It's in the stars!

Libra Sep 23 - Oct 22

A change is about to land in your life, and you're ready for it. If anything, you've been anticipating it for ages. Unlike most changes, this one will live up to its promise -- and then some. Get ready to rumble!

I hope this is what I have really been anticipating for ages. Wouldn't that be nice? Landing a hot man for some steamy sex would be nice too.

But I did dye my hair this morning, so there's already a change. Actually you can't really tell the difference, but I took "before" shots last night and will take the "after" shots tonight when I get home (my hair was still wet when I left the house this morning!). You can see for yourself then.

Eek, part 2

I have been researching and ordering some new skincare items lately, as I used to alternate between cheap and not so cheap moisturizers and all of a sudden was using a daytime cheapy at the same time as a nighttime cheapy and was getting wrinkles and crepy skin. Ugh. So I decided I need to step it up and stop with the cheap stuff already. And by cheap stuff, I don't mean Olay, I mean the generic copy of Olay. Yes, what can I say? I'm cheap. But no longer on the moisturizers, my friends. No longer.

So it got me thinking about my whole appearance, and on a whim I actually bought some hair dye yesterday. Gasp! So I'm planning on dyeing sometime between now and next weekend. I expect that it'll be a pretty subtle effect, and I'm hoping for just highlights where it dyes the grays but leaves the black ones as they are, but we'll see. I promise that photos will follow.

And, and here's the eek part, I just booked myself a facial. In a fancy spa in NY!! THE fancy spa in NY that sends out the lovely catalogs with expensive skincare products. Oh my God, I think I'm lightheaded.

Eek!

I just booked my flights for my coculture trip to NY!

Eek!

I know the date of the coculture is not certain and might change, but Jet Blue had some $99 tickets still available for the dates I would travel IF it goes ahead as planned. Given that their tickets are $299 each way without the good deals, which is a difference of $400 on a round trip, and that it only costs $30 to cancel or change the ticket (plus any difference in fares), I figured I should just bite the bullet and hope for the best. There weren't many seats left, so they definitely book up fast!

I booked my pap and cervical culture appointment at my local clinic, and wasn't able to get anything until March 9th. As the biopsy is planned for March 13th I of course freaked out that this wouldn't be good enough as the results wouldn't be back in time. Luckily I managed to speak to the coculture scheduler who said it was OK. So all I have to do now is get the blood tests done, which just involves turning up at one of those big testing places and I've got everything planned. I think. Just so long as my LH surge complies, that is.

Weighty thinking

It's so easy for the written word to be misunderstood. I'd like to state that the purpose of my last post was not to whine about my weight. Yes, I am obsessing over it, but I'm obsessing over it because I'm dieting. I'm trying to get to a certain target weight by a certain date. It's on my mind because I count points every day. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing - having a clear goal in mind helps keep me focussed. And I'm obsessing over it because I noticed that a rapid increase in my weight appeared to have given me problems in my last two IVFs. I thought I'd post about my observations because, well, that's what I do. I was mildly interested in the potential link between dulce de leche ice cream and harder ultrasound scans. Between pizza and gas in the bowel. Between Chinese food and mobile ovaries that can't be reached for egg retrieval. If that motivates someone else to try to drop 10lbs, well, that's not a bad thing either.

I know I'm not very overweight. I know I am not infertile because of my weight. I do not blame myself for being infertile - yes, I have gone through a stage of that, but it was because of other things from my life that I have not discussed on this blog. Trust me, there are plenty of other things that I could lay blame on, and weight is not one of them. But I don't, because I don't blame myself - if anything, the blame is due to me waiting too long to find the right man, because I didn't know that I should have TTC'ed in my early thirties. But I'm not psychic so how was I to know when aging would affect things? Hells bells, as far as the weight goes, I was a normal weight when I started TTC. If my problems were caused by weight, well, I wouldn't have any problems because I would have got knocked up in the first six months when I was still a normal weight.

