symphony, art museum and happy hour

Today was really a good day.  We got up and I made a nice breakfast.  We had some brabern apples that were not too fresh  but still nice enough to chop and then put in a caramel sauce I made.  This went on top of french toast I made from a baguette.  We added walnuts on top of the toast under the sauce and it got good reviews from the breakfast crowd.

My MIL (mother-in-law) was ready and downstairs before I started breakfast so she cleaned up while BH and I showered quickly.  We had to get to church early since we needed to grab stuff for the moment for mission I was going to give.  I had to talk about keeping promises for lent and our churches servant hospitality to the homeless youth drop-in non-profit that grew from and out of our church.  I'm the board chair this year and really in love with what we do and how we positively impact youth without solid support networks.  It was easy to talk about and the passion I have apparently shown through because I got a lot of nice comments and BH and I both had a list to send to our executive direction on folks and connections to help us expand.

We stayed for the potluck after church.  I'm pretty sure my MIL knows when there is going to be a potluck as she's been to many of that our church has had in the last 2 years we've lived here.  That's saying something given she has to fly all the way from the midwest to eat some scalloped potatoes ;).

We stopped home quickly after church before heading to the symphony.  We arrived early and listened to some suzuki violin playing children.  When they were ringing the bells we went to our seats only to realize we had the wrong tickets once we were already at the upper balcony.  We had to trek down and exchange our tickets for the previously ordered tickets.  It was easy and they were pleasant but we had to hike up again quickly to take our seats.  This normally would not have even gotten mentioned except that we recently started "running".  When I say "running" I mean we run/walk/run/walk for 30 minutes.  Its to get us up to a 5K.  Anyway that led to seriously injuring my knee.  We spin a couple times a week and are not in awesome shape but are not ancient or injury prone so this knee injury annoyance is very bothersome.

The symphony was fun and the guest conductor is from London and very funny.  The pianist was from Russia and played beautifully and was only 23.  At 27 I say only 23 because its amazing she had such composure and raw talent.

Afterward we walked across the street for members weekend at our Art museum.  This entitled us each to bring a guest which was perfect since my MIL and sister are here.  The collection we walked through is from all the collectors in our community.  That includes Picasso, Dega, Miro, Warhol, Cezanne, Mary Cassat, and many other impressive pieces.  I was just imaging the insurance that it must take to keep these in a private home from people in our community.

We then went to a place I'd been wanting to try for some time.  We found a table in the back for happy hour. The waiter was way to busy so it was good we weren't in a hurry.  I'm still annoyed to have to wait for someone but he was sufficiently pleasant that it didn't ruin my visit.  We ordered so many tasty things to share, white bean puree with crustinies, goat cheese and tomato fonduta, oyster shooter, veggie sliders, awesome burger with bacon, mustard aioli and picked onions, fries with cayenne, a cheese platter, a margarita pizza and of course a salad so my MIL felt healthy :).  We all shared and tasted most everything.  I loved the burger and at $5 it was a great deal.  The place definitely was for people cooler than I am but finding a table near the kitchen and laughing as we debated the sweetness or bitterness of tonic water was fun none the less.

I was slightly annoyed when my MIL let me start to pay.  She got her card out and asked the guy to split the check.  Not sure if this is because my sister ordered more than she maybe should have or she really just doesn't want to/can't pay for a $40 meal.  Either way we split the check.  It was all in all a good day but ended with me slightly annoyed.  I make a good living - really a very good living for my age and experience.  I work hard, very hard, take pride in providing and in caring for those I love and typically very frugal except when I'm in a position to share with others.  I like to be generous and I expect the same.  I paid for an $80 meal on Friday night and I didn't expect to split a $40 meal 2 ways.  Anyway money has always been a sticky issue for me with my in laws as my folks rightly or wrongly are insanely generous. Parents and families are tricky and because I get along with my in-laws 90+% of the time I won't expound on any other little annoyances.  BH has put up with my sisters annoyances for almost a whole year while we put her up and paid her way while she figured out the next step for her which luckily is grad school at Brown.  I owe her more than my silence on this issue and she knows how I feel.  I should just mention here that we are extremely proud of my sister for getting into Brown.  She worked hard this year even if it wasn't easy to prepare for her audition.  She nailed it and is going to one of the best schools in the country and we're proud and excited for her.

Tomorrow we have an 8:45am U/S to see if we have large enough follicles to trigger.  I hope they're at least 20mm so we can do an IUI Wednesday morning.  If not it will have to be Thursday which isn't the end of the world but Wednesday would be better.  MIL is going with uPublish Posts, haven't decided if she can be in the room with us while they do the U/S but we'll see what BH says about it.  Tomorrow's post will be no doubt about the U/S and next steps for the IUI.

weekend between ultrasounds

So life is happening all around as we're TTC.  My work is going wonderfully, I'm happy and working on lots of new projects and getting more responsibility as a result of my last years review being more than successful.  BH and I are working hard on our pet project which is a non-profit that helps homeless youth.  They all have babies and its getting slightly harder to go to the drop-in every Thursday to hold them and hand them off to extremely young parents who all conceived accidentally.  We're focusing more of our energy on HP serving on the board and working on committees and considering if our energy is really best spent on Thursdays at the drop-in.  

