Blogger Flame of Fortitude

Wow!! That is just about all I can say in response to Jenna's post yesterday. Unfortunately I do not have the same way with words she does. I was literally left speechless. And since she summed it all up so well, I'm just going to quote her: "You are receiving this honor because you have embodied perseverance in the face of difficulty and shared the journey of your experiences with others proving that a single voice can both be a light of support and a source or humor for those in the midst of their struggle. You are acknowledged here today for allowing others to share in your personal story and providing camaraderie through the power of your words."

And all I can come up with is...right back at ya!!

Seriously though, I do feel blessed to have stumbled upon this amazing and supportive group of women. What started out as a way for me to journal my feelings has changed into my lifeline at times. I never even thought anyone else would even read this. I am not exaggerating in the least that it was you ladies (and Mr H of course) that got me through that chemical pregnancy last week. And I hope that I am someday able to repay you the favor (but wait...not that I hope you go through a loss....well...you get it, right??) I never thought I'd meet people willing to IM or email me to see how things are going, or to even regularly check the blog. So thanks to each and every one of you.

And while I do want to pass the torch, it seems I am a little late in the game. I think everyone on my blogroll or who comments already has the flame. If for some reason I'm missing someone, please consider to torch passed (and just blame it on the Cl.omid)

a pointless post

So all day long I think of all these random things I want to post about, and then when I have a second, I completely forget everything I wanted to say. I haven't forgotten that I've been tagged for 8 random things. I promise I'll get to that in the next few days ;)

So I've just got one question: spotting on clo.mid?? Anyone experience that? I've got a call into my nurse but you ladies usually have better info regardless. I'm on CD 7 and the nasty brown spotting started last night. I know that it can mess with your lining and it certainly seems to be doing so! I gotta tell you, it doesn't really inspire that much confidence that this is going to be the wonder drug and in 3 short weeks I'll be pregnant.

oh, and while I've got all you smarties here, let's talk antral follicle counts. During my initial testing in August I had 11, which they said was good. This cycle I had 10, which again they said was fine. Not trusting those silly doctors, I put Dr G.oogle on it. Everything I found suggests that in someone my age (30), 10 follicles isn't that great. Still definitely within the normal range of 10-20, but on the low end of normal. Will definitely talk to my RE about this and it does make me want to be more aggressive next cycle. If I'm already borderline low, what is going to happen in 3-4 years when I want a 2nd child? (I know, I'm getting greedy). Anywho, just wondering if anyone has any other info related to this?

thanks!!!

Catching up

Wow, with everyone doing this posting every day thing, I've got a lot of reading to do. I can't keep up with all of you!



I'm on day 3 of C.lomid. After the first day I stupidly wished for some side effects so I would know it was working. Boy did I get my wish. That night I woke up every 45 minutes or so with crazy horrible hot flashes. I never knew hot flashes were like that and I feel a little bad that I wasn't nicer to my mom when she was going through them. So I was tossing and turning constantly all night long. That was our night in the B&B. Not the romantic night we had been planning.



It was still a great weekend. We went hiking Saturday. It was a little cold and foggy but that just meant that the trail wasn't crowded. Had a fantastic dinner Saturday night. Barely slept that night so we decided to skip the wineries and drive straight home so we could nap before the concert.

B.ruce was AWESOME!!! It was a great show. My brother and his fiance are actually going back tonight, but they're hard core fans.

And now it's back to work. Sucks having to work on days Mr H has off. He was supposed to be playing house husband today but just called to tell me that the blew a circuit and we have no power on the first floor....my handy husband! Of course that's also because he was going to make me dinner tonight.

Will try to catch up on everyone's blogs tonight!

note to self

When having C.lomid inspired hot flashes....do NOT bring soup for lunch. I'm such an idiot! I've now locked my office door and am sitting in a tank top for a few minutes.

Must scrounge up something else to eat

buuuuuuuuuuuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

This blog is brought to you by the great cross pollination of 07. To check out my post, click on the link at the bottom. I have to admit I didn't really do it justice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Curse of My Mother-In-Law's Junk
I like to have a clean house with lots of room. I do not like clutter or decorative junk. I have a few things around, so my house doesn't look "naked" but for the most part, counters are empty, tables are clear, and mantels are unadorned. My mother-in-law is the opposite. She likes her whole house to be decorated to an inch of its life. There is decorative stuff everywhere. She is also not neat or clean, so there is clutter everywhere too. She is always trying to improve me and that includes my house. When we moved in temporarily to a rented house recently, she was full of immediate plans to bring over plants and knick-knacks to fill up my nice clean space. I managed to stop her.

