Why am I here?

Have you ever wondered at why you're on this earth?

For myself I like to think that there is some plane of existence in which the essence of me investigated the different possible places I could go, if I so choose, and for some reason I decided to come to this planet. Why would I choose to come here though, I like to pretend there are rules in choosing.

1. Moving to certain planes means you don't get to have knowledge that other planes exist and what they are really like. If you learn about them, you have to take them on faith.
2. When in one of the planes where you can see the other ones, you can't go to them all directly, you need to pass through another before, and depending on how you conduct yourself you may or may not get to go to the plane you were aiming at initially.
3. When you go to a new plane (one where you don't have knowledge of the existence of other planes) you don't get to choose which life you'll be born into, you take your chances.

So why would I choose to come to earth?

I could take the selfish route, there was some other plane I wanted to get to and although earth was one of multiple routes, maybe it was the shortest. I wouldn't be here more than 125 years (and likely less), maybe the other planes I could have lived for hundreds of years.

Alternately, maybe I looked upon the earth and I saw something I wanted to participate in, for example

• The great joys possible here in pursuing relationships with other people
• Helping people that are in pain or righting a societal injustice
• Experiencing faith in things that are unprovable

I think in figuring this out would help me feel purposeful and happy, because if I'm not doing what I thinking I'm supposed to be doing, then I'm not going to be happy.

Ahhh Vacation

I'm off again for 2 glorious weeks, looks like the nice weather will hold for at least the first week and I'll have some time to myself since hubby has to work (he just started a new job a month ago with one of the "big 6" banks here).

I don't have many plans for the 2 weeks off, I few house chores and redocorating I've been meaning to do for a while now, I made a list and prioritized it, there are 41 items on it and I completed 2 of them a couple of weeks ago. I hope to complete 3 or 4 more while on vacation. Other than that, just me time to relax and chill out.

I went shopping today for some new jeans, I got 2 new pairs. I didn't find any tops that I liked though.

Now I'm going to go back to relaxing on the couch and watching TV.

Freedom

Last cycle was great taking a break from fertility testing, I'm not going back this month either. In fact, I never want to go back. The one and only reason I want to go back is to have an ultrasound to see if they can see a cyst or fibroid on my left ovary. The acupuncturist says there's one there -- did I mention that already?

Work is crazy busy I could use another holiday, but I don't have one scheduled for another 2.5 months, boohoo, but I'm hoping things will settle down in a month (yah right, they'll just give me another huge thing to do).

I'm taking the weekend off to relax!

Updates

Last cycle I was on Puregon. For 3 weeks straight I was angry, mad, annoyed, pissed, aggravated...I think you get the point. Usually when I become angry I can take timeout to think about what is triggering the anger and deal with the issue to resolve the anger, I don't yell. I know now that it was primarily the drugs, but it was really hard month. Well no baby this month.

I'm taking a week off work to relax. I've also thought a lot about whether to take some time off cycle monitoring or continuing. Being an analyst, I decided to make a list for each. Here it is.

Keep going:
1 year of cycle monitoring has already been paid for
I really want to have a baby
I'm not getting any younger (I'll be 37 in Sept)
DH could be out of town for 6 months effectively ending any more ttc'ing until he returns
Stopping the drugs - it could take my body months to return to normal cycling - i.e. ovulating and producing enough progesterone

Stop for 1 cycle (maybe more)
Doesn't feel like the right thing to be doing to get pregnant
Hasn't felt like the right thing since the beginning of the second cycle (I've done 4 now)
Cost of IUI (DH is unemployed and can't afford anything extra in June)
Hormonally induced emotional breakdowns (left work in tears last cycle and broke down crying 2 other times during the same cycle)
Stress levels at work until July are very high, and not conducive to conception

So I've decided to take a month off of cycle monitoring, including no BBT to see if there's a temperature shift. Right now I think I might go see an accupuncturist, but I haven't make the appointment yet, and for me thinking about and making the acctual appointment are pretty far apart (even if I am pretty sure I should at least try it).

Anyway, I have this week off, and I'm trying not to look at anything work related. I thought it would be hard because I've been working every night and weekend for months, but I shutdown my computer and black.berry on Friday after work and have absolutely no desire to even contemplate work.

