Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First off I should admit that the new ticker is an awesome idea from Candace's blog. I love it and I couldn't resist adding one of my own to my blog. Thanks Candace. Hope you don't mind if I copy.
Well, it's almost a new year. Wow, another year gone by and like Tracey said in her blog, it's been a year of changes. Me, I moved back from Chico, California to my home in Spokane, Washington. That whole California thing was just a bit of temporary insanity. While I met some great people there and it was a fantastic place to visit, going down there all by myself wasn't the best idea. But it is fantastic to be home and around my chosen family and friends. I bought a house this year and when I bought it, I had all these fantastic ideas of what I was going to remodel. Then about a month later, I noticed the very loud noise of my biological clocking ticking away and all of the sudden my priorities changed drastically. Funny how that works. Now, I'm way more interested in baby furniture than living room furniture (hey I have a chair to sit in, what more could I need??) and baby clothes than clothes for myself. I have had to buy somethings for my house though such as a refrigerator. That is a nice feeling buying something like that which is mine, even if I couldn't really afford it. I had my first (and hopefully last) major surgery when I had my appendix removed. Yep, could have lived without that experience. I obtained a job that I had wanted for years and while I have discovered that maybe this isn't what I want to do long term, hey I gave it a try. I think I've grown as a person and not just in the literal sense of the word either. I've gotten better at working for what I want and standing up for myself.
Hopefully the new year has a pregnancy in store for me. I have to think positive that it does. And while I may not have my baby by the end of 2007, it shouldn't be long after until that dream comes true also.
So I hope everyone has a happy New Year and I'm off to work to celebrate with the babies.
Oh, and the whole water to the fridge thing still not working. My friend is coming back tomorrow to try something else and I have learned that things involving plumbing are possibly best left to someone who actually knows what the hell they are doing.

The home improvement that wasn't

So, I have been tackling small home improvement projects ever since I bought my house last summer and so far they have all been pretty successful. That has now come to an end. I tried this morning to hook up the water line to my new refrigerator. I had went to Lowes and bought a kit that had the hose and the device I needed to pierce the copper pipe that would supply a water source to my fridge. Followed the destructions, put everything together just right, pierced the copper pipe, opened the valve up, and it leaks!!! Crap. When I close the valve back up it seems to quit leaking but I borrowed some wrenches and tried to tighten everything up really well which wasn't so easy since it's all now attached to the pipe and it still leaks, even worse actually. I have a friend coming over tomorrow to fix it hopefully. I am really hoping I didn't totally screw the whole thing up. I had to tap into the cold water pipe that runs to my hot water heater and now am hoping that I don't end up having to do something crazy like replace the whole pipe. If that ends up being the case, I may just splurge and buy a new hot water heater. Mine is like 18 years old and my shower usually gets cold about half way through so it would probably be a good investment but I really didn't want to do this now.
I met with the unit educator at my new job yesterday whom I had met once before last summer. She remembered me talking about adopting and was asking how that was going. I told her that it hadn't worked out very well due to the cost but that I was now planning on trying to get pregnant. She said that while she didn't know me very well, she thought I seemed like I would be a really good mom. That made me feel good.
Well, Happy New Year to everyone and lets hope that we are all in store for BFP's in 2007!!!!

