

• 1 in 8 couples (or 12% of married women) have trouble getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy. (2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth, CDC)

Another IUI

As you probably know by now, our 3rd IUI didn't work. I took a couple of weeks and sat on that information until I felt up to thinking about the next step. 

When we moved back here from Kansas City and I started seeing my original fertility doctor again, he told me they typically recommend 3 or 4 IUIs and then move on to IVF. So that's where my mind was when I finally called the nurse to check in and see what the next steps actually were.

Aside: during this time I saw my gynecologist for my yearly exam and when she asked the first day of my last period I answered, "Uhhhhh...the 7th or 8th? I think?" And she looks at me and says, "With you seeing a specialist, I can't believe you don't know the exact day!! I'm surprised your doctor doesn't yell at you!" Weeeeeeeell, sometimes you need a break from keeping track.

Back to my original story. The nurse clarified that when the doctor said 3 or 4 IUIs, he meant when you're not doing injectables (and I am). So she said she would do another IUI using both the pills and injectable. Even if she was talking out of her ass and that's NOT what the doctor meant, I'm not ready for the jump to IVF and was/am more than happy to try another IUI. 

I finished up the letrozole today and did my first injection of gonal-f. I have another injection to do on Thursday I think. Good news on the gonal-f front: the first time I got the script filled it was $300; our need-based application finally went through and this time we only paid $150. NICE.

IVF. IVF. IVF. What to do. What to do. What to do. 

Gut reaction: no. Why no? Reason #1 IT'S A SHIT TON OF MONEY. Reason #2 It feels unnatural to me - like I'd be interfering in my destiny (fate?) that I'm not supposed to have kids. IUI is too, but not to the extent IVF is (my personal feeling). And being eco-minded, I think that maybe not having kids is the more responsible decision. Reason #3 IT'S A SHIT TON OF MONEY. 

Second reaction: what if a certain number of years from now I regret making that decision? I don't want to decide no until I know I won't regret making it. I told the hubs the other day, "I wish there was a Cosmo quiz for this. 'Should you do IVF?? Take this quiz and find out!'" 

And that's that. If you have any tips on how to make this decision, please let me know.

"A Poet of the People"

Last weekend my other half and I went to the Carl Sandburg Home in Flat Rock, NC. I had seen the sign for the home on the side of the highway countless times but had my friend not said we should really go, I'm not sure I would have. And I'm glad we did because we had a blast!

The Carl Sandburg Home is a National Historic Site run by the National Park Service. It costs $5 per person to tour the house, but the grounds, trails, and barn are free.

For those of you who are like me and have no clue who this gentleman was, let me educate for a brief moment. Carl Sandburg was a famous (it surprised me how famous!) writer, folk singer, activist, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and biographer (two for his poetry, one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln). He died June 22, 1967 and his wife sold the property with its contents and cultural resources donated to the National Park Service in 1968. One of the stipulations was that the calendar in the house remain open to June 1967. I wish I had taken a picture of it to show you!

Lake on the way up to the house and goat barn

View of the house from the trail

Trail leading up to the house. When we were heading back to our car a lady yells to us, "Is this hike worth it?!" We said, "Oh, definitely." And then Chris and I both look at each other and say, "Hike??" It was .25 mile and 100 foot elevation gain. Funny.

Lilian Sandburg's (wife) passion was goats and one of the main reasons they moved to North Carolina. All of the goats on the property are descendants of her original goats. Or so they say.

I used to want goats. And then I read parts of the keeping backyard goats book they had in their giftshop.

Chicken butts

Of course I had to take a picture of the piano

Every room was full of books; apparently the collection contains 12,000 volumes. This is actually the dining room. They weren't big tv watchers but every year Zenith would send them the latest television set they had made.

I fell in love with this kitchen and now I'm thinking my dream home will be in the mid-century modern style. ;)

Love it.

Love old appliances. Honestly, I don't even know what this is. Stove/oven?

I know what these are!

This guy's GOATee (haha - get it?) is AWESOME

The goat barn. It was a beautiful day to visit the Carl Sandburg Home.

And I will leave you with a fun little video of Carl Sandburg on What's My Line?.

A Little Bit of This...A Little Bit of That

So there really has only been two things that have occupied my time lately. The job search and fertility stuff.

