Oops

I just realized I probably should have put a disclaimer before posting a picture of my new nephew. I'm sorry if it upset anyone. :o( I'm just so close to my family that while it saddens me that it happens so easily for them but not us, I am thankful for the growing family and absolutely dote on the boys. I realize it might have been insensitive though....and I'm sorry!

There's a new man in my life

Well, he's more of a boy right now but I know someday he'll grow into a wonderful man because he comes from a long line of them. Meet Jaden Alan, my brother's second son. Jaden made his grand entrance into the world on 01/01/10 weighing in at 8 lbs 5oz. Everyone is doing well and I can't wait to go visit them in Florida in March. And everything aside with our struggles to get to baby, I really am thrilled for my family. They're wonderful, caring people and fantastic parents already.

So what else has happened in the last two weeks? A lot when I think of it but it's seemed more like day to day things and yet not (weird, I know). Let's try to sum it up:

• My dad, at the age of 56 and only 6 months after a heart attack, ran a full marathon on 01/10 finishing in just 5 hours and 16 minutes. I'm tearing up just typing that because I'm so incredibly proud of him! He just started running 2 or 3 years ago so to have finished a marathon is pretty darn amazing.
• I started back to school this week! I enrolled in an art class and a photography class but ended up dropping the art. It was an online course geared toward learning Photoshop but the instructor didn't even post anything until today - and the semester started on Saturday! Bah. On top of that, this photography class is going to be pretty stinkin' expensive. A new camera, a portable hard drive, photo paper, card reader, jump drive.....you get the idea. I'll go back and take the art if I decide to pursue photography further.
• DH finally made up his mind on which school he wants transfer to and enrolled to finish his last two prereqs to enroll in the LPN to RN program there this fall. It's about time!
• You may or may not have noticed from my ticker at the bottom but at my weigh in yesterday I hit the 20lb mark in my weight loss! I was positively giddy! I've been losing at a decent pace but when I realized that my net loss for December was only 1.6lbs, I really stepped up the exercise and made better food choices last week which obviously paid off huge. I now only have 2.6 lbs to lose before reaching my 10% weight loss goal.
• My dear forever friend Amy moved in back home this past weekend! Amy's dad was our pastor back home for over a decade starting at the beginning of 8th grade for us. We bonded at school, youth group, and on summer mission trips. She'd been living in the UP (upper peninsula) with her now ex-husband and then with her parents after her divorce so we really haven't seen much of each other since I got married. She decided this fall that she wanted to finish her last 19 credits for her BS back down by where we grew up so my parents offered to let her live with them. Since no one else was going to be home, I drove up on Saturday to get her moved in and we had a great time. After we unpacked her Jeep we did a little shopping, had dinner out, and then vegged all day Sunday to a Glee marathon. I'm super excited she's back in the area and finally finishing her education!
  
• Lastly, our house is once again quiet as this little critter has gone home.

Miss Baily Jo is my parents' 3 month old boxer puppy. She came to stay with us for two weeks while they were in Florida for Jaden's birth and Dad's marathon. My animals weren't to sure about her in the beginning because she has exactly two modes: on and off. But she's a sweet little girl and I'd gotten use to the sound of her galloping around the house.

That's about all for now! This coming Tuesday is DH's repeat s/a with his second one the following Tuesday. AF arrived rather promptly at New Year's so after we get the repeat results, we'll really start tracking and trying again. I think. If not next cycle then for sure in March after we get home from Florida and all that. But I promise I'll check in again before that. ;o)

Grumpy

Okay, so maybe grumpy is saying it soft - I'm just plain pissed off. I'm not really sure at what exactly, it just seems to be a lot of little things all at once. Like having to haul all of the groceries in the house by myself yet again after fighting a mob of people at the store. Then finding that my mom & dad's puppy that we're watching had pooped in the guest room because DH didn't close the door. Then finding it still there after I loudly pointed it out and went to use the bathroom myself. Seeing the earliest twinges of spotting when I went to the bathroom. DH shrugging off actually doing anything for NYE (not that I was really that into it but I'm sick of being the one to make all the plans and then having him just sit there like a bump on a log). And then the neighbors started in with the damn fireworks - AGAIN. Oh yes, then I remembered this was the NYE we were supposed to be in NYC celebrating DH's graduation and RN license. Joy.