Another Busy Week

Well, now the holidays are gone, or at least sort of gone. I don't count New Years as I never do anything on New Years. Several years back my boyfriend at the time and I went out on New Year's Eve, drinking too much etc and the night ended with him in jail. First off that should have been a HUGE clue to me to get out then, second of all it pretty much dimmed the fascination with a holiday that wasn't my favorite anyways. So, the highlight for me is getting to work as then I get paid time and a half. Which I am doing this year. Yippee!!! I also volunteered to pick up an extra shift on Saturday and I'm working tomorrow at my other job. Busy, busy, busy. This means I am not spending money or sitting home eating, two positive things and I'm making extra money, another positive thing. Everything is one step closer to ttc. I still haven't heard anything back from my mother about my plans to ttc. Didn't really expect that one. I expected at the very least to receive some e-mail telling me how much I am a disappointment to her and how God thinks of me as dead because of my choices in life. So no word has me confused. I called my little sister the other day and asked if she had heard anything from mom which she hadn't. I can't decide if she has decided to just disown me again and not say anything, or if she is researching from her religious literature why what I'm doing is a grave sin so that she can then write to me to tell me how horrible I am. It's really sad that she can't be happy for me but I suppose in the long run, it's better for me and my future child if it just stays this way. Thankfully she lives really far away.
I've had lots of questions and comments about who I chose for a donor. Well, I have 16 possible choices. That was based on things that I consider must haves. For instance I would not pick someone who is allergic to animals since I have animals that I don't really want to get rid of. I even avoided those who had hayfever. I also steered clear of the few with fairly large builds, just because I would prefer a smaller donor to counteract my not so small self. That is one I am willing to go back and reexamine later if need be but for now I'll leave those out. The only other one I sort of avoided but not completely is someone who only has brothers for siblings. While I would love and adore a boy too, there is still a part of me that hopes for a girl and so will try to maybe increase my chances what little bit I can. So, out of my 16, I put them in order of which I like best. My favorite donor is 3375. But these are basically the ones that would work, any one of the 16. Plus I feel I have a little bit of an advantage in that I want to purchase my samples in January, but I don't need them in January. I don't need them until mid April to mid May. So even if they are in quarantine, they are still a possibility.
Oh, and I went shopping the other day. I bought the cutest snow suite thingy for a infant 0-9 months. It's a Christmas tree. It's tree shaped, has a star for a hat, and ornaments sewn on the body of the suit, it's fuzzy and I only paid 6 dollars so I don't feel too bad. I thought about furniutre as Babies r Us advertised 20% off lowest clearance price but even with that, the couple of cribs they had on clearance were too expensive. Probably best to wait anyways. At least until I'm pregnant.

Finding Mr. Catalog Man

So, I figure that since it's almost the end of the year, and it's almost time for my flex spending account to start on January 1st, that maybe I could go ahead and start working on choosing potential sperm donors. So I sat down and printed out the short profiles that are offered online at NW and then spent some time highlighting, pink for sisters, blue for light colored eyes, green for previous pregnancies with that donor, etc. Basically all the things I would like in a potential donor. Then I went back through and sorted those into 3 piles and then went through each pile and sort them in order of favorite to least favorite numbered 1 through 16. Strangely or maybe not so strangely I didn't even really look at the hand written stuff that donors contributed. Much of that is stuff that I feel is influenced by the parents so I don't feel that is of a big concern to me. Plus, many of the donors are doing it primarily for the money. This is Spokane and we have 2 larger universities within the general area. College kids. I looked at what was listed for physical attributes. I would like someone with light colored eyes, I would prefer straight hair as I know how annoying hair can be if it's only partially curly. I looked for someone who had no allergies to animals, who had at least one sister which may hopefully help my chances to have a girl although that has become less important as really so has the eye color etc. Another big one for me is to hopefully find a donor who is small to medium in build since I am larger and I would love to not pass on genes for being overweight from both sides. While this isn't a guarantee, it could help. None of it's a guarantee. What it basically comes down to is that I want a baby. Boy or girl, blond or dark, blue eyes or brown. I just want a healthy baby. Yes, a part of me wants a girl but honestly, I would really love to have one of each. I'm not worried about SAT scores or even a grandparent that had cancer or heart disease. I'm adopted and short of a tendency to be overweight which I know my birth mom also had, I have no idea what I am passing to my child. I also believe that you can't worry about everything (trust me, I will find plenty to worry about without adding this stuff to it) and you can have to perfectly healthy individuals with no history of anything in their family and there can be something that came up. Granted this doesn't mean that I won't be careful. I likely wouldn't choose a donor who is a carrier for cystic fibrosis but I also don't want to play the what if game if I can avoid it.
I had something funny happen the other night. I have a tendency to move around a bit in my sleep even including sleep walking in the past. So I have been a bit stressed about remembering to take my BBT the last week or two as I always forget like once a week, usually at a fairly crucial time. So, I must have been dreaming about this and when I woke up, reached for my thermometer and couldn't find it at all. So I got out of bed and it fell out of the blankets, I found the case part at the foot of the bed and part of it I was laying on. I must have dug it out while I was sleeping. It was kind of funny.
Well, Christmas has been great. I had a great time with my chosen family. All the stuff I bought went over pretty well. One of my favorite gifts is a set of Christmas dishes. I've always wanted some so that I can someday have a family gathering for the holidays complete with fancy christmas dishes. Well, I'm off to bed. Hope everyone has a great time tomorrow.

