It is official...

Mr. and Mrs. S are GOING TO EUROPE. Yes, I know I told you we were planning it, but this evening we bought our plane tickets. It is officially official.

May 17th we will be headed to London. We will be spending a couple of in London doing all of the usual stuff (Big Ben, Buckingham, Trafalgar, Tower Bridge, London Eye, etc, etc), visiting the city of Bath, and Stonehenge. We will then be flying to Dublin and spending a handful of days in Ireland. Visiting castles, Blarney Stone, Cliffs of Moher, and of course the Guiness brewery before we return to London for a day and fly home. That's our itinerary in a nutshell. Holy Frick.

I.
Can.
Not.
ContainMYSELF!

January Game Plan

The new year is almost here. Crazy, no? 2010 went by so damn fast, I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. We've been on our break for over 4 months. No meds, OPK's, temping, charting, etc. Here is the plan for January...

1) Make an appointment with a Naturopath
-I'm hoping to manage my PCOS without meds. I'm willing to give it a try anyway. I'm going to ask about diet, weight loss, and acupuncture.

2) Lose 30lbs
-Granted this won't all happen in January. lol I'm going to get serious (again) about losing weight. I'm hoping that after discussing diet w/ the doc I will have a solid food-related game plan. I've also got 3 free appointments with the trainer at our gym. Time to cash in! My goal is to go to the gym a minimum of 4 days per week. I would like to lose 1-2lbs per week (if not more!). If I'm successful I will have reached my goal, and more, by the time our trip to England/Ireland gets here!

3) OPK's
-While I don't think we're quite ready for the RE, meds, appointments, dildo-cams, etc. I am going to start doing the basics. At minimum I will be re-investing in my OPK stock. Temping may be apart of that in the near future as well. I haven't charted in forever...

4) Therapy
-Last, but certainly not least, I'm going to make an appointment with a therapist.
I had a minor, okay major, breakdown on Christmas Eve Eve. We had planned to run away with our friends for Christmas. We didn't even decorate because we wouldn't be home. We'd planned to leave on Christmas Eve and the day before the plans started to change. We weren't even sure if we were going to go anymore. Friends were thinking about bailing, which meant I would have to do the grocery shopping they'd been assigned, etc. Basically it felt like it was all falling apart. I lost my shit.
I was trying to express to J why I was frustrated and we were not communicating well. He went full on into Mr. Fix It mode and I got pissed. People I was angry. I tried to explain what I was thinking and feeling and it came out wrong, we argued a bit more and I started sobbing. I got no comfort and that pissed me off, so I got angrier. Folks, I was two seconds from putting my first in a wall. That is NOT me. I had a really hard time calming down. And as I did I realized that my freak out was probably less about our changing plans and more about my pent up stress and other emotional issues.
I'm disappointed in myself that I haven't made this appointment already. Now's the time.

So. That's where we are for now. I don't want to call these my resolutions because I never keep those (does anyone??). January is a new month. A fresh start. Time to get going again, but with 'baby steps' (har har) and a solid plan.

Is there anything you're going to do differently in the New Year?

Under Construction

Hey everyone! Sorry I've been MIA the last week or so. I've got some things to share (like my Christmas Eve Eve meltdown... yowza.), but before I can do that I'm working to update the look and feel around these parts. If you drop by and things look different, just bare with me. Aly at Infertility Overachievers is helping my vamp up the joint!

Thanks for hanging in there, more to come soon!

Birthday wishes for THE Mama

Today is my mom's birthday. Oh how I love her so. Each year I torture myself, wanting to find her the most perfect gift. She does so much for us throughout the year that I want to find that one thing that will show her just how much we appreciate her. Inevitably that means I'm running around at the last minute with all the Christmas-crazies picking up something that will fill the place of the gift I never found.

We've gotten my mom some nice gifts in the past - jewelry, nights out at fancy restaurants, etc... but none of them are meaningful enough. On this day I hope that she knows just how much she is loved and how grateful we are to have her in our lives.

I love you, Mama!

Distraction

I'm sorry I haven't really been posting much the last week or so. Things at work have been hectic. I've launched a new customer database to all of our service areas, wrapped up (literally as well) our Adopt-a-Family program, and yesterday we had our departments holiday luncheon (thanks to yours truly). Needless to say, yesterday after the luncheon I was exhausted. I sit for a few minutes before I tackle the crazy cleanup and I get that familiar sensation. You know the one I'm talking about. AF was knocking on my door. Sweet baby Jesus in a manger.

Home has been a lot of the same. We've been trying to go to the gym consistently, but that means 2-3 days a week recently. Better then nothing, right? We just finished the refinance on our rental property, but that meant appointments to sign documents. Oh, and this Friday I am flying out to go visit my very best friend in the universe. I haven't seen her in about a year and a half and I miss her like craziness.

Researching our trip has been a very pleasant distraction during our break. That was, until last night. We found a few great deals on plane tickets to Dublin. I'm talking $800/ea. That's a lot, but compared to $12-1300 - SWEET! We decided to be responsible and wait to finish our refinance, since we knew that we'd get to skip that mortgage payment. Responsible, no? I was pretty proud of us for our restraint. We'd seen the prices like that mid-week for a few weeks so we weren't concerned.

