The strangest thing

We're back. It was nice to get away. Portland, OR is such a lovely city. We also took an overnight trip to Bend, OR and toured around central OR. So cool. We drove through Bakeoven, which is one of the smallest towns I've ever seen. We stayed at the Old St. Francis School, which I recommend. McMenamins has a bunch of restaurant/hotel/movie theater places created from former public buildings. They buy them cheap, fix them up, and post information about the history of the place. What a great idea! The food is good and if you stay, you can see movies for free! We saw Cars. It was cute.

So, alas I did not even have to POAS. AF started one day before I expected. That means that I'm convinced I've had at least one chemical pregnancy between now and then. I've been getting so down about this. It's 6 months since the last time we were officially pregnant. I know that's not long in the IF world, but it's coming on the time I would have been due, and it's getting more difficult to remain optimistic. So I've been feeling sad lately.

My cell phone rang at work. It was about 4:45. It was the insurance coordinator at my RE's office. She said, "You've been approved for your IVF cycle." I couldn't believe it! This wasn't even an appeal. This was a first try. We're not supposed to get coverage. So I yelled, "No way!" She insisted that yes, we've been approved. I asked, "For just one cycle?" Those I know in MA with a balanced translocation were covered for only one cycle. Her answer? "For three cycles." My head spins. Three cycles?!?! With no appeal?!?!?

I can't believe it. We're approved for three IVF cycles. Three.

I can't believe it.

I can't believe it.

Gone for a while

I'm leaving tomorrow on business, so I'm not going to be posting for a while. My 2ww will be over by the time I post again. I'm not sure how to read my body. I have sore b00bs, which seems to be the norm at this point. My bbts are not very high, which I think isn't a particularly good sign. But, this time I feel like I've been having some uterine twitches -- menstrual-like cramps, but it's way too early for that. I'm trying like H-E double hockey sticks to not read too much into that, but failing. However, given my low bbts, I feel like I shouldn't keep my hopes up. I'll probably bring a pee stick along with me to the Pacific Northwest. But tomorrow it's just to Baltimore.

I hope everybody has a nice couple of weeks!

Food

Last night we had dinner with my parents, my brother and sister-in-law and my two nieces, and some friends of the family. It was so lovely. We had steak, fresh corn on the cob, and I made a fresh blueberry pie with in-season wild blueberries, and it was super delicious. It was a little bit runny, but I'm told that's how fresh blueberry pies are. It didn't look too pretty, but it was so super yummy. I love blueberries. These were tiny, but so flavorful. Yum.

Today we are going food shopping so that I can have the ingredients I need to feed 6 people on Monday night. I'm going to make homemade mac&cheese with this eggplant/tomato hors d'oeuvre yummy thing and a salad, with peach/mixed berry crisp for dessert. Should be super yummers. I love cooking for people. I don't do it often enough. I've felt to busy lately, anyway. Although, I did cook for E&R recently. Was that last week?

Looking for pg signs, but finding none. It's early yet, but I just can't help myself. For some reason I'm not feeling particularly hopeful right now. But as we all know, I'm a big exaggerator, creator of symptoms, and making nothing into something. I just can't help myself.

We went to see the RE yesterday. T's semen analysis was excellent. I asked about Human Sperm Karotyping, and he didn't know anything about it. T and I are curious about seeing what percentage of sperm carry an unbalanced number of chromosomes and what number are normal. If, say, 95% of his sperm are unbalanced, the chances of us carrying to term is extremely low. But it doesn't seem like this test is well known or performed often, so I don't think it's going to happen.

With our current insurance, our initial appeal will be flat-out rejected. Our second appeal may get us one IVF cycle only. I am feeling saddened and frustrated by this. We have to be unable to conceive for a calendar year in order to get IVF coverage. Right now that means we would have to not be able to get pg until February or March or something. I'm getting discouraged about things these days, so it doesn't seem impossible that this will be true. But I feel so impatient about this. It's taking way too long. I will be 35 in May. Ugh. Just writing that down is freaking me out. If we don't have a baby until I'm like 36, how are we ever going to be able to have a second one? I'm feeling pretty negative right now. I'm afraid that we will get one IVF cycle and we'll get a BFN or there will be no 'normal' (for lack of a better work) embryos. I'm afraid of passing this bt on to my children and them having to go though this. I'm afraid of getting pregnant and miscarrying again, which will put off having additional insurance. I'm also afraid of not ttc anymore because there are people with bt who have healthy babies through persistence. This whole thing sucks, and it's rearing its ugly head in our lives again.

