IF is everywhere (UPDATED)

 ***Missed Conceptions got a BFP this weekend! Please stop by and give her some love. She is nervous and needs all the support she can get!***
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Last night I was folding laundry and turned the tube on. They had an L.A. Ink Marathon going on TLC. I don’t know why, but I love that show! I don’t have a tatoo either. I used to dabble with the idea. The closest I got was about 10 years ago when my brother was visiting….it was about midnight and we were drunk and decided to get tatoos. We went to the closest place and although the doors were open, they closed at 11:30. So we went home and I never came close again.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen the show they usually have a short bio/interview with some of the clients that are getting tattoos. They talk about why they want the tattoo, what it symbolizes, etc. Usually the stories are pretty compelling. Yesterday I actually cried (yes, okay, I am doing that a lot lately).

There was the woman on the show, she looked to be in her early 40s or so. She was pretty, but looked like she had a hard life. Her husband looked TOUGH. At first I thought it would be a typical story — like wanting the wedding vows tattoed on her back (lots of those on this show!). But no. She talked about her four and a half year struggle with infertility. She said so may things that we all know all too well: that becoming a mother is such a natural thing. That she never thought about the possibility that it wouldn’t happen. That they both went through tests, she had multiple surgeries and treatments, her husband did as well, and they were diagnosed with our favorite: unexplained IF. They finally adopted a baby boy and she calls him Buddha as a nickname….she had a Buddha baby tattoed on the side of her lower leg. It was an adorable tattoo of a smiling baby in a Buddha pose, holding a baby blanket around himself. She said that giving birth doesn’t make you a mother, loving a child makes you a mother.

Then there was this guy, probably in his early 30s, who lost his daughter. She had a birth defect and never grew past 7 pounds, so she was like a tiny baby even though she was older. I think she was 5 when she died (I missed how old she was when she died but she was definitely a small child). He got a tattoo of her image. It was so sad hearing him talk about his sweet baby girl. He said that time doesn’t heal him, it makes it easier to talk about, but he will never be healed. It made me wonder how I would handle it if my future child had a severe birth defect. I know I have to think about these things, because I am 38 years old and it is certainly a possibility.

Would you cry? Or is it just me….

First of all, I forgot to take my BCP yesterday morning (my last one!). I was completely stressed out about it, and was tempted to march out of work, drive all the way home, and take it. Then I decided to be rational (yes, I can still do that sometimes!) and called the IVF clinic. The nurse told me not to worry, just to take it when I get home. Yay. I haven’t managed to forget the shots yet, so that is good!

Okay, so here is what happened this morning while I was getting ready for work. Bailey (the choco lab puppy who comes with the contractor) came prancing through the dog door as usual, this time while I was in the shower. When I got out, the dogs were outside playing. I started to make the bed and I noticed that my teddy bear that I have had since I was a baby (my mom’s friend got it for me for my first birthday and I still sleep with it!) was missing from the bed. I just KNEW it wasn’t good. I made TW go outside to look and sure enough it was outside. The face had been eaten off and there is a huge hole in the butt, and it was covered in dirt and grime and slime. I bawled non-stop for about 1/2 an hour and was late for work. I am still almost crying just thinking about my poor teddy bear. I am not sure if this is normal for a 38 year old woman to cry over a stuffed animal, but I can’t help it. 😦 I know it wasn’t my dog’s fault because he is past the puppy stage of chewing and stealing everything and he has left the teddy bear alone for the last 6 months(thank Goodness!), so it was definitely Bailey. I took it out on my puppy though…he came in when I was crying and I said, “Bad Dog” and wouldn’t let him near me. TW had to intervene. I know that wasn’t fair of me, poor puppy. Ack. I am a total mess.

Current Symptoms

1. Sore boobs
2. Nausea
3. Hot – and night sweats
4. Bloated/Gassy
5. Headache
6. Weepy/Emotional/Grumpy/Bitchy

Hmmmm. If I didn’t know any better, I would think I was pregnant.