Merry Christmas

Well, here it is almost Christmas. yippee!!!!!!!!!!! I don't have to work Christmas so for me, it's going to be great. Especially after the last few nights at work. We have been super busy and had some very sick babies. The last 2 nights I took care of the sickest baby I've ever cared for before. Stressful and even more so since I am aquainted with mom.
All my gifts are bought, most are wrapped. I have a couple more to wrap up tonight. The stuff needing to be shipped got sent out, mostly on time. I have a jello salad to make tonight and gather up my stuff going to my chosen families house tomorrow. We celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve so I will open some presents over there. Then I have a few more from friends who sent stuff to me that I will open on Christmas morning.
Well I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and to those of you AI'ing soon or who already have, I hope your Christmas present is a BFP. And berrymom, I hope your Christmas present is a baby!!

nothing much new

Nothing much new is going on with me these days. Working lots and trying to get my Christmas baking/candy making done. I've got most of it done so I just need to finish tonight. I finally got a pattern that showed ovulation on my fertility friend chart (I finally remembered to almost always take my temperature when I woke up) and although I of course forgot a temp on a fairly crucial day and therefore it shows the wrong date for ovulation, I at least feel better that I am ovulating. Part of my issue is the whole idea that being overweight affects fertility and can cause problems with conceiving which of course has me worried. I don't know for sure though why I'm worried as I've never really felt like there was a problem but I've never tried getting pregnant either. I have always been super regular with my periods and since I started becoming aware of what the stuff was that showed up every month for about a week (cervical mucus) I've been pretty aware of the 5 day time frame of when I ovulate. Of course, now that I'm charting it all, it's giving me an even more concrete concept of the actual time, down to about 24 hours. I guess I was still worried though that even though I was having the cervical mucus, and even though I had a peak on my cbfm and on answer opks, that for some reason all this stuff was happening even though I may not actually be ovulating. It worried me and still does some that a couple different opks haven't worked for me at all and I've never gotten a positive with them. I guess I will just stick to buying the answer ones. And the cbfm. I do really think now that I am ovulating normally so hopefully it will all go well. I can't wait to actually start trying.
I've also heard back from a few of my relatives that I sent my Christmas letter to. So far I've gotten one neutral reaction, one person who didn't say anything about it and one really positive reaction. My aunt A. thought it was great. Funny thing is (or maybe not so funny) that I haven't heard a THING from my mom. I'm not expecting her to be happy about it or supportive of it but I know she had to have received my letter by now. The thing that gets me is that if she objects to my plans it's because she thinks its wrong for me to be pregnant while I'm single. Several years ago when I was still trying to make her happy and living my life by her rules, I thought about adopting and she was totally supportive of that. I am sort of anxious to know what her reaction is.
Something weird happened tonight and I don't know if I did the right thing. I went to Albertsons @ 12:30am (middle of the night) and as I was walking in, a guy was walking out and sort of looked at me strange. I figured it was because I was walking into the store in my pajamas. I smiled and went in to get what I needed. When I came out, this truck (huge truck requiring parachutes to get out of) waits for me to cross in front of the store and then I hear someone saying "hey, what's going on" I turned around and it was the guy I saw going into the store. He asked me if I had a number and said he had seen me and liked the way I looked. My first thought was why. I told him no and thanked him for the compliment. Then I wondered if maybe I should have been more open to possibilities. The problem is that I can't remember the last time a guy has noticed me (years literally) and I felt like what kind of guy are you going to meet in a grocery store parking lot in the middle of the night in your pajamas. I suppose he could have been a nice guy but he could have been a creep too. I kind of felt like maybe I should have been more open to possibilities but then I've gotten so used to the idea of doing the single mother thing, that I don't know if I want someone else in my way right now. And besides he could have been a creep. Just a weird thing I guess and I'll never know.
Well, I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and I hope there's lots of BFP's to come for all my NW buddies. By the way, the chatboard is driving me nuts because everytime I try to post something, it takes forever and then it gives me an error message and doesn't post my comment!!!