Good thing out next two weeks are totally chaotic.

Just a regular Wednesday

Same old same old here. I'm entering my 2ww. My ovulation has been kind of weird lately. My bbts are rising gradually and sometimes I can't figure out my cm situation. Like this morning I had some fertile cm even though my bbt had gone way up. But it was just in the morning, so maybe it was leftover? I don't know. I feel like when I first started this whole ttc thing I could read my signs better than I can now. I mean, I suppose things could have changed a bit, but I thought individuals were more consistent than that. I don't really know.

I have a lot of stuff coming up to fill up my 2ww. First it's the holiday weekend. Then I got to Baltimore for work on the 6th and 7th. It's back to work on the 8th, but I'm leaving early to go to a concert with T. And then we leave for Oregon early on the 9th. I'm still trying to decide whether to bring a pg test to Oregon. We'll be staying with T's mom, so I feel kind of weird about it. But it's not like she doesn't know what's going on with us. I could wait til we get back and it would be about 16dpo, so that could work okay. And if AF arrives, then I'll know my answer anyway. I just decided last cycle to POAS on day 14 every month now, and this is a deviation from that, but I probably can live with it. I guess I can decide based on my symptoms. And I could always bring it and not use it. We'll see.

Friday's our appt with the RE, and we'll work on insurance stuff at that point. Time keeps marching on. It's almost September.

HSG is done

I had my HSG today. The actual test kind of sucked. It's never great to have people shoving stuff all up in my business, and when they inserted the contrast medium a huge air bubble formed which made the doctor shift the catheter thingy around. That hurt like hell, but I didn't really cramp much afterward. The good news is that my RE said that everything looked normal. That's what we expected since I have been able to get pregnant before, so it wasn't like this was a big relief, but it was good to get confirmation that everything looks okay. He didn't have the results of my FSH or T's SA yet, but we have an appointment next week to go over everything and start the insurance process, so we'll learn all about it soon. It's better to get those answers when it all can be explained anyway.

Tonight T and I brought a letter of recommendation to a former co-worker of his. They were grilling in the yard and spontaneously invited us in for some wine and to share their dinner with him. After much hesitation, we finally agreed and had a wonderful time. We had fun talking and T and J did much gossiping and reminiscing about people at T's place of work. We had so much fun. They live in this cute little house in this cute little suburban neighborhood across the street from a park with a pond. It was so quiet -- so different from where T and I live. It was really nice. We need to make sure to invite them over. These are people we could be friendly with. We need more friends.

On Saturday E&R are coming over our house with baby S. This will be their first attempt to have the baby for an extended period at someone else's house. As E said, if there's anybody for them to try this out with, it's us. I think it should go well. R's still having a bit of trouble adjusting to life with baby. I hope he finds whatever it is he needs to adjust soon.

I hope this HSG isn't too close to my fertile time. Today is cd10. I just saw the start of sticky cm before my appointment. I don't know if the hostile environment of the iodine and contrast medium will delay ovulation a bit, or if things will continue as normal. If things do continue as normal, is it too close to ovulation time and has made my uterus not a nice place to live? I didn't ask the RE that question. I did ask the question about improving our chances of getting pregnant within the next few months after the HSG. He said that older literature said that this was true, but he's not sure about more current literature. But he did say, "It definitely can't hurt." So that's what I'm living with.

I'm ready for this to happen.

Sunday night

There's not much going on here at Henry Street this week. I made a yummy dinner -- we bought fresh fusilli from the pasta place down the street and I made some wonderful meat sauce to go with it. Our neighbor gave us some tomatoes from her garden and I put them in there. I have to say it was quite delicious. I also made some chocolate/peanut butter/oat cookies which were super yummy, and we drank some Chianti, so it was a lovely dinner. I haven't spent the day making things in the kitchen for a long time. I found it relaxing and enjoyable.