Tomorrow is my last day of BCP. I am becoming a pro at the Lu.pron. I have learned that sticking the needle in firmly and quickly is much better (I was going slowly before). Wow, that tiny bottle of Lu.pron, sure goes a long way. I didn’t believe them when they said it would be more than enough, but it is like I haven’t put a dent in it yet. I started the Lu.pron on the 19th. Time is flying!

I am supposed to continue the Lu.pron until the morning of the 2nd, then I have my baseline ultrasound. Hopefully I will start the FSH then. I have asked a couple of friends as back-ups in case TW won’t be around for my egg retrieval. I hope the timing works out for TW, but if not, I have some wonderful friends who will take care of me, even if they have to take the day off from work!

I decided to take the whole week off when I have my retrieval/transfer. It is for a good cause! Plus I have more than 300 hours of sick time accrued…I was planning to use it for maternity leave, but that hasn’t happened yet, obviously!

Side note: I went to this Mexican take-out for dinner, to pick up some food for TW. He worked with the contractors again today and hurt his back (again). The boy doesn’t learn! He was pulling stakes out of concrete and nearly crippled himself. Anyway, here is how the ordering went at the Mexican place…this was after waiting for the moron in front of me who asked questions about each item on the menu, saying things like, “What’s in the grilled burrito? The stuff listed on the menu?”…then “What’s in the shrimp salad, is there seafood in that?” OMG I wanted to pour the habanero salsa into his eye. Here is the exchange with the girl that worked there:

Cashier: Hello, welcome to La Salsa, how may I help you?
Me: I would like a chicken quesadilla to go….
Cashier (interrupting before I can keep ordering): Chicken or Steak?
Me: Ummmm. Chicken.
Cashier: For here or to go?
Me: TO GO.
Cashier: Will that be all?
Me: No, I would also like the Grande Chicken Burrito to go….
Cashier (again, interrupting me): Chicken or beef?
Me: CHICKEN.
Cashier: For here or to go?
Me: Ummm. Yeah. To go. Just like the quesadilla. AND, I would like the tortilla soup.
Cashier: For here or to go?

OMG. I am so grumpy and intolerant, this was not the day to fuck with my mind like this! This would put me into outer orbit even if I was not in an artifically induced hormonal rage!

8 Things About Me

Okay, so I have been thinking that this Lu.pron thing is a piece of cake. The injections are not so bad, I feel a tiny sting when the tip of the needle pierces the skin but then it is smooth sailing. And no side effects. And no bruises (just a few tiny black pin-pricks here and there). I thought. However, last night I woke up totally sweaty, and I am grumpy as all hell. And my boobs are super sore and I have a headache. Poor TW. It is his birthday today, and I walked in the door after work and immediately started griping about the dishes (I had left a note for him to unload the dishwasher). Also, I had made him a birthday dinner last night – I made a really expensive beef tenderloin roast for him, his dad, PT and me. And he told me he ate some of the leftovers for lunch, by chopping it up and scrambling it in some eggs. I almost castrated him. He scrambled $26.99/lb beef tenderloin in eggs? OMG. I ripped him a new one. I stormed out of the house and took the puppy to the dog park. On the way there I realized that I really shouldn’t have gotten so unbelievably upset over some left over meat. How he eats his leftovers for lunch really shouldn’t concern me so much! And I was at work so he fended for himself (which is actually better than usual — sometimes I come home and he hasn’t eaten all day!)…was it right to scream and yell and slam the doors because of his scrambled egg lunch? Probably not. I am going to blame it on the Lu.pron. But it could possibly be because I am just naturally a raging bitch. Not sure. I will keep you posted on that whole thing and will let you know as soon as I figure it out.

Missed Conceptions nominated me for the “8 Things About Me” meme…so here goes!

