Hello! It's me...the Long Lost Blogger

I can't believe it's been over 2 years since I've been here.  I miss this place.  And I want to come back.  I want to share more of our story.  Even if no IF's read anymore I can hopefully shed some light on what it's like to be a 40+ mom after infertility sucked the life out of me.  Maybe I can help people with blended families (and maybe they can help me, too) figure out how to make all of this work.

I have an IRL friend that has gotten me through more than one trial and tribulation since the birth of Baby Girl.  There's so much to say.  Until I can get here and write more regularly just know....Baby Girl is amazing.  She's healthy (knocking on ALL the wood), she's active, sassy, sweet, sensitive, adorable, creative and just a wonderful little human.  She's also really good at pushing buttons and patience to the brink.  Lol  We are not perfect, far from it, but she and I are extensions of each other.  She has filled my life with everything I hoped she would.

Our family dynamic is in some turmoil.  The Little Guy (not so little anymore) is 16 and things have not been going well for the last 2 years.  Well, it's been building for many more years than that but now that he's growing up things have really been on a downward spiral.  It makes me so sad to see it happening and knowing that I can't really do anything about it.

It's a tricky time of year for us financially and so the stress of that is weighing heavily on me, too.  Sigh

There's much to say and I will catch everyone up little by little.  I miss you all so very much.  And I miss writing.  Gosh, just this little post feels so good coming off my fingertips.  I will be back, and soon!

The A-ha Moment

I’ve been wondering why it’s been so hard for me to come here and write.  I used to write a lot.  It’s so helpful to write.  It’s my own version of therapy.  I would venture to say that a lot people that have a “life” blog are better at expressing themselves through writing than any other method of communication.  That statement holds true for me.  I’ve always been this way and I don’t think I will ever change.  When I try to verbalize my feelings I get choked up and overcome with emotion and I tend to not say the whole truth.  When I write, it all comes out.  I spill my emotions onto the page in front of me and then I hit “publish” and I feel better.  I also feel a little trepidation at what people will think of me.  I’m always worried that someone will think badly of me or misunderstand my words and get angry with me.  I guess another personality trait I have is to try and please everyone.

It recently dawned on me that I haven’t been here much because it hurts to come here.  It hurts just as much to try and write through my feelings and thoughts as it does to verbalize them.  I’ve been hiding my emotions for so long that I don’t know how to break through the wall and let myself feel again.  I still have plenty of feelings but I don’t let others see them very often.  Of course I let everyone see me smile and laugh.  No one gets to see me sad, lonely, depressed, anxious, scared, and angry or any of the other emotions that could be construed as negative.  Because after all, what could I possibly have to feel negative about, right?

I feel like I’m hanging on by a thread (and a 5mg Lexapro every morning) and if I open the gates I will fall into a depression like no other I have ever experienced.  I’m scared of being swept away by a flood of pent up pain, anxiety, fear, anger and failure.

I need to write but I’m scared to.  I’m scared to voice the negative and give it life on the outside.  As long as it’s stuffed way down deep it doesn’t have a chance at over taking me.  I have control over what I write even though I don’t feel like there is much more in my life that I can control.  So my rationale is that if I don’t write it then I don’t have to feel it.  What a vicious circle I live in.

I thought I could come here and write about the positive things (because there are a LOT of positive things) that happen(ed) but I feel sort of fake and disingenuous if I don’t write the truth.  So I haven’t really been writing.

I’m also concerned about my daughter’s and my family’s privacy.  I’ve been so open about things here that anyone that knows me IRL would be able to figure out that it’s me.  If they can figure out that’s it’s me then of course they know who Baby Girl is.  I never really thought about how my writing could affect the Little Guy because most of my past life details won’t really affect him.  However, Baby Girl is a different story.  I am her mother and what I write has the potential to affect her in the future.  She is related to the family that I write about and while I don’t care much about the details I’ve shared, she may.

I’m hoping to regain my strength to write and face my emotions.  Until I do, you may still see some time lapsed posts rolling through your blog feed.  Thank you for sticking with me.