I was hoping the coming week would be nicer out, I was thinking of going to the local amusement park and art gallery. I can still go to the art gallery, but the amusement park would suck in the rain, and since it's not supposed to be very warm then the waterslides would not be much fun either.

I guess I'll do reading and gardening instead.

Baby Dust Needed

Last month didn't work out, so this month we're trying IUI again, with a different FSH drug. Today is the second treatment and I'm soooo tired from waking up early in the morning to be at the clinic by 7, especially when the treatments take place on the weekends and holidays (it's Victoria Day weekend today, also known as May two four weekend - always the Monday on or before May 24th). I'd rather be sleeping in rather than trying to nudge hubby awake to participate in treatments too.

Would love prayers to conceive this time, if successful I could have a Valentine's Day baby!

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.

Current treatment

I forgot to mention that I am currently on progestrone to lengthen my luteal phase. It didn't do exactly what it was supposed to last month, the doctor thinks it's because I have trouble absorbing it so she increased the dosage. There are other, rarer, causes of a short luteal phase, so we'll see what happens this cycle.

I did some more research, turns out clo.mid and h.c.g is a treatment for LPD because sometimes the body fakes ovulation and for all intents and purposes it looks like ovulation occurred and progestrone is produced, but it may in fact not have occurred.

Oh well, here's hoping this cycle works out.

This cycle in fertility.news

So this month the doctor put me on 6 days of clo.mid and then a shot of h.c.g to make me ovulate. The doctor also wanted to do a sp.erm.wash, which I declined for this cycle, but I'm feeling rather pressured about doing it, and I don't exactly have the funds for it with DH having been laid off almost 2 months ago. I however did do a budget to see if we could manage to live on my salary and have his employee insurance benefits go to the savings account for emergencies. It's possible if I don't take into account saving anything for known quarterly or annual expenses.

Anyway back to ttc'ing. So I know I have an issue with a short luteal phase, I don't think I need the drugs for hyper ovulation or the wash, but they are pressuring me to do it next month. We'll see what happens when I decline to do it. The other thing is last cycle the drugs to lengthen my luteal phase didn't work quite as expected, if the same thing occurs this month, then I want them to fix the known issue rather than trying to help me conceive faster, because otherwise I'm just throwing away money if the luteal phase isn't long enough to support a pregnancy.

So now I'm in the 2 week wait (2ww). Testing on Friday April 10, I think I'll take that day off work, I could use a break anyway.

Grocery Shopping

I went grocery shopping yesterday, seems I only go every 2 weeks, but it surely feels like weekly. Maybe if I went weekly I wouldn't have food spoil on me :)

Anyway I made a list of things I would like to eat and then bought groceries accordingly, although when I went to the store, surprise surprise other things not on my list ended up in my cart, and I don't have children.

I thought I'd share what I'm going to make over the next 2 weeks some for dinner, some for lunch:
No Pasta lasagna - Cook yourself Thin (uses zucchini for layering)
Easy cheeseburger pie - Kraft Foods
Quiche from 2007's Milk calendar - real crust though, not the cracker crumbs from the calendar
Slow cooker beef stew on garlic and sour cream mashed potatoes (yummy cooked with red wine).
Mongolian Beef
Pork and green beans in an olive mustard sauce or maybe oyster sauce (asian dish)
Easy chicken wraps (chicken cooked with salsa, add cheese, green onion to wrap and microwave) then add veggies (peppers, lettuce, tomato etc)
Chicken with red peppers and kale or spinach with vodka rose sauce on penne
Coconut pie (it will be the first pie I have ever made)

Now, you may have noticed there are only 6 main dishes here, likely they will last the weeks until I go grocery shopping again.

Fertility - The first visit

Today was my first visit with the new doctor.

I had an ultrasound and a sonogram, and 13 vials of blo.od withdrawn. Hubby had a few vials done too.

The ultra was fine, the sono was crampy (worst cramps I've ever had, but I admit, I'm very lucky in that respect, I only gets semi-noticeable cramps 2 or 3 cycles a year). The sono, if I understood correctly, showed that the fluid wasn't highlighting something in the left corner (not sure if it was the tube or the uterus), so they kept pushing more fluid in (5 times), eventually it was highlighted (yay?) Sorry I can't seem to get too excited about that it was very uncomfortable, I'm sure I'll be estatic if I get pregnant this cycle.