1. I am terrible at sharing. If I order something really yummy at a restaurant, I don’t want to give bites to anyone. I also covet things like my favorite hair tie, my favorite pen, because I don’t want anyone else to use it (even if I am not using it!). I force myself to share but it is really hard. I know this about myself and it scares the shit out of me, since I want to be a mom so much. Mom’s have to share everything. Will this change when I have a baby? I sure as hell hope so. I need to work on this. In other ways I am very generous, like with my time, and I will do anything for my friends and loved ones. But share my favorite pen? Not so much.
2. I need to touch my keys. I think I have some sort of OCD? I need to know where my keys are at all times. I lost them once about 10 years ago and ever since then, I obsess about them. You would think this would have caused me to always leave them in the same place, but I get so distracted…one time I found them in the freezer! Not only do I need to know where they are, I have to touch them. So if I am out for dinner with friends (for example), I will open my purse at least 5 times to make sure my keys are in my purse (and touch them). Even if I just checked 1/2 an hour before, I do it again, knowing that I haven’t moved them (but also knowing I am such a spaz, that maybe I did move them?)
3. I have had 2 nose jobs. Yes, TWO. When I was 10 I walked face first into a very clean sliding glass door. My nose was always bigger than I liked but after that I had a prominent bump on one side of my nose…I had a “good side” and a “bad side”, and I was always aware of which side was visible to the people around me. When I turned 18 I asked my parents if I could get a nose job, and they said it was fine (I was shocked!). So, the summer before college, I got my nose fixed. The doctor called it a “deviated septum” and truth be told, I did breathe much better afterwards….and my nose was straight. The recovery was horrible. But the next summer I had a follow-up and the doctor was not pleased with the results and offered to do it again for free. And I said yes! So I did the whole thing again. Amazingly, I am still not happy with my nose. This was 20 years ago and I think that nose jobs have come a long way…but don’t worry, I am not going through it again! The scary part is that TW has a long Italian/Greek nose…our baby will probably be worse than Cyrano. TW just found out that I got a nose job because when we were moving he found this old picture of me. I never told him — I truly blocked the whole thing. But I came clean…and now he makes fun of me. Argh!
4. I always have at least 4 of everything in the supply closet (probably related to the OCD!). Four toothpastes, four packages of toilet paper, four laundry detergents, etc. If I get down to 2 of something, I need to run to Target to replenish ASAP. If I only have 1 left of something (even if the opened one is almost full), I feel the DIRE need to shop for it, like it is an emergency. I never run out of ANYTHING.
5. I love animals but I eat meat. I cannot reconcile this at all. I never squish a spider, no matter how ugly it is. I trap it under a cup and take it outside. I volunteer my free time to save unwanted puppies. I am the person who stops every person on the street with a dog so I can give the dog some love (usually I get on the ground with the dog, no matter what I am wearing). I love ALL animals, even reptiles. I want to be a vegetarian but meat has been so ingrained in my life from an early age, even when I give it up for a while, I go back to it like an addiction. My dad grew up in Eastern Europe (as a jew) during World War II, and almost starved. My mom grew up in India and meat was a coveted thing, maybe obtained once every two months. So when they came here to the U.S. and meat was so available, they fed it to us 5 days a week, like it was a well-earned prize (and in a way, it was). But I know what horrible, awful deaths these poor animals go through. And even though I think about it all the time, I still buy steak at the grocery store. I get so obsessed about the environment and the plight of domestic and wild animals that sometimes I cry, but I feel too paralyzed to do anything about it. I could seriously pay a therapist every day for the rest of my life, just on this issue alone.
6. I weigh myself twice a day. I know this is really bad for the morale, but my mom bought me a scale when I was 12 and the only time I have skipped weighing myself is when I am on vacation and there isn’t a scale in the bathroom. I play this game in the evening before I go to sleep, I weigh myself and then predict how much I will weigh the next morning, thinking about what I ate that day, and how much I exercised, and what I am wearing. I always weigh myself clothed at night and naked in the morning. (Oh God, more OCD).
7. I never eat breakfast. I know that it is “the most important meal of the day”. However, when I was still in grade school, my mom slowly reduced her efforts at breakfast from cooking a hot meal, to making frozen waffles, to pouring cereal, to leaving cereal out for me to pour. At the end of the breakfast era, she would leave the cereal out but leave a vitamin in the bottom of the empty bowl, knowing I would just pop that and go to school. My mom and dad were not breakfast eaters either, just coffee and tea. I am so used to going about my morning with no food in my stomach that on the weird occasion when I do eat in the morning, I am totally thrown off. And I am actually much hungrier on the days when I eat breakfast. I don’t get hungry until lunch. I asked my doctor if this was okay, and she said not to force myself to eat if I am not hungry. So there.
8. Cooking is my therapy. I love to cook. I love everything about it. I love thinking up new recipes and imagining how the individual ingredients will combine to tantalize the people who eat it. I never use recipes while I am cooking but I read them for fun and modify as I feel fit. I watch cooking shows all the time for ideas as well. No matter how tired I am after a shitty day at work, I can go grocery shopping (which I also LOVE), get home and put together an awesome meal for family and friends. And I always feel rejuvenated afterwards. Feeding people is love. This is the one thing that I love to share.