Out of the Blue

I was getting ready to write a post about my weekend when my cell phone started ringing. I looked down to see my clinic’s name and number on the display. I thought about not answering it. I thought about whether or not we were scared away with our bill. I thought (and this is completely crazy but it actually went through my head for a split-split second) my last embryo didn’t really die...they froze it and forgot to tell me and want to transfer it right away! I know, I know, crazy and completely out of left field but that’s one of the things that popped into my head.


It was my nurse calling to catch up with me. I told her that I had nothing new to report. We pretty much know our only option is an egg donor and it’s a bit out of our price range. She agreed that it’s very expensive. I also told her that I had even spoken to the DE coordinators and went over all of our options and we are pretty much stuck right now...just healing. She was very sweet and understanding and said that if I needed anything from her or Dr. M to just call her...even if I just wanted to talk about what we are going through. I thought that was very nice of her.

This call came at a very sensitive time for me. As I said, I was about to post about my weekend. Here’s a snippet of how yesterday was for me:

I was sitting on the couch browsing through my pictures on my cell phone when my pee stick pictures popped up. I was taken aback a little and BJ noticed. He asked me what the picture was and I told him it was my positive pregnancy test...I had forgotten it was on there. I flipped back a few more pictures and there were my embryos. I didn’t forget they were on there I just apparently like to torture myself.

We had to go to our niece’s birthday party yesterday. She is turning 4 tomorrow. The entire family (BJ’s BIL’s side) was there. This family has exploded over the last 2 years to say the least. There were 6 toddlers there aged 3 and under. And to make matters worse, my SIL’s friend showed up. She’s 47 years old and has been fighting secondary IF for about 8 or 9 years. She’s due September 1. Everyone was fawning all over her. I’m fine with it as she has fought hard (not sure how the baby was conceived and won’t ask) to get this second child. I just wish it were ME. I was supposed to be 15 weeks pregnant right now. They were talking about her shower and how she’s feeling and if they’ve thought of any names. Very typical stuff. Like I said, I’m very happy that she is finally to this point with a healthy pregnancy and baby...I’m just jealous. I was so ready to leave. BJ was ready to go but he just doesn’t like all the commotion and screaming of so many little kids. Ugh.

I don’t remember much of my dreaming last night except this one little tidbit: I had just POAS and got a VERY dark second line. It was so dark, it was almost black. Someone had to tell me to look at it again to prove to myself that the 2nd line was there. I remember thinking that there is no way I’m losing THIS pregnancy....look at how dark that 2nd line is. The next thing that happened was I woke up (except I was still asleep) within the dream and had to remind myself that it was real and that I wasn’t dreaming. Imagine my disappointment when I woke up FOR REAL and realized the whole thing was a dream.

And then my nurse called me this morning. If you add that to all my conflicting feelings regarding my Faith and my “plan”....what do you get? A big emotional mess.

Geez...my mind really knows how to mess with me.

Anyway...thank you all for reading through my mix of emotions last week regarding my crisis of Faith and my apparent floundering. You all have great opinions and insight and I really do appreciate your views. I wish I could reply to comments but have yet to figure out how to do that in Blogger. I’d like people to get notified (you know, like on FB) that I have replied to their comment. If I just post a comment I don’t think the person is notified...they’d have to come back and read through everything to see if I have responded. Anyone have any better methods?

Background - Just over 2000 words...settle in.

I’m going to try and be as specific as I can without completely confusing everyone when I begin to tell the story of my mom’s side of the family. There’s so much to tell and I feel like the background is very important before I get into the wedding details. I’ll try to be brief but once I get going you know how I can ramble. I’m going to change most of the names but since I’m pretty certain that no one knows this blog exists other names will remain intact. Basically so I don’t get confused. Here goes...


My mom got married at the age of 16 to a man that was quite a bit older than her. She had dropped out of school in the 9th grade. She said that it was because she wanted out of the house and saw this as her only option. The man she married was Gary. My maternal grandmother was on her second marriage and my mom was basically raised by her grandparents. My mother’s father was in prison because he raped her when she was 7 years old. I believe this to be the catalyst for about 90% of the messed up-ness of my mother’s life.