Last night we were ready. Credit card in hand. Type in Seattle to Dublin - BAM - $1200. FRICK!
I switch up the dates a bit, and I get $1100. That was the best I'd found! $300 more PER TICKET. I almost cried folks. Why can I not catch a damn break?!

I am really ready to take a break from our busy life. I thought that these distractions would be helpful in keeping my mind from TTC. I would say that about 50% of the time it has worked. But, I'm still sad, tired (mentally and physically), irritated with the dysfunction in my body (can I please stop gaining wait and breaking out? Please!?).

Are these really distractions, or is it avoidance of my 'issues'? Probably a bit of both if I had to venture a guess. But for now, that's what I'm using to get us through another holiday season without a reason to decorate.

BFN

Thank you for those that kept your fingers crossed and wished us well, but this mornings test was negative. I wish I had something better to report.

I also wish I could say that I'd been successful in keeping my mind from wandering. From dreaming of a Christmas miracle in a year that we don't appear to be celebrating. Imagining telling my mom, or my best friend when I fly to visit her next week. Getting to tell a few amazing women that have had success lately that I'd be joining their ranks. Even having a tough conversation about whether or not we should postpone our Europe trip. Oh what I would give to cancel that trip for this one thing.

Still no AF in sight. No BFP. Looks like my ladybits have decided to join my feelings in limbo. Just hanging out. Stuck between two worlds. Void of much feeling and really not wanting to make any decisions.

I am the worst at taking breaks.


Now I'm really sorry I skipped that margarita at dinner last night.

Holding out...

I am holding out to test until Saturday. I am a week late, even though that is only a guess. I'm not charting, using OPK's, or anything to know when I ovulated. The only thing I can go off of is some serious CM at about CD15. Weak sauce, I know. It is not only possible that I didn't ovulate then, but I could have not ovulated at all.

I have no PMS-like symptoms that have been typical of the last few months. However, what is 'typical' when you have PCOS? Either way, I've had no sore breast, cramping (aside from an ache in my lower right abdomen last week), or any moodiness....

That is where I am at the moment. Holding off on having any hope and holding off on testing until the weekend. We'll see!

I am an idiot.

This weekend has been deep with irritation and frustration. I have this wonderful evening planned with my girlfriends. There was baking, baking, and more baking planned. Instead the dogs decide that night to be a pain in the ass. I spent the evening cleaning up messes (our 7.5 year old lab decided to hike his leg on our friends Christmas tree - he has NEVER done that before! and that was only 1 of the 5 catastrophes of the evening) and I wasn't even supposed to have to take the dogs in the first place.

Yesterday we went to a local tree lighting. The day was so much fun. Lunch with friends, sledding with our friends kid, general holiday fun. Then the evening turned dramatic when most everyone drank 1 or 2 too many cocktails and the end result was vomit... in the car... when we were still over an hour from home. All I can say was thank God it wasn't mine. ::GAG::

I had decided Friday that I would test this weekend since I am late. Saturday morning I flushed the toilet before I remembered that I was supposed to pee on something. Frick! So last night when we got home I set everything out so that I would remember. This morning I'd only need to get the test out of the cupboard. True to my plan, I woke up this morning and went to pee in the cup. Grabbed a test out of the cupboard, did the damn thing, and set it on the counter. I cleaned up and took a peek....

OMG - is that a line? Or more like the absence of a line? Wait... a line is a line, right? People if I hadn't already peed I would have messed my pajama pants.

Returning to the cabinet to get the instructions... How long is it supposed to take again? I reached in, grabbed the box, and realized that I peed on an ovulation predictor test.

Kill me know. My heart went from racing, to broken. I of course am more upset because I screwed it up and, even if for only 30 seconds, I allowed my hopes to get up. On our break. When I shouldn't be doing this anyway.

Why am I such an idiot? Things never go right and I always manage to screw them up. What is more disappointing than a weekend filled with disappointments, is being disappointed with myself.

Living our lives.

J and I have been talking recently about how to pick back up with our TTC journey. As 2010 is coming to an end, how do we see 2011 playing out? One thing we both agree on 110%, is that no matter what, we are no longer putting our lives on hold. We're young (and damn fun if I do say so myself) and have bright futures. There are adventures to be had, people to meet, conquering to be done!

Where are we starting?

Europe!

My childhood dreams are finally being realized as I plan our first trip to Europe. We'll be visiting England and Ireland this spring/summer.

I. Can. Not. WAIT.

Do you have any idea how many castles are in Ireland? Me either. But I know there are tons. Nothing makes my inner princess tingle more than the idea of actually staying in a castle. Seriously I am giddy just thinking about it. A Castle. WITH my prince charming. I might die. Or never come home. Either way, I'll be happy.

Sure, it is going to take some major saving and a dent in our account, but it is time to LIVE people. If we get pregnant between now and then - great. (I'll just make J take me back later so that I too can take full advantage of the pubs. lol) If we're not pregnant, we'll be sad, but we go through that each month anyway. At least now I will have immediate access to European wine and Irish beer to help me cope.

Now I start my research. I really love my research. When is it most affordable to fly? Where should we go? Which sights should we see? I've gathered so much information already and I'm barely getting started.

I think I missed my career as a travel agent.

Have you ever been to England or Ireland? Do you have any recommendations? I would love some input from you all.

With everything we need to schedule in our coming months (I'm really dreading the appointment schedule), I finally have something magnificent to look forward to.