Okay, now that you all think I am neurotic and not fit to be a mother (except maybe for the cooking thing), I nominate SarahS-P to do the meme next.

Books – any suggestions (NON-IF books please!)

I usually read a lot of fun stuff over the summer, and this summer I was so busy getting ready for the remodel and dealing with IF that I just didn’t do it. My 36 hour stint without TV made me realize I am totally addicted. I need to start reading again… fun stuff – I like reading light hearted novels, but they have to be written well, good imagery, good character development…I like Jennifer Weiner (“In her Shoes”, “Good in Bed”), Elizabeth Berg (“Never Change”), I LOVED the Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kid (I also read “The Mermaid Chair” but didn’t like it as much). Oh, I guess not all my favorites are light hearted, I absolutely devoured “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold, I hear it will be a movie soon (I always get scared to see a movie after I love the book because usually the casting bugs me and if the story line gets changed at all, I feel ripped off). I read Khaled Hosseini’s “Kite Runner” two summers ago and thought it was heart wrenching but beautiful – I read his second book this summer (A Thousand Splendid Suns) and it was pretty good too (but not as good as the Kite Runner). I also loved the “Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger.

Okay, so I basically just gave you a reading list of my most recent faves. I would love to hear your list so I can start reading again! What are the best books you have read recently?

Shoot ’em Up

Yesterday I had my injections/instructions “class”. It was just me and the nurse. She is so great, she is really cheerful and positive. Super young and single. I wonder how hard it is to be that young and surrounded with so many embittered IFers? It was so odd, when I walked into the clinic it was PACKED. Standing room only. I rarely see anyone else there (or just one or two patients). I was looking at all the couples and wondering what their stories were. No one made eye contact with anyone else. But it is interesting being in a room, knowing that we are all there for the same thing: we want a baby and can’t have one on our own. There was an Indian couple and the wife brought her mother. My mom is from India…I couldn’t help but wonder what the cultural pressures are. I think it is very different than in the West. There was also a middle eastern couple, a Latino couple and two Asian couples. Then there were two tall, skinny, coifed women that look a lot like the stay-at-home moms in my neighborhood. Infertility does not discriminate, that is for sure. The place was so busy that my nurse ran 45 minutes late, which was a little annoying. I saw my doctor but he kind of blew by me and didn’t say anything. I wonder if he didn’t recognize me — we met for an hour or so a few weeks back for my initial consult. Maybe he would have recognized me if I dropped my pants. Anyway, I was glad I had my mini-class at the pharmacy, because the session with the nurse just reinforced it all. I have this great calendar/check-list that the clinic gave me so I can check off what I do each day. It will be hard to mess up, even with my nerves so ragged.

