#150 Body getting ready? (10/23/12)

Lately my body is experiencing psychosomatic symptoms of being pregnant; heart burn to the point of reflux, constipation, mood swings at odd points, yesterday I went from Happy, to irritable, to screaming at dropped pumpkin bags, to sad, to mellow in a matter of hours.  Is this my body’s way of saying “are you sure you want to do this for nine months?” or is my body wanting to get pregnant so bad it is trying to be ready? Or are there things in the supreme prenatal vitamins that do this to a person?  Or are the vitamins countering the synthroid I’m on? Was yesterday’s mood swing a delay on menstrual hormones? Or a combination of the above.  Pregnancy is going to be a roller coaster for me and my Sherpa (my wife who will be my helper while pregnant; inspired by 2 Moms – It Can Be Done.) Maybe it is my body’s way of preparing me for the dreaded/anticipated TWW, so I don’t stress over every symptom thinking “Am I pregnant?” because I’ve had these leading up to the first IUI, then I just need to wait Patiently for a BFP. 

On a side note, from my previous post, the friend in my previous post, was having her first when my wife and I were discussing what needed to happen before we started the TTC journey.  Now she is all ready on her second.  It's a little aggravating the hoops we, as lesbians, need to go through to even start trying.  I thought my wife was jumping the gun a little when she mentioned we should get the ball rolling earlier this year, but we did, and now we are all ready behind on our planned schedule starting because of my polyp.  I guess I’m feeling the frustration, aggravation, annoyance, and sadness with the process. 

#149 BFP... (10/22/12)

For a friend of mine.  She has been trying for one complete cycle, a little on the previous, but not consistent.  She is a fertile bunny.  On her first pregnancy, she had it timed to the day she would try her first pregnancy test (on father’s day) to get a possible BFP, months in advance.  She allowed timing to come off BC, then clear her system, wait the couple months, cycle and bam, pregnant.  She pretty much did the same this time again.  I hope I’m that fertile.  She has a slight advantage though; live sperm on demand.  That I suppose is one of the advantages to being straight. 

The other day I had a dream that my wife and I were trying to steal sperm, kind of like on The L Word where Bette and Tina try and get into a threesome.  Alas, any time in my dream I tried to kiss the man, it was like I was kissing poison, needless to say it was an epic fail, even in my dream, to get pregnant.  Let’s hope the clinical way works better in reality. 

#148 IUI Timing (10/18/12)

You have to remember, everything happens for a reason.  Everything happens for a reason.  Everything happens for a reason. 

When I first saw my fertility doctor, we had charted one month of BBT.  He said we don’t need to do that anymore, so we stopped.  I’m starting up again, just for my curiosity but haven’t gotten a full month.  I’ve just started my cycle again, 3 days early.  So I’m trying to have a full month charted, and continue going for now.  The point to this is; my cycle is now 3 days early.  This puts my ovulation days (per my iPFree App) right when the clinic is closed for Christmas break.  I can’t go before that, as I have surgery to remove a polyp scheduled for mid November, right when I’m menstruating, so that complete month is out.  Before this early cycle, my peak ovulation day was January 3^rd 2013, and that is the day the clinic reopens for business.  I was really hoping time would be on my side and I would be able to try first week into the New Year.  Now, I’m looking at the end of January, which would mean the earliest Due date would be November 1^st.  That is a little too late in the year to have my grandmother fly over from England. 

So, I’m now sending my body fertile thoughts and direction to have a shorter cycle this month as well, which would pull my prime date ovulation to before the clinic closes for Christmas.  I’m now also wondering if I should do a couple months of OPK’s to test that they do work for my body, and that I ovulate close to when the App thinks I do.  The OPK’s are just expensive and I’m wondering if it is worth the cost.  Did anyone test OPK’s before trying IUI? 

Quick cycle, quick cycle, quick cycle, breathe, relax, quick cycle, quick cycle.  Everything happens for a reason. 

I think my cycle starting early may be my body saying, hurry up and get pregnant all ready.  I hope so, but it isn’t quite working to the PLAN.  Goes to show plans can change at a moment’s notice. 

