My mother in law, who is slowly driving me crazy since she’s somewhat homebound due to lack of driving…. Discovered the Senior Citizens Center 1 community over! I mentioned to Hubbin that what she *really* needed was a senior citizens center like my grandma had. My grandma and her boyfriend were at the senior citizens center DAILY, they went, had lunch, played bingo, had parties. That’s what she needed, we were kind of getting to the point in our house where she was UBER cranky and bitchy and meddling with us because she was expecting us to provide 100% of her social entertainment. Hubbin went to see a movie by himself last weekend while I was at work and when I got home hours later she was still pissed. He was feeling kind of guilty and I said “no no no, we are providing her a warm place to live, we make sure she’s fed, we make sure she is as safe as we possibly can given her lack of regard for instructions or personal safety, it is not acceptable for us to feel like we need to be providing all of her social relief. She is not locked in the basement, we have volunteered to drop her off at her friends houses, or pick her up, or take her somewhere to meet them and she hasn’t arranged anything, you need to be able to have time away every once in a while”

Anyway, she took the old people taxi to the center two days ago, and had a good enough time that she’s going back today. Wooooooooooo!!!!!!!! Which means here on my day off I have at least a few hours by myself!

Yesterday our instructor posted the syllabus for the class. While it’s not 15 pages long like the 3 credit class that KILLED me last spring, I’m still highly irritated after reading it. We have a gigantic ‘quality improvement project’ that we need to develop, implement, write up and present. And this is yet another class that wants us to write a ‘journal article for professional publication’. Seriously? Do we really need to? These professional journals must get tired of all the BS articles students write and submit for no other reason than they’re forced to. What a pain in my ass. No seriously. I just want to do all my clinical hours, work my full time job, and graduate, couldn’t we just pretend we did all that other crap and can the bull shit for ONE SEMESTER? ONE!!! just one. No? fuuuuuck. This is probably more profanity than I’ve put in one post in, years.

I have a good job lead, someone I work with who already has the job I want and is fairly well respected in the company was asked by her superiors if she had any students with her over the last few semesters that she would recommend since they’re hiring. She was nice enough to mention me even though we’re coworkers and she’s never had me as a student. . So I fired off a resume and cover letter to one of the boss people as per directions on 1/2/12 and haven’t heard ANYTHING. Tear. I spoke with this friend of mine again and she was surprised I hadn’t heard anything, but thinks I still will as they called her to discuss me, and she said she has heard me mentioned a few times. Having a job before I graduate would be fabulous. Although it will probably put more of a rush on me taking/passing boards than I would prefer — but that will keep me from procrastinating I guess. Worst case scenario if that doesn’t work out I’m going to take my time and enjoy a leisurely summer at my steady-weekend position and enjoy having 5 days off a week. I don’t know about taking a real vacation this summer, I only get limited days with my current position and those will be entirely used up for taking a huge boards review class over my birthday -fun FUN!!! My fantasy would involve them holding a position for me as a nurse practitioner until august and quitting my current job sometime in July to take a big trip with Hubbin somewhere.

Hubbin has been threatening to up and visit his friends in Europe, even if I can’t come, so he can practice his foreign language and immerse himself for awhile. He did that last a few years ago for 3 weeks, I was sad, but it was okay. My only concern with it this summer is how it is going to interfere with more IUIs which are on hold now until I graduate. :-/

In other news I’m leaving Monday for a week in the woods with my parents and my uncle & his girlfriend at their “cabin” which is not really a cabin but more of a fancy house in the woods with a hot tub. My agenda for the week includings drinking alcohol, sitting by the fire (hopefully it will snow to add some atmosphere) reading, knitting, I might take a nap (!!!!), and there’s a hot tub – surely 4 people in their 60s won’t judge my lack of working out and over indulging in depression fueled sweets for the last few months right? It’s okay to put on my bathing suit and soak.