I started my Lu.pron injections today. I feel so uncoordinated…I have to inject 5 units of air into the bottle and then pull 5 units of Lup.ron into the syringe. Even just removing both caps from the syringe throws me. And remembering to wipe down the rubber stopper with alcohol and my tummy too…I was also nervous that PT would walk into my bedroom just as I was poking myself! I also pictured my puppy jumping up and causing some sort of mishap. I know that it will get easier, by the time I have to add FSH I will be an old pro (although I will then have to fiddle with the FSH pen!). I have never been so happy to have a spare tire around my middle, I can’t even feel the needle go in. I wonder what ladies do with really flat, muscular tummies. Owchie mamma!

I ended telling C at work what was happening. I just feel like she should know (I already told P)…because I am going to be in and out of the office for appointments, and who knows what the meds will do to my emotions (not to mention the stress of the whole thing). I told her I think I am going to take the whole week of November 11 off. I was starting to worry that P and C were thinking I was just slacking off with my coming in late, saying I have “appointments”, etc. So I came clean. She seemed understanding. She is the one that just got married two weeks ago – she says that she wants to wait 10 years until they start having kids. Ugh. I said I wanted to wait 5 years after getting married, and look at me now.

So today I did something bad. I used IVF as an excuse not to go to work. I took 1/2 the day off yesterday for my injections class and so I felt bad taking another 1/2 day off work for the cable guy….so I called in and said I started my shots and didn’t feel well. I feel horribly guilty to use it as an excuse. Truth be told I barely slept last night because I was having anxiety about IVF. I had a horrible dream and woke up at midnight, and then I was wide awake until 4am when I finally turned on the reading lamp and started to read. Bad idea. I am reading a book called “The A.R.T. of Making Babies” and I was at the section of all the risks of IVF, birth defects, etc. No wonder I am having nightmares. So I probably would have been useless at work anyway, and I didn’t feel well for lack of sleep. But I added the part about the shots to make it sound more serious than just a bad night’s sleep. Ugh. I am a horrible person.

Last night I turned on the TV because PT and I were going to watch during dinner (yes, I know, it is a BAD idea to watch TV while eating dinner with your kids….and we don’t do it all the time!)…we had no picture. Then later I turned on the computer and we had no internet (which obviously made sense since we have cable internet). OMG. I take TV and the internet for granted! What did people do in colonial times! So I called the cable company and they said someone could come between 10am and 2pm. Fantastic – right in the middle of the day. I hate that. So that is why I didn’t go to work. I had to stay at home for the stupid cable people. It is so frustrating when something works one day and then the next day POOF nothing.

I took PT to school and then went straight to pick up some trashy magazines. The only reading I am doing right now is about IF and my head is about to explode. I really need to go to the library to pick up some fun reading. Anyway, I thought that trashy mags would be a good distraction since I couldn’t watch TV or go on the computer. Well — have you noticed that ALL trashy magazines are jam packed with baby news? There was a whole article about all the celebs having twins, about Nicole Ritchie’s pregnancy, about Jennifer Lopez’ pregnancy, about Trista Sutter’s new baby…baby, baby, baby. I got three magazines (People, two different US) and they were all the same. ARGHHH!

So at 1:45 I was about to go out of my mind, and I called the cable company. They said that someone should have called me because the technician wouldn’t be here until 4pm. I was literally going to cry. I was so mad. I wasted the whole freaking day…I could have done some errands but I didn’t want to leave my house!! The guy finally showed up and showed me this white cable and said that we needed to connect it to the TV. DUH. We were trying to fix it last night before I made the call, so that is why the cable was disconnected…I am not that dumb! The guy was bummed, he thought he was a genius and solved the problem in 1 minute. Not so fast, buster! So he goes outside, and comes back in saying, “Someone disconnected your cable outside”. WTF. These people are sub-moronic. A few weeks back (the end of September!) we called to have the cable disconnected from the big house because we were moving into the cottage. This was the same time we moved our cable service to the cottage. So the technician came and looked at the two houses (which have two separate addresses, mind you…) and decided to disconnect cable from the house we are currently living in. Hmmm. If you saw this:

Would you think you should leave the cable connection in tact, and disconnect the cable to the little cottage next door? Get a clue, people!!