Ssorry mom I won't know in time for your birthday although that would be a great present for your milestone year!

Anyway I start cycle monitoring on Monday. Apparently I should expect an unltrasound and blood work every visit while cycle monitoring. Hey at least I'll know I'm about to ovulate hence the best time to conceive.

For now, I need to check some tax data so I know how much more I should contribute to RRSPs.

I Dare You

So I'm kind of bored, and I thought I would put together a list of things I should try in my lifetime that would challenge me. Then I thought, who better to challenge me than my invisible internet friends. So, I could only think of 2 rules to the challenges:
1) Not illegal
2) Not against my morals

So to start things off I give you 3 items from my list
1) Go parasailing (like behind a boat, I'm not sure what it's called when it's on a tow line)
2) Go hang gliding
3) Take at least 2 singing lessons

So hit me with some ideas.

Confessions

I have a confession to make. Over the last year I've been using work, reading and food as an escape from my feelings about trying to conceive. Most especially since September, which was the 1 yr annniversary of my miscarriage (I wrote "the" first rather than "my").

So for the last 2 weeks I've been tracking how much time I really spend working, and I don't get overtime for it. I was planning on doing it for the month. This is what a typical day looks like:

5:30 am hit snooze three times, take temperature for graphing BBT
6:00 get out of bed, wash, dress
6:30 prepare breakfast, check temperature and work email
7:00 Dry hair do makeup put on socks
7:10 pack bag for work
7:15 leave house, drop hubby at station, Drake at daycare (M,W,F only), go to work
8:00-8:15 arrive work (depends on traffic and if Drake is going to daycare)
4:30-5:30 leave work (depends on the day how late I leave, and if Drake's at daycare or not, I leave earlier when he's not)
5:00-6:00 Pick up Drake (if hubby arriving within 40 minutes pick him up from station). If waiting do work at the station.
If Drake's not at daycare I go home first to let him out to pee, and then I'll wait for hubby to call to pick him up from the station, I'll work during that time, which is typically from 5-6:30.
6:30 Typical time to pick up hubby
6:45 Home, change clothes make dinner
7:30 Eat dinner
8 onwards more work, I'll stop anywhere between 9:30 and midnight
Read until I feel tired enough to go to sleep, which is typically between 12 and 1:30. Now you know why I hit snooze three times in the morning.

By the end of the week I'm typically going to bed to read after dinner and may fall asleep between 9 and 9:30, but then I'll wake up at 3:30 or 4, at least I don't work until my normal wake up time :)

This continues on the weekend too, any time I'm not sleeping, eating or reading, then I'm working.

So instead of working after I get home or first thing in the morning, or weekends, I've made 2 lists of other things I can do, but I need some help.

I'm going to give you list 2 first, because it's list 1 I need help with.

List 2: Other things I can do
Clean
Tidy
Organize/purge stuff
Dust
Vacuum
Pay Bill

List 1: Stuff I can do for me
Manicure, pedicure, eyebrows, facial
Shop
Workout
Bake
Eat Healthy
Read
Walk Drake
Blog
Needlepoint, quilt, sew
Listen to music, sing, dance

I need more things that make me happy, but I'm having a little trouble coming up with things that make me happy. It's getting a little easier. I've always liked crafts ever since I was little. Music and dancing is my stress relief that I used in university. I'd like to do some redecorating but I'm not sure if that belongs on list 1 or 2, I suppose if I made a very concise list of what I want, then I could shop for it and put it on list 2.

Although hubby and I were planning to go to Italy after tax time, part of me thinks I should go south, because last year I was going to try something new every month and parasailing behind a boat was one of those things (as was snow tubing and horse back riding for the year, I did do the horseback riding).

So any ideas of things I should try on weekend or evening rather than working?

Finally a date

February 19 2009.

That's the date I go see the specialist and start with assessing my current health, I'm not sure if they'll do any kind of diagnostic reproductive testing on this date, that would be nice, get the ball rolling a little faster, I hate waiting.