My mother-in-law is visiting from the midwest for the a few days.  We were a bit late to pick her up from the airport on account of my wanting to demonstrate my new handyman skills.  BH & I helped a co-worker with a leaky sink ultimately replacing the whole faucet.  It's left me sore but the faucet looked great and the dishwasher install confidence helped give me the courage to try my hand at this repair.

After we picked her up we drove back to the west suburb where we live and waited for my sister to finish work so we could go to dinner together.  We tried to get a table at a small Japanese place in town only to be told without reservations we were out of luck for the evening.  We were on our way to a slightly larger burb when I recalled another Japanese and sushi restaurant where we were one of many but seated almost immediately.  It was fun and delicious and full of laughter.

Today followed suit it was fun, delicious and full of laughter.  My sister thinks we need to have more company we seem to do things right when we have guests.  I made pancakes with peoples choice of blueberries, pecans or blueberries and pecans.  I made a few pancakes before my sister could go to work for the Saturday shift which luckily is only from 10-2pm.  When she returned we had done the grocery shopping, stopped at the library, eaten lunch and make a desert for the quarterly church potluck. *Apparently our church used to have monthly potlucks - quarterly potlucks are almost too much for us so we can hardly imaging this being a monthly event*.  

When my sister C arrived she found me already half sleeping on the couch awaiting her arrival.  She ate a bit and apparently took a cat nap with me while my mother-in-law and BH played ban.ana.grams.  After we both woke from these short cat naps we all went to the Chinese garden downtown.  It was great and my mother-in-law had not been before.  We used this great cultural pass from our library which got 2 of us in for free, and with my sisters student ID we only had to pay 1 full price and 1 student price.  Pretty fun and cheap afternoon.

We then made our way to what has become a favorite of ours a cupcake shop.  This store has a rotating weekly menu and Saturdays (the day we make it into the city most frequently) has our two most favorite cupcakes.  We're unsure if they're our favorite because they're the ones we have had most or because they truly are the best flavors.  My favorite is a peanut butter and jelly combination and BH loves the An.des mint flavored cupcake.  With the 4 of us my mother-in-law thought it would be nice after a decently long debate by my sister to just get 1 of each so all of us could try each flavor - 6 in total.  This was wonderful and the shop people were happy to sell us more.  There was an An.des mint panic when BH realized the minty chocolate cupcake no longer came topped with its signature An.des mint.  Instead along with all their other handmade garnishes they'd candied a mint leaf and placed it beautifully atop the chocolate cupcake.  After some discussion the lady helping us offered us a mint as its a critical component in the cupcake so they always have extra on hand.  What was even better was that they provided the mint leaf and the An.des so BH was very happy.  

We came home pretty happy about the lovely garden and the 6 cupcakes which awaited us.  I got to work on dinner which consisted of; 

• Tri-colored fingerling potatoes in olive oil, salt and rosemary seasoning.
• Salmon two ways to please everyone 
• Terkyaki with lemon, honey and ginger
• Chilpotle seasoning with lemon zest and juice
• Spinach salad with Vincent Farms cranberries and nuts

We followed the tasty and moderately healthy meal with extremely unhealthy and very fun cupcakes.  BH quartered each but mine - no one thought peanut butter would be good or they didn't like jelly.  Lucky for me the sliver they did cut out of mine was small because they didn't like any of it.  I had parts of the ones I enjoyed and everyone else tried all 6.  There ended up being an entire cupcake in a half and 2 quarters left for BH tomorrow.  She is delighted with this prospect.  We cleaned up the kitchen and then go to work on a couple things for tomorrow.

It was certainly a nice day and tomorrow promises to be just as nice.  We have guest passes to the art museum because members can bring an extra person this weekend so we're taking advantage of that lining up perfectly with my mother-in-laws visit.  Right across from the art museum is the symphony and this happens to be 1 of our 5 ticket concerts so we got an extra 2 so all 4 of us could go.  

More tomorrow on part 2 of the weekend.

