My Favorite Color Is Green...

It’s not you word press its me.

I’m just not comfortable here.

See, I lived in Bedrock until I got laid off from the quarry.

And well now that I’m employed now, and am going to try to have a baby…well I would just feel

more comfortable there.

So, if you would all induldge me–the fireplace will be delivered to the cave tomorrow.

Come on over to the cave.

We will have Mimosa’s, and Samoa’s, and Mint Oreos.

and I promise…I won’t move again!

http://mrsbarneyrubble.blogspot.com/

Pending a drug test, and pre employment physical my vacation is over.

Well it isn’t over just yet.  I still have two more weeks of unemployment to get through, but I can cease and desist looking for employment because I’m employed again!

I got the job I wanted at the rate that I wanted, and once again I’m working with my husband.  Well not with him, but at his company.

I’m making MORE money than I made at the Urgent Care Center, but not quite as much as giant hospital system.  I get 4 PTO days IMMEDIATELY to use at my discression.  Oh and I have to use them BEFORE December 31st.

Oh when do I start?  Well September 8th at 8:30.  This will mean I will have an hour in the a.m. to kill before hubby starts working and hubby will have an hour in the afternoon to kill before I start working.

I can’t believe this.  They told me they would call me NEXT WEEK–this after meeting with the head of HR once, my direct supervisor AND a vice president today only to be called 3 hours after I left!

I’m so very very excited.  I will be working Monday through Friday.  If you could see me you would see a shit eating grin!  Excuse my french!

No cypher today, not that its needed.

At any rate…

I have given myself a lot of shots in my time.  First Follistim, then generic mix it your self Ovidrel with a super long needle, Ganirelix that stings like a bee, brand name Ovidrel, Insulin because the metformin just isn’t doing it, and finally Bravelle because I respond to that even better than Follistim.  Oh boy if I had to guess I would say I’m probably in the thousands of injections at this point and thime.  Thousands that have never caused more than a momentary pinch and a burn until tonight.

Yes, I’m giving it away but I don’t mind.

Tonight I hit a vessel.  It’s my fault.  The Follistim I pushed into my belly after my appointment this morning.  Causing myself no more than a passing moment of surpise at how anticlimatic it has become.  It’s so different than it was in the begining.  Every night I woudl come home, pull the pen out of the fidge, let it warm to room temperature for 20 minutes, pull down my pants, alcohol the arean and slowly plunge it into my skin.  Now I’m lucky if I remember push the plunger down slightly to fill the needle point with a bubble of meds before injection.  Complacency I tell you.

Tonight I almost forgot my second shot, and was actually a half an hour late doing it.  Unlike this morning which is simply twisting a capped insulin needle onto my blue Follistim pen I was required to mix saline into powder before being able to complete the task at hand.  Of course once I had completed the task I bore my bare thigh and shoved the needle in.  I felt the resistance of my skin against the needle, and instead of drawing the plunger back to make sure there was no blood I pushed it down and felt the tell tale sting as the foreign fluid invaded the area beneath my epidermus.  However it wasn’t until I pulled out the needle that I realized why it hurt so much more than usual.

Yes, out of all the needles, all the injections, and out of all the areas on my body where I could have possibly injected 75 unites of Bravelle I pick the one area where a vessel was laying in wait.  The blood that poured out was red and angry, and the pain immediate followed quickly by the questions.

Did the medication come out with the blood?

What will the consequenses be of hitting a vessel?

Why is it still bleeding?

Should I call the nurse?

The answers:

No.

The medication will be absorbed at a different rate.

Vessels bleed, sometimes a lot.  Just don’t take any asprin or it will make the painful bruise even worse.

Yes, call me any time you have questions.  You know the drill….

I tell you out of all of the needles…it had to be the one that should have been the most routine.