Yesterday we went to our favorite fireworks festival. In the morning we went to a local 'maple barn' for brunch. I had some delicious blueberry pancakes. They served the maple syrup warm, and it was quite lovely. We even got a maple shake to go as we walked around and checked out the sugar shack. The fireworks were incredible, as usual. This year it was a little more mellow than before, and they had a piece with bits of recorded material from people whose husbands or fathers were in the Army in Iraq. I have to say that made me quite sad, and I imagined that many people at the festival had relatives in Iraq, and I can't imagine enjoying the fireworks as much as they might have had they been not reminded of the danger their loved ones faced. I don't know anybody in Iraq personally, but that piece made me cry, and with all of the slow songs afterward, it made the fireworks a little bit difficult to appreciate in the ecstatic way that I usually do with fireworks, but I enjoyed it just the same. The fireworks at this event are the most wonderful fireworks I've ever seen in my life, though. They are so well choreographed and focused on color, and we are able to sit right underneath them. They had these huge fireballs where you could feel the heat when they went off. It was amazing. We read about a week long fireworks festival in Spain that we would love to go to someday. We never went on a honeymoon, so we are considering trying to go to that sometime. It would be incredible. I adore fireworks.

T did his semen analysis last week, and he said it was awful. My blood draw wasn't too bad. She had to poke me twice, though, probably because I drank the night before and had coffee that morning. Dehydration doesn't do good things for the veins. My HSG or whatever it is that I'm having is on Thursday and our doctor's appointment with the RE is September 1st. I expect that my fertile time will be this coming weekend (right after the test) and we will ttc as usual. Hopefully this test will do good things for us, but we'll see. I'm feeling pretty skeptical right now, but I'm sure I will convince myself I'm pregnant again, as I always do.

Our roof is all finished, and the squirrel seems to be gone. It looks really good. The leak in the attic is no longer there. We should have a new fridge by next week (we will call on Friday), so things seem to be moving forward in all sorts of ways. It's weird how that despite all of that, I still feel kind of stuck.

Trying to move forward

I've been wallowing for the past few days. I don't know how people try every month for an entire year with no results. It's excruciating. This cycle will be our 8th cycle with 2 pregnancies and 2 detectable losses. My pregnancies feel like they were so long ago. I was always sad when I miscarried, especially with the second one, (devistated, really) but I felt like I was able to move on. I'm finding myself thinking about how the due dates of my miscarriages are coming up and it makes me feel so empty. I was IMing with E this morning, and just thinking about her home with baby S made me sad. I just feel like I don't know what we're going to do, and that it can take so many years to have a baby happen and I just don't have that much time.

So, between talking to our therapist and needing to do something, I've set up appointments. T has his semen analysis on Thursday, which is the same day I will have my day 3 blood tests. On the 24th I am having some sort of uterine cavity x-ray with contrast dye. I don't know the name of this test, but I was told to take 3 ibuprophen 1 hour before the test, so I don't much like the way that sounds. If anybody knows anything about this, please let me know. ME, is this the "blow the cobwebs out" test you mentioned to me the other day?

Anyway, we then have a follow up appointment with our RE on September 1 to set up a protocol and start fighting with the insurance company. I know it will take some time and effort, but we should be able to eventually get some coverage. I think by the time we get through all of this and get to approval it will be time for us to try the IVF with PGD. So I guess we've taken our first solid steps toward that goal. In the meantime we can keep ttc, and if we get and remain pg between now and then, bonus for us. If not, we have our first attempt all set up.

I'm feeling okay about all of this for the most part. I guess I was convinced that it would be easy for us to get pg again, but that doesn't seem the case unless I'm having a m/c before a pg is even detectable. I know, I'm a crazy woman for thinking this, but I just can't help it. We got pg two times in a row the first two times we tried, and now -- nothing. But I suppose that's all irrelavent. I simply want to have a healthy pg as soon as possible.