So there we are. It is what it is. I don't know why we can't say that a bit of excess weight could be bad without implying that weight causes IF and that we brought it on ourselves. Weight is only an issue in IF when it causes PCOS and insulin resistance. If you don't have either of those, your weight is not the root cause of your IF. Having said that, the studies still hold that IVF success rates drop with increasing BMI. IVF cancellation rates rise with increasing BMI. It's a good thing to do WW and try to drop a few pounds. Doesn't have to be a drastic amount, but a few pounds less is a good thing. Stop with the digital all or nothing thinking, already.

In less ranty news, I got my information packet from Big New Clinic, and have to race around next week trying to get bloodwork and cervical cultures done. And a pap, I think. Despite the coculture scheduler telling me I only need to get everything done by my IVF cycle, the paperwork clearly says it needs to be done by the biopsy date, which is what I originally thought. And as HIV results take a few weeks to come back, I'm now cutting it fine on having everything ready.

The weight thing

So, I've been obssessing about the weight thing a lot lately. Hey, why not? At least it stops me obssessing about my ovaries.

You see, during my first year TTC when I was doing IUIs, I gained about 12lbs. I distinctly remember my first RE appointment when I weighed in at 155lbs. I did that first IVF cycle, which was cancelled and converted to IUI, at about 167lbs. For my height, I always thought the top end of normal weight was 156lbs, as that's what the charts used to say, but weight watchers and other charts I've checked recently say it is 160lbs. Whatever, I was less than 10lbs over for that first IVF. I wasn't so surprised when it didn't work, as the previous 8 IUI cycles prior to that hadn't worked either. So I managed to keep my weight in check, and did the second one at 167lbs as well. Well, prior to stimming I was 162lbs, as I'd managed to lose a bit, but I piled it on during stimming. After the negative from that cycle, I completely lost it. I binged on ice cream, booze, pizza, pasta, chocolate, Chinese food and anything else I could get my hands on. I really was thrown by how devastating failing a complete IVF cycle is.

By the time of my third IVF, I was up to 179lbs. Too much weight gain, too quickly. I started having problems with the ultrasound scans - they were fuzzier, and the techs always complained of gas in my bowels, or that they couldn't find my left ovary. I mean, there'd always been a problem finding my left ovary, but it was worse. My egg quality was markedly worse, but that could have been unrelated. I thought the gas in the bowel problem was due to the foods I was eating at the time, so for the next IVF I tried to eat fewer gas-producing foods. I tried to up my protein intake as well.

Well, of course, failing another IVF had me comfort eating again. Even though I managed to lose 5lbs after the cycle, before going to Clear Passage, I couldn't maintain it as the allure of birthday cake, Halloween candy and Thanksgiving food was too much to resist, and went up again. To 184lbs. So even though I was now back to eating slightly healthier, and with more protein, I had more problems with the ultrasounds. More gas in the bowel. This time, the RE couldn't even do the retrieval on my left ovary because it was misplaced. It just wandered off to snuggle up with the fat around my intestines. Apart from the one good embryo, my egg quality sucked again, and I had a very low fertilization rate.

At first, I thought some of the egg quality issues were just age related, but really it had only been a few months. They could have been stimulation protocol related, but I don't think there would have been that much difference. I thought they might be diet related, you know, with the lack of protein, and the higher sugar intake, and there's probably something to that. But I wonder now if it was weight related. Purely derived from the quantity of fat in my gut that was soaking up the meds. Now, I couldn't say for certain that it was due to the quantity of fat, or the fact that I'd gained the weight quickly, but I think there's something in it.

So that's one reason why I've set myself a big goal of being back to under 167lbs for the next IVF. Just to see if being at that weight again will help with the IVF cycles. Not that I will be able to tell much, because I'll be on a different protocol, but the ultrasounds should be easier again, and I hope not to have to give up on an entire ovary just because it is too surrounded by fat to be in the proper place. Preferably I'd like to be under 166, as that takes me down to the 25's as far as BMI is concerned. I definitely want to get under 172, as my new RE has published research on the effects of obesity and IVF*, and used a BMI of greater than 27 as the definition for obesity even though the standard definition is a BMI of greater than 30. But, he's my RE! I don't want him thinking I'm obese! I don't want to think I'm obese either, for that matter. For me, 172=26.9, so that'll put me under that magic 27. That should be easily do-able by the coculture biopsy date. What will be a bit harder is getting under 166 or 167, but I'm determined to give it my best shot.