Women who are infertile, or secondarily infertile hate to hear the following:

“You haven’t been trying that long”

“You’re young”

“At least you know you can get pregnant”

“Just relax”

“Have you tried…”

I’m right up there with loathing all of the above.  It was even worse when I heard a combination of the above from a cousin who herself has PCOS, and is infertilt-though choosing to live childless by choice.  So can you imagine ever hearing those words coming from my mouth?  Its hard to imagine, yet variations of those very cliche’s have been typed over and over by me to one particular person.

I find it ironic that an RN can be totally hapless when it comes to matters of fertility, especially as it pertains to themselves.  She had no idea where her cervix was located, nor what it should feel like.  Which OK, that is a tough one for most but at least I knew where mine was located in relation to the rest of my anatomy when I was told to “stick a finger in and feel it”

Of course as the weeks of her “we’re not trying, but we’re not preventing but tell me how to get pregnant quickly…” have turned into months I found myself saying to her tonight on facebook messaging “It hasn’t been that long, it will happen for you, just relax”    Yes its only been 3 cycles, yes she is in her mid 20’s, and while yes there is a possibility of PCOS there is no definitive answer.  So why then would I be so crass as to say “Just relax…”

It then occured to me…it’s not said to be condecending, but that somewhere in the crevice of the brain that  this is thought to be helpful or comforting.  That perhaps by reminding the afflicted that “they are still young”  or by telling  the woman who miscarried that “at least you know you can get pregnant” that they are granted a reprieve from the sorrow even if its for a moment.  I equate it to shaking the hand of the bereaved “I’m so sorry for your loss”  The words are empty, but they are meant to give comfort but they don’t…and in the end its all just a giant cliche…

Back in the early days of my marriage I was the spender and he was always out to sea with the Navy.  More often than not when he came home he would have very little of his pay check left, and almost none of the bills paid.  As we have collectively matured our priorities have changed.  The bills are paid, and the savings account increased we can spend what ever our heart desires–within reason.

Of course there are exceptions to that rule.

After my miscarriage my way of mourning was to cry, cry and cry some more.  His way of mourning was to clean out our savings account for purchase a 52 inch flat screen HD television.  Mind you at the time we had basic cable and were only able to pull in maybe 10 HD channels, if that.

When his grandmother died this April he started talking about trading in our not quite 2 1/2 year old car for a new one.  Granted we do trade them in at about the 3 1/2-4 year mark I was not about to expedite the process just to soothe his soul.  Though I will admit that then he suggested the HHR I came close to allowing the exchange, but luckily for bank account I was able to push through to the sensible side of the transaction and convinced him to wait at least another year or two.

This time its apparently my unemployment that has caused him to need to spend.  I will say this, prior to that unfortunate state we had looked at Blackberry’s.  Until now we have always extended our contracts with the free phones.  When the Razor was hip I was just graduating from pre paid minutes to our first contract with an updated (to us) flip phone instead of the stick phones that we had been so attached to.  When it came time to extend again I was able to go a little fancier with a slider since that was finally free, but what I really still wanted was the now 4 year old Razor but since it cost money I wasn’t willing, but apparently the huby was…for yesterday in a fit of spontanious need to spend money he found himself (without me) at the Verizon wireless store purchasing Black Berry’s.

You know because I really need a blackberry being unemployed and all…

If I’m honest however I will say its pretty cool.  He got me the pink one, and I do love it.  Its a lot of fun to be able to check my email in the car, which will stream line the re-employment efforts.  Our home phone sends me an email each time I get a voice mail.  So now rather than either waiting to get home to see if I have a message, or calling over and over again I can look at my email and see the phone number of who called.

Still, I really can’t say I need it…but I’m not going to complain that I have it…because in all honest (and no I’m not going to tell my hubby) it is pretty cool!

If I got the job where my husband works they will call on Monday…

If I get the job where my husband works then we will be moving in October.  There will be no sense in living in the Eastern Suburbs when we would both be working just outside of the city on what is called ospiciously “The West End”

If I called the RE then my next appointment would also be on Monday.

If I called the RE, and if everything fell into a 28 day cycle then beta day would be the same day as my annual, September 15th.

If my cycle starts I will need to reschedule my annual because I won’t be able to have my pap smear the same day as CD 1 or 2.