The problem is that now that I’m going to ‘allow’ myself to knit & read leisure stuff for a week I’m kind of freaking out because I can’t decide what yarn I want to pack or project I want to do. I don’t think I want to take something for someone else and am completely torn on projects. I’ve spent the past two days polishing up my resume  and writing a cover letter to send to my top-choice-company to work at post graduation because I got a direct ‘in’ contact of who to email with my information. I’m trying to keep in mind that I’m totally awesome and they’ll surely want to hire me – but optimism is really not my strong suit. Cover letters might be the lamest things on the planet to write.

“hello, here is my information portrayed in a professional and stuffy manner, can we just skip the formalities and you’ll hire me? I’m awesome I swear.”

Hubbin isn’t coming to the woods because they idea of sitting around for a week with nothing to do – while sounding devine to me- sounds like it might be physically painful for him. He and my MIL were going to go on a trip together but ended up not agreeing on a destination and thus are staying home. I’m glad to be getting away. She’s irritating me quite a bit. It’s like we have a teenager in the house again. She’s not supposed to go up or down stairs without help. (because she’s a ridiculous fall risk – between her broken arm, bad knee, cane, macular degeneration, & vertigo – just to name the highlights) and any time we’re both out of the house for more than 20 minutes she’s sneaking up stairs to screw with things in the living room/kitching/dining room. Hubbin said last night “I feel like we need to get a door to lock her down there cause I can just see her falling down the stairs, being paralyzed and then her stupid sisters who don’t want to help take care of her pointing their fingers at me and bitching I didn’t do enough to protect her”. It’s not that she’s broken something of mine – or moving important things. It’s the little things like you’re cooking and go to get the foil out of the drawer – and it’s not there. Or you go to get a mug for your coffee and all the mugs have been moved from the cabinet in the kitchen to a drawer in the dining room. Or you come downstairs and see that the brown outlet covers have been changed to white and there are screws missing. Or you leave a receipt on the table incase you want to return something and come back and it’s gone. *gaahhhhhh!*

I hereby solemnly swear I will no longer knit things I don’t like. I had previously signed off from knitting presents specifically for people, and my knitting bag shows I have fallen back on that promise and reinforces why I made that vow originally. In my knitting bag now are two projects, neither of which I like. #1: (pictured) a hat for my cousin which I told her I would make in January and had been putting off. Three days ago I decided it would make a nice surprise Christmas present. Mistake. I hate this yarn. HATE. It’s a PITA to knit with and I’d like to quit the hat and give the yarn away. #2 A baby blanket. Which will be the first blanket I have knit. But I’m making it with yarn that is not my favorite and was some of the first yarn I ever bought. It’s not very nice quality yarn and I started the blanket as a project to get rid of some of my stash yarn but then I decided it would make a good gift for my friend that is 25weeks pregnant. Only I don’t like the yarn and I’m more cranky about her being pregnant than most of the other pregnant people I know because she just rubs me the wrong way about it and, frankly, I’m bitter.

I realized a while ago that the problem with me knitting gifts for people is as soon as I decide who the gift will be for I know longer want to knit it. I thought I had outgrown it since I made a couple bootie/bonnet sets for people. Apparently not. I need to just make things for my baby gift bag to keep on hand for people OR go back to my other plan of finally making stuff specifically for myself. Because making gifts for people is apparently not my thing. That and my hobby has turned me into a yarn snob.

Today is 4dpo or 3dpiui and I’m pretty sure time has ground to a complete halt. I am not sure how I will make it through the next 10/11 days…

In other news it was snowing today, enough to stick on the ground for only the second time this winter. I celebrated by experiment with a new spiced wine recipe I found online – it was delish and smells even better – while burning my pine candle. Made us some tastey green bean casserole and honey mustard chicken for dinner which was perfect cold weather food. We even hauled my MIL up out of her apartment to eat in the living room and we watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer over dinner.