#147 Trying to Conceive (10/16/12)

Since switching over to blogspot, I have been reading a few other blogs of lesbians trying to conceive, most of which were from some years past and now have children a year or more old.  Most of them have been great for me to get a better idea of what to expect and to be able to get more of the desire to be pregnant, not just wanting children.  (I found it weird to think of a baby growing inside; it wasn’t on my bucket list really, before reading a few blogs.) And reading of the babies’ first year let me glimpse into what life may look like and see what the reward is.  I haven’t really been around too many babies or children for that matter; so the concept was still a LOT foreign to me.  But the desire to have a family with my wife was strong. 

Our plan to get to that point is the obvious for lesbians, IUI’s.  We are spend thrift, and can’t justify the long term costs of keep going until you get pregnant, no matter the costs, when there are children that need homes via adoption. The downside to adoption is it can take a very long time, especially  with wanted a newborn, and more countries having restrictions on gay couple.  Plus we would like to at least try to have one of our own.  So we came up with the plan of try for me to get pregnant three times, if no avail, we will then try to get my wife pregnant three times.  If still no one is pregnant, we will go the adoption route.  Now, reading more blogs and seeing that trying for 6 months and still no pregnancy is almost a normal.  I am worried our efforts will be in vain.  We are always planning for getting pregnant fairly quickly; as it seems our life doesn’t take the slow road for much, while still knowing it may not happen that way.  Reading another blog today whose journey was long, but just reached the 6 month mark of IUI’s, it hit a little harder.  Will I get to my three month mark and be devastated that I was unable to get pregnant?  Will I want to keep trying?  Or will I pass the baton to my wife gladly?  End result we would like to children from the same donor.  If I fail at the first three attempts, we may not get that. Three attempts seems a minuscule amount of time in most TTC journeys. 

I guess we are hoping to be part of the small fraction of couples that are lucky enough to get pregnant quickly; otherwise it will be Three Strikes, You’re Out.  The phrase third time’s a charm comes from somewhere.

Yikes, I’m having these worries and we haven’t even gotten to IUI #1.  Only time will tell what happens

#146 Dreams (10/16/12)

It’s funny how people can affect you long after they have left your lives.   Last night I had a dream about my ex husband, in case you haven’t read earlier posts, in short form he was a Paranoid Schizophrenic Alcoholic Drug Addict (mostly pot, but near the end was into coke and crack).  If you notice the past tense of that sentence, he is a was; died of a heart attack a few years ago.  The dream is rattling me more that it should.  It is just one of those dreams that seem to stick with me. 

I don’t remember many of my dreams, when I do; they are usually pretty weird, nothing bone rattling like this one is trying to be.  He is dead; I need to let it go.  My Ex Mother in Law is dead also, and I have NO contact with the Ex Father in Law, and the Ex Sister in Law is still in jail awaiting trial, and thus have no contact and never plan to.  I googled her today and found she finally has a trial date for late 2013.  (She deserves to be there, for a murder of her ex, and I hope she stays there for a lot more years.)  I am very happy to be rid of any contact with that family, slightly sad about EX MIL, but it is what it is.  So why is this dream sticking with such a bad feeling?

#145 General (10/12/12)

Today was an excellent day for a walk.  I have been slacking on that for the past couple weeks because of not feeling too well, then this past week the weather was nippy, so I didn’t feel I wanted to; all excuses I know.  Even today I wasn’t planning on going, but as I stood up to go to the lunch room for utensils, my body and brain decided to go for a walk first. 

On another upside, last week I had lost 6 pounds, mostly due to illness.  I had expected to gain it all back, which 5 pounds had come back the next day, but it didn’t bother me because of the circumstances.  Weigh-in’s are usually saved for weekend mornings, but due to the extreme fluxuations last week I have been weighing in periodically this week to see what is happening.  So far I’m back down another 2.5 pounds.  All in all, if I don’t gain back all of the weight lost last week, I see that as a good thing.  I guess we will see tomorrow how much my ticker goes backwards.  If I can stay at the 15 pounds lost (currently 17), that would be great.

On a side note though, this past week has been a fairly nice rejuvenating one.  The downside, it was because my wife had a terrible head cold.  To keep her from getting worse, and keeping on the mend, we have been relaxing and mostly watching TV when we get home from work.  Then we’ve been drinking the wives’ tale drink for colds; grated ginger, about a tablespoon or two, with hot water, lemon juice and a bit of honey.  As far as logging food on MFP, I haven’t logged that drink, but I think any calories in the honey, is expended by the burn from the quantity of ginger.  So far I have kept from getting ______.  I don’t want to say it to jinx it.  My wife’s cold is finally easing up a bit. 