According to my mother (the more I write the more you will understand why I don’t take her word at face value) when she went to the doctor to get put on birth control (within several weeks of the wedding) she was already pregnant. At some point late in her pregnancy, her mother got pregnant. So now you have mother and daughter pregnant at the same time. Sounds like a winning combination, doesn’t it? My mother also has a younger brother (I’m not sure by how much) and his name is Joe. My mother claims to have been pregnant with twins. I say “claims” because several years ago I found Tony’s birth certificate and it states that he was a single birth. She says that the twin died right after or just before delivery. The delivery was an emergency c-section...I don’t know why or what happened to cause this but my brother was about 2 months early. I guess it’s possible the hospital did not list him as a twin because the other baby did not make it. I also don’t know why my mother would lie but it would not surprise me in the least. My grandmother had a baby girl and her name was Vicky.

My mom soon left Gary...claims she never loved him but just saw him as her “out”. I’m not sure how long it took but she ended up with some guy named Andy and then not long after that she met my dad. I don’t know how long they were together before she was knocked up with me but I don’t think it was very long. My dad was in the military and had to leave to go serve his solo overseas station for a year. I was 6 months old when they got married. He went to Turkey and left my mom, me and Tony behind. Wouldn’t you know that the guy that lived above us in our apartment killed his wife (so my mom says) and set the place on fire? Enter Tom, the guy my mom cheated on my dad with. He was one of the cops that responded to the call. Apparently he spent a lot of time at our place and with us because my mom says I called him “daddy” before I called my own father that. To top everything off, Tom was married with 3 boys. It just keeps getting better, right? Enter the chants of Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!

My dad comes home from Turkey and finds out that my mom has been cheating on him. I never knew how he found out until I stumbled upon the divorce papers when I was about 11. Tom had his clothes or underwear or something hanging up in OUR bathroom!!! Commence the divorce and fight for custody. While I was growing up my mom gave me the same song and dance....she wanted to keep me but her terrible brother got up on the stand and told all sorts of lies about how she was an unfit mother. She proceeded to tell me that my dad then went to our daycare center and took me without permission and she had no idea where I was or how to find me. As I grew up I slowly learned the truth. I’m not sure about my dad kidnapping me but there was a hearing and I think her brother might have testified against her but that is neither here nor there. When I was a teenager my dad told me that he fought to get my brother from her, too. He lost because he was not the boy’s biological father. And back in 1978-79 when all of this was taking place, the judge must have had some pretty good evidence that I’d be better off with my single father than with my mother and her new man to give him full custody while my mother only got visitation. Since my dad was military and expected to move quite a bit my parents came to a conclusion that I would spend a month in the summer with her rather than going by the schedule the judge set up. I could write a small novel regarding the back and forth years of my life but that will be saved for another time.

Tom divorced his wife to be with my mother....or his wife found out he was cheating so she divorced him, not sure which. My mother and he eventually got married (when my sister was 2 months old) and began their lives together. My sister was born on Elvis’s birthday. My maternal grandmother swears that my mother did this on purpose because my mother’s grandmother was an Elvis fanatic. Whatever the reason, this was the beginning of me feeling like she was “better” and more loved than me. My mother had my younger brother, Bob, when my sister was almost 2. So now all 3 of my siblings (born of my mother) are living with her full time and I’m thousands of miles away...feeling left out. Mind you, I had a great family that I was with but as a kid you perceive things differently.

I began to resent the fact that my siblings got to live with my mother and receive her love and attention. However, when I came to visit in the summers I was given somewhat of a celebrity status. I was the kid that she toted around to “show off” to everyone. When I was little I didn’t understand this but as I got older I hated it. I always felt like the outsider. I spent 11 months out of the year away from these people so I had to reform relationships with them. It wasn’t as hard with my older brother because he remembered me a lot more than my younger siblings. The younger two were much harder to connect with as they barely remembered me from visit to visit. We had such fun in the summers that I didn’t want to leave. I got to eat pretty much whatever I wanted, we swam, we played kickball, we stayed up late, we got ice cream every night, we had a ball. My mom was the coolest person EVER. Boy did I have a lot to learn.