Today = 173.5, and counting. BMI = 27.2 which I calculated using this handy dandy BMI calculator

*Just in case you were wondering, they didn't find a difference in pregnancy rates with increased weight, but did find a difference in cancellation rates, and in the number of eggs retrieved. Pregnancy rate is of course the most important thing, but given that I have tended to be a poor responder, I think if I could just get one or two more eggs, it might up my chances a little bit more.

It is ON people, it is on

I have been pencilled in for an endometrial biopsy for March 13th. I have booked the hotel. I think this might really happen! Woo-hoo!

Of course, this presupposes that my LH surge will take place between cycle days 12 and 19, so let's hope, eh.

In diet news, I have lost 10lbs. Yay me. I am now back at the weight I was when I went to Clear Passage and met Calli. Now, if only I can keep going down. My goal is to be back at the weight I was for my first two IVF cycles.

The tyranny of positive thinking

I have been reading an interesting conversation on one of the IF boards about the tyranny of positive thinking. I think it deserves more consideration.

There's a big movement in the mind/body/spirit world which says you create your own reality. The Secret is all about this in the form of the law of attraction. I absolutely believe that this is good stuff, up to a point. I mean, I'm sure we all know people who are very toxic and negative and always attract bad things and situations to themselves. My brother is one of those people. So, yes, I absolutely think being positive, and willing good things to come into your life, along with maintaining a sunny and upbeat disposition, can do wonders for your life.

But this gets translated by the general public and the media into a sort of frenzied hype, that because we create our own realities, we must therefore bring bad things upon ourselves. It's an extension of how the public misunderstands karma. Disabled? Diseased? You must have brought it upon yourself by being bad in a former lifetime/thinking bad and negative things. That all these things are punishments rained down upon us by the universe for not being good people. And of course, by extension, this means that our smug sisters-in-law or cousins or whoever who have everything going right for them, must be good people. Us = bad, them = good. It must be nice to be able to sit in judgement like that.

What they don't realize about karma, for example, is that we may have prayed fervently in our former life to be kind and non-judgemental, and in order for us to truly live this reality, we end up disabled. It is what we wanted, and could be a blessing, not a punishment. After all, how many truly kind and compassionate people are there in life who are also millionaire trust fund babies? Not that many. But I bet the kind and compassionate people are more spiritually evolved than those who get their own way all the time. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Or maybe our disability or disease is just a random thing - someone's car rammed into us because they were not paying attention. Did I attract the car to hit me? I don't think so. I don't think everything in life is preordained. Equally, I believe that cancer and other diseases like infertility do not strike because we are not positive about life. They happen. We didn't do it to ourselves. It isn't a punishment on us. Maybe it happened because humanity as a whole is polluting the planet, and we are more sensitive to this pollution than others. Maybe it is just a simple cell division that went wrong once, and then repeated itself. The flap of a butterfly's wings that turned into something major. It may even be a blessing in the long run, But because people can't see the blessing in disease until they go through it, all they can think is us = bad, and them = good.

The old black and white equation. Life comes down to a series of zeros and ones. Bad/good. Us/them. Right/wrong.

And of course, if the treatments for our disease are not working, it must be our fault for not being positive enough. Or not praying enough. Or whatever. There are some articles on this from the cancer world:

http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/all_page?item_id=7038

http://www.bcaction.org/Pages/LearnAboutUs/WelcomeToCancerland.html

However, is it correct to say that positive thinking has NO bearing on treatment outcomes? I'm not sure I can say that with any certainty, just like I couldn't say that my theory that my IF isn't a punishment is a load of hogwash. Life isn't certain, you see. It's all grayscale. Murky. Unfathomable. Not answerable by a yes or no answer. Or by 42 for that matter.

Where am I going with this rambling post? I think there's a middle way. I think there's room for positive thinking in the IF world. That we need to go into an IVF cycle hoping for and believing the best will happen. That it may have some small influence on the outcome, perhaps because we are relaxing while doing our positive thinking. But that it's not our fault if it doesn't work, nor is it a punishment handed out by a vengeful universe because we are bad or not as worthy as our fertile counterparts. It is what it is. Sucky. Life not going according to plan.

