Would ya like to...Monday (Vol. 2)

Welcome to volume two of Would ya like to Mondays! Today's edition:

Would ya like to see the websites I visit every single day, without fail? (Cause I have no life.)

I start my morning with Woot to see what's on sale. They only sell 1 item a day, so this is a daily must. Then I head over to Shirt Woot to check out their shirt of the day. I own lots of them.

When I'm finished shirt shopping, I head over to Lost and Found and Connections Abound to see the infertile-world blog news. If you've never been there, you should head on over now. I'll wait.

(Cue cheesy jazz wait music...)

I spend a lot of time at school on CNN. I am always finding good videos to show the class. Most recently, I showed them a video on the effects of the oil spill on wildlife, and a couple of tornado videos. They loved it.

Ok, welcome back. I always check out Facebook, then I head over to Texts From Last Night. If you've never checked this out, you should, but be warned. It will make you fear for human kind. It's scary, funny, and really worrisome all at the same time.

On Sundays, I can't function without Postsecret. For those of you who've never heard of Postsecret, it started out as Frank's art project. He sent out a bunch of blank postcards with a request that whoever received it put their innermost secret on the card and send it back. Four books and countless Sunday Secrets later, he still gets hundreds.

Every day, I visit one of two music sites. The first is Pandora. It's personalized internet radio stations. I love it, because it pops up stuff I would have never found on my own. The second is Grooveshark. Grooveshark is free online music. You can search for what you want and add it to playlists. It rocks.

What websites can you not live without?

Why doesn't this add up?

Remember last week when I went to Dr. Wiz's office to see if I had any follies? And he told me that I didn't? (Well, I did, they just weren't very big.) I had my day 21 progesterone test yesterday as part of the monitoring, and it came back at 9.8. I have no idea what that means, but he said it was consistent with me ovulating.

So, Dr. Wiz. Am I ovulating by myself, or not? If I am, do I need to fork over thousands of dollars I don't have for injectables? Why can you not give me a straight answer for this? And why we're on the subject, why can you not remember anything I've ever told you about my history???

DH and I are going in for a second opinion on the 11th. I waited until school was out to schedule it. Hopefully, this guy will be better!

Side note #1: I decided to do an experiment this month, and I think it worked. Originally, Dr. Wiz said that I wasn't ovulating due to stress. So I started thinking. What, aside from IF, had I done that was stressing me out more than usual? Ahhhh... That's right. I gave up my Diet DP. I was down to one measly little serving a day, and I was a bitch. So this month, I started drinking more of it. Not back up to my old levels, but more than 1 little cup. And, da da da da! I ovulated! ( I realize that my "advanced medical degrees" in CPR and first aid do not qualify me to make medical decisions like this, but I really don't care.)

Side note #2: I decided to be a bad-ass on Friday afternoon and go outside barefoot to get flowers out of my car. It had been 95 since about 10 that morning, so the sidewalk was nice and hot. I realized it was too hot about halfway through the flowers, but thought I could tough it out. I now have blisters on the bottoms of both my feet. But, I am a bad-ass!

Side note #3: We still have 8 days of school left!! How is that even possible? It's two freakin weeks!! Ack!

So this blonde went into a superstore...

May 25, 12 years ago was Memorial Day. It was also the first day of summer vacation for my little brother and myself. It was a great day for my family. My mom spent her day off reading and goofing off with us outside. My dad built a shed to hold the cat food for my 20 or so cats. (We lived in the country, we fed the neighborhood's.) He also played basketball with me, and catch with my little brother. And then he died.

He had a massive heart attack that night. The last thing I ever said to him was "Goodnight. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow."

This day has always been hard for me, so imagine my surprise (and guilt) when it hit me at 4:00 pm that today was today. I can't believe I didn't realize it sooner. It scares me. I'm afraid I'm forgetting my dad. I don't think about him every day anymore, what happens when I don't think about him every week? What will happen the year I forget about today altogether? What will happen if I forget all the times he told me I was born backwards, because my nose runs and my feet smell? What will happen if I forget the time he held a piece of paper up to my ear and then blew in the other ear and wiggled the paper, to make it seem like he was blowing through my empty head? What will happen if I forget that he used to refuse to give me the Sunday comics because I'd read all the words off of them, and then let me have them first anyway?

I don't want that to happen. So I'll tell you the last blonde joke he told me. (He used to tell me at least one a week. Got them from the mechanics at work.)

So, this blonde went into a superstore and saw a thermos sitting on the shelf. She flagged down an employee and asked what the thing was. He said "Well, ma'am, it's a thermos. It keeps hot things hot and cold things cold."

"Ohhhhhh". said the blonde. "That's so cool! I need one!" She immediately bought it and ran out.

A few days later, the salesmen walked into a coffee shop and saw the blond sitting there with the thermos in front of her. She was staring at it with absolute joy and anticipation on her face.

"Hey, I see you have your thermos today" he said.

"Oh yes!" she replied. "I couldn't wait to try it out!"

"Well, what do you have in there?" he asked.

wait for it.........

"Two cups of coffee and a scoop of ice cream."