As I and my sister aged I began to really feel inferior to her. She had long pretty hair, she was so smart for her age, she spoke so clearly for her age, she was so pretty...even her name means beautiful. There is one instance burned in my brain that really solidified things for me. We were at my step-father’s company picnic and my mother had taken me and my sister to change from our bathing suits to our regular clothes as we were getting ready to leave. Two teenage girls came in the bathroom and were talking to my mom. They said, “Oh, she’s so pretty!” and then turned directly at me and said, “But not that one.” Ouch. I was probably only 8 or 9 but I remember it like it was yesterday. It’s not like I was never told that I was cute or pretty as a kid, but it’s the times that I was compared to (and felt inferior to) my sister that have stayed with me.

The summer that I was 10 or 11 my mom was preparing for her hysterectomy surgery. She was bleeding a lot and it was decided that her uterus had to go. I was given the task of caring for my younger siblings and making the coffee in the morning and packing my step-father’s lunch. I remember being told how to give my sister a bath and how to wash her beautiful hair and make sure I brushed it just right. Not long before her surgery she was in one of her moods and all us kids were playing in the living room. She came out of her room and took Bob by the hand (he was 3?) and said, “c’mon Bob, let’s go play with this loaded gun I found.” She walked into her room and shut the door. We didn’t take her seriously of course, but it was still not something we needed to hear or be exposed to.

When I was 12 and came to visit my mom I found out that she had “adopted” a 17-year-old girl named Jolie. They met in my mom’s GED class. This girl was a mess but it was not known for a few years just how much of a mess but that’s not something I want to get into. This girl was like my mom’s best friend. They did everything together...including trying to find someone for my mom to have an affair with. They picked someone that was married and had a 1-year-old little girl. My mom was friends with his wife. My mom actually arranged for us to be out of the house for when he came over during the day. He wasn’t there long and I overheard my mom and Jolie talking about it later. Apparently he couldn’t go through with it and my mom was pissed. I was beginning to understand my mother a little and since I didn’t like what I was learning, I chose to just ignore the bad and focus on the good. I found out years later that Jolie was the girl my older brother lost his virginity to (at 14 or 15). She also tried to hook up with the teenage boy down the street but he couldn’t go through with it because she put too much pressure on him and his performance. AND I heard a rumor that she slept with my oldest step-brother (Tom’s oldest son) and got pregnant but didn’t tell him he’s the father. Again, I hear the chants...Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!

Since the hook up with that guy didn’t work, my mom moved onto someone else. She denies it, but my eyes did not deceive me. I was walking down the street and I saw her in the foyer at one of my friend’s house. She was leaning very flirtily against the wall...and then leaning into a kiss with the man standing there with her...my friend’s dad. I couldn’t believe it. Especially when she denied it right to my face. I was 12, who was I to argue with her? I didn’t know what to do so I kept it to myself. Not the smartest but I didn’t want to be the one breaking up the family.

That was the summer she met Billy. Remember that name. He’s very important to the entire history (dysfunction) of this side of the family. He lived next door with his father, step-mother, half-brother and half-sister. He was in his early to mid-20’s. Tony asked if he could go to the store with him and my mother agreed, even though she had just met him. I remember them driving away in a black car. After that summer nothing else would ever be the same.

Catching Up

I’ve been really busy this past week and I have slacked on writing and commenting. I don’t like to get behind...especially on my reading but I’m slowly getting caught up.


I was off Thursday and Friday in preparation for Father’s Day, the LG’s birthday, my SIL’s surprise birthday party and my sister’s wedding. The wedding will be a post all to itself as there is lots to get into about that side of my family.

I had to run around like a crazy person on Thursday morning to take the LG shopping for Father’s day and then get him back to his daycare so that he could go swimming with the other kids. I also had to find him something suitable to wear to the wedding. After that, I had to run around like crazy getting the LG’s gifts and order the balloons for my SIL’s party that night. I had enough time to get all the gifts unloaded from my truck, wrap the FD presents (more on that in a minute) and run back to the store to pick up the balloons and other trinkets that I purchased for the party. She turned 40 so it was a big deal. I then had to run over to the restaurant and help my BIL decorate and get the room ready. Then it was home for just over an hour and then change my clothes and head back to the restaurant for dinner. Whew! I was wiped out by the time we got home that night.