So, in other words, I retain the right to snap at you for telling me that I HAVE to remain positive. Equally, I'm going to do all I damn well can in order to TRY to remain positive.

Jumping Jacks Don't Work

I had some spotting yesterday afternoon, so dutifully did some jumping jacks AND some abdominal crunches. And nothing. Still only spotting until this morning when the floodgates opened.

Sigh.

This is stressing me out mightily as far as arranging accommodation in NY. I just don't think I can book an apartment if things are going to vary like this. I need to wait at least until next cycle is done, and then the nice cheap apartments may very well all be gone. But I think I may just have to wait and see otherwise I could be two weeks off in my booking! And I'd hate to be paying rent for two weeks in NY when I'm in FL.

Oh well, happy Year of the Pig to all. I am off to a Chinese New Year celebration today at a tea wholesaler. Never quite done that before, but why not, eh? It's the Year of the Golden Pig, I understand, which is supposed to be very lucky. I hope to be lucky enough to have a baby who's a Golden Pig, but we'll see if the universe grants me that wish. Or not.

Oh for fuck's sake

Still no period.

In the last two cycles I have had a 10-day luteal phase (or possibly a 12-day luteal phase, not sure), and now we're on day 16 and counting. Based on temperature. If I go on ovulation predictor results, I'm on day 17. So we'll ignore that, shall we, and say 16 days. I thought the luteal phase wasn't supposed to change cycle to cycle? Where are all the experts now, huh? I mean, I know this is coming off a year of IVF's so things are bound to be screwy, but I used to have such a lovely, predictable 14 day luteal phase. Why did it have to go this haywire?

I'm now starting to get really pissed off. I don't know how much more PMS I can take, or how much chocolate I can possibly eat because of it. I'm tired of running to the bathroom frequently to check what's going on. I'm just tired of this.

And what's worse, now I'm stressing that I'll miss the cutoff date for the endometrial biopsy, and I'll have to wait until May to cycle. May! I don't want to wait that long. I've got to get the biopsy done by March 15th, before the lab shuts. And there are only so many slots to fill, so even if everything complies, I may still get bumped.

Fucking hurry up and get a move on, Aunt Flo, or I may have to do something drastic. Like jumping jacks.

Missing Person Alert

Lost: my aunt, Florence Crimsontide. Answers to the name of "Aunt Flo".

Last seen: 34 days ago. Should be checking in every 29 days.

Should have been home this morning, at the latest. Is absent minded and prone to poor timekeeping - turning up when not wanted, and refusing to put in an appearance when needed. Is very much needed today so that I can let Big New Clinic know where she is, as they are anxiously waiting for her.

Apartment hunting

I seem to have become obssessed with finding accommodation in New York. You see, I'll be taking a couple of trips up there over the next few months for...something. One of them being a long trip with lots of appointments somewhere, if you get my drift.

Sorry I'm being obscure - just trying to continue to fake Google out.

Anyhoo, so, hotel accommodation in New York is freakishly expensive. Even though a lower cost hotel is available to me, it is still going to cost maybe $2500 to go on this trip. Which is a whole heck of a lot of money. So I'm looking around for an apartment. Except that if you want to rent for less than a month, you know, say 10-14 days, a lot of places won't take you. And you have to pony up an exhorbitant security deposit. And then there are agency fees to pay to the website that you found the apartment on in the first place. So it's kind of freaking me out.

My acu has a friend who has an apartment there, and she offered to grovel to this friend on my behalf. I don't know if this friend will expect money, if so, how much money or even where the apartment is. Apparently, it's in "the 60's". I don't think the acu was very pleased with me when I whined that it had better be in the east 60's and not the west 60's. I mean, hello? Central Park is a pretty big obstacle to get around at 7 in the morning if one is trying to get somewhere. The acu said it didn't matter as I'd be taking a cab. Uh, no, actually, I'll be walking if I can because I'm cheap and spending a fortune as it is. I'll take the subway if I have to, but supposing there's a day where I might get some sedation, I'd prefer to be able to stumble 1 block home rather than navigate cabs or subway lines. I mean, it's super super nice of her to grovel to this friend, and if it works out and is cheap (or even, can I dare to hope, free?), it would be amazing. But I feel like I need to know NOW where the darn place is, if it is available for the time I need it, and how much it'll be.