I was really surprised that it took me as long as it did to find a job. I guess it's a sign of the times. The first job I got was working as a cage cashier at the local casino (graveyard shift). At this point, I didn't care what it was, I just wanted a job. I'm not going to go into detail, but let's just say it wasn't a good fit and I quit.

The next one I got was as a server at a pizza place with the initials of PH. That one was okay and I would've stayed had I not been offered my next two jobs. I was there for such a short amount of time that I never got to serve on my own.

Fast forward through all the boring details and I now have two part-time/temporary jobs: one at the university here and the other at a university in Asheville. I also took a midnight to 7:30am donut making job, but I quit that one after I realized it wasn't going to be what I was hoping.

I have something lined up for the fall, so I'm okay with having temporary positions for the moment. I'll let you know what happens with that when that time comes.

As far as the fertility stuff goes, we decided to do one more IUI. This will be our 3rd and the doctor recommends 3 or 4 before you move on to IVF. Just to give you an idea of the expense, here's what we've wracked up:

• $75 copay (2)
• $75 letrozole (causes more mature eggs to develop; interestingly, also used to treat breast cancer)
• $300 gonal-f injection (stimulates the development of follicles and eggs)
• $450 intrauterine insemination
• TOTAL: $975

The day of my cycle day 12 ultrasound, I had a positive ovulation test. Because it was positive, I technically didn't have to have an ultrasound, but I decided to anyway just to see how many mature follicles I had. Unfortunately, all of the follicles in my left ovary were immature, but I had 3 - possibly 4 - mature ones in my right. The nurse couldn't get a good view of the 4th one to measure it. The maturity is measured by how big the follicles appear in the ultrasound. So TECHNICALLY I could be pregnant with quads, but the odds are very very slim. I mean, I've had two other IUIs and didn't get pregnant so I'm not that concerned. 

I still have one more visit to the doc to get my progesterone level tested this Tuesday. And actually, this is pretty cheap compared to what we paid in Kansas City. Also pretty cheap compared to IVF. At any rate, I take a pregnancy test Tuesday after this and if it's negative, we'll need to look over the IVF packet the doctor sent home with me and make a decision.

Sometimes I get annoyed that we're going through this, but then I realized there are worse things. Like this woman who did 26 IUIs. 

Love

I love my husband. For many different reasons, but the first one that comes to mind right now is...

...because every once in a while, out of the blue, he'll say, "You need to update your blog."

Me: *sigh* I know...

I'm always surprised he actually cares enough to check it. True love, folks. True love.

I do have a lot of write about though. I'll put it on my list to do this weekend.

Happy Earth Day!

When we moved to Kansas City last August, I instantly realized that I had taken western North Carolina for granted. Since moving back, I've made more of an effort to get out and enjoy this beautiful part of the country I'm so blessed to live in.

The weekend after we put Athena to sleep, we went to Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest and hiked the trail there. It's an easy two loops totaling 2 miles. From the USDA Forest Service site: This forest is one of the Nation’s most impressive remnants of old-growth forest. The forest contains magnificent examples of more than 100 tree species, many over 400-years-old, and some more than 20 feet in circumference and 100 feet tall.  

There are some other trails that branch off of the main trail, but we decided to go back and do those once the trees leaf out. Oh! I almost forgot! There are all these warnings posted..."This is an old-growth forest. Beware of falling limbs and trees." This is NO JOKE. We watched a tree fall not even 15 minutes into our hike. If our hearts weren't already pumping from the hike, they were then!

Canopy shot - trees just starting to leaf out

My boys

Q: Why did the Fungi leave the party? A: There wasn't mushroom. 

Trillium grandiflorum

It's the Little Things

Hey look! I've gotten over 1000 repins on this pin!

Nicole Parrish's pin on Pinterest.

Athena: January 31, 2003 - April 7, 2014

We had to put my sweet Thena girl to sleep on Monday. It might possibly be the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

She was diagnosed with hip dysplasia when she was three and had been on pain medication since that time. Over time she had vertebrae fuse and arthritis set in. When we took her to the pain veterinarian in North Carolina last summer, she pointed out that she couldn't move her elbows anymore. Her right knee was so bowed out and thick that the veterinarian in Missouri thought she might have cancer. So she did an x-ray and thankfully it wasn't cancer, but the difference between her good knee, good hip, and bad knee, and bad hip was insane.