If I don’t get the job, which I vascilate between yes I got it and no I didn’t then I have a second interview with the first place that I interviewed with on Tuesday.

If I don’t get the job at my husbands company, and if I don’t get an offer from my second interview then I have to go to career links on Friday.  This will be where I find out about schooling.

Ah to have a plan that is still surrounded by If…

I am a lover of fire places.   My parents house has a real brick one, but the decided to remove the hearth stone and close up the flue so that it no longer works.  In its place they have electric logs that “crackle” My moms excuse for closing it up is that the living room was just too small.  Of course her argument should have quickly been squashed for how does she think that they heated the house before there was even a forced air coal furnace?  Especially given the fact that there is a matching fire place in the master bedroom?  Anyway, I don’t live there any more so I don’t get a vote.  However it was there that my love of fire places was born.

I love everything about a fire.  The sound it makes, the smell when the wood ignites, and the romantic glow that it puts off into the room.  Yet everywhere I have ever lived since college has been sans fire place, but that is about to change.  Of course I can’t have a wood burning unit in our current abode but nothing can stop me from having an electric version and that is exactly what I’m going to have.

Today I took a leap of faith and ordered myself a cherry wood electic fireplace unit.  It stands just over 3 1/2 feet tall, and is just under 3 feet wide with a depth of 9 inches and I can’t wait for it to arrive.

I already have visions of our Christmas stockings hanging off the mantle, and perhaps a bough of greenry laying across teh top.  No, its not a “real” fire place but its close enough and I can’t wait for its arrival.  It’s almost a shame that it will be here two weeks from now, but that it will be too warm still to fire her up-wouldn’t it be romantic to tell your child that they were conceived on the hearth of a warm fire?  Ah well, there will be plenty of fall days and winter nights in which I can sit in front of it and day dream, and pretend that I can smell wood burning…

This is not an infertility blog.

It will never be an infertility blog, except on days

when we discuss infertility and today is one of those days.

I expected my cycle to arrive on Tuesday and it did.

There was nothing more and nothing less than that.  It

was simple biology.  Hubby asked if I was disgruntled that it had arrived?

I told him I would have been more disgruntled had it not arrived.

Not that I had a plan…

Then I woke up on today.  The day after the ball game.  Since AF had started after 3 p.m. on Tuesday

was I on CD 1 or CD 2?  Full red flow is considered CD 1, and well by 11 it was full red flow, but day 1 or 2?  I wondered.

Do I pick up the phone?

Do I leave a message that I want to try that one last cycle?

IUI no, but timed intercourse yet?

He needs a son and I need to provide him with one.  He didn’t disagree when I told him I was going to do everything in my power to provide him with his son.  Usually he tells me that he doesn’t need children but I sense that has changed.

Me, I’m feeling better about the whole thing.  It takes 9 months–40 weeks; 42 if your late and induced to get the baby here.  That is plenty of time for jobs, and finances to change.

So why I did I question it?

Why did I fight it?

If I thought you could keep a secret I would tell you if I picked up the phone and left that message.  I would be able to tell you if I have an appointment tomorrow morning at 7:20 in the morning for a blood draw and a wanding.   Tomorrow I would be able to tell you if we changed the plan for this one last grand plan.  I would be able to tell you that I’m willing to proceed with dozen follicles if that is what it would take…but then I would have to let you in on a little secret that I’m not ready to share…

So I suppose you will just have to keep reading my non infertility blog that may every now and again toss out a cypher like in the DaVinci Code…and who knows, perhaps mine may lead to my own Holy Grail…

My husband and I were invited to the ball game tonight by his boss.  I have previously met his wife, but never had the opportunity to meet their 6 year old son.

At first he was shy, bowing his head below his ball cap while saying hello.  “Don’t worry, soon he will be talking to you non stop”  his dad said but that wasn’t the case at least not for me.  Typically children are drawn to me, and my husband takes a back seat but in this case the reverse was true.  When Joe warmed up, which was almost as soon as we sat down he was a chatting non stop, but it wasn’t to me it was to Hubby.  Joe would announce how many strikes the team at bat had, as well as how many more outs were needed to bring the next team to bat.