Then there's various websites for apartments. I have an internet buddy who I may be able to share a one month rental with - depending on timing and all that jazz. So that would mean a lower cost, but we'd have to get at least a one bedroom so that there's two beds. Which bumps the price up again. But still, it could work out very well. So I signed up to receive landlord emails from one site as it was free, and otherwise it would cost $85 for 60 days just to respond to the ads. I got this email (I have taken the phone number out where it says phone # in italics, but otherwise it reads exactly as I received it, asterisks and all).

FOR EXPEDIENCY, PLEASE ALWAYS REFER TO THE INQUIRY NUMBER WE SEND YOU WHEN WE OFFER AN APARTMENT.

Dear, SARAH ***** our apartment are excellent clean ect. your comming in hight season if you need less than $3,000.00 you need a studio please call us @ phone # or please provide a phone # thank you,*****

Thank you for your e-mail. Please let me offer you the following:

And then the same person bombarded me for the three following days to see if I wanted to book any apartments. One of which was listed on the site at $600 less per month than I was being offered it for. Bad English AND unscrupulous pricing practices? No thanks.

Bah humbug. Anyone got a fabulous apartment they'd like to let me stay in for free in New York?

Happy Valentine's Day!

You know, I used to loathe Valentine's Day. Being single, and all, it was all a bit too "salt in the wounds" for my taste. But strangely, this year I find myself not caring a hoot. I could care less. I do not give a fig. Why anyone would want a fig from me, I don't know, but I'm not going to give you one no matter how much you whine. The thought of getting boring ass red roses from an unimaginative man, of having to go out to dinner with all the other couples being couple-y, of having obiligatory Valentine's sex. Meh. No thanks. Not that I wouldn't love a nice romp in the hay with a gorgeous hunk, hell, or even a good cuddling session, but I don't need the obligatoriness of it all. The lack of thought that goes into most Valentine's presents or cards. That I have no need of.

So, there you have it. Bizarrely I'm in an excellent mood. Still no sign of the M that comes with PMS, can't stuff my face with chocolate because it has too many calories (though I will have some), can't drown my sorrows in wine because of the old calorie thing either. But so far, today's a good day. Who knew?

Twelves on Tuesday

After my struggles with positive thinking, I ordered a new agey DVD last week and it arrived last night. You may have heard of it. It has "secret" in the title and not much else apart from a definite article. It's on the best seller lists. It was pretty darn good, I have to say. All about the law of attraction, and how we attract what we think of. But we have to be careful what we think of, because if we're thinking "I don't want more debt" all that comes through is the word "debt" so that's precisely what we get more of. We should instead think "I want more money" so we'll get it. But it's not good enough just to think it, we have to feel it too. We have to try to get excited about all this lovely money (or whatever it is) coming into our lives.

I think I will be watching it several times over, so I can try to visualize my babies coming to me, and that'll be my positive thinking stuff for this cycle. I've tried so many different meditation CDs and they don't really work for me. I mean, I actually don't think my body is broken, and all these infertility CDs seem to be all about trying to make my think my body is not broken. Uh, OK, already there. I think my body is working pretty well - I mean, feed it junk food, not enough protein and too much alcohol and it'll get fat and infertile. So, it's responding appropriately, right?

So, there we are, the plan for this cycle:

1. Move to top clinic. Check.
2. Eat lots more protein. Check.
3. Lose weight. Working on it, so half a check.
4. Really feel the positivity. Trying.

As for yesterday's Blue Monday, well, after I posted, I realized that this is prime PMS time, so I think that explains the funk. And the fact that the diet is not making my weight budge at the moment, despite me being good, so it must be water retention. Although, I am happy to report that today I am back in a pair of size 12 pants (or size 16 trousers to any UK readers out there). Whoop! This is the first time in months that I have been able to wear size 12's. OK, they are a roomy size 12, but hey. So I took most of the 16's out of the closet this morning, and put them in the "donate" pile, that I hope to get rid of this weekend. No going back! I only want to keep one size up from where I am, so that WHEN I get pregnant I have slightly larger stuff for the first trimester.