Christmas Candy!!!!

Ok, so I'm being bad and totally over doing it on sugar. But it is ohhhhh soooooo good. And it's Christmas time. The peanut brittle is done, the fudge is done. I still have to make peanut butter balls (both white and milk chocolate), caramels (which I can never seem to get hard enough but I keep optimistically trying, hey they are just as good eating them with a spoon out of the pan but harder to give away), maybe another batch of peanut brittle if I keep eating this one, sugar cookies and spritz cookies. I love this time of year. Can you tell?? Presents are all wrapped or bagged but I still have a couple of things I need to ship off to Seattle which should get there quickly. I only have one Christmas present left to buy and I told my ex-boyfriend (still friends) that I would help him with his Christmas shopping. Of course, to make it more fun for me, I have to yank his chain a bit and told him I had it all figured out for what he could get for his grandma and her husband. A book on Karma Sutra. I thought he was going to have a cow when I said that. I know, I have an evil sense of humor. It's just that it's so easy to get to him. Of course as soon as I got done talking to him, I had to call his mom and tell her what I did and we laughed for about 10 minutes. Anyways, not much going on for me other than getting ready for Christmas. I'm tired as I have been getting up early each morning (not used to that) for orientation at my new job. Then tomorrow I go back to night shift. Thank goodness. Oh, and I'm reading "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" So far there isn't really anything new to me, just expands on what I already knew but boy do I wish I had bought this book a few years ago. Oh and when I went shopping the other night I bought my first boy outfit (since I have no idea what I'll have, I need boy stuff too, not just girl). It's so cute. It has little pants with faux suede on them that look like chaps. Then there are two onsies that one has little ranch print things and the other has the little western collar in a faux suede, plus there is a bib, hat and socks that all match. At the rate I'm going, no one will need to give me clothes for a baby gift.

Holiday Trivia

Well, I got this idea from Candace's blog and thought it was fun so here goes.
Here's the Holiday Trivia about me:
1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?? Egg Nog. Yummmm
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wrapped I guess. Since it's just me, if there is any wrapping involved it's done by me.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Colored definitely
4. Do you hang mistletoe? Yes, I have a very fancy pretty mistletoe holder that has a small amount of mistletoe. I made it a few years back with a pine cone and bows etc.
5. When do you put your decorations up? I start with the outside decorations about a week before Thanksgiving. If I wait too long it snows and then I can't get them up safely.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? All of it. Love turkey and ham (good ham, not pressed ham loaf) and mashed potatoes and gravy.
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? I don't have any memories of holidays as a child as my family didn't celebrate them. I guess my best memory was when I was 22 and I was pretty poor and had a friend R. and her son L. living with me and they were pretty poor too. Another friend of mine LL, her family got together and got us all presents and made a fantastic Christmas for all of us. Minus the ray gun that L. received. I remember now, I owe LL's son a wonderful noisy toy!!!
8. When and how did you learn there was no Santa? Like I said above, no holidays when I was young so I was always told Santa, toothfairy etc were not real.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? My chosen family celebrates on Christmas eve so I open all of mine on Christmas Eve.
10. What kind of cookies does Santa get put out for him? Sugar cookies those are the best to eat.
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? I love snow if it shows up on December 24th and leaves again by the 26th. I have yet to find a place to live where mother nature accomadates my wishes.
12. Can you ice skate? Not very well
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? My Ex-boyfriend one year gave me dinner out anywhere I wanted to go, no complaining about prices etc. This was a really big deal for him as he NEVER eats out other than McD's
14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? My chosen family, my furbabies, decorating and I love making my Christmas gifs if I can come up with something to make. Couldn't think of anything this year though so I had to shop.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? all of them.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? I don't know if I really have one.
17. What tops your tree? A punched tin star
18. Which do you prefer: Giving or Receiving? Giving definitely!!!
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Santa Claus is coming to town by Bruce Springsteen, a country song called 2 step round the Christmas tree and anything my Mannheim Steamroller.
20. Candy Canes- love em or leave em? An actual candy cane? I only eat maybe once or twice a year although I like them. I like peppermint flavored stuff though, such as peppermint Cheesecake!!!!
21. Favorite Christmas movie? The Polar Express and Prancer and the Grinch
22. When does your tree get taken down? Usually on or around New Years day.
Anybody else want to play? Feel free to copy it onto your blog.

