Vegetable Garden

This year I decided to plant a vegetable garden, so a few months ago I bought about 8 packages of seeds. Have you ever noticed that the seeds in the packages are much larger than the seeds you see in the veggie normally. I wonder how they do that. Well I thought it might also be good to see how they grown indoors to see if I can have home grown vegetables all year round. Anyway, 2 weeks ago I planted my seeds from the 3 packages that take the longest to reach maturity, those would be romaine lettuce, green onion (or spring onion if you prefer) and zucchini (or courgette if you prefer). I bought 4 aluminium lasagna trays to plant my veggies and I made 6 little homes for the seeds in each. Now the lettuce and onion are tiny seeds, so I put 3 or 4 in each hole. Today finally the zucchini sprouted (it was supposed to germinate first, but it was last). I now have 1 zucchini sprout, 5 lettuce and 2 onion. I'm quite proud of my little veggies and I hope they grow to maturity. I plan to put them in my backyard in 3 weeks (which is considered to be the big planting weekend in my little corner of the world). I'm hoping the dog won't eat them as I grow them. I plan to put up a little fence to discourage him, but enough space between the edge of the bed and the fence for me to knee on the other side to remove weeds.

My other veggies are yellow wax beans and snow peas, and I bought a couple of packages of flowers too. I want to also grow red peppers (actually any sweet or bell pepper will do, but I tend to use the red, yellow and orange ones and those are pretty expensive off season). I wonder if I can plant the seeds from the veggie when I cut it open, normally I just compost the parts I don't use. Also I think I might buy a tomato plant, I'm not a big fan of tomatoes, but I've started making a couple of recipes and each calls for a whole tomato, so that's 2 per week consumed, so maybe a plant would be a good idea.

So seeing my little veggies grow has been making me feel a little maternal and I keep telling hubby how the seedlings are doing, at least I don't check daily or drag him to look at them daily, I check about 4 times a week, because I have to remember to water them (I'll forget if I don't look in on the plants, I try to remember to look at them daily, but I usually on manage alternate days.

Well off to read my book again.

Timeout

Yesterday and today we did our first IUI treatments. I decided to take the time off work to try to relax. Being off for 2 days has made me realize 2 things.
1) I need to take more vacation
2) I need to be less available when I take time off, rather than checking email 2-3 times a day, at least I have a smartphone making it easier to check, but it still leaves me feeling stressed.

Now for the 2 week wait, wish me luck, I'll know if the treatments were successful just before mother's day.

Expectation Setting

So when I went to the doctor on Wednesday we talked somewhat on procedures & costs. Not much on procedures, because she needed to know 2 things first.

1. My budget
2. Insurance coverage

Hubby and I defined a basic budget for this, we decided to spend $5000 and no more. That number depended on insurance coverage of medication and procedural costs. So my insurance will cover 80% of all meds to a $9000 lifetime maximum. I'm hoping with this information I can find out from my doctor the plan for the next 3-5 cycles.

As for timelines, to be honest, I don't feel like doing cycle monitoring anymore (it's only been 2 cycles), since you have to pay for a year I'll continue with the monitoring and we'll see month by month what I feel like doing.

Hubby and I also talked a little bit about long term plans if we don't get pregnant. I've thought about it a fair bit (I'm a planner, I've been thinking about it since my early 20s). These are my thoughts/options obviously I can't do them all at the same time:

1. Downsize to a condo or possibly sell all property and travel the world working here and there to support traveling.
2. Quit work, and do something I find more fulfilling, less stressful and socially responsible
3. Be a foster parent, and/or join big sisters in my community

I suppose #2 I can do anytime, well, hubby has to be working, and downsizing might have to be done first or pay off the mortgage.

Maybe next month

It occurred to me as I titled this post that it's the same URL as Hope's blog. Although I don't want to do IUI, I do want to conceive. I think this cycle in addition to whatever the doctor's put me on, I'll take some time off and work from home the week after the IUI. Maybe a little relaxation on top of the more agressive treatment will make things happen this month.