Blue Monday

I got me some grandpa time at the weekend, before he heads back to dear old blighty, and also saw my cousin, before he heads off for 2 months in India. Must be nice, eh? Here am I, spending all my cash and then some on fertility treatments, stressing about money, not being able to take vacation because my next IVF cycle IS my vacation. And there's my cousin, perpetual student, spending a year travelling here and there before he does his masters degree. It took him 12 years to get his bachelor's degree, by the way, so we'll have to see how long the master's degree takes, once he finally gets started. I guess he's a true Gen X'er, and I'm just a fraud that got sucked into the corporate "career" bullshit. Man, I'd love to be flying to India for some adventure.

I'm tired of working a shitty job that I hate, just to keep earning good money and to stay in the country. I'm tired of fertility treatments that put my life on hold. And I'm just plain tired. I seem to be so busy lately, that I'm not getting much time to rest. And the anxiety dreams about babies (or more precisely, the lack thereof) have started up again, so it's disturbing my sleep.

Anyway, enough of my whining. Maybe I'm just in a rainy Monday morning slump. Happy Monday, y'all.

Friday fandango

Thanks for the positive thinking comments. I ordered a new-agey DVD so we'll see if that helps. It still hurts just as bad whether you've tried to "protect" yourself, or whether you've given full reign to the new baby fantasies, so I've decided to just go whole hog on the fantasies this time.

Not much else going on with me, except that I seem to be developing (gasp) a social life. I basically cut myself off for a while there, as my previous social life revolved around going to bars and drinking a lot. And if you're trying to conceive, that's not the sort of thing you can really do, is it? Add to that, the whole depression thing because I wasn't getting knocked up, and it didn't make for much fun going on.

Well, I've been trying to open myself up for new things. It's also helped that most of my childless friends here, who are all younger than me, are now finally in their 30's, and are starting to slow down. Finally! It seems that gradually they're coming to realize that a nice quiet dinner at a neighborhood restaurant is a pretty fine way to spend an evening, and that "going out" doesn't have to involve a night club. I have a Chinese New Year celebration at a tea importers, and a couple of dinners with work colleagues coming up. I went out twice last weekend, and will probably mosey on down to Miami this weekend. Not bad, really. Not bad at all. IVF breaks are good for the soul, I tell ya.

Still haven't ordered any donor sperm, and I'm starting to fret now that the donor will have sold out, so I'm trying to get up the courage to at least check the bank's website to see if he's still listed. We'll see. Hopefully Big New Clinic will move this weekend, or early next week, and then I'll get on to ordering the stuff.

Positive thinking or loony?

I seek advice, oh great blogosphere. How does one really do the positive thinking thing without turning into or feeling like a loony?

Case in point: me. Well, of course, what did you expect? It's all about me. In previous cycles, I have always talked myself into positivity saying "it's going to work this time", "my eggs are growing well and are good quality, my uterus is a plushy, welcoming home", etc, etc. You know, all that jazz. With a few Ohhhmmmms thrown in for good measure. Of course, by the end of the 2 week wait, it's usually turned into "pleeeaase let it work this time".

So this time, I thought I should try things differently. I'm trying to live the feeling that it's going to work. I'm being really specific. I'm talking to the cat and telling her that "this time next year, Charlotte and Audrey will be home, and I'll be on maternity leave". Hey, I figured why not shoot for the moon? I try to imagine relaxing with them, breastfeeding (because of course in my imagination not only do I have perfectly healthy, gorgeous twin girls, but breastfeeding is an absolute breeze). I think about the stroller I'll get, and walking them around the block, going to the supermarket, getting in the car. Life, the universe and everything. Only sometimes it turns into "well, maybe Henry and Patrick will be home, or Charlotte and Henry, or just one of them" and I start feeling like an idiot. And sometimes I have to say "Babies? You know I'm just being specific, right, and that's just for ease of communication, but if you want to come through just as one person or as boys, that's really cool too. Anything you want, in your own good time. But I reserve the right to pick different names." And then I feel more of a loon.

