Dying to post...

I've wanted to write here for a long time now, but haven't really had the time. There's just been too much going on.
Maizey's been sick nonstop with something or another for a month now. She had fifths then a cold then an ear infection then croup then another ear infection and a chest infection! Ugh it's been rough. For her and for us.
Maizey will normally sleep in her own bed, no problem, but when she's sick she eventually makes her way to our bed. I wouldn't mind if she would just lay between us, but she doesn't. For some reason, she has to lay as close to me as possible and eventually she somehow manages to push my pillow onto the nightstand and I end up sleeping with my body half falling off the bed and my head on the pillow on the night stand. This makes for an uncomfortable sleep. I'd go sleep in her room but she'd just find me there and the same thing would happen. She's got it in for me with sleeping I think.
She still frequently has night terrors and it's hard. It's so painful to see her seemingly in so much distress and not being able to do anything for her.
My cycle this month has been way off. Generally I'm pretty regular at around 30 days, but this cycle I never detected ovulation. I was showing some signs last week, which was a week or so later than expected but never got an actual positive opk. Going by my regular cycle I was expecting my period yesterday. Never came. I'm assuming it'll come next week. That would put it 2 weeks after my near positive opk. Because of the weirdness, we didn't do any inseminations. Well we did one or two the week leading up to my expected fertile time, but that's it.
So I'm hoping next cycle is the lucky one. Looking back over my charts from successful years, I got pregnant the month after a weird cycle.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

New Years Eve

I'm looking forward to new years eve. My best friend and her two boys are coming over. We didn't really have much of a plan for anything, so when she asked us what we were doing, and if she could crash with her kids, we decided that we would just host a family friendly new years eve party. Angela has since invited her sister and her family. I am hoping that her brother-in-law can at least curb the swears. I know there is no hope of getting him to not go outside at some point to smoke weed. We aren't really apposed to smoking weed, but we are if there are children around. This guy just cant seem to understand that we don't want it around our daughter. He even whips his shit out and tries to roll a joint at our dining room table, with all four of his kids right there and ours. Angela has had to talk to him several times about keeping is out of our house. He just doesn't get it and he has a hard time respecting us. I wish I was a bit tougher, but I always leave it up to Angela because it is her family. He says that he doesn't have a problem with it, but I mean really there isn't a time that he is over that he doesn't have to go outside to smoke some. Even on Christmas eve. I have invited a few of my other friends over, but they think it is kind of funny... a Family friendly new years. All their kids are older, and they are considering going to the free celebration in Niagara Falls. We went last year and it was pretty good, but I am looking forward to being home this year. We have also invited over Steven and Michael. Maizey's Dad and Papa. Papa has to work and dad is also considering Niagara Falls this year. We're going to order a bunch of Greek food, and make some appetisers and some martini's and just hang out. I've had flu like symptoms today, but have to go to work tomorrow. I have two important appointments that I'd really like to be at. Also, I'm afraid that if I don't work my shift tomorrow, I won't get paid for my stat on Wednesday. I am lucky enough to have Tuesday off. Angela has finally been put on a regular schedule at work, and so we will be able plan ahead for our time off together. It is a multi week rotating schedule, so it won't be completely synched with mine, but it's better. We're really looking forward to having our Kitchen completely renovated. hopefully in January or February. We've had a couple of quotes done, and they are way off of each other. One seems vague and inexpensive, and the other is very detailed and rather on the expensive side. Although the second one also included replacing our whole main floor flooring. It really really needs to be done. The flooring we have now is just a nightmare. It doesn't clean well, and it is cheap laminate. I'm a little weary about the whole deal only because we have "cove" ceilings in our living room, and I can't imagine how it will all look once it is finished. We're hoping to remove some walls and go for an open concept with an island. I guess I will just have to look at more concept drawings. The other problem I am having is imagining how we will situate our Living room furniture. In two weeks is also when we begin the process of purchasing the house from my father in law. It just benefits us all. Angela and I are planning on living in this house well into retirement. Her dad could use the money and not have it tied up in a home. He will be welcome to stay here, in the basement whenever he needs to. Angela and I can then put money into improving the house, and not have to worry that if something happens to her father, we will not fully benefit from the home improvements that we have paid for. It really is a bit more complicated that I make it sound, but it works out being fair. I better go to bed now, I am typing this on the new lap top that Santa brought us for Christmas this year, and something keeps happening to make the typing bigger and smaller and bigger and tiny etc. I am sure it is probably something I keep touching but it is really frustrating me to the max. I can't even handle it on my limited patients these days.