As he chatted I watched my husband who is usually very hands off respond, and meld into this little boy.  They shared baseball knowledge as if this little boy were an adult instead of a soon to be first grader.  My husband laughed and smiled, and even offered to buy him pop corn, peanuts, and cracker jack if his heart desired.  Me, I had to turn my head so that they couldn’t see me cry.

For years I have seen our child(ren), but only as babies.  Even when pregnant I am not able to see past infancy.  I’m unable to see my husband in the roll of father out side of the biological sense.  This is not because I do not believe he will be an inadequate father, but perhaps because I don’t wish to see him as a father because it hurts too badly.  Maybe all of those times that I have watched him take a back seat to my playing “mommy” wasn’t due to an uninterested party, but perhaps a party who didn’t want to see what they were missing?

He said something again the other day that tells me he is ready to be a father.  I helped a woman out with some “baby juice” so that they could continue on their quest to parenthood and he said “There is enough when YOU’RE ready to try again right?”  It wasn’t that he asked it was the inflection that he used.  Never before has he been concerned about the status of our meds, or the status of when I would be ready to try again.  It was always on my time table, always on my mind, always on my play book…but now I wonder if that hasn’t changed as I watched a sonless father at the baseball game…

We moved in November, and ever since my husband has said that he was going to hang the plasma tv on the wall.  In 3 months we will have been here a year, and the television still sits on what once was exclusively our coffee table while the wall behind remained bare until yesterday that is…

I had no vision when as I walked into the first of three stores.  All I knew was that I wanted to fill the space and that the possibilities were endless if I found what I was looking for, and that it cost under the $20 that I had in my wallet.  A 25 minute drive, three stores, and change in the form of paper bills I was heading home.  Despite the marked down find I still had no idea if my collection would work but I pulled out the cordless drill, the hammer, some nails, and screws and began the attack on the wall.

Once the frames were hung I stood back hammer in hand, and smiled.  Hubby walked in and he too stood and smiled.  Though he asked “Why are the photos on their sides?”  He of course failed to notice that the images didn’t mirror anyone in our immediately family but those of paid models for the frame company.  Once I pointed that out I remarked “something is missing” and that is Joy…Love…Peace  For the next hour my Cricut churned out the words.  First love, then peace, and finally joy.  Each hung in different areas to complete the wall.  Finally it was time to select the photographs.

Joy…  The photo of my sisters and I that was taken for Mothers Day 2 years ag0, and the photo of the three of us sitting with each set of grandparents on Easter Sunday in 1978.  Looking at the photo now its hard to believe that 4 short years later we would loose 3 grandparents in the span of 9 months.

Love…A photo of my hubby and I that was taken at my nephews 1st birthday in 2006.  Its the same photo that we used on our baby’s blog when the doctor promised us that we wouldn’t miscarry this time.  We captioned it “Proud parents” I could have chosen others as there are so many-my senior prom, our wedding, the photo from my parents 40th wedding anniversary, but it is in this photo that we are relaxed and tanned and happy and that embodies US it is not formal, or coerced, it’s just two people in love

Peace…The final photo on the wall is of me on the day I was born.  I’m wrapped in an eyelet blanket, my left hand over my chest my right in a little fist with my thumb tucked under my fingers.  Even now years later I will often find my hand in that position, so its one I must have held while still in the womb.  That picture is the one that is most profound for me.  You see, I may never replace that photo with one of my own child but it is a sleeping childs image that gives me peace.

There are other photos on the shelves that hang on my wall too, and I notice as I write this that even though it wasn’t intentional-the placement of the photos or the words that the memories that they envoke match where they stand.

No matter what ever else is going on in my life I am blessed every time I look at that wall for its a constant reminder of the joy, love and peace that are forever present in my day…

*Obviously the photo I posted is NOT of the final photos that were put in the frames to protect my privacy*