Sigh. How on earth do you do this in a meaningful, specific way?

Random crap

I don't have a coherent post for the day (so, nothing new, really) but here's a bunch of random crap:

1. I am all of a dither about ordering more donor sperm for this cycle. My donor is at a perilously low stock level, but I want to delay a little more, at least until Big New Clinic has moved into its new location, which should be next week. And I don't want them to think I'm a complete fruitcake by shipping sperm to them more than 2 months in advance. But I do need to order soon as otherwise my donor will be all sold out and then I'll have to go through the agony of choosing another one.

2. I have preliminarily booked a room for my IVF cycle, and for the coculture, at the medical hotel affiliated with the hospital with which Big New Clinic is affiliated. But it's durn expensive. Less than a hotel, but durn expensive. I understand that they are flexible with dates once you are in the system, so I didn't have to specify exactly, but the cheaper rooms are already gone for the end of April which is when I think I'll be doing the IVF. Yowsers, they really do book up fast. I'll be trying to book a short-term apartment nearer the time.

3. My acupuncturist said she was going to confer with the other acu at the practice, and see if we can do anything different before my cycle. Now, I was hoping for different, but I got the distinct impression that she meant me only going every two weeks while I'm on a break, and not an actual change in needling protocol. Sigh.

4. The diet was going fabulously well until Saturday (8lbs in total!), when I was quite sinful. But oh well, I've got the rest of the week to get rid of the extra I've gained. At least I am back in my "super fat" clothes, and was able to do up a couple of pairs of pants in the "fat" size. They were a tad pornographic as they were so tight, but at least I got them done up! Maybe I'll be able to drop another size in a few weeks. Yay!

5. I keep thinking about how I promised a photo-filled blog, and have then posted precisely one picture. Well, there was a snafu with the memory card for the new camera. Or in other words, the staff at the big box electronics retailer know eff all and recommend the wrong things. I promise I'll do my best to fix the situation THIS WEEK. Promise.

Playing tag

I've been tagged by Katty.

I've kind of been avoiding it, because I'm supposed to tell you 6 weird things about myself. But here's the problem. I don't actually think I'm that weird. I think I'm depressingly normal. Now, if you asked the people I know IRL, I'm sure they could come up with any number of weird things about me, but somehow I gloss over my own personal idiosyncrasies and think I'm just like the next person. Maybe that should be item #1.

But anyway, here goes. Six weird things about me:

1. I am weird about joining organizations. Basically, if they want me, I don't want to be part of them! As an example, as a kid I wanted to join Mensa just to prove to my brother that I really am a genius. I spent years thinking how I'd join and show him. When I finally got the guts to apply, I took the test and they accepted me. And then all of a sudden I decided that the people in Mensa were a bunch of pompous snobs because the point of the organization appeared to be basically to tell people how smart you were, and I didn't want to be a part of it. And I can't play chess. So I didn't join after all that effort.
2. I am afraid of birds. Birds, ew. Nasty feathery, beaky, clawy things. They make me think of Hitchcock movies. And don't get me started on pigeons. Pigeons = rats with wings.
3. I am secretly in love with my toes. I have square feet with really short toes. That other people probably think are far too stubby. But I think they are cute, and don't like to look at people's feet when they have really long toes. Especially toes that bend! Or worse, toes that bend up in the middle and then down again. Ugh.
4. My idea of "drying my hair" is to open my car windows on the way to work. I have had to refrain from returning to various hair stylists after they couldn't hide their disdain for my slobby ways.
5. I like to eat butter. Straight up butter. In chunks or slices. As a snack. You may go and vomit now if you like.
6. I have a degree in physics, and I'm weird about telling people what I studied because I think their reactions to it are weird. It's like suddenly they think you're Einstein, and frankly I killed all those brain cells with alcohol abuse so there's not much of that stuff still left in there. Or they think I'm embarrassed about it as that's the only possible reason they can come up with as to why I have been reticent about owning up. It's very good for the ego to be a chick studying physics, by the way, as you go from being a high school dork to suddenly being one of the cool girls in college. Of course, being cool in the physics program is a pretty low bar, but hey.