Mom, are you on your period or something?

Me: "Excuse me?...Why would you think that?"

Goose: "Well, in the books you gave me (about puberty), it says that when women are on their period they tend to be crabby."

Me: (((laughing hysterically)))

Yes, Blogdom, I opened that can of worms and it has already come back to bite me in the @$$. Elvis is leaving the building and my little girl is holding his hand.

Fourth grade has been a real milestone in Goose's emotional development and much to her joy, we pulled out "THE" books this week. I have had this gem of a book for FOUR YEARS in my dresser drawer waiting for the right time. I found it at the library and immediately knew it was the book for us (of course I did return the library copy and bought my own...you are relieved I'm sure). This outstanding book talks about every conceivable topic (conceivable...ha!) and does so without religious or political ties.

For the record, the reason I was being "crabby" was because I had realized five minutes earlier that I had planned two Lunar New Year parties in two different classrooms for the same time and same day. Would anyone in Blogdom care to guess WHY I might have done this?

It's called I. V. F.

I am a scatter-brained-one-track-mind mommy these days. It's downright scary to think of me on injectables in the next few weeks! Lord help Ivan.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign - and I DO mean the Tesla version

Ahh, Tesla takes me back to my college concert-going days (#77, 78).

So, I am feeling like one of those mediums we are all skeptical of...the ones who say..."I am seeing a woman, with an "A" name...." and the person hoping to reach a departed loved one replies, "oh, oh, my great, great Aunt Annie whom I never met and have no emotional attachment to at all!"

Yeah, well, I like to think that what I have been experiencing is deeper that the great great Aunt Annie connection.

It's the signs, people. Lots of em. Their significance is up for debate.

Sign #1: I received a "pregnancy" magazine in the mail last week. Not with my name. It was for a neighbor on another street with the same house #.

Sign #2: My latest "In Style" magazine has pregnancy ads in it...the same ones from the Pregnancy magazine that I perused before putting it back in the mailbox for delivery to the rightful fertile-big-bellied owner. I have never seen pregnancy ads in "In Style" before. Right about now you are saying, "oh, they were there but you never noticed them." No, I am telling you, they have not been there before!

Sign #3: While trying to come up with a cute, cutting edge, says-something-about-me banner for my blog, I found this piece of clipart which I had never seen before. I saved it for my blog.

And there it was yesterday, in my latest issue of Cooking Light. That same piece of obscure clipart staring back at me from a huge full page ad.

If these are signs then what do they mean? Could it mean we are on the right track...could these signs be indicating IVF might actually work...is this the universe telling me that we picked the right time to do this?

Perhaps it just means I need to get a life? :O

Warning! 80's Flashback

Happy me just bought and uploaded Pat Be.natar "Crimes of Pas.sion" to my iPod! :)

I got the original vinyl album for Christmas in the early 80's and it was a staple on my bedroom record player. I used to sing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" while using a boat oar as my microphone. Ahh yes, I see the picture so clearly now...I was wearing Luv-it jeans and before each performance I would touch-up my feathered hair using the comb stored in my back pocket. I seriously doubt I was wearing a bra yet, not that I need one now. My bedding was Holly Hobby and my bed had a canopy on it.

We. Rocked.

Liver anyone?

Eleven years ago (or was it twelve?), during the first song of our fertility dance, Ivan's semen analysis returned results that were stellar which prompted my Gyn, Dr.Smile, to ask if I feed him liver every night. Nice. Well...you never know what two kids and a crazy wife can do to those little fellars....so... at my recent RE visit, Dr.ColdSpeculum went ahead and acquired a fresh speciman from Ivan to see where we stand.

We are standing at attention, thank you very much, and our troops are ready, willing and more than able to fight! ;)

It seems that if Ivan had not married ME, he could have bio children filling several elementary schools in at least three counties. I suppose this is assuming an issue with promiscuity but you get the picture.

My man has quantity, motility, lovely shape and a 24 hour survival rate that leaves you saying wow. Really, WOW! :)

A mish mosh of posts - cyst, snot, gag reflex, healthy ute to name a few topics

2-20-07
Trip to Dr.Smile today. He was his usual sincere self.

So, that rather large cyst the RE found a few weeks ago? Ya know, the one that could be hit with a bat and sent into left field, way over the fence? Well, this morning, during a very drippy hydrosonography it was determined that not only is my uterus pristine, my baseball cyst was G O N E. No needle aspiration for me! :) Go team!

The next step is to meet with the RE nurse who comes to town regularly to meet with IVF patients. I am hoping she will be here next week. Once we learn how to shove needles into my tender skin, we are off!

Why? are we doing this
How? will I handle the needles and mood swings
What? are we thinking

I am going to start acupuncture to help with implantation. My biggest 'worry' is getting those buggers to implant. I have huge amounts of confidence in my ovaries and the lovely embryos we will create. It's the getting them to stick part that I am concerned about. Endo patients have an especially hard time with implantation.

Ha, ha, ha, I have to laugh....MORE NEEDLES! ;)

**Update: RE nurse emailed me. She will be in town on March 5. I must make a note to mention that cold speculum with her. I am thinking AFTER the injection lesson. :)

2-7-07
First trip to the RE under our belts. I like my RE a lot. I had a lovely "test transfer" to see if the doc could pass the very thin catheter through my stenotic cervix. He could and it pinched. May I ask what happened to warming the speculum before insertion? Ahem.

While he was checking out my girl parts, he found a very lovely cyst the size of a baseball on my right ovary (well it looked that big on the screen). I wish I had a picture of that darned thing. It took up the entire screen. Endometriomas? Corpus Luteum that won't stop? Only time will tell. If it doesn't go away, I will need to spend yet another day traveling so that he can aspirate it.

With a needle.

That passes through the wall of my vaginal canal.

Is it any wonder that when I sat up from this glorious exam that I had to lie back down so I wouldn't slump over into the floor?

1-31-07
Fever people! I had a fever and when I am feverish I cry. It seems the cold virus that clogged up my head managed to do such a good job of it that my sinuses were hosting an infection. Well, what I call an almost-sinus-infection. I decided that if I approached this situation with aggressive treatment, I could forgo the trip to the dr and one week of antibiotics that would eventually lead to an itchy yeast infection. A lot was at stake. And a fever was burning away.

This is where the dynamic duo comes in.

So, pseudo*ephedrine and gua*fenesin together.....da bomb! We are talkin' the Pied Piper of snot removal people! Sadly, my aggressive intake of meds still did not guarantee me a good night's sleep. It wasn't because I was clogged and trying to breathe out of my mouth leading to a dry throat which wakes you up every time. No, it was because the rapid expulsion of fluids out of my various cranial orifices required a good nose blowing every, oh, I don't know, every seven minutes or so. After the first few blows, I would let out a very superbowlish-themed exclamation of victory, "oh, yeah!" (as if each soiled tissue was a touchdown). After a few hours of that, however, I just wanted sleep...clogged nose or not. Around 5 AM, when the meds had worn off, I was actually sleeping soundly. Not helping last night was the fact that my DH (who gave me the virus that spawned this ugly beast of a cold) is still not 100% unclogged. Therefore, he has been snoring. Not just snoring. SNORING. The princess that I am, it seems that even the slightest noise awakens me out of my royal slumber. I am seeing those sticky snoring prevention things in his future. Like tonight.

So, I have found that nothing conjures up a good gag reflex like Mucinex (ya know, my new guafenesin lover). Not only do those things feel like a mega block going down, just thinking of the taste makes me grimace. And, no matter how far I place said block in the back of my throat, my taste buds are still inundated with that horrendous toxic...blech...I am gagging just writing about it.