Friday morning was filled with packing for the trip to PA for the wedding and trying to get everything ready and make sure I had everything...dress, shoes, flowers, etc. Trying not to be too much of a panic machine (as I often am when trying to get 3 people ready to go on a trip) as that only adds stress and pisses BJ off. HE’S not the one running around packing 100 different things and the cooler and giving the cats extra food and water and unplugging things and so on and so forth. He just drinks his coffee and picks out his clothes. I hate last minute packing but have learned that with my husband, it’s all he knows.

We drove home after the reception (it actually wasn’t over yet but we had a long drive ahead of us) and didn’t get home until 10:45. We threw everything in the foyer and sat on the couch for a little while before all 3 of us headed to bed. We slept entirely too late on Sunday morning and just felt blah the whole day. We had a present opening bonanza with the LG opening his birthday gifts and BJ opening his FD gifts. I found some really cool camo wrapping paper but of course didn’t realize that the steamer and steamer pot were too much for the little roll of paper. As I was wrapping I had to go down to the basement and get another roll of regular paper. Lo and behold, that roll was almost finished, too! So BJ ended up with 3 different papers wrapping one of his boxes. Ha ha! It was rather comical on Sunday but not so much while I was rushing around on Thursday to get everything wrapped.

The LG’s mom came to get him around 2:00 and then BJ and I went in search of some crabs to steam for dinner. We steamed the crabs (tried to burn them by not getting them in the pot quickly enough and wasting the liquid/steam) and had them and pasta salad for dinner. It was a nice relaxing evening after so much running and rushing around over the past 4 days.

I then came back to work with 77 e-mails waiting for me to read. I have my work e-mail on my iPhone but there wasn’t much I could do with most of them from my phone so they all had to wait until Monday. I’m just now beginning to catch my breath from all of it.

I will get my post up about my sister’s wedding in the next day or so as it will be long. I will try to simplify everything as much as possible but there’s so much to say and to “let out” that it might actually end up being 2 posts. Some of it will come off like an episode of Jerry Springer, but hey, what can you do? You don’t pick your family, right? And you love them anyway...most of the time.  :-)

I Hear Her Knocking...I Think

I think ugly old AF is knocking. My temps have been slowly declining and today the boobs are sore. I don't have the other symptoms just yet, but the boobs are a pretty good indicator of things to come. It's CD26 so it's about time for her to show up. Dumb witch.

The Caps Convention was spectacular. I could have stayed another 3 hours but BJ doesn't like crowds and he's not as into hockey as I am so we cut it short. I was disappointed, but it's all good. I stood in line for about 45 minutes to get Peter Bondra's autograph and I was 2 rows back when they pulled him and made him go to another panel event. I followed him at break neck speed and tapped him on his arm right before he was unreachable and asked if he could sign just one more. He was so nice, he did it and he apologized that he had to leave. It was AWESOME. He is the main reason I am a hockey fan. I was star struck! It's probably a good thing BJ and the Little Guy were standing in a line where they couldn't see me because chasing a hockey player (walking really fast) is not behavior that would have been smiled upon. :-) The Little guy participated in a few of the children's activities...he took a shot on goal with Slapshot (the mascot) tending net, he dressed as a goalie and got pelted with some hockey balls, he took the slapshot challenge and then tried to score a long shot. He's never held a hockey stick in his life so he was a little awkward with it, but he did fine for a first timer. I told BJ that just the Little Guy and I would be going next year and he said that was fine. He's just not into crowds (even though it really wasn't that bad) so I know I'd enjoy myself much more if I didn't have to worry about him getting pissy about standing in line for things. All in all, though, it was a BLAST! I am so ready for hockey season.

After we got home we all went over to Mary's and Steve's house for a Fall Bash they were having. Two of the 3 pregnant neighbors were there. One of them, April, I hadn't met yet. She was the "honeymoon" baby lady. I wanted so badly to not like her, to not even talk to her. Much to my chagrin, I liked her a lot and we talked quite a bit. She's 2 or 3 years older than me and was very pleasant. Of course, I had to stop myself from staring at her belly so much but I enjoyed hanging out with her. BJ could tell I was having a hard time so he didn't ask about the baby at all. Then after we got home, I told him how hard it was for me and it's even harder now that I like her. He said he knew and that he was sorry. He also said that he's not ready for me to go on bcp any time soon. This topic deserves its own post, but as you know, I had set a deadline for myself of my 35th birthday...a short 7.5 months away. I'm glad he thinks that now, but like I said, I need to write a post about this very soon. I have lots to get out and it helps me sort things out to type them here.