 

So overwhelmed!

So. I went to pick up my bag of goodies from the pharmacy today. I thought I would just swing by and pick it up. But they had something else in mind. The pharmacist asked me to go into the back room so he could train me…I told him that I have my training class tomorrow but he said it would only take half an hour (ONLY half an hour!). I called my father-in-law b/c he had PT this afternoon and luckily there was soccer practice (I have my days all confused I thought it was Thursday all day today!) so they weren’t going to be back until almost 7pm anyway, so no rush.

The pharmacist went through the whole protocol with me. I got a HUGE brown paper bag of meds, plus a large sharps container. He went over the Lu.pron injections (no mixing), the Follis.tim pen (cool!), the HCG shot (must be mixed – water and powder). He was very detailed and caring. I also brought home 4 bottles of pills: valium (for the night before egg retrieval and the day of embie transfer), anti-biotics (the same stuff that had the mixed messages — dairy or no dairy?), an immuno-suppressant to stop my body from rejecting the embies, and progesterone suppositories. The injectables must be refrigerated so I stuck the paper sacks at the back of the bottom shelf. I hope TW or PT don’t look in there for snacks! I hid the sharps container on the top shelf of my closet, and the pills and alcohol wipes and other non-perishables are in my nightstand. Now I have to remember where I put everything!!!

All the information he gave me is swimming in my head. So. Much. Information. I am relatively bright, and I know that thousands of people manage this process every day. Some of those thousands have to be less intelligent/talented/detail oriented than I am….the law of averages, right? But I am scared I am going to fuck it up some how. The wrong dose. The wrong med. The wrong time of day. We are really doing this. Can we do this?

The Schedule

I am SO irritated right now. I just looked at TW’s schedule and he has a trip from November 7-11 and then another one on November 14-15. Hmmm. Guess what? My egg retrieval is scheduled for November 11 and the transfer on the 14th (estimates, but still). Guess what else? Those trips are the only ones on the calendar…he isn’t working (so far) the rest of the month! How can I be so lucky! I called my friend A to see if she could come with me if TW isn’t around, and of course she said she would, but I would much rather have my husband there. I mean, if I am going to get pregnant, it would be nice if my husband is in the same room!

I am going for my injections class tomorrow and I am going to ask if I can take two more days of BCP. This would push things up by 2 days and would work much better with TW’s schedule. Shouldn’t be a big deal to start 2 days later, I don’t think?

The one thing that I was happy about was that TW didn’t just shrug his shoulders and say, “Oh well, guess I won’t be there”. He did seem concerned and really wants to be here. The problem is he cannot change the work trips, there is no flexibility – I understand that. So if this is going to work out, I am going to have to shift my schedule by a couple of days.

On the remodel front, I am going to meet with the window dealer today to choose our new windows! This is my first shopping expedition for the house. Very exciting!

The Coat

Yes, I am obsessed with my coat(s). I didn’t like that the catalog pictures omitted to show the cool lining, so I took a couple of pictures of my red one:

You can see the lining a little bit in this one

 

Here is a close up of the lining

 

Okay, so maybe it is the little things that make me happy. With life going the way it is, I have to give myself small rewards, right? For me it is a coat in three different colors!

Busy Weekend

I had a pretty busy weekend, for a weekend that we had nothing planned since we were supposed to be up in the Mountains!

