I'm uncoordinated; or Why when Wii Fit asks me if I fall a lot, its correct

Ok, Interwebs, tomorrow I venture into the unknown.

Tomorrow I have a chiropractor appointment and a consult for accupuncture.  I am so excited, yet so nervous!  I'm not sure if they can start any accupunture for fertility yet as I am on bc pills for the next two weeks, but we'll see.  Mostly, I am hoping the chiropractor can make my back feel better.

Want the story?  I'll give you two versions, short and long, you pick!

Short story on the back: I fell.  Told you it was short.

Long version:  Christmas week last December and I'm racing around trying to visit family, wrap presents, make neighbor treats, and work treats, and generally stay sane in the days before the holiday.  I always try to do to much, and I am a horrible procrastinator, so I usually end up doing everything last minute.

So the Sunday before Christmas my mom calls and wants me down at her house to visit.  But I haven't done my laundry, so I tell her I will visit so long as I can do my laundry down there.  Being the great mom she is, she agrees, and I gather everything up.  Head to the car.  And promptly fall off the front porch because I'm not looking where I'm going.  OUCH.  I go down anyway, spend a lot of time on the couch, and my mom does my laundry, because she's awesome like that.

Fast forward two days to Tuesday.  I wake up and the back pain has almost gone away.  Yeah!  I decide to wear cute shoes to work to celebrate (you can see where this is going right?).  I get all pretty for work, and head down the stairs on the inside of the house, where the cat (who was mad at me for taking his toy away) wedges himself between my feet.  I'm only about halfway down the stairs at this point (and there are 14 of the damn things in our house) and I go down.  Hard.  I tried to grab onto something to stop the fall, but only managed to leave claw marks in the walls.  Poor Mister went flying down the stairs and hit the wall.

My hubby comes running down the stairs, to check on me, and there I am, in a pile on the tile floor, sobbing.  I honestly tried to laugh when I landed, because who falls twice in three days?  But when I opened my mouth to laugh, sobs came out.  Sobs and lots and lots of cuss words.  Mister brought over one of his toys and laid it on my chest and meowed at me (how cute is that?) and my husband picked me up and checked me out.

No blood, so off to work I went.  I was IN PAIN.  All. Day. Long.  But I stayed at work, either because I love my job, or I'm just dumb (hint, it's not the first option).

Now here I am, three months later still in pain.  I went to my primary care dr. and had x-rays done.  Nothing broken.  Got some pain pills (I HATE pain pills) and was told to take it easy.  I called her again and she said if the pain pills weren't working she'd give me muscle relaxants.  Um, no thanks!  So tomorrow, I venture into the unknown.  In an attempt to make myself better without drugs.

Because, honestly, I take enough of them anyway.

My Weekend

Wow.  Where to begin?  I'm thinking the only thing that could have made this weekend better is a BFP. 

So. . . I had an absolute blast in Wendover!  It was great spending time with family, and letting loose.  I didn't win any money (but I wasn't expecting too), but I really, truly enjoyed myself.  I drank way, WAY, to much, but honestly, it's not my fault.  Really!  I mean, what do you expect to happen when you go to Nevada with a newly 21 year old cousin?  Yeah, I probably could have refrained. . .

Saturday we went out shooting in the desert, and had so much fun!  I'm getting much better with my aim, so I don't feel like such a city girl when I'm with my husbands family any more.  I shattered my fair share of beer bottles and other things (a side note: it's amazing what people will drive out to the middle of the desert to abandon!  Beer bottles, tvs, computer screens, doors, even a trailer!)  And talk about stress relief!

Sunday I spent with my family, and got my presents.  I love presents!  My husband got me a Wii Fit, and I'm in love!  I can't wait to see how much more weight I can drop with this! (And why am I using so many '!'?  It makes me sound five).  (And speaking of weight loss, I think I told my FIL that I wanted to run a half marathon with him.  I'm pretty sure I was drunk, but he remembers.  Oh God.  I'm going to die!  But at least I'll die skinnier!)  Then, of course, I got my beautiful new sink and faucet, with a sprayer (yeah!).  My mom decided to get me more stuff, and hey, who doesn't like more presents?  She got me some canning supplies so I can can my veggies from my garden this year.  And, AND, guess what else interwebs?

WE'RE GETTING A HOT TUB!!

I've only wanted one forever, and my husband pulled some strings, talked with some friends, and sometime in the next two months he'll be sitting in the hot tub getting all nice and warm.  Why not me you ask?  Why I'll be knocked up of course (see the positive thinking there? impressive.) 

Didn't I tell you it was an awesome weekend?  To bad birthdays involve getting older, I wish all weekends could be this great!

A Blog Post with Random Randomness

Yep, I'm still stuck without a good blog post.  Which leaves me with many random thoughts floating around in my head.  And where else can you be random, if not on a blog, Interwebs?  So beware, I am entering bullet territory again!