It just makes me realize even more what heart she had; to deal with all of that and still be this happy go lucky dog.

Last weekend was finally the point at which I said, 'She's miserable. We're miserable. I think we need to do this soon.' She would start crying because she couldn't get up to get more comfortable and we'd have to pick her up so she could readjust herself. Bad nights were ones where we'd have to get up 5-6+ times. Sometimes she would growl...not sure if that was because she hurt or we weren't doing what she wanted us to do. At any rate, we called the vet on Monday and scheduled the euthanasia for 9:45am. She could still walk and was bright eyed and 'happy' so I had Chris ask if they could exam her first to make sure we were (or weren't) doing the right thing.

When the vet saw her and I saw the look on the vet's face, I knew immediately that we were going to do it. The vet hadn't seen her in over a year and could see how bad she had gotten. She said, 'Nothing lines up with anything. You can tell she's in pain. It's past time.' So yeah, she got a tranquilizer first and then the phenobarbital to put her to sleep. We decided to do an individual cremation with her ashes returned to us. I plan to scatter them at some point, but only when I know without a doubt that I'm ready. Incidentally, the vet's office just called and said her ashes are here. Today has been an emotional day, so I think I'll wait to pick them up.

I can't even begin to describe what Athena meant to me/us. I'm choosing to believe that I'll be reunited with her one day. Thankfully I have lots of photos and many wonderful memories. :)

Here are some videos (I don't know how to edit them, so you get them in all their uncut glory!):

Athena on her 11th birthday this past January. It didn't occur to me that the cake was too far from her...I felt really bad about that when I watched the video back! 



Here she is enjoying the beach. Fun times!

Pizza Lovers Unite!

Friday is pizza night at our house and last Friday was a major success. So much so that I had to share the recipes with you all.

First, the crust. I've made a lot of crusts and this one is my favorite. I'm taping this recipe to the fridge and making it for every pizza from now on. Word of warning though, it takes a while. It suggests you let the sponge sit for 2 1/2 hours and then have the dough rise another hour. That said, I didn't know that before I started and was on a time crunch, so I had the sponge sit for 30 minutes. Seemed fine. I also didn't pre-bake my crust. You can find the recipe at Pretty/Hungry or pin it below.

Now. The pizza. Jalapeno popper pizza. Soooooo good. I didn't use the pepper jack cheese since I had some leftover mozzarella. You can find the recipe at Damn Delicious or pin it below.

Some Updates

As I imagine you've probably already guessed, the pregnancy test came back negative. Not much else to say about it except I've accepted we might not have kids and that's okay. My husband and I have discussed what that means to us and basically it means a lot of fun (big) vacations and less stress. In going through this infertility journey, I found out about Resolve: The National Infertility Association. Under their "Family Building Options" section, they have information about "living childfree". I haven't yet read through it but plan on it at some point. It's interesting that information about this option exists; but when females are raised EXPECTING to have children and it's ingrained in your head that that's what you're SUPPOSED to do and you're not NORMAL if you don't, it's nice to know it's okay to live childfree and it can actually be quite liberating. I'm not ruling out trying again at some point, but I think a break is in order. It's hard on the pockets and hard on the emotions.

We're back in our house in North Carolina and it feels great! This is where we're meant to be for sure. Unfortunately, I don't have a job yet. It gets stressful at times, but I want the next job I take to be something I can see myself doing long-term.

I started working out again. Thank goodness! It's not even about the weight or fitting into clothes anymore Who am I kidding? It's totally about the weight and fitting into clothes! But...BUT...it's also about just feeling good about myself again. I didn't feel bad about myself before, I just didn't feel energized and happy. I signed up for this program called the Whole Life Challenge that starts on May 3rd, so hopefully that'll be another kick in the butt. It'll be starting at a good time for me...just about the time I'll be starting to slack off on exercising. ;)

Until next time!

Cue 'Hold' Music

http://twentytwowords.com/the-princess-bride-pregnancy-test/

And now we wait.  February 21st is the day.  Cross your fingers!