PT had a soccer game on Saturday morning. Since we were supposed to be heading out of town, she did not bring her soccer gear to our place. So we called X to ask if she could bring the jersey, shorts, socks, cleats and shin guards, etc. X is a “coach”. I put that in quotes because she is basically more of a cheerleader, she has never played soccer in her life and doesn’t even know the rules. She just jumps up and down and yells a lot. Anyway, we show up to the game – you would think X would be happy since we weren’t going to be there. Well, X only brought the shorts and jersey, not the cleats or shin guards. Then she went off on me totally within ear-shot, like it was all my fault. Poor TW had to drive all the way home (30 minutes) to pick up the stuff. Since X was going to bring everything, we figured she would bring EVERYTHING. It is just like everything else with X – nothing is ever simple. Anyway, once we got that all squared away, PT ended up scoring TWO goals  and her team won 3-1! It was very exciting. But I was really pissed that some how I was blamed for X’s own inability to be normal. Plus I never even spoke to her about the soccer gear. It was between TW and X. WHATEVER. But then at the end of the game, X came running up to me and was chatting with me like we were old friends. I think she has borderline personality disorder or something. She is a freak.

That afternoon I ditched TW and PT and went and had my nails done with two girlfriends. It was nice to get out and see J1 and A after a pretty long while. J1’s sister is the one that just adopted the baby. After our nails, we went to see the baby. He is too cute for words. Just so perfect! When A held him for the first time, she burst into tears. I was surprised I didn’t do the same thing. J1 is definitely sandwiched between the two generations. Her sister has a week old baby and her dad is suffering with severe Parkinsons/dementia and just had a heart attack two weeks ago. He needs constant care. What a tough situation.

That evening we told PT that she could choose anywhere she wanted to go for dinner. We went to California Pizza Kitchen (of course) and then Cold Stone afterwards. OMG I was so full I thought I would burst. It isn’t helping that the BCP is making me feel like a fat pig (with acne, mind you!). But my coldstone was amazing: Sweet Cream ice cream with heath bars and roasted almonds. YUMMY.

Sunday I blew off puppy class. I had already told the teacher I wouldn’t be there because we were going to be out of town. So I blew it off. It was PT’s 12th birthday on the 5th, so I told her I would take her shopping. J1 and A came with us. We went to the mall and had a nice lunch at Nordstrom’s Cafe and PT picked out some cute clothes. Speaking of cute clothes: the first thing I saw was this orange coat….the same exact coat as I bought last year in red. But I have had this hankering for an orange coat for a year — and now they make it in that color. And it was on sale for $60. So I bought it! They didn’t have it in my size, but Nordstrom will ship for free if you pay for it at the store, so a different store is shipping it. And then — I saw the cream colored one. And I bought that one too. Now I have three of the same coat. One red, one cream, one orange (will arrive in a week). Am I a whack job, or what? Here is the coat. This picture doesn’t do it justice because the lining is this really cool pattern that adds a lot to the design!

I don’t know what is wrong with me. PT can be perfectly sweet, and she bugs me. Not all the time, but there are days I just can’t tolerate anything she does. The way she talks, the way she eats, what she orders at a restaurant, how she holds her fork. I keep telling myself it is part of being a step-mom when I want my own child so badly. I feel terribly guilty when I get these bad feelings towards her. Sweet Christmas, she is 12 years old and behaving better than most 12 year olds that I have met! So what the heck is wrong with me? I need to be more conscious of this, it really isn’t fair to PT. When I married TW, I promised to take good care of her, and I really do my best. But some days it is really hard. Some days I feel selfish and wish she wasn’t around. Ugh. I feel SO guilty saying that.

I had acupuncture today, it was a quick appointment. K was running 10 minutes late and then for some reason we started blathering and by the time she put the needles in, I only had 20 minutes. She assures me that it is enough time. I have to watch it with the chatting, I can get super chatty (can you tell)?

I called the pharmacy and my meds are ready, I am going to pick them up tomorrow. I asked for the total amount: $1999.70. YIKES. However, the protocol said between $2000 and $4000 per cycle. Guess I was on the bottom range…that is a nice surprise! I am so ready to get going on this.