To be honest, I hate the idea of going to see a specialist for diagnostic testing to see if there are any reasons I'm not getting pregnant again, because sometimes I just don't like the idea of asking for help, and feel like a bit of a failure that I'm not getting pregnant easily. But I guess that's a common feeling in women trying to conceive. I keep trying to remind myself that although in total we've been trying for 18 cycles, those cycles have been broken up over a 2 year period and any individual length of time is not very long (3, 5, 3, 7) I just keep thinking of the 27 months it's been and the 34 months I've been wanting to conceive. OK that's just depressing, so I'm going to stop blogging now.

Happy New Year

The last year has been very difficult for me. I've decided that I'm going to let everything go. I've no plans to do any of the following:

• Get Organizated/clean more
• Be a better person or wife
• Work harder

The only plan I have is at the end of the day, no matter how much I feel I've failed at any of my own expectations of myself, there must be at least one thing I can think of that I can be proud of, and if not I can spend 5 minutes doing something to be proud of.

To be or not to be

I'm thinking about unplugging, taking down my facebook account, linked in, blog, and personal email address. I'd even consider transferring my personal cell phone and all it's time to someone else if they needed it.

There, linked in is gone.
Now facebook.

That was kind of freeing, if my blog disappears you know why.

Hey hey hey bye bye

Yay vacation, very very very much needed vacation. I've been working incredibly long hours the last 2 weeks, and now I'm taking a week of lieu time, so I still have 3 weeks of vacation to use this year, I guess I'll be carrying it over again and next year I'll have 6 weeks to take :)

So looking at the title of the post? Wondering what's gone? Jenn knows, though she hasn't seen yet. I'll give you a hint...a foot. Do you know yet? No? I cut my hair, about a foot has gone bye bye. hehehehe, it was so much fun to go to work the next day, or tell my mom I had a hair cut on the Friday when she asked what I'd been doing and mentioned I "trimmed" it. She likes short hair so she was happy.

Hub's and I bought a new TV for our anniversary, Sony LCD Z Series, so the old one is coming up to the living room (not the new one, he watches TV too late and too loudly for me to sleep, he laughs really loud at the late night shows on Com.edy net.work). So since we got a new TV, I need a TV stand for the old one, so to Ik.ea we went. The old TV stand had to have the shelves removed to hold the new TV, so we also needed more media storage, and since we're having it delivered might as well add another bookcase for that ever expanding book collection. I also (hopefully) got a matching Po.ang chair for the existing one the dog likes to sleep in. A new cover too, so that I can replace the one Drake sleeps in with a clean one when...er if...we have company.

OK, so off to watch a movie on Zed.

Sugar Free

Lately I've been coming across a few posts and articles about removing sugar from one's diet. I remember the last couple of times I removed sugar, empty calorie and fatty foods from my diet. I felt a lot better and had more energy, but it takes more planning and commitment than I'm prepared to do again. So for the last week I've been removing just sugar from my diet, I'm not completely without sugar, I just aknowledge that if there's something I'm intending to eat that contains sugar, I remind myself that it does and how that seems to affect my attitude.

I have noticed the last 2 or 3 days that my energy level and attitudes are improved over the previous month, when I felt lethargic and apathic about almost everything. It could just be a response to taking control of something and doing it for myself than the actual removal of sugar.

Yesterday I had a completely sugar fee day, today I had one spoon in my coffee, but that's all. Tomorrow we'll try for another sugar free day. The one thing about cutting sugar is the withdrawal. In the evenings I would wander around the kitchen looking for a little something to eat. I wasn't hungry, I wanted something sugary, and we don't have a lot of sugary foods in the house (only ones hubby likes and I either don't mind or don't like, so they aren't as much of a temptation). I'd keep popping little things in my mouth and wanting more because whatever it was, it wasn't sugar and the craving continued. I consider myself fortunate that the withdrawal for me typically only lasts about 1/2 a day where going cold turkey is really hard, apparently it can last up to a week for some people. For me it starts around 2 or 3 pm on an average work day and last for the remainder of the day (i.e. bedtime), so I go to bed early :) I'm fine the next day, or if I'm still craving is is so much reduced from the previous night that it's not noticeable to me.

So you might be seeing more sugar free posts from me in the near future, I want to chronical how I feel to encourage myself not to go back to eating sugar regularly.