Turkey Meatball Sandwich

Even though I haven't been posting about it, I'm still making tons of recipes I've pinned on Pinterest.  Last week I made a turkey meatball sandwich recipe that was incredible.  Granted, this is the first time I've ever made a meatball sandwich so I don't have much to compare to, but my husband, a meatball sandwich aficionado, agrees it's very good.

Some changes I made:
1.  I ended up purchasing no salt added crushed tomatoes so I added some salt to take out the blandness of the marinara sauce.
2.  Instead of feta, I used cotija cheese.  Didn't notice any difference and since we're moving, I'm trying to use what we have.
3.  I also bought pre-seasoned ground turkey but then still followed the recipe instructions on how to make the meatballs.  Made for some really flavorful meatballs!

  

Not So Brief Life Update

Hello friends!

So a lot has gone on in the last six months.  I don't think I mentioned it but we moved to Missouri in August for a job my husband took.  Unfortunately, the job hasn't worked out, so we'll be moving back to North Carolina in...oh, about a month.  I'm excited but still sad to leave all of the friends I've made here.  There are some nice folks in the Midwest!

There are really only three major items taking up my thoughts right now.

1. Jobs
I was able to get two part-time jobs here.  One at REI and one as a froster at Nothing Bundt Cakes.  I have to say, the best thing about moving out here was that I was allowed to try some things I hadn't had the opportunity to try before.  One of the things I really enjoy is when I get a little sick of REI, I have NBC to break things up.  And vice versa.  Frosting has been really fun.  The people I work with are great and it's nice to just chill at work and frost up some cakes!

2.  Our Fertility Journey
Many people already know what's been going on so I'm not going to shy away from this subject.  I'm also of the opinion that these things should be talked about.  Well, let me clarify.  If you prefer to keep it to yourself, great.  But for me, it's helpful to talk to people about what we're going through.  And I hate having this feeling that I shouldn't talk about it because it's one of "those" subjects.  I don't know...maybe it's just all in my head.
Anyway, I realized last night that this month (assuming I'm doing my math right) marks three years of us trying to conceive.  We were seeing a specialist in NC (did one IUI that didn't work) and now we're seeing a specialist here.  We're set to do another IUI soon.  I'm currently taking fertility pills (letrozole) and an injectable (gonal-f).  That was pretty scary...injecting something into myself.  Never had to do that before!

It's been interesting to note the differences between the two specialists.  The one in NC is all about getting you pregnant as inexpensively as possible.  Seriously.  The doctor said that.  The doctor here, however, is very thorough.  Which is good and bad.  Good: they've covering all of the bases.  Bad: it's costing WAY more.

I guess I should back up here.  I haven't explained why we haven't been able to get pregnant.  That's partially because I don't really know.  The only thing that's popped up in all of the tests is that I have low ovarian reserve.  From the time I saw the doctor in NC to the time I saw the doctor here, my AMH level dropped from 0.98 to 0.74.  If you're interested, check out this site: http://www.fertilityassociates.co.nz/information-for-gps/amh-explained.aspx.  You can see from the graph that I'm in the red zone.  EEK!

*Side note: I just read this..."Very low AMH, usually considered AMH below 1.05 ng/ml, has been associated with extremely low pregnancy chances and many IVF centers flat out deny treatment to women with such low levels of AMH."* 

Oh such a rollercoaster.

I had an ultrasound on Monday and they saw 4 resting follicles in my right ovary and 6 in my left.  For an average woman, they like to see 12 in each.  So that gives you another comparison.

I go back on February 3rd for another ultrasound and more blood work.  Keep your fingers crossed for us that the IUI works this time.  I'm not sure I can emotionally handle any more procedures so this might be our last shot.

And funny thing.  It just goes to show that you never know what life has in store.  Expected to get married straight out of college...got married at 28.  Expected to have kids fairly easily...might not have any.  I think the faster I can come to terms with that, the easier things will be.

3.  Athena      
My rottweiler turns 11 on Friday.  WOO!  But she hurts and basically hobbles to her next spot and lays down.  It breaks my heart.  I love that girl.

So that's my life in a nutshell right now.  I didn't intend on leaving on a sad note.  And really, it's not.  We're going to have a party for her and we're all going to have lots of treats to celebrate her turning 77.  ;)

Take care all!