Sunday was a chill out day. The Little Guy's mother came and got him early to take him to the fair that we didn't get to take him to due to the rain and so it was just the 2 of us after he left. We went and got 5 Guys for lunch (yummy!) and then took a short nap and headed to our local bar to watch the 'Skins game. It wasn't a good performance by our offense, but we pulled out the win and knocked the "dog killer" (as my neighbor Mary would say) out of the game. We ordered the meatloaf special to go and headed home after the game.

All in all, it was a good weekend. Now I feel that AF is coming to ruin my mood. Damn her. Between her and all this rain and cold weather I feel my mood slipping away anyway. The only thing good about the cool temperatures is that we put the big comforter on the bed last night and snuggled to keep warm. Can't complain about that.

Weekend Recap

I've been so busy at work that I haven't had time to post anything and I hate it when that happens. I'll give everyone a quick run down of the last week and then get in to my strange cycle that I'm experiencing.

- We had the Little Guy Friday night so I drove to work that day in order to get home and chill out with my guys a little earlier than usual. As soon as I come in the house BJ's phone rings. It's the neighbor at the bottom of the hill inviting us to dinner at the Japanese Steakhouse. I didn't want to go because it's very expensive (basically $21 a person) and I had JUST WALKED IN THE DOOR. But we went. Never mind the fact that I paid our mortgage that day and had planned on getting a pedicure that weekend. Dinner was fine and we had a good chef and the food was good, but we spent $80 with tip! For 3 people to eat Chinese food basically. Unreal. No pedi for me so now I am way over due and have to wait until next pay day (tomorrow).

- We had workers at the house Saturday morning and now I have a huge hole in my dining room wall. I really need to post about this house situation but I hate to complain about something I love so much.

- We took the Little Guy shoe shopping after the workers left. Tell me, how many 8 year olds get to decide what shoes they will and won't wear? This is one of those step-parenting moments where I wish I were the mother because he would wear whatever shoe fit and I bought for him, within reason of course. BJ let him call the shots....he wants Nike 6.0's like all his other friends. Whatever. I gave up. We don't live near a mall and all the 6.0's that we found weren't the right color. Give me a break. I was so done with this excursion and we were only looking for a little over an hour.

- BJ's sister and her family came over Saturday evening. We grilled some yummy pork chops and some bbq chicken legs and I made macaroni salad. The kids played and decided to go play on the new construction dirt outside. SIL and I went for a walk after dinner, leaving the boys (our husbands) to babysit the kids. When we got back, the kids were a muddy mess and had to change their clothes before touching anything in my house. Then the neighbors we had dinner with Friday night came over and we all chatted for a while. They didn't leave until 11:00. I can't believe we kept the kids up that late. At least it's not an every day thing.

- We had to give the Little Guy back to his mom early on Sunday because she wanted to take him camping. We had been invited to a cookout and crab feast at a friend's house so we headed there. It was really hot outside but we couldn't tell. Their yard is right on the river bank and shaded by 3 big trees. It was perfect...warm with a breeze. We saw quite a few people from our old neighborhood and it was really good to get caught up with everyone and hear all the good (and not so good) gossip. After we left there and since it was early, we decided to hang out with the bottom of the hill neighbors for a little while. I think we were just avoiding going home because the Little Guy wasn't there. We didn't get home until 12:00 midnight. A very long day indeed.

- Needless to say, we vegged on Monday. It was so nice to just sit home. We didn't drive anywhere. We even ate all 3 meals at home. :-) It was so sunny that I decided to lather up with some sunscreen and lay out on the deck for a little while. BJ took his shirt off and sat in a chair and we listened to the birds and the radio and just chilled out. It was great. We needed that day after the busy weekend we had.