Nope

BFN. My bbt dropped for the last two days, so I wasn't expecting anything else. Sigh.

I'm obsessed with my chest

Do you know what it's like to be obsessed with your own b00bs? I'm sure many of you do out there, but let me tell you, it's ridiculous. I think about my b00bs all day. This morning my bbt dipped, so I was sad all morning. I thought my b00bs stopped hurting, so I was even more sad. I touch them every time I pee. I think about them when I'm walking. I contemplate them when I'm sitting. But right now, I can honestly say they hurt. We'll see what my temp looks like in the morning. Tomorrow is 10dpo. I will not POAS before Sunday. I won't.

Still sore

Three quick things. 1) I think my b00bs are more sore than they were last two cycles. 2) My temp went up again, so I have a triphasic cycle so far. We'll see what happens tomorrow. 3) I feel like I shouldn't get hopeful or excited or anything about all of this, but I can't help it. I do it every time with every cycle. Good thing we're going to our therapist tomorrow.

Mid 2ww

I ovulated on August 1, so if you want to count along on our 2ww, just check the date. If I feel the need, I can POAS one week from today (next Sunday). I, of course, think I'm a bit symptomatic with sore bre@sts, but I have also convinced myself that all this is meaningless and I always think I'm symptomatic so I can't put any faith in what I think I'm feeling. I think I project symptoms onto myself in hopes that this thing will work out for itself. In somewhat related news, my referral went through for the IVF place, but we still haven't managed to call to schedule T's SA or my FSH. It's really difficult to schedule these things when one is busy at work all day and when one cannot shut the door to get some privacy. But we're working on it.

The weather this weekend has been amazing! Yesterday we worked on the yard and bought a bunch of groceries. It's so nice to be outside when it is nice outside. Last night we went to E&R's house to see them and the baby. We were their first houseguests for dinner, and though we brought the majority of the food, I think it was good for them to realize it's possible to have guests over even with the baby. R is having some stress troubles with the new arrival. It's hard on him to give up his independence, I guess. E seems to be doing well. Baby S is adorable, and such a good baby too. I haven't seen him scream once, though I'm sure he does it from time to time. He's gaining weight nicely, and tracking with his eyes, and his neck muscles are strengthening nicely too. He's over a month at this point already! I only had one moment of sadness while there. We were just chatting, and we were discussing how messy things are in our houses -- E&R made a mad rush to clean of the dining room table so we had a place to eat. I mentioned how we just have a hard time keeping things neat in general, and R said, "Wait 'til you have a kid!" and it just stabbed me. I don't know why that stung so much, but I could feel it inside my chest. It managed to subside pretty quickly, but I can still remember the feeling.

Today I weeded the garden and we went to the store. I'm off to go back outside to put all the weeds into lawn bags.

I guess we all just have to keep our chins up. Good luck, folks. I'm wishing all of you the best.

Almost another 2ww

I should ovulate soon, so it's almost time for another 2ww. I don't think I could be more ambivelent. Of course, I didn't sleep well last night, though I'm unsure why. T and I went up to New Hampshire on Lake Winnipesaukee with my family this weekend. It was my Dad's birthday, and we sat by the lake on the beach, relaxed, ate dinner and relaxed some more. It was really, really nice to get away. It make T and I realize how much we need to go away for an extended period of time. We're going to go to Oregon to see his mom and go to the retirement party for someone T used to work with, which will be nice, but staying at his Mom's house isn't quite as relaxing as renting a little cottage for a week would be. But we gotta do what we gotta do. We just put a down payment on getting a new roof for the house which will fix the leak and hopefully take care of the evil squirrels, so funds are limited.

I did manage to call the IVF place to try and get our initial testing set up. I have new insurance since taking my new job and I need a new referral so that the tests can be covered. I will call the IVF place back on Wednesday if I don't hear from them, and then we will set up T's semen analysis and my FSH or whatever. I guess if I suspect I might be pregnant then we'll just have to postpone my part of the testing for a bit. But that's at least 2 weeks away, right?