Maybe I'll be in a better mood tomorrow. I'm pretty sure this is just AF talking because I'm like seriously angry at a whole lot of nothing. But it still didn't stop me from picking up the phone and calling the cops on my pyro happy neighbors. I mean, I get July 4th and even NYE but seriously, when did Halloween become a fireworks worthy holiday? I guess I'd just rather not get my house burned down by some drunken idiots setting off professional sized fireworks in a heavily populated residential area, KWIM?

Blah and screw 2009 anyway.

Add another one to the list

Last night on Facebook I came across an old friend of ours that we have not seen or heard from in 6 1/2 years. She was a friend of DH's before he and I met and actually is part of the chain that let to us meeting. J is the mother of my high school boyfriend's daughter but they haven't been together since about the time she was born 10 years ago. She introduced DH and the ex BF so DH could rent a room from the ex and ex could make his child support payments. Following so far? So when I moved back in with my parents 8 years ago, ex caught wind of it and called me trying to rekindle things. I called back, trying to very nicely tell him I was not interested and DH answered the phone (roomies, remember?) and as he was passing the phone to ex, made the comment I sounded cute. Ex said "Hello?" and I said "What did he just say?" Ex started laughing and handed the phone back to DH. We talked for 45 minutes, he asked if I wanted to catch a movie and we've been together ever since (much to the dismay of ex).

Okay, back to our friend J. She had just gotten engaged to someone else, M, when I met DH and was getting married the following year. DH proposed 9ish months later and we set a date for 3 months after J & M were getting married. She and I ended up bonding over wedding plans and hating on the ex BF (really rather funny and made ex completely crazy).

So today she confirms my friend request and sent me a bubbly note about how she's in the last weeks of her pregnancy and this time next month she'll be holding her beautiful twin girls. Looking over the rest of her profile, these will be children 4 and 5 for her. And what could I say? I told her where we're living, where I work, and what DH is doing in school. "No kids yet, but hopefully soon!" Right.

Great, so that makes FOUR people I know due in the next 3 weeks. Fantastic. This whole waiting for my turn thing is wearing my patience thin. I realize we haven't been actively trying in the last few months but I guess that's kind of part of the process when it goes on this long, don't you think? I figure that we;ve got another full cycle until we get DH's s/a results back then we'll give the Clomid a shot and go from there. The longing for a baby is still there, it just hurts too much to put the effort in without results any more.

One moment please!

Please pardon the crappy look of my blog for a bit. I'm trying to learn how to format my blog with all those pretty backgrounds everyone else seems to have and well, I'm having issues that I don't have time to fix right now.

Pssst...would it be really bad to admit that I actually use to be able to write HTML in high school? Ugh.

Oh how the time flies!

I know I've been an absent blogger lately. Life's just been busy I suppose. I've been sick for most of the last week which sucks but at least it happened after Thanksgiving. My brother and his family were up from Florida including my 17 month old nephew. I know a lot of women have talked about how hard it was to see other family member's children and pregnant bellies. For some reason I was fine with it. I loved sitting on the floor playing with him, seeing how quickly he learns things now, and especially when he picked my lap to crawl in when he was sleepy. My brother and I talked the night before they flew up and he was telling me how my SIL is not one of those women who adores being pregnant. Don't get me wrong, she loves being a mother and is pretty darn good at it too but the actual pregnancy thing is not her gig. I finally ended up telling him that DH and I have been trying for over a year. SIL has gotten pregnant twice on the pill now and while I know pregnancy isn't an easy thing, maybe it's harder to appreciate when it's come so easily to her. My brother was incredibly understanding and supportive and maybe that's part of what makes it easier not to begrudge them for their super fertility.