This weekend we are heading camping with Deb’s dad and step mom.  We are going for one night only, provided her cold doesn’t take a stride for the worse.  At least we are camping in partial luxury; in an RV, so if the weather gets bad, we can bunker in warmth.  We are on the debate to take one of our dogs, Tuffy.  He is un-socialized, which is our fault for not exposing him to much of anything.  This might be good exposure for him, however he might be vibrating with all the new things he NEEDS to bark at and investigate.  We’ll see how it goes.

#144 Curious Side Effect (10/10/12)

This is the curious side effect of pre-natal vitamins.

I am asthmatic, and had phlegm issues on a regular basis.  It has been just a part of life.  Over the past couple months, the phlegm has almost gone.  Coughing spats were few and far between instead of a daily basis.  It has been a good few months.  My wife and I have been trying to figure out what might have made the difference.  Our house is a little cleaner, but it wasn’t that bad beforehand. 

While I have been ill the past couple weeks, I stopped most of my medications, including pre-natal vitamins.   During this period, I also noticed the phlegm come back.  I was trying to think why it was coming back all of a sudden, when it hit me; my pre-natal vitamins.  The improvement in my lungs started around the time I started the vitamins, I stopped them and my lungs got worse.  This could be a coincidence, but not too sure.  Now that I am feeling better, I have started the vitamins again.  I guess I will see if there is an improvement again.  If this is the case, post pregnancy, I may need to find out what the specifics are that make the difference. 

#143 Rapid Loss (10/09/12)

Over the weekend, I did my usual weekly weigh in.  Due to the fact, for the week prior, I hadn’t been able to eat, my stomach wasn’t doing well, and my crohns flaring up, I think, I lost 6 pounds from the week prior.  It is a great loss, but I doubt it will stay off.  So my ticker above saying I’ve lost 17 pounds, will probably go back to normal next week, but hopefully will be more that the 11 pounds lost it was.  As of this morning I had gained back 5.  The up side is, my stomach is getting better.  I seem to be processing food well, so even though most of the weight came back, feeling better is worth a lot more. 

Alaska Photos

I am delinquent in posting photos.  But finally here are the Alaska Cruise photos of our trip in early September.  It was a lot of fun, that week, I actually made the 70,000 steps. Before that I had a maximum of 54,000 in a week.  

 This is my MIL, Deb and I in Surrey as we are starting our journey.  

This was the view from the horse drawn carriage we took in Stanley Park Vancouver.

Us with the horses

The gorgeous plants in the rose garden of Stanley Park Vancouver

MIL and me sitting on the deck of the Zuiderdam Cruise

This is a pan from deck 10 on the Zuiderdam

This was in Juneau on our whale watching tour

Sea lions on our whale watch tour

My MIL in the captain's chair, she ask, he let her.  It was fun

If you look mostly just left of center there is a whale.  They are pretty hard to get a photo of with a slow shutter speed.  

This is also in Juneau at the Glacier Park.  This is also where I saw the bear, that I posted a photo of in an earlier blog.

This is in Skagway on our dog sled run.  

On the tour you get to play with the puppies to help socialize them

Each day when the room attendants make your bed, they give you towel creatures.  Here are a couple

This is in Glacier Bay, very wet and windy

This is approaching Ketchikan

In Ketchikan we did mostly walking around the town and shopping.

This was our last afternoon on the cruise.  We didn't sit much, it was very exhausting, but a lot of fun.  If you look closely, you can see Deb's reflection in the glass.  

That afternoon we went into a fog.  It started off like this

Then went to this.  The left is the fog, not camera issues. 

Our last sunset

The Bounty of Apple Sauce

We had to move our freezer this weekend to set up the garage.  In our freezer are six drawers, as shown.  They are all full to the brim with apple sauce.  We have used some on top of this, to make the apple butter, and fruit leathers.  It has been a daunting, but rewarding experience.

Day 4 - Something Green

This is one of our house plants.  The camera did something weird, but a neat effect.

This wasn't taken for this challenge, but couldn't resist putting it in this green challenge.  It was the one broccoli floret that managed to grow in our garden this year, despite all odds competing with thistles it grew. It was about the size of a loonie.

Day 3 - Clouds

The Day I took this photo for this post, there weren't many clouds in the sky.  It was a lovely day.