I have decided that if I suspect I'm pregnant that I will pee on a stick this time. I was afraid to before, but this time I want some confirmation of my suspicions, or else something to tell me that I'm completely insane. But I'll know definitively one way or another.

Our fridge still hasn't been fixed. In 9 days from now, we are going to demand a brand new fridge immediately. Our lives feel so ridiculous sometimes.

Hump Day?

Not literally, though. ;)

Things are still crazy here on Henry Street. The fridge is still broken, but we have the backup so we're eating in. I got my hair cut today. It felt good. T is out with his co-workers seeing Superman and going out to dinner. I am home fighting with squirrels and writing this. We bought some pepper oil infused stuff that's supposed to keep the squirrels away. I threw it down the walls yesterday, and the squirrel was very unhappy. I was banging and making lots of noise to scare it away first, but it just stared at me. I found that incredibly terrifying. Then I just threw the pepper stuff right at it and it ran out. T saw him on the top of the roof itching and rubbing. Today I threw some down there and all I could here was a deep growl sort of noise when I threw it down there. I don't know what that means. We want the squirrel to leave. We're going to get a new roof on our house, and we're hoping the roofers can get rid of the squirrels. T is confident, but I feel king of skeptical about it. I truly hope it works, but I think squirrels are pesky. The cats have been useless in scaring them away. Stupid cats.

I have a conference on Thursday and Friday, so I sort of will have a little time off. I'm looking forward to it. I will probably get out early on Friday, so maybe T and I will go see a movie. Saturday morning we're leaving to go to NH to a house my brother and sister-in-law rented. It's my Dad's birthday, so we're going to go for 2 days and one night. I have to make rice krispy squares.

I didn't get home til late and didn't make dinner, so I'm waiting for T to bring me home leftovers.

Thanks to those who sent encouraging words about our battles to come. My fertile time is going to arrive again reasonably soon, so we'll see what happens this month. We still need to call the IVF place. T is taking Friday off, so maybe he'll call. He still needs a SA and I still need that day three HSG or whatever that test is. I refuse to stop ttc while all of this is happening, though. Will that affect the test if AF is actually a very early miscarriage? I'm certain that's what happened last month.

I hope everybody is doing okay. I'm not being good about keeping up with blogs lately.

Still going

Our fridge is still on the fritz, so we have been calling to get it repaired instead of calling about the insurance and IVF stuff. Happily, my brother and sister-in-law recently redid their kitchen and they had an extra fridge sitting in their yard. They have a brand new mini-van as well, so they brought it over this morning. I couple hours of cleaning later (good bye mildew) we have a working fridge in the basement!! Yay!! We bought some food and we grilled for dinner! It was the greatest. Hopefully our actual fridge will be fixed soon.

We've been feeling up and down lately. We're so busy, though, we don't really have time to be sad. I want things to slow down. I'm enjoying my new job, but I feel like I don't have time to relax. We are in need of a vacation, but it's difficult to imagine when I will be able to take one. It was a huge mistake on my part to not take a vacation before starting my new job, but I felt such pressure to start. We really need to get away. T has over 100 hours of vacation saved up. He's stressed out to the max. I'm stressed out to the max. We have to make ourselves take some time off, but I don't have any. T's going to take at least one day of this week, though. I think that's good.

I haven't talked to E since she's been home by herself. I should give her a call. I hung out with my friend S, and she's having some trouble with R. I'm kind of worried about them as a couple. I'm really wishing the best for them. It makes me sad to think that they're having trouble together.

I have to do some work. I'm giving a powerpoint presentation on Tuesday at work, and I don't have time at work to work on it, so I brought it home. Nothing like 9:00 on a Sunday to do some work. Though T is sitting in the living room doing work, so what the hell.

We really need a vacation.

The catharsis of blogging (and therapy)

So we had a hell of a therapy session this morning. I cried through 3/4 of it, I think. We were talking about IVF. We were talking about how it might be time to get the ball rolling with the IVF thing. Part of what we talked about was getting the money for IVF from my parents. It could be a gift from them. It could be a loan from them. I'm very, very, very hesitant to take the money from my parents. They have offered us the money, and they could afford to give it to us, but it doesn't feel right to me. So instead, we are going to have to get the insurance companies to pay for it. They're certainly not going to volunteer for it, as so many of you know. But we have the advantage of living in Massachusetts where fertility coverage is generous. And T and I think with a bit of work on our side, we could get the coverage. So while we keep trying, we're going to work on getting coverage.