A month goes by ...

Can't believe it's been a month since my last post. Holy moly ... Needless to say, I'm not pregnant yet. If I was, I would have posted it ASAP.
Went to Cuba for a week. Got mildly sick while there... Something I ate? Too much sun? Not sure really. It was a pretty good time, for being work and all.
Gearing up for Christmas- still gotta do pretty well all the shopping. It's like when I do go, I can't concentrate on actually getting stuff. I'm feeling very scattered these days. I'm having a hard time with focussing.
We decided to wait until January to renovate.
Maizey is so great! Potty trained and everything. It's nice to be diaper free!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

TTC stress...

So being back in the world of TTC is hard. All the same stresses are finding me despite having a successful pregnancy. I'm not very optimistic. I'm a google-holic and sometimes it's good but mostly it's so so so not good. I have just entered my two week wait this month. I should find out right before I go to Cuba if I'm pregnant or not. I'm placing bets on not, but know deep down that part of me will hold hope and dissect every last possible symptom just enough to put me in the borderline crazy spectrum.
Here are the factors...
Positives
1) got positive OPKs





2) timed the inseminations perfectly with the "the three most fertile days" according to my opk instructions.
3) had some ovulation cramping on the right side and a small amount of spotting, which I have read can be a huge sign of fertility.
4) lots of other fertile signs such as really good ewcm.

Negatives ...
1) donor had been sick shortly before making his contributions and this could cause poor sperm count and motility.

2) would have liked to squeeze in one more insemination, but just couldn't coordinate it due to schedule conflicts.

3) Google- always has a negative for every positive... It is possible to have positive OPKs and still not actually ovulate. (I worry this is my issue... Not that I never ovulate, but that I don't except for rare months... Track record shows extra dark test lines on opk when I actually did become pregnant)

All I can do is wait it out.

I can ask my doc for blood tests to confirm ovulation... But last time he sent me on day 14 of my cycle to test for the hormone post ovulation, but generally I don't detect ovulation until after cycle day 17 or 18 as I have a 31-32 day cycle. Oh ya... Another thing... What's with my period coming 3-4 days early on months that I've inseminated? Super weird.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Potty Training

It's not going too well yet. Two pees on the floor none in the potty.
I have today and the weekend off. Here's hoping it works out.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thanksgiving

Angela, Maizey and I spent thanksgiving weekend at my dad's house up north. We had a really great time.
Of course, I started to get some signs of ovulation while I was there. About a week before I usually ovulate. Ugh! Frustrating. No OPKs and no donor. I did text my donor and put him on stand by as he wasn't expecting us to need him until around the 18-20. Needless to say, I tested as soon as we got home on Monday. My OPK was negative. I was just hoping I didn't miss it. I tested again on Tuesday and got this:




I guess I could count that as a positive, but now I'm back to indecisive. Ange and I were out doing some shopping so I picked up a digital OPK, knowing that it would take the guess work out of it. As soon I we got home, I tested again using a non digital and got a Definite negative. I didn't waste a digital, we went ahead with an insemination about an hour later. I'm hoping the timing is ok and that I didn't miss anything. I'm hoping to squeeze in more frequent tests next month. Like several a day.
Why is it so frustrating?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Cuba

Sometimes I love my job even more.
Ok, really... I LOVE my job on an ongoing basis. I honestly can't imagine going to work anywhere else.
Sure there are some days that are better than others but all around, I can't complain.
Today I love my job even more.
It has been confirmed that I will be accompanying a lady on her vacation to Cuba this December. How lucky am I?! Amazing. Two of the people I provide support for have planned a trip to Cuba, and my friend and co-worker and I will be accompanying them for a week long stay at an all-inclusive resort.
I will miss my family while I'm gone, but duty calls.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Update