Even though I'm not feeling great I did drag our Christmas tree upstairs last night. I work a lot this month and I guess I figured if I didn't get it up soon, it wouldn't get put up at all. Plus I figured that it would spur me into dragging everything else out too. So I unzip the tree bag and the first thing I see is a stocking. A light green and white classic Pooh stocking I had bought on clearance at the end of the season last year. I figured it would work for a boy or a girl and still being relatively new to TTC, I was sure we'd have a baby by this time or at the very least be pregnant. Ha!

I do have some news on that front though. DH had his follow up with the urologist. The WBCs are gone which is awesome! So now we're scheduling the back to back s/a and we'll go from there. And even though AF dropped by yesterday, it was the first time ever that I've had a "perfect" 28 day cycle! Even though I haven't been tracking at all, I was pretty sure I Oed earlier this month and it looks like I was right. I attribute it to recent weight loss (11.6 pounds as of Tuesday) and exercising more. I think we're going to let nature take it's course for the next few months still before getting back to really trying. I'd really like to lose another 20 lbs or so even though I know I have a lot more than that to ultimately lose but I really don't feel like taking a whole year off to do it. DH has decided he really does want to finish his RN and there is a chance he could start another program this summer and be done spring 2011.

I guess that's it for now....I'll try to be around more! :o)

Unacceptable

Have you ever seen the movie "The Terminal"? It's a relatively unknown movie (as far as I know) starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Anyway, I caught it on HBO several years ago and I loved it immediately. Tom Hanks character (Victor) arrives to visit New York City from a tiny European country speaking very little English. While trying to go through customs, it's discovered that Victor's government was over thrown by rebels while he was in the air so his passport and visa are no longer valid. But because of the war, no travel is allowed in to or out of his homeland. He's stuck in limbo and told he's simply "unacceptable." Not that he understands what that means or why.

So what's a man who's not allowed to enter the country he's in nor allowed to return to his own country to do? Live at the airport for 9 months finding ways to survive with a certain spunk about him. The story is just the right combination of touching and humor for me. I pulled out my copy of the movie over the weekend and watched it on my lap top during a rare slow night at work. And I ended up relating to it on a whole new level in light of events from this past year.

We still have not heard anything from the dean at school. DH is very slowly making baby steps to figure out what he's going to do next while backsliding into self pity on a regular basis which I find myself having less and less patience for. And I just keep chugging along. It seems like all I do is work and sleep. Honestly we didn't even try last month. I know when I Oed and I know AF will be here in 2 or 3 days. I didn't tell DH though. I don't feel like we're in a place to be trying right now. Especially not since he's had his script for his repeat s/as for 3 weeks now and still hasn't bothered to call to schedule them. Despite the fact that around here it takes a month to get in, he's supposed to follow up with the urologist in 3 weeks, and it'll take at least 3 weeks turn around for the doc to get both sets of results back (two tests, one week apart, one week a piece to get results to the office). Yes, he knows that.

I mentioned before that the first WW meeting I went to was about making time for yourself and I'm still doing my best to do that but in less obvious ways. I finally called my doctor's office and asked about a referral to physical therapy for my migraines/headaches, neck, and shoulder pain. I went 3 times last week and have 2 more weeks of the same. I feel a huge difference already and honestly I didn't realize how much stress and tension I carry in my neck and shoulders. I'm also taking the time to make healthy foods at home to pack for work. I weigh in tomorrow but to date I've lost 3.8 lbs. This time I'm trying to focus more on just following the program and letting the weight loss be a bonus by-product. But the meetings really are a good motivation for me and I wish I had tried them sooner. When I first signed up I figured I'd cancel after the free month was over but now I'd like to keep going.

So with TTC, DH's school, and well...life in general it seems I guess I'm just plodding along waiting in my own sort of limbo, until I'm "acceptable" again too. In the mean time, if you need me, I'll be living over in my very own gate 67.