I'm on CD17 today. FF has yet to tell me if/when I ovulated. I had a high temp on CD9 for some reason and I think it threw my whole chart off. However, this morning I had a pre-ovulation temp of 97.9. I'm pretty sure I felt ovary pinching on Monday, which is good because we did some BD'ing Sunday night. But Monday was CD14 and that's a little late for me. So once again I have no idea what my body is doing. We BD'd on CD8, 10, 13 and 16....I'm hoping we covered our bases. I actually saw a tiny bit of ewcm on CD13 so I'm wondering if I did, indeed, ovulate on Monday? I'm going to wait to see what my temp is tomorrow morning before I manually override my chart info on what I felt. I will definitely be ordering my opk's in the next few days. I can't keep guessing about when I ovulate. This baby makin' stuff is enough to drive a woman insane.

Busy Weekend

Thank you everyone for your blog template suggestions. I think I like this one for now. It seems easy on the eyes and it's very neutral, like me. :-) Also, thank you for your kind words about our kitchen. I'm a little biased so it's nice to know that others think it looks nice, too. I can't tell you how many episodes of house hunters and designed to sell and sell this house BJ and I have watched and we wonder what the heck people were thinking when they decorated their homes. We stopped by there on Saturday to see what else had been done if anything. They painted! I walked in and my jaw hit the floor. We picked a color called bone white. We had about 6 or 8 shades of white to pick from and took the suggestion of the design lady, Shannon. They painted the trim, doors, chair rail and crown molding a bright white semi gloss. It looks FANTABULOUS! We were worried that we would hate the white walls because we haven't had white walls in about 3 and a half years...not so. The bone white stands out so much next to the trim that we don't feel like we will have to paint right away as we thought. Now, I will be painting the dining room sooner rather than later. That's only because I'm anxious to make it all "formal" and fancy. I won't be going by the new house until Saturday and decided to take pictures then because all the appliances, toilets and light fixtures will be installed so it will be a big change from the last batch of pictures.

So Saturday, we went to see A Christmas Carol. We took the Little Guy. It was a Disney flick but you'd never know it. It was animated so spectacularly that I sometimes forgot that it was a cartoon. There were parts of this movie that disturbed me, let alone all the little kids that were in the theater. Certain scenes were just over the top and very dark for a Disney movie, in my opinion. I enjoyed the movie and understood it and thought they did a great job sticking to the story and the dialect of the period. I just don't think it's for kids. After the movie we hung out at the new house for a while then headed to my SIL's for surprise visit. This turned into a 5 hour visit. It was fun as I got to spend some quality time with the niece and the boys got to play and the 2 men drank themselves a little silly. I've never seen my BIL drunk before. It was interesting to say the least.

We went bowling yesterday. I'm a terrible bowler and I always have been. There's no teaching me. I just do it the way I do it and that's that. BJ hurt his back while we were there so he didn't do very well, either. We didn't get the bumpers since the Little Guy was the only kid with us so he was upset that he kept getting gutter balls. I was the only one that performed well. And when I tell you my scores you might fall out of your seat from laughter, but for me, these are excellent....113, 133, 136. I was looking around for some great high 5's but there weren't any because the boys were so distressed about their own performances. *sigh* The life of a great athlete can be tough. :-)

I feel like I was on the run all weekend so AF being in town didn't affect me too much. She's just about gone today thanks to my new lighter flow and that is always a good thing. I had a few teary moments with the niece because I just so badly want a toddler of my own, but other than that I think I did ok. I even worked out a problem with the Little Guy and his cousins after a ball went wild and struck him in the face. I might actually be good at this parenting thing...if I could just get a real shot at it.

I have a question for all of you that have done IUI's and/or IVF's. What was your partner's swimmer count pre and post wash? My nurse said BJ's numbers were great but I think they were on the low side. He had just over 50 million pre-wash and I think "great" would be over 100 million. But what do I know? Our post wash numbers were 13 million, 18 million and 15 million which still seems low to me. I have been doing some reading on male fertility but since no one has ever said that BJ is a part of the problem, it's been tough to bring it up with him (you know, telling him to cut back the caffeine, don't have the laptop on your lap for so long right before we go to bed for some BD'ing...things like that). I know that I am 90% responsible for our woes, but I honestly think he might be 10% of the issue. He has had 80% motility which I think is fine but his morphology was a little low at 11. They like to see it 14 or above. Any helpful info would be great. You guys are the best and I appreciate all of your feedback!