Charting and more

I've been keeping up pretty good with my charting etc this month and it's been interesting. I've been temping every day and that seems to be going ok even though I temp in the afternoon when I wake up. I also have been using my sometimes working clear blue easy fertility monitor. Two days ago it was still registering low, then yesterday it showed peak. Wow, that was quick. I've also been using the opks that you are just supposed to pee on that I got from NW and I don't think I like them. For one thing, I still haven't gotten a positive on them and I got a peak on my monitor yesterday. I've been checking with them at least 4 to 5 times a day/night. Also is the fact that I bought the ones that you just pee on (not pee in a cup and dip) as I take them to work at night and test and it would be sooooo much easier to just pee on it, and wait and see rather than sneak a cup into the BR and pee, then dip etc. Well, the problem is that here is this stick with instructions saying that you are not supposed to pee or get urine above the arrow. So, I have about an inch worth of stick to pee on. Ok, well, I'm not a guy and I can't exactly see where I'm peeing at. Sorry that's a bit graphic but I'm getting frustrated as I have had 3 so far that flat out have not worked because there was pee where it shouldn't be. So, at home, I end up peeing in a cup anyways and then dipping which totally defeats the purpose of buying the more expensive tests so they would be easier to do. I suppose though that if I don't get a postive, I may go back to using answer opks. Ok, so I know I don't have a reason to stress about this yet as I'm only charting and not AI'ing yet but basically I think the reason is that I am so scared this won't work and I won't be able to get pregnant. I just want it to all be so clear about when I ovulate etc but if I'm getting opks that don't work for me (this would be the second brand) then maybe there is something off with my hormones. I'm 36 almost 37. What if I waited too long.
Well, I sent out my Christmas cards and I did include in my letter my plans. I decided to go ahead and tell people what my plans are now. It may sound weird but I don't want to contact people later next year and say "Oh, by the way, I'm pregnant" and have them wondering/thinking that I had a fling and ended up pregnant accidentally. I want people to know that this is a planned journey for me, that I am going into this with my eyes wide open. I know that it shouldn't really matter what they think, but to some extent it does I guess, these people are what little bit of family that I have left and while I don't see them very often, I really love that they are my aunts, uncles and cousins. So, I sent the letter. Of course now I'm thinking "oh my gosh, should I have done that??" But I know it was the right thing for me. Which then left me needing to let my mom know somehow. I thought about an e-mail, but I don't know how often she checks hers and if it took several days or a week or more, it may get to her by other methods and I would really rather she hear it from me. So I wrote her a letter explaining my plans. Not that I think that will make her take it any better. Yes, I realize that some may think that I should have called her and told her but I guess I don't really feel the need to do that. I have only spoken to my mom on the phone 3 or 4 times in the last 4 1/2 years and I guess I just don't feel the need to talk to her now. It's a very long story but basically it comes down to the fact that because of differences in opinion about religion, I have no relationship with my mom whatsoever and probably never will. It took me a very long time to come to peace with that but I feel that I mostly have. So, a letter to her, should suffice just fine.
Well, I'm just getting off work after a 5 night stretch. I ended up picking up a second job at another hospital here in Spokane that also has a NICU and will be doing the same thing there. The second job is to pay off bills and I'm getting started with a bang. With as busy as my unit is (we have like 40 babies) and me picking up extra shifts at my full time job, plus orientation at the other hospital, I am working an ungodly 128 hours in 2 weeks. Right in the middle of the Christmas season. Oh well, the checks will be good and I should be able to pay off at least one bill.