Second Shot

We attempted our second IUI 1/18 so hopefully we will be testing on 1/31 to see if we're pregnant.  Yesterday was comical, I can say that today because when it was yesterday it was miserable.  It started with a last minute, I need you to drop me off at work because you have to pick me up for the appointment.  You ask... "Don't you have two cars?"  Well in fact we do but temporarily my sister lives with us and in order to avoid a fight with her we re-arrange our schedules to accommodate her always having a car.  Now you think doing this would get us off the hook from paying car insurance but alas it has not.  Anyway thats for another post all together.  Critical component is that we've been without a dishwasher for a month, not horrible since we were away for the holidays but still almost 3 weeks is not doable.  We have a new one now which seems to be wonderful based on first wash.  It did take 3 trips for BH to go to Hom.eDep.ot to get the correct parts.  Short timeline of yesterday
8:30 - Get to work tad late - BH delivers me
9-1pm - Non-stop meetings while BH deals with the delivery of the dishwasher - apparently we hadn't unhooked it properly - the delivery guys did it but left a trail of water that had to be cleaned up my BH and my sister
1pm - BH picks me up to go to ORM for the IUI
1:30pm we're early surprise
1:45ish -

• We're in the room for the procedure - Nurse comes in and we verify sample - yup its him
• Doc - great sperm count 24 mil - we only need 10 so you've got a great one :D
• She starts - wicked pain from the speculum which is atypical for me - I'm wriggling and BH can tell it's not good
• She has to get a new catheter like last time - finally it goes in and that was that
• We talk briefly that if it doesn't take this time or next by the 4th try we will go for Clomid - we're all in agreement - I had wanted to try next time but more rational in this moment I've agreed to wait one more
• Doc leaves - BH gives me my underwear after I lay there for 5 more minutes - she comments that it hurt huh?  - yup a lot my response
• We leave and are on the way home

2:30 - quick (20+ min) stop at Hom.eDe.pot - BH gets first packet of stuff - I am annoyed laying back in the car with feet up and seat back because I think it will help the swimmers
3pm - Panic as I walk in and hear a very strange water sound from the kitchen - I yell to BH unpacking the car - the kitchen is FLOODED!!!
I lay down for the next 2.5 hours while that mess gets cleaned up - the drip turned into a stream of water - we turned the main water off to the house while we figured out a plan
5:30 - finish meetings to go Pilat.es late - but I'm glad we go
6:45 - another HD trip - I'm annoyed at the whole mess and grumpy in the car
7:30 we start to put the dishwasher in place reading each direction and confused - we have the wrong part
8:30 - we're starving M has to go to HD again to get a different part (3rd and final trip) - I make pizza

---- Above written January 18th ---- below finished and published April 9th.  I am going to attempt to publish regularly each day to help remember this long TTC process.

I can't remember exactly what happened after 8:30 but its not important any more - we love our dishwasher and we're more confident in our handyman skills.

Now 3 months later all I can report is that the second cycle was a bust and my next posts will discuss our 5th attempt.

Proper Introduction

Since I've stalked my share of bloggers perhaps its my turn to provide a proper introduction.  At 27 years of experience I live happily with my better half and for the time being my sister.  My better half, a slightly older 27, works as a technical writer and does a random assortment of other technical web activities.  I work for "the man" in corporate America and I love it for all that it allows me to do.  I manage an exciting business where I learn something or several things nearly everyday.  

We married this fall and it was wonderful.  Supportive friends and family surrounded us in a casual loving ceremony with great food and festivities that followed.  We're certainly not the pioneers of our family as my better half (BH going forward) was the product of a warm sperm donor in the 1980's and of lesbian parents.  This makes it slightly easier that we don't stress one bit about telling or sharing our experience because everyone is supportive.  My family did find the sperm donor dilemma a bit amusing and strange at the same time but in general are extremely loving and supportive of our decision.

While playing Sequence my families favorite game I asked my Mom if she agreed that I was finally bigger now.  She laughed and said the response would take to long to explain.  I think that means I'm big enough not to get the response when you're bigger I'll explain it.

We're visiting my family in the northern midwest after a week of visiting my BH's family in the southern midwest for a week.  Our holidays were restful and rather uneventful which is nice.  Only sad moment was that I got my period one day late which meant the first try of our IUI was unsuccessful.  It didn't terribly derail anything and I'm surprisingly chipper at this point.  

Bigger Now... finally!

I am bigger now, or at least I think so.  My mom always told me when I was small that I would do whatever it is I wanted in that moment when I was bigger.  Well now I am bigger and I have done many of those things that I wanted and the next will be to make a baby.  We started this crazy adventure months ago with me calling our insurance company to see how this would pan out.  Well basically I have decent insurance and they'll help us with the baby making as far as artificial insemination and the like.  We have to buy the swimmers, which we did one afternoon over lunch.  We tried our first insemination in December with no success the first time around.  The blog is partially a place for me to relieve the stress of this crazy exciting journey.  I'm not alone in this adventure of course, my loving better half patiently supports all my crazy antics and wants a baby as much as I do but is far more level headed in the process.  This is the first of the posts.  I will provide a more proper introduction at a later date but basically we're late twenty somethings living in the pacific northwest transplanted from the midwest and figuring out how this adventure will fair.