I guess I still haven't come to terms (is that an inappropriate pun?) with IVF. I read so many of your blogs out there, and see all of you be strong and go through it. I even see you getting excited to start your injections. And then there are the truly lucky ones for whom IVF has created a viable pregnancy and a baby. It happens. But I can't seem to deal with the idea of IVF. I know I need to get over myself and make it happen. But I'm terrified of it. I have been told that I will get used to it, and that it becomes sort of like a second job. I'm not terribly scared of needles or medical procedures in general. But I just can't make IVF feel right. Regardless, I'm still willing to go through with it. I will certainly give it a try. But I can't say that I'm looking forward to it. I'm not excited about the fight with the insurance companies. I'm not excited about the huge shipment of meds or the side effects of the medication or the egg extraction or even the implantation. I just feel like none of the embryos will make it far along enough. Or that one or two might, and it just won't work.

Maybe I'm mostly afraid of 'wasting' the money. I'm generally quite a frugal person. I research and find the best deal. Sometimes I'm willing to spend more to get a quality product. But because there is no guarantee with this IVF it doesn't sit well. $15,000 is a lot of money without a guaranteed product.

So I'm mulling all of this around in my head. I'm wondering how we're going to make all of the necessary phone calls when T has a cubicle and I share my office with another person who has recently made a completely insensitive comment about IVF right in front of me, even after I told her about our issues. She's not the smartest person in the world, though, so maybe she didn't put two and two together. That wouldn't surprise me. I don't know how we're going to get this all done, but I guess we're going to have to.

The wait is over

AF has arrived and I'm no longer obsessing about my bbt. It dropped this morning to below my cover line, and I knew my wait was over. In my estimation I'm 2 days late. I didn't confirm a pg, so I don't know if this counts as a m/c. I'm not sure it matters, except for trying to get insurance coverage. I'm pretty disappointed, but there's nothing I can do about it now. I found out through E that our friend A who had been having trouble is at 10 weeks now. I hope things continue to go well for her, but I can't say I'm not jealous.

So I'm kind of just sad now.

Still waiting

Still no signs of AF yet, but my bbt dipped slightly again. So it's been steadily down for the last three days. I realize this most likely means things will be over soon. I didn't POAS because I wasn't sure what point there would be in it. I still feel like I have some pg signs. I figured if I POAS I'd probably get a BFP only to bleed in a few days, so I'm still sitting here in limbo, waiting. I figured if AF doesn't show up I can always POAS tomorrow.

I'm really anal about my temperatures, and this morning I took a bbt when I first woke up (really early -- about 5:20) and it was low. I peed (but not on a stick) and then went back to sleep. I slept for about an hour and a half and decided to take my temp again (told ya I'm anal) and it was high. I know this isn't an accurate bbt, but it leaves me wondering a little.

I should probably POAS and just get this all over with, but I really think I'm just going to start AF really soon and we'll just have to try again this month.

This is so agonizing, and after seeing E&R's baby yesterday and about to be on our way to see the high school man's 2 children, I'm feeling a bit down. So much for a relaxing weekend.

We have to go out to eat again because our fridge still doesn't work. And with eating out so much, T & I have gained at least 5 lbs each.

Haven't POAS yet

No AF as of yet, and I still have sore b**bs and I can feel some weird stuff in the uterus, but my bbt has dropped the last two days. It hasn't droped a ton like last month, but I'm kind of skeptical. We'll see what happens tomorrow. If it drops more, I'm considering this month a lost cause. If it goes up, I'm going to POAS. I am so ambivalent about this process. If I get a BFP, I don't really know what that means. Should I stop taking my bbt? I obsess about every little dip. But I will obsess about every twinge, every bit of soreness and any other possible sign there is. I wish there were a way to sort of ignore all of this, but there isn't. I don't know what to do or how to handle this.