I’m not decorating this year. Not even a bit. My MIL was pestering me in the subtle way she does the other day about putting up a tree and bringing out the decorations. I flat out replied “what’s the point, no one is coming to our house, we’re the only ones who will see it, and then I just have to clean it up.” lucky for me she’s still got a broken arm and is somewhat confined to her efficiency apartment in the basement or I’m sure she’d be decorating for me. Since she had the handyman haul three things upstairs already I told Hubbin she’s more than welcomed to decorate her own area but I’m taking whatever she dumps up in the living room as an indication she doesn’t want it and it’s okay for me to just move it on our to the curb at the end of the season.

The thing is 95% of our Christmas decorations are hers from her house that she dumped at our house when we moved in when she was cleaning out her attic. And like I said to my mom “I know I’ve not been all into decorating but I’d kind of like next year when I just have ONE job and my bank account isn’t close to empty – to pick out my OWN decorations, things I like, to decorate my house” not random stuff from someone else’s house. Plus I’ve been totally inspired by pinterest. — well, this post started out all festive but now I sound like quite a scrooge. Anyway, if you need some old Christmas decorations I’ve got 4 bins in the garage.

ANYWAY, Back to the story…

So I could tell it was going to be close, Monday was going to be CD 14 and I usually don’t ovulate before then (I tend more towards CD 16) but just two months ago I got a positive stick on day 12 so I was nervous. Because of course I was. Because my neck and shoulder muscles are so permanently tight these days I could probably bench press 250lbs with just my shoulders. So my stick was negative on Friday and I was so excited, “SWEET just one more negative and I’m golden!” And then if I’m CD 16 next cycle too, it will be after the new years and we can squeeze in one more IUI before my spring semester starts (and if that one worked I’d be due on Hubbin’s birthday) – and it’s anxiety ridden thought trains like this that have been fueling my migraines and tension headaches for weeks now I’m sure!

But then something terrible happened, I tested saturday morning bright and early before work and I was greeted by a clear blue easy smiley face. Which should have been a frowny face, or at least an evil face. Because that meant I’d be working a 12 hour shift on Sunday starting at 7am rather than getting an IUI. And it meant next cycle would be during the week between Christmas and New Years when we’ll be away, and then the next cycle wouldn’t be until after my spring semester started and I’m back to working 5+days each week. I was dismal. Grouchy. Depressed. And off to work. Where my one friend was all excited because her aflac has kicked in and they can start trying for their second baby. And I was just dark clouds in my head. I sent Hubbin pouty text messages.

But then something amazing happened. My one friend, the same one who had added to my internal rain storm, said aloud at approximately 4pm “*sigh* I wish I was working at 7am tomorrow instead of 11am”…. my little hamster began turning and I looked at her *blink blink blink* and she said “Do you think if I call so-and-so at home they’d trade with me” She was scheduled to be working til 1130pm tonight and actually WANTED to come back for the 7am shift? This couldn’t be happening?! I might have jumped on her and said “I’LL TRADE WITH YOU!” “seriously?” “seriously” “wow, you even seem a little excited about this” ahem. Just a little. But then of course the out of control worry train started up again “What if Hubbin doesn’t want to now that I said we had to call it off? I was supposed to call by 7am to schedule the IUI for tomorrow, what if they can’t squeeze us in, what if whoever does the transfers doesn’t even come into work if there’s none on the schedule?” *panic panic panic* So I called Hubbin, he was totally on board, I fretted to him on the phone (he’s never particularly receptive to fretting so doesn’t really work as an outlet or a reassurance) I then called the clinic – who were of course no longer in the office.

We decided on a plan of action: I would get up at 640am and call the clinic at 645am when they start taking calls to see if they could squeeze us in. If they could I would then roll Hubbin out of bed and send him off to – well, you know – then, as long as my appointment would be by 10am I could still be to work at 11am, it’s really probably <10 miles from work and should take <30min to drive.

I then tried to remain calm. And not get my hopes up. I drove the whole way home after work begging aloud in the car “pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease” the whole way. Then I tried to sleep. Somewhat less than successful. And I woke up approximately 35times during the night.