Yikes!!!

Ok so I was just watching Oprah which I almost never do but it was on and sounded interesting. There was a woman on there who was single and wanted to have a baby and decided to be a single mother. It said she used donor sperm but not whether it was invitro or AI. She had QUADRUPLETS!!!!!!!! Oh my God, I would freak. Part of the reason for her being on the show was that she had decided to keep all of them and her family didn't think that she should, they thought that she should give 2 of them up. I felt really bad for her but Yikes, 4 babies. That's like being at work all the time for me. I want a baby (so bad it hurts) and would even be thrilled (scared too) with twins but 4????????? Ok, so please don't let that happen to me.

On other topics, I bought the second CBFM the other day, and the next day the first one started working again. I lost a whole day of my cycle on it and it doesn't ask for a stick now until about 5pm instead of 3 but it's working. Of course the seller keeps e-mailing me and telling me to call the company but of course hasn't offered to refund my money. But it could keep working. I was thinking that maybe I would list it on e-bay with a full disclosure that it may work but may not and only ask like 10 dollars for it. That way someone won't be out much if it doesn't keep working but they may get an awesome deal.

I finished my Christmas shopping with the exception of one person and feel like I did pretty good so that's a good thing. I also finished making my Christmas cards and so I am trying to get them ready to send out. I am trying to decide if I should let various people (mostly Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins) about my plans to TTC soon before I actually get started or if I should just let them know when I actually get pregnant. I just can't decide. Granted I still haven't told my mom but these are all relatives from my dad's side of the family and since my mom got remarried, I don't think she talks to them very much. I just feel so much like I want to share this journey with people as I am so excited but I am also still pretty sensitive to negativity from others. Oh, on a good note though, I told my friend who is a very strong Christian and who tends to disapprove of many of my choices in life and I had expected to have a negative response to my decision and she seemed to actually take it pretty well. Decisions decisions. Above is a scan of this years Christmas card, consider it a Merry Christmas to all of you who visit my blog.

December 3, 2006

Well, I heard back from the person I bought my CBFM from and she said that yeah, sometimes it turned off while reading the stick but she turned it back on and it would show the reading. Asked me what happened when I turned it back on etc and told me to call the 800 number if I had questions about signals I was getting from the monitor. I e-mailed her back and told her that it had turned off while I had a stick in it but never showed a reading and that now it would not turn on at all. With new or the older batteries, just nothing. I'm waiting to hear back if she will do anything. I did end up buying another one off e-bay today. I e-mailed the seller of the 2nd one and she said she had used it twice before finding out she had some condition that caused her to not ovulate at all (yikes that would suck) and that she knew it did work. She also stated that if I got it and it wouldn't work like previous buy, that she would refund my money. So, I went for it. That should arrive in time for me to get started with my next cycle and this time I'll just stick with the opk's which I bought a bunch from NW. Since I'm still just charting it should all still be good.
On the fitness front, I've decided to join the gym at work. It's 10 dollars a month and I think if I really work at making myself go right after work I'll do better at it. I can even go in my scrubs before I change back into my street clothes. I even had a nurse I work with say that she might join with me.
Well, thats about it for tonight. It's getting difficult to type with my cat sitting on my hands and stepping on the keyboard. I think she has missed me being home.

December 2, 2006

So, I started using my CBFM this month and it's been fine with just turning it on daily to have it show my cycle day. Then yesterday I turned it on and it asked for a stick which I did but it kept turning itself off and wasn't reading the stick. I figured maybe I needed new batteries and bought some this morning on my way home from work and put them in. Now it won't turn on at all!!!! I kept messing around with the batteries for a while, then took them out and noticed that down inside the monitor there is some corosion on one of the connections probably from a battery that leaked previously. Crap. So, I suppose that means me good deal on ebay is now turning out to be not such a good deal. I don't know if I can disassemble it and clean off the connection but I can't get to the connection as it is. I doubt I will be able to get my money back. Not sure what to do from this point but I guess I'm not going to be using the monitor this month if I can't get the dumb thing to turn on.