And of course this is a weekend full of kids. We haven't seen E&R&babyS since the hospital, so we're going to drop by for a visit. Then a friend (ex-boyfriend, actually) from high school is in town and T & I are going to go see him, his wife and his two kids. I think he has daughters. One's maybe 3ish and one is just 1, I think. So no getting away from the idea of kids this weekend.

We saw R&J, good friends of T last night. I wasn't drinking, and J asked why. I explained, and talked about T's bt. It's funny how much easier that has become over time. I can talk about it in a mostly matter of fact way. I can list my miscarriages and the percentages without even coming close to shedding a tear. Yes, as I chart my bbt every morning, my heart rises and sinks with every .1 degree increase or decrease. This is a difficult thing.

If it's not one thing, it's another

Our fridge died. It's less than a year old, and let me tell you I am pissed! The food is just starting to go bad. I took the 'valuable' food and put in some ice in a cooler, and now all our refrigerated food is in a cooler on the kitchen floor. We woke up yesterday morning and there was an error on the display. We called the customer service number, and they referred us to repair people in RI. We told them it was too far away, but they insisted. I called RI and they said they won't come up to our part of MA. So I had to call customer service again and get a new repair service. Luckily this fridge is still on warranty. Someone's coming on Wednesdsay to fix it. In the meantime, we may go buy a mini-fridge and keep it in the garage. We had talked about doing that anyway. Actually, we were more interested in getting a chest freezer, but necessity dictates. Whatever. I'm angry about it.

T has to work today, so I'm at home alone. I had such plans to do all sorts of housework, but now I'm obsessing about the fridge and getting a lot less done than I had anticipated. After I blog this out of my system, though, I'm going to get started.

Things are going okay. I'm doing okay. The visit to the hospital went pretty well. I get a little sad now and again. Trying to talk to E is difficult, though, since a billion people are calling her and she's busy with the baby. The baby is S, but a different S than I had originally thought. It's a nice name. He now has a name, and it suits him. I gave the presents. I held him. He was so little. Now that the baby is here I feel a little like I'm losing my friends, but I'm going to work like hell to make sure that doesn't happen.

Meanwhile, I'm almost done with week 1 of my 2ww. My boobs are a little sore which is potentially a positive sign. But I've been having morning insomnia lately, so my bbts aren't that high. I mean, they're not so low it's worrysome, but it's not exactly steadily climbing the way it had during my previous BFPs. But, in reality they're really not different than any cycle at this point. 6 dpo, the bbts all look the same, generally. So I'm just still waiting. Sometimes I feel excited or hopeful, but I'm trying to keep myself in check. I just don't want to moon over a BFP. I want to remain indifferent. It's just very difficult. I feel like a BFP is basically meaningless, but there's always that, "You never know," aspect to the whole thing. It's frustrating. And sad.

So, I think I'm going to cook some eggs since I'm hungry and they didn't fit into the cooler. They'll go bad if they don't get eaten, so I might as well use some of them up. I was going to put some cheese in them, but I don't think I'm going to dig in the cooler for it. Plain eggs for me. Maybe I'll fry them or something.

The baby is here

We got a call at 8:45 yesterday morning and the baby has arrived. He's a boy. He doesn't have a name yet. T and I are going to go to the hospital later this morning and see E & R and their new arrival. I'm feeling mostly okay about all of this, though it is terribly surreal. I mean, I just can't believe that they're parents and they have a kid now. They're the first people in my close group of friends to have a baby, and I have to admit that it is freaking me out just a little. T is a bit more saddened than me about the whole thing, I think. But we'll go to the hospital and visit, and then we'll go to the fireworks by ourselves.

E's labor was quick and easy, as far as labor goes. She had no pain meds and things went quite smoothly. She woke up in the middle of the night and her water broke, and by the time she got to the hospital she was 4 1/2 cm dilated. The baby was born at about 7:45, He was a week 'early' but he weighed almost 8 lbs and was 20+ inches, so he's a big boy.

That's the big news for this holiday weekend. I hope we see some good fireworks.