Would ya like to... Mondays

If you're here for ICLW, click here. Or don't. You can look at my dorky pictures instead. I have decided to begin "Wouldja like to...Mondays." This is because usually the only think I'd like to do on a Monday is sleep until it's Tuesday. And hopefully it'll give me a chance to focus on things non-IF related...or mostly. So, to kick it off:

Would ya like to see what I did this weekend?

First, I went to the RE to see if I had any of these:

I didn't, in case you're curious. Apparently, I can't do it all by myself.

Then, I went and had this done:

I realize I don't have the prettiest feet. They look just like my dad's. But I like the toes. : )
Then, I installed this:



I might have had a leetle help from DH...But I did all the wiring!


And then, finally just for shits and giggles, while my DH was watching the season finale of a certian show, I took this:

And turned it into this:

Please excuse the hideous couch behind it...I'm valiantly trying to get rid of it. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the table now. But I like it!

I guess that's it for my first "Would ya like to..." Monday. Have a good week!

Welcome May IComLeavWe

Howdy. I'm so excited to be participating in my first IComLeavWe, but I have no idea what to tell everyone. So, I'll probably just ramble on, like usual.

I'm Julie. I live with my husband, two dogs, and a cat, all of whom conspire to make my house the messiest in the neighborhood. My dogs are both named after Harry Potter characters. I am a big dork.

Reading is my favorite thing to do. I read constantly and would much rather read than watch tv, which irritates my DH to no end. I will read pretty much anything that's set in front of me. If there are no books, I read the labels on cereal boxes, drink cups, etc. If there is nothing to read, I write. I never finish what I write, but I try anyway.

I am a teacher. I teach science, TX history, math, writing, and reading to fourth graders. I also teach manners, good hygiene, and relationship skills to them, even though those aren't in the curriculum. And this year, unfortunately and without meaning to, I have taught them how do deal with a teacher who always has half her mind on something else. I have taught them to watch out for mood swings and work quietly while I slip outside to talk to my doctor. I'm not proud of teaching them those things.

My DH and I have been TTC since September of 2008. In October of 2009, we finally worked up the guts to go see the doctor. Because of his age, we decided to go ahead and run tests on both of us. All of mine came back fine. DH's did not. The doctor said he had no sp.erm, and referred us to a male fertility specialist. He put DH on hormone therapy (worst month EVER!! It basically sent him into menopause. Men should never go into menopause!), which didn't work at all. We discovered that DH has AZFC, a genetic defect that only affects fertility in men. Lucky us. In January, we finally decided to try IUI with donor sp.erm. Our first cycle was cancelled because I didn't ovulate. Dr. Wiz said I was too stressed. Second cycle he put me on 50mg Clo.mid. BFN. Third cycle he upped the Clo.mid to 100mg, but it was cancelled also because none of the follicles were big enough. Decided to take a month off (May) and do an HSG test, since we haven't yet. That finally brought us the only good news we've received: tubes nice and clear. Next cycle, Dr. Wiz wants to do injectables. (Waaaay expensive. Not covered by insurance. Not happy.) We're now scraping to come up with the money for that, since we've already emptied our savings 6 times over by buying a house, 3 cycles, and countless tests in the last 10 months. (If there's anything that irritates me about infertility, it's that it's so damned expensive, and state insurance covers none of it.)

We're kind of just hanging out in Limbo right now. Thinking about getting a second opinion. Trying to figure out how we went from having "no problems getting pregnant with an IUI within 3 months" (Dr. Wiz) in January to 1 failed cycle, 2 cancelled cycle, super-expensive cycles in our future, and a BFP-less May.

If you want to know anything, feel free to ask. It's pretty difficult to offend me, and even if you managed to, I'd probably just ignore you. : ) Thanks for coming!

Nerves

So, tomorrow is my HSG test. I am beyond nervous. I've been trying so hard not to think about it today, but I woke up from my nap today with this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, and now I think I'm done for. I will be useless until the stupid thing is over tomorrow. Wish me luck.

some things...

I feel like I've been gone for ages! Instead, I just don't have anything useful or interesting to say.

AF finally started today. So glad I took Pro.vera, just so AF could come right on schedule anyway. I go in tomorrow morning for a baseline ultrasound. We're not doing anything this month except monitoring things. Oh, and an HSG test, that I guess will be sometime next week. I'm trying not to think about that too much.

For the first time ever, I got a Mother's Day card and Mother's Day present, from 2 different people, despite the fact that I am not yet a Mother.

The card was actually an email from one of my student's parents. She wanted to let me know that even if I wasn't a mother, I did so much for my kids (students) that she thought I should be told thank you. : )

The present was a baby toy. A pirate baby toy. It was from another student's mom. She told me that she knew I didn't have a baby and wasn't sure I even want one, but that the toy was too perfect to pass up. (All my parents are fully aware just how much I love pirates.) I cried when I told her thanks.

I now have no idea what to do with "Captain Calamari". Do I keep it out in hope that it keeps me positive? Do I put in the very small box of baby stuff I have stored in the garage? Do I put it in the future nursery? I just don't know.