What I cannot stop, is her cleaning out her closet and my father-in-laws closet and giving the stuff to us. She buys tons of new clothes all the time and gives the old ones to us. My husband has more clothes than I do. Usually what I do is to take the bags that she gives us, poke through them briefly, and then give 95% of the stuff to charity. I recently told her that we were not accepting any new clothes or stuff from her. She found a loophole and is now handing my husband bags full of clothes and telling him he "left them" at her house.

My in laws have lots of money. So, usually when they give us stuff, they say things like "that is a $150 shirt." This is to make me feel guilty about giving it away. But in my opinion, if none of us want it, it is a $0 shirt.

Story: Recently my father-in-law offered us a "really expensive" pillow. I asked him why he didn't want it if it was really expensive. He told me (after I forced it out of him) that it was uncomfortable. I asked him why we would want an uncomfortable pillow. He said "but it cost $300!" I told him that it is worth nothing if it is so uncomfortable that no one wants to sleep on it. I offered to take it and throw it away for him if he were squeamish. He said no, and I bet that pillow is in a closet somewhere at their house.

I've managed to stop most of the junk coming to our house and I have stopped showing it to my husband before I get rid of it. (He learned the "but it was really expensive" from his parents.) But I will never be able to stop it completely until one of my husband's brothers gets married. Then they will be more deserving than us and hopefully I won't have to throw so much away!

If you want to see where this blog entry came from, click here. And while you are there, enter my contest!

Got to admit it's getting better

a little better all the time
(can't get much worse)

Anywho, thanks for all of your support in coming out about our IF. Don't give me too much credit, it was to a very select group of people. And so far so good. Only one off the wall but well meaning response...but she's kind of crazy anyway. One very weird story that started out with someone writing "my childhood neighbor's cousin". As if that isn't a red flag right there. Apparently this girl was told by an RE that she would never get pregnant without fertility meds but then got pregnant accidentally while on the pill while on vacation! Yes, you speed readers read that correctly....while on the pill. Now I don't know about you, but I'm NEVER using any type of birth control ever again. Why....because I'm freakin infertile!!! After that I stopped reading that particular story. I mean maybe they wanted her to have regular periods or something but the while thing seemed a little fishy to me. Obviously she was a little confused. My aunt did ask if she could tell my 14 year old cousin. Seems to me like she's opening a whole can of worms talking to a 14 year old boy about fertility treatments but hey, not my kid. Still not sure how I feel about that one. I'll have to think about it.

oh...and here's why it's getting better. I came home from work today and Mr H had booked us a weekend at a B&B. There are a bunch of wineries around it and some hiking. He had printed out all of this info on it and made reservations at a yummy looking restaurant. I am so excited for a weekend away. And we have to rush back Sunday for the Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce concert that night! (that would be Bru.ce Springsteen) It's going to such a great weekend! Too bad I can't take tomorrow off but I'll make it through. Hopefully all these good things will minimize the C.lomid side effects. Are all of you veterans laughing your asses off at that one???

Cleaning out my closet

So, in the spirit of Infertility Awareness week, we decided to come out of the closet. We just sent out an email containing our big (un) announcement and invited 21 of our close friends and family (our inner circle I guess) to view another blog we set up. That blog has a little bit of our history, a lot of infertility awareness, and we'll use it to keep people as up to date as we want on our current treatments. Mr H and I had talked about it a lot and we know that we are missing out on an extensive support network. Plus, I have all of you amazing ladies as a sounding board, to dump on, and to pick me up when I can't quite do it myself. Mr H has nobody, just me, and I haven't been too good about picking anyone up lately. So we're out...

And as soon as I hit send I burst into tears for about 15 minutes. Not sure WTF I was thinking....but it's done....that's the beauty of the internet, there's no taking it back at this point. I'm ok, I know I will be ok with it but I'm just a little bit scared about putting myself out there. Seems like there are so many more opportunities to get hurt....and it doesn't take much. I'm pretty freakin fragile (I must be Italian, huh??).

So we'll see how it goes. Worst case scenario I take down the blog and pretend I never sent that email. My family's Irish Catholic....we can easily forget or repress anything ;)