Just a quick update. Nothing new is going on these days. We're in the midst of getting estimates to have our kitchen remodeled. It's number one on our list of things we want to do in the house. This of course led us to wanting to redo the living-room/kitchen/dining floors completely as they would all need to match with kitchen remodel. A couple other things from the list are a new screened in back deck, (Ours currently has a 9'x10' hole in it from where the hot tub came out), my next item is a pool (Ange wants a pool too but not as badly as I do), remodel of basement bathroom, a couple of sheds (I think we have decided on pre-fab) a few updates for the upper bathroom and maybe a custom closet in our room (we have a full wall closet but no doors on it) and possibly a new fence, but Ange's dad has been working on ours and it's looking pretty good now.
It's hard to coordinate getting these estimates because of our schedules. Ange is supposed to be on a regular schedule now, but it hasn't happened yet. I was hoping to have a new kitchen in by Maiz's birthday in November but it's obviously not going to happen. Christmas? Maybe.
The other problem we're having is that we can't do the deck until after the pool because we'll need the space where the current deck is to be open and clear for the pool machines.
Here's what I'm thinking for the deck...


Here's the yard a few weeks ago... Ang's dad trimmed all the vines etc off the fence... He's done further work since


I'll try to remember to do before, during and after updates IF we get to any of the projects on our lists.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Murphy's Law

Of course! After all the trouble interpreting my OPKs I get this tonight....


The test line is clearly darker than the control and my doner is away this month at a retreat! MAN :S


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Friends

Is it me? Or does everyone have those friends that make them crazy? I've been talking to a friend of mine, the same one who witnessed the doner agreement for us for Maizey, about beginning the ttc process all over again. She has three kids and is over 40 but often talks about wanting one more baby. Her husband had a vasectomy. She now thinks that it'll be a great idea to use my doner to have another baby. Although in her mind, no one could ever know that she knows the doner, she would tell "the world" that she an her husband used an anonymous doner to conceive because a vas reversal was too expensive. She would not even tell the child and we all would have to pretend that my child and her child were not half siblings. Ok! Ummm no? Lucky for us, we would have to release our doner to allow for him to make donations to other families. It is stated in our agreement. We would have to provide a good reason not to release him, but I think this would qualify being as we are all actively a part if one another's lives. She seems to have gotten over the idea for the most part, but I still wonder where her thoughts come from. Really? She thinks that would be a good idea?
Anyway.. Kinda got off track.
This is supposed to be one of my best friends. Well every time I talk to her about ttc, I feel sick after. I feel hurt, betrayed an angry. She seems to be so against it. She keeps making reasons why I shouldn't start yet... I know she might not be particularly fond of the new doner, but really? Can't she just be happy for me? I casually texted her this afternoon about helping me come up with a plan for doing inseminations when the in laws are around and she said to me :

"I'm not coming up with any plan your the one who wants to inseminate earlier than later, good luck"

What?! Way to be a supportive and encouraging friend! So I went on to explain that if I wait for them to be in Portugal and after she and I take some of our clients from work to Cuba in December, I will be able to do 1 insemination in the next year. As they will be back from Portugal in January for an undetermined amount if time. And I get this:

"Ya so"

Umm I'm already 36 years old here people, I can't really take a casual approach to this. So I texted her this:

"Ya.. So I'll just not talk to you about it any more because I don't like how it makes me feel... "

No response from her as of yet, but I do know she's at the movies.

I think that part of the reason I'm finding it "hard" to be gay these days is because I don't really have any close lesbian friends. I have no one IRL to relate with.
Siiigggghhhhh


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

OPKs

So, I buy my opk sticks off eBay. They're a great price and you don't have to worry about going through a ton each month. The problem is, I have trouble interpreting them. The test line is supposed to be as dark if not darker than the control line. Well you see, the problem I've been having is that often, when I'm showing physical signs of ovulation impending, the test line comes up dark on the side closest to dipping and gradually fades lighter next to the control line. The line is darker and lighter! WTF!!! So, I've decided to purchase the more expensive digital tests that actually smile at you during an LH surge. I will then use my cheapies and then use an expensive digital test when I feel the cheap one is showing a positive.
So complicated these pee sticks.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Biological clock

It's in overdrive again. I have begun keeping an eye on my fertility signs and will hopefully start to ttc again in October. It will be strange however to have our guy come over and produce a donation and then go ahead and do the deed all the while the in-laws and the gramma in-law are home. Oh geeze! We will have November, December and January (depending on my fertility) with no in-laws... Then back to a full house.
We're also going to hopefully be having a few rennos done at the house. Starting with the kitchen. My wish list may be a little larger than the wallet though. Lol
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone