The Good Ol' Days

Currently the extra room in our house, that will be the nursery, is mostly storage. We have keepsakes from childhood, fans we only use in the summer, all kinds of miscellaneous stuff that needs to find a new home. We spent some time going through some old tubs today. Mostly things from J's childhood. It was fun to see old stories he wrote in elementary school, art projects his mom saved, and tons of old toys. His mom saved everything, I swear.

We were able to fill a whole tub with toys to donate, but came across some great stuff! He has a few books and whole set of wooden cars and street signs that match. He saved his favorite matchbox cars, but still had a couple gallon ziplock bags to donate!

What I liked best was reading some of his old stories and the little surveys from school. Stories written by, "The Famous Jeremy S" at age 8. Or this survey, one clearly filled out my a teacher or parent:

At School I like to drink.

Yeah, I think we've all had a day or two like that.

It was a fun look down memory lane. And perhaps a little glimpse at the imagination that our child might have.

Sipping cider, watching the snow fall, and spending an afternoon with my husbands youth. I must say, it is not a bad way to spend the day.

A gorgeous fall day

Today was a beautiful fall day in the Northwest.

This morning as I was running around and getting ready for work, I managed to get a roast in the crockpot. When we got home this afternoon, after that roast had been cooking for 11 hours, our house smelled like heaven! I nuked some baby red potatoes and carrots for a few minutes and added them to the crockpot as well.

Then off we went! We snagged the dogs, my camera, and hit the trail. We have a great, paved, trail near out house and we love it on days like today. It was great to spend good time with Jeremy, get some fresh air after a frustrating and busy day in the office, and get a bit of exercise with the pups.

Nothing quite beats coming home to a warm house filled with the smell of a tasty roast. Now, it's time to relax, snuggle up, and watch Sons of Anarchy. All in all, it was a damn good day.

A quick rundown of the roast recipe I created, for those interested!

In a ziplock bag, mix well- 1/4 cup flour, dash of thyme, pepper, 1/2 t garlic powder, 1/4t onion powder
Add the roast to the bag and coat
Brown roast on all sides
In the crockpot add 1cup beef broth, 1/4 water, 1 can cream of mushroom, a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce - mix and add the roast
Sprinkle top with onion soup mix
Cook for at least 5-6 hours - all day is obviously best!
For the last 1-1.5 hours add your potatoes of choice and baby carrots

I don't do much measuring and I improve a LOT. In fact, this time I added a bay leaf when I added the veggies.

Out of Gas

After three years of TTC, what more is there to talk about? This is where I am struggling lately. I'm not pregnant anymore, we're not seeing a doctor just yet... so what is there to say on a fertility related blog?

I'm working a ton, too busy to do much relaxing, and mostly just getting through each day. I'm happy to feel ready to conceive again (as ready as you ever can be, especially following a loss), I constantly at war with losing weight, but these are all things I feel like I've belabored to death around here.

Is there anything you're curious about? I am trying to convince J to talk about his perspective more - is there anything you'd like to hear from the man that puts up with me every day?

I miss writing and communicating with you all more frequently - I'd love a good push!

Poorly timed flu bug

What does a trying-to-conceive girl need mid-cycle on their first cycle since a miscarriage?

The flu.

I woke up Saturday morning with an awful bug. Said bug had me running to the restroom about every 15-30 minutes. Occassionally holding a bucket (which thankfully I never needed!). I just got worse as the day went on and by yesterday evening I had a fever and the chills. And what does a girl with a fever need more than getting up a few minutes to sprint to the potty?

Not one of my finest days.

I've basically only eaten a small sleeve of crackers, a granola bar, and a Gatorade in the last 36 hours. I cannot fathom giving my guts any more ammo. But hey, I suppose the thin silver lining is the nice leap my weight loss took. Today's weekly weigh-in was 183.7. I'm not saying it was worth it, but I'll take it.

My OPK's finally came in the mail today, so should things test out, J is just going to have to take one for the team. Romantic, right?? ;)

Such is the life of a girl in search of a babe.

Aren't you glad you stopped by today?

Welcome to July ICLW!

I decided July would be the month that I rejoined ICLW. Assuming we'd be back in the saddle with trying to conceive. Little did I know that the day after I threw my name in the hat, we would get our first positive pregnancy test.

Do you know how many of those little things I peed on before I got one to give me two lines? I've peed on a lot of things, let me tell you, but that was the best one yet.

Something did surprise me after getting our BFP, I have no desire to pee on anything else. While TTC I thought for sure I would want to rush out and get the Costco pack of pregnancy tests, a digital, and a supersized Sunny Delight, ala Juno and make a whole afternoon out of peeing on stick after stick. Nope. I peed on one and I'm happy as a clam.

I've digressed a bit, but for those that aren't first time visitors, you know that happens. A lot.

A bit about us for those that are new 'round these parts. Jeremy (Commonly 'J' on this blog) and I had our first date 10 years and 1 day ago. Fun fact, right? We were married 3 years and 2 days ago (even funner fact) and shortly after began our journey to spawn. Shortly after starting I knew things weren't right with my ladybits. Very irregular cycles, charting was a disaster, and my periods were very heavy and painful. That first year was the worst of the emotional roller coaster.

We saw Doc Oc (no, seriously, he looks like a dead ringer for the Spiderman villain) for just under a year before I was unceremoniously dumped. I was determined to be Clomid resistant (after about 4 cycles) and only sporadically responded to Femara. It was after that lovely little journey that J and I decided we needed a break. It was August 2010 and we decided we'd revisit this at the beginning of the year.

January came and went and we knew we still weren't ready to devote the time necessary to tackle TTC again. Besides, we were planning our Vacation Of A Lifetime. We agreed that when we returned home from that adventure, we would see a doctor at Seattle Reproductive Medicine, just as Doc Oc suggested.

Our trip was amazing. We spent 13 days exploring England and Ireland. Eating delicious food, drinking beer daily, making friends, and exploring the sights. We spent quality time together (except for the story about when I was driving in Ireland and we almost got divorced. word of advice: driving on the left side of the road will test the limits of your marriage. amen. good night.) and at the end of the two weeks we were nowhere near ready to come home.

Come home we did and the next week we met Dr. K and she was awesome. We talked in detail about PCOS, my history, what we'd tried, and developed a game plan that the three of us were comfortable with. Step One of this plan involved me getting on Metformin. The next week I dutifully started taking my meds. I was instructed to ramp up my dose each week until I was at the full dosage. Another piece of Infertile Wisdom - Met sucks. My tummy will never be the same, I'm sure of it.

My period 'should have arrived' (us PCOS folks know that is date not easily pinned down) on or about the first of July. That brings us to the Fourth of July. We'd made the rounds to see our family and had returned home. It was a work night for us, so I went upstairs and started getting cleaned up and ready for bed. I knew I had a pee stick under the sink and when you get the hankerin to pee on something, that's a hard vibe to shake.

My thoughts were 'I might as well use it up'. Use it up I did, not two minutes later there were two cute little pink lines.

I opened up the bathroom window and hollered into the backyard for Jeremy to get his butt upstairs that instant. He thought for sure I'd lost a limb or at least seen a spider. I will never forget the look on his face when I showed him that test and wished him a Happy 4th of July.

Feel free to peruse my past entries. If you have any questions for me, I would be more than happy to answer them. I recently came out of the proverbial blogger closet, so this is actually my first ICLW where you all get to 'meet me'. I'm a fairly open book, so if there is anything you want to know - just ask!

Welcome to ICLW everyone!

Infertility doesn't control me anymore.

Once upon a time I wrote an entry talking about the anonymity of my blog.

On a number of occasions I have called this blog my safe place. That the anonymous factor helped me bare all. Except for baring who I really am. And can I really bare all if I'm making exceptions? I've been worried about picking back up with the appointments and losing who I am again. How can I lose myself around here when 'myself' hasn't even been a part of this blog?

I don't know where I came across this saying and normally I like giving credit where credit is due, but this time we'll just have to appreciate it for what it is. I've been saving it for this occasion:

By not putting my face on our infertility struggle, I'm allowing it to continue to control me. I need to own that this is part of my life in order to take the control back.

In my case I need to own that this is part of my life in order to not lose the control again.

There are a number of brave women out there to talk about all the details and are brave enough to do that with a face. You've been an inspiration to me. Whatever conscious/subconscious part of our struggle with infertility that kept me in hiding, has to go. I believe that this is a critical part of the process for me.

Without further ado...

Hi, my name is Sarah and that handsome fella is my husband Jeremy.