I called at 645am and at the answering person, who after I pleaded my case, was like “hmmm, I don’t know if they can even do that, let me connect you to scheduling” who, after I pleaded my case again said “sure, that shouldn’t be a problem.” She said “We’ll have a room for him at 8am, and then you can come at 10am” I said “and how long does this take?” and she said “well the IUI will be 5 minutes, then you’ll need to lay down for 10-15″ and I said “So I should be done by 1030?” and she said “oh definitely”

I woke Hubbin and told him and he got up at 720 – then I got up (again) at 9 and was at the clinic at about 955.

Then I waited, and waited, and waited. And when I was still in the waiting room at 1015am I was internally screaming profanities and flipping out about whether I could even stay or not! At 1030 my level of panic was FULL BLOWN and I was *thisclose* to walking up to the desk and being like “seriously, I need to be at work in 30 minutes, do you know what time this will actually happen because I cannot stay much longer”

They called me back at 1035. Had me verify everything.

Post wash counts = 3.1 million, 89% motility

Which seems low to me but she said was fine. (I’m pretty sure his original SA had like 116mil so I was hoping for something similar – Hubbin assures me the rest were “just sleeping” since I got them up so early) It was done by someone who was not the doctor. Hubbin is referring to it as our first 3 *some. And was pretty quick, but was not done until 1045 at which point there was no possibility of me being on time for work, and it’s probably been more than a year since I was late so I tried to just relax about it. (relaxing = not my strong suit). It was crampy – but when they do stuff like this it’s a different kind of crampy, in a way that makes it feel like the bottom is falling out from under you, which is I supposed a vagal reaction that is not very pleasant. Anyway. Done. They’re in there. All 3.1 million chances for the month. I was glad I had the foresight to put a pad on before I left because I did have some cramping and spotting the rest of the day, which may or may not have been on the waiver I sign but since I was so preoccupied about being late I didn’t take the time to study it.

I only laid down for 10 minutes, which I would have preferred to wait longer but it was 1055…. And I was due at work at 11. GAHHH. I was signing out of the office and she was like “oh! wait! We need to draw some bloodwork to check your virals” I said “Seriously? I have to be at work at 11, I REALLY can’t”. – –and You could have been doing that while I was waiting in your waiting room for 45 minutes- So they said they’d get me at a follow up.

I called the charge nurse on my way to work and was like “well, It appears certain now that I will be late, but fear not, I am on my way, I’m on the highway” — of course there was a stupid home football game so the drive that should have taken 15 minutes took 30 and I got to work at 1130.

#1: I am probably going to graduate from NP school in May

Back when I met Hubbin I was working in research but research doesn’t make very much money. My original plan in college was a career in research which would require me to get a PhD and move on from there — only after working in a lab for a few years, while I liked it, and still miss it sometimes I decided the PhD business wasn’t for me. I couldn’t pick a concentration and didn’t want the rest of my life to be defined by grant writing. I made the decision to go back to school but wasn’t sure for what. Medical school, which is probably what I would have done if I had some better advising in high school and college, was kind of out of the question because of my GPA from college. I never really wanted to be a nurse, but was interested in being an NP or PA to be sort of a mini doctor. So the breakdown went as follows: PA program for 2 years and done but I couldn’t work during it and would need to take out loans for school. OR NP school. To do NP school though, first you need to go to nursing school and a bachelors in nursing is required for entrance. So I needed to do nursing school, get a BSN, then go to the masters program, which would take a lot longer but I would be able to work the whole time.

Since Hubbin and I were engaged and getting ready to start out lives together, I made the decision to go the nursing route, mainly for financial reasons. We didn’t want to take on huge debt for school at the same time we were trying to buy a house and everything. Which sucks. Because I’ve been working full time and going to school part to full time since 2005 (really, with the prerequisites for nursing school – Nursing school actually started in January about 6 months after we got married)

So just think: The ENTIRE time we’ve been together I’ve been working and going to school full time. How nice is it going to be when I will just have 1 job! We both talk about how the best part of being on vacation together is getting to finally spend time together. The thing to be excited about is that the more time I spend with Hubbin the happier I am and the more I love him. It might just feel like vacation all the time once I’m out of school!

#2: I’m going to graduate loan free

Which I consider to be a HUGE accomplishment in and of itself

I have completely busted my butt and dealt with a lot of comments from Hubbin but this is totally going to pay off. I don’t mean it like that per say I mean we both agreed it was the route to go, but it is hard for Hubbin to 100% avoid reminding me that he pays ALL the bills. He pays EVERYTHING, my pay check goes towards fun activities, vacations, dates, and a weekly allowance for both of us. Otherwise I squirrel it away in my savings so I can write a check for a few thousand dollars each and every semester.

Between my tuition benefit from working full time, and choosing to go the cheapest route possible for nursing school (community college) I was able to finish nursing school by paying cash. While I was doing that I took a slight pay cut moving from research to being a nursing aide. But I thought the experience would be important to job hunting (and it was, because I was offered my nursing job in my same department about 5 months before I graduated). THEN I started my job as a nurse and got about a — $13,000 a year raise by moving from an aid to a RN. I enrolled in a BSN-MSN program the soonest start date after I graduated and paid about $15,000 in tuition to get my BSN. So we never felt that raise. The month after I finished the BSN I started the nurse practitioner program and I’m just ending and my bill is $33,000, so the entire time I’ve been working as a nurse we’ve still only been getting the same income as from when I was an aide really…. When I start working as an NP I’ll get an approximate $20 – $30,000 a year raise from my salary now… SO if you add that on to the raise I got when I was a nurse that we’ve never really felt the benefit from me finishing nursing school in the first place. So:

#3: It’s going to feel I’m getting a roughly $50,000 a year raise when I get a new job. (Holy shit!)

And

(Which I am both excited and nervous about): One of my coworkers in the ER who is a PA now is encouraging me to apply to jobs over Christmas break because the ER company is hiring lots of PAs & NPs right now. EEK! So:

#4: There is the potential to have a job lined up for me before I even graduate.

My friend who graduated last year said no one was too interested in talking to her in interviews until she had passed her boards, but my friend who is encouraging me to apply says they hired her before she passed her boards. My original plan was to leisurely take boards maybe around August after I graduated since I have this awesome weekend only gig at work now which I’ll be sad to leave. BUT this is causing me to need to seriously reevaluate this and really just the thought of taking boards makes me a little nauseated, I’m not going to lie. The plus side is if I can get a job lined up to start in August then I might be able to quit my current job in July and Hubbin and I could take a nice long vacation or just enjoy a long time together (since he’s a teacher).

and PS:

I believe we are a ‘go’ this month for the first unmedicated IUI. I called the clinic to let them know we were planning on doing it. The only issue would be if it needs to be a weekend. The clinic is open but my mandatory 12 hour shifts would prevent me from going in at all. So. Cross your fingers for a nice Sunday- Thursday positive OPK.

My regular gynecologist ordered a SA on Hubbin and an HSG on me which were both 100% okay, at which point she was like “well, I think you need to move on from me”. We started at the specialist at the end of September and the first month was really me coming in for bloodwork a bunch of time and an ultrasound to check for follicles. The appointment this week was to go over all the results.

No real surprises, everything checked out 100% okay placing us firmly in the unexplained infertility group. Being as I quit taking birth control pills in March 2008 and we started using natural family planning to avoid pregnancy for about a year, not always 100% with protection, then sort of just let things happen for 2009, then started actively trying in 2010 (and I was already a minorly professional BBTer, I was ahead of the game for that) There’s no real reason that nothing’s happened since then.

Our options were pretty much wide open as far as treatment, she’s okay with us moving at our own pace and selecting whatever we want. So our first options were Clomid, unmedicated IUI, and clomid+IUI. Hubbin is completely terrified of more than one baby so he described himself to the specialist as twin-phobic. She said “Well honestly, that’s a good way to be, twins are not without risk”. Since I’m 30 now, she was in agreement that we have a little time to try less-risky interventions before moving up, which I think made Hubbin very happy. I had a whole list of questions to ask about the odds of this versus that and whatnot, but of course forgot to pull my list out. I only remembered to ask if there’s a limit to months with clomid and if we needed to like ‘conserve’ clomid cycles to use with IUI later. She said no not really, the limit only comes from the fact that if it is going to work it usually works in the first 3-6 cycles, so it doesn’t really make sense to do more, but that would also be up to us.

Obviously none of these treatments are  covered by insurance, thank you very much. But the good news is that unmedicated IUI, which is our decision for now, does not require monitoring. So since Hubbin is his own high quality factory we don’t need to buy that, I’m making my own eggs and releasing them with regularity, so we don’t need to pay for medications for that, and since we’re not using medications I don’t need bloodwork and ultrasound monitoring which can be a couple hundred dollars in itself. The unmedicated IUI procedure plus washing of the goods is about $300 — which, really, isn’t as bad as I had feared. So that’s the decision for now, I kind of expected to be doing clomid and whatnot as well because I obviously want there to be the highest possible chance, but really I’m just glad to be doing something, and it was very important to me that Hubbin be completely on board with the treatment choice. He’s said meds are not out of the question in the future, but we’ll need to cross that bridge when we come to it. So I’m glad he took the day off to come with me.

I also as of last night have now officially confessed to a grand total of two friends that we’re infertility patients. The first was at a wedding not long ago who caught a look exchanged between me and Hubbin when she was telling use about her and her husband in the final stages of adoption and she later cornered me at the wedding reception to ask what was going on. The second I had dinner with some friends last night, one of who I know is seeing a RE for repeat miscarriages (like 5 that I even know about) although she hasn’t mentioned him in a very long time so I wasn’t sure what’s going on with that and it’s an awkward thing to ask about. So she mentioned it just in passing at dinner so I sent her a text later to the effect of “hey I’ve been meaning to mention to you, but it just never seems appropriate timing…” Not that my situation is anywhere even close to how terrible that is, but I thought it would be nice for her to know that not everyone around her is proceeding without difficulty either. Our other friend who was at dinner is about 14 weeks pregnant now.

Note: DOES NOT WORK WELL WITH OTHERS.

A certain female close to me is getting married in the spring… and there has been a flurry of emails between bridesmaids over the last two weeks. We have 1 bridesmaid who is superenthusiastic and I’m sure you’re thinking “just let her roll with it then” which is what I thought at first too but her first entirely too long email listed about 10 games she wants us to play at the shower. There are way too many people being invited to this shower to make some of these feasible, plus I know I am not alone saying I don’t like having to ‘think’ when I’m a party guest. I don’t like taking pop quizes, playing word games or competing with other people for prizes. My biggest issue though is that she wants us all to make gift baskets and then for the party guests to guess how much we spent on them. I just think that’s tacky.

One other bridesmaid did write her back and was essentially like “I’m not really a fan of organized games” yadda yadda yadda… And the report from the bride was now the superenthusiastic one thinks someone doesn’t ‘like her’ and the bride wants her to apologize. Unfortunately I think everyone agrees with the one who isn’t a fan of games. After said apology we got another long email about the basket game again. I spent like an hour today composing a reply email that attempted to say “TACKY! & lets not include it” without saying tacky. So we’ll see if she A: gets the hint or B: I’m expected to apologise – I’ll keep you posted.

~~~

As a side note I might also think you’re tacky if you post pictures of your naked baby bump on facebook. Anyone who wants to take such shots for their private collection should go right ahead. While they may be excited that you’re expecting, I don’t think 200 of your less than close friends on facebook want to see your naked abdomen. We make the distinction between ‘friends’ and ‘facebook friends’ for a reason. True, I could just be jealous… but I generally think most everyone should remain fully clothed in their facebook photos regardless of circumstances.