#142 Still Sick (10/04/12)

All in all, I’m getting better, but still not feeling like I should. One thing I have learned is I think I need to appreciate food a bit more.  We are eating healthier and stuff like that, but usually we are in a rush to be eating what we are, and get onto the to do list etc.  Sometimes being over full, sometimes not, but not usually just enjoying the meal for what it is, a beautifully tasting meal.  The past two days, I’ve been limited on what I eat, and how much.  Last night my MIL cooked a lovely simple meal consisting of Gluten Burgers, Boiled Potatoes, and Peas.  The amount I had would have been considered small for a child’s meal, but in the end I enjoyed the meal.  I appreciated that I was able to eat the meal, as far as solids I had been having oatmeal and toast to that point, and it tasted lovely. 

Today for lunch, I had with me my usual monster veggie salad, but my stomach wasn’t quite up to the work of digesting something that solid.  So, I’ve ended up having some plain yogurt to help the good bacteria develop in my stomach and strawberries dipped in it, then a side of prunes.  It was a lovely lunch, simple but pleasing, and filling.  I hope I can keep the momentum of slowly eating, and appreciating what food I do put in my mouth/body.   

#141 Meltdown (10/01/12)

This weekend was a gong show.  The panicle of this weekend that is making me write is my motorcycle, and my wife’s.  As mentioned, what seems like ages ago, we are thinking of selling them.  I have resigned myself that selling them is a huge benefit, financially, plus the fact my wife doesn’t like riding because her hand’s fall asleep, which isn’t safe, and I agree.  In addition, now that we travel together, and I don’t pass out as the passenger by the time we hit city limits, I enjoy riding in a car with her and just enjoying our time together talking.

We were moving them from our garage, to the shed, for winter storage, and taking photos to be able to list them on Kijiji, on the off chance we can sell them before winter.  I hit chemical meltdown, downright bawling.  Not conducive to getting work done.  What hold do these bikes have on me?  I don’t have a clue.  There are multiple theories on this, that I have come up with, but none seem to hit the nail on the head, so to speak.  (I can’t even blame PMS.) 

Today at work, I was still an emotional mess, and I don’t know what I need to do.  My wife is at a loss on how to console me.  She isn’t making me sell, or even suggesting it, because when it comes up, I melt down. 

This weekend, I went back into Dos-derland.  I’m in the process of re-losing the weight I had gained in August/September.  I should be happy I’m back on the path to weight loss, but it seems I still have so far to go to get where I was.  Did I gain some weight, but lose a different pound that was tied to more emotional baggage I didn’t know was there?  At this point, I don’t think the motorcycles are the only reason I’m still blue.

Right now, I do want to give up on the weight loss journey, carry on with trying to get pregnant, I’m going to gain all the weight back anyways, and take this body as is; broken through its original packaging, and never going to be in mint condition, (manufacture note: It has been slightly damaged right from the start. )

This blog is keeping me going though, I’m still writing to save my life.  I wasn’t going to post any of this, but in the end, obviously as you are reading this, decided I should.  This is just one of the hard points that I need to work through for this very long journey. 

Maybe I’m just overworked, overtired, and stressed, and this is the manifestation.  There needs to be balance between work and relaxation, maybe I need to bring the balance back to my life, and the motorcycles represent a time in my life where my to-do list was short, and my relaxation time was in abundance.  Right now, my to-do list is a mile long spreadsheet and days off seem to be getting fewer and farther between.  It is my fault for letting it get this way, and it is my responsibility to get the balance back. 

In the film industry, I used to work very hard for periods of time, and then get a month or so off as my relaxation time.  That was my balance.  The down side was, I didn’t know when the next job was coming, which after a month or two of down time, it turned into stress.  This is why I started working at my current job.  It is full time, year round, with moderate pay.  It is my first full time, permanent job, in a roundabout way.  I guess I just need to learn to live this new life, in balance, without having to take extra vacations, just to get away from the to-do lists. 

Or maybe I just need to eat better.  This weekend, my eating habits included Pizza and Chinese food, not good for the diet, but maybe even worse for my mood. 

Amendment:  October 3^rd, 2012.  Or maybe I was coming down with a bug.  The past two days I have been sick; lost 5 pounds in 2 days.  I think Sunday/Monday’s emotional breakdown was a cumulative of all of the above. 

As far as the photo challenge, I think I will just continue on tonight with #3.  :D  Got to keep trying.