• I'm on my last month of bc pills before clo.mid.  I know when my next period will start, and it coincides with a trip my husband's family makes every year to go camping.  In the middle of the desert.  Without toilets.  My husband cheerily told me he'd help me bury (bury, interwebs!) anything I used.  It's a trip I usually look forward to, as we get to shoot guns, and launch rockets, and roast marshmallows (yes, I know these things make me redneckish.  I wasn't before I married my DH, I swear!); those things usually make up for the lack of facilities.  But, I'm thinking I don't want to go and have AF tag along, especially since I'll be on the 'mid for the first time.  What do you think?
• I'm trying to lose 10lbs before I start the 'mid.  I've lost 6, and have until April 15th or so to lose 4 more.  I've been working out every night for at least 30 minutes.  I know I need to lose more than 10, but I thought it was a great start!
• Dingbat got me a birthday card.  And she signed the card with "Hope you have a great B-day + weekend!  Thanks for all your help + friendship"  Does this mean I can't hate her this week?
• Yep, I'm having a birthday.  I'm going to be 28.  I think I'm getting old; not because of my age, 28 is still young (right?!) but because of the birthday present I'm thrilled about.  A new sink and faucet for my kitchen.  It's a deeper sink than I had, and the faucet has one of those sprayer thingies.  I smile every time I walk by it now.  I might get geeky and post a picture.
• Plans for the birthday weekend: going to Benihana with the hubs tonight (I get a free dinner for my birthday because I signed up here); going to Wendover to gamble and drink (It's the closest place to gamble from Salt Lake); having dinner Saturday night with the in laws; and having dinner with my parents on Sunday (My actual birthday).
• I don't really have anything left to say, except, please, please help me decide what to do about the camping trip.  Is the 'mid really an evil drug? Should I stay home and out of the desert while on it?

My Fur Babies

Ok, I've introduced myself, my husband won't let me tell to much about him, so that leaves my fur children! (Why yes, I am having a hard time thinking of a blog post today, why do you ask?)


Me and my hubby have been married since October 2007.  We bought our house in April of 2008, because I'm spoiled well loved and I wanted a dog.  Not just any dog, but a little black and white shih tzu puppy that I'd already named Moo.  I think once I named it my husband gave up.


Moo is just about the sweetest little guy.  Of course, I can say that now that he's 2 years old.  I can't begin to tell you how many times this little ball of fluff had me in tears the first few months.  I never knew how messy and time consuming a puppy could be!

Anyway, back to the Moo story.  I saw him when he was 3 days old.  A little ball of fur; he weighed less than half a pound!  I started working on my husband, telling him how much I loved Moo.  He started house hunting.  The lady that bred him let us make payments (purebreds are not cheap!) and my husband did some computer work for them to help bring down the cost.  The breeder also kept him an extra two weeks (I visited Moo every weekend) and delivered (delivered!!) him to us the day we moved in to the house.

Tears and frustrations from the first year aside, he's been the best little companion for me, as anyone with a loving pet knows.  But I started to feel bad that my husband didn't have a pet (he's a cat person, but I love him anyway).  So I found him a cat.  A beautiful brown cat, brown eyes, brown whiskers, brown pads on his feet, brown everything.  We named him Charlie (get it, Charlie Brown?) And he was so sweet and loveable.  Until he ran away.  Broke. Our. Hearts.

So a month after Charlie ran away, I decided that we all needed a pick me up.  I was depressed, my husband was depressed, Moo was depressed.  So we went to the pound, and found Mister.  Mister is a great cat, although I think he has species identity issues.  Moo and Mister are best friends, and Mister now thinks he's a dog.  He eats dog food along with his cat food, chews on bones, plays fetch better than Moo, and gives kisses.

These little guys make coming home that much nicer.  I can't wait to come home to a real baby though.  I'm guessing that's even better than the fur kind (but don't tell Moo and Mister)

Catch up

I promise I didn't mean to go this long without updating my blog, but. . . .well I haven't felt like there has been anything really big to write about.

So I guess I should get on to the book rant.  I finished Barbara Delinsky's book "The Woman Next Door" and wow.  I guess I should say that I usually really love her books.  That's why I picked this one up.  It was one that I hadn't read yet, and the books are usually a nice, quick, non-thinking book. (Don't take non-thinking as a bad thing.  Sometimes I need a book that tells me everything without having to figure it out)

This particular Delinsky book dealt with the topic of infertility.  It was written in 2001, so some of the IF lingo wasn't up to date.  The character, Amanda, in the book is going through artificial insemination, rather than IUI.  It wasn't completely accurate as to what happens in treatment's but it was good.  And seriously, it was fiction, so I overlooked problems (like when the author stated that if the AI didn't work, Amanda would have an IUI).

I was doing great right up until the last chapter.  So, let me back up and ruin more of the story for you.  Amanda and Grahm, her husband, decide to take a month break to refocus on their marriage; things have been getting rocky between the two of them.  So, of course during this break, they are acting like a couple of teenagers, and have sex about a billion times.  And I'm sure you see where this is going, but I remained hopeful that it wasn't going to be the sugary sweet conclusion.

But, Interwebs, it was.  The last chapter, Amanda is waiting for AF to arrive so she can restart treatments; she and Grahm are happily in love again.  But wait!  Amanda is waiting for AF to show up, like any good book version of AF would, precisely on the correct day.  Until, she realizes that the day AF was due was yesterday.  So she rushes home, takes a test, and whats that?  It's positive!  It turns out all Amanda and Grahm needed to do was stop trying, and their three years of IF just disappeared. 

I was so mad when I finished this book.  It was perpetuating the idea (that many people who don't have problems conceiving have) that if you just relax, and stop trying, you too will get pregnant!  I know, its a book.  It's fiction, and fiction almost always ends happily ever after.  But seriously, someone out there needs to write a good fiction book about IF.  It can still have a happy ending (in fact, it better), but hopefully will avoid the cliches. 

--------------------------------
In other weekend news, I attended a baby shower for a cousin on Saturday.  And it was mostly fun.  I say mostly because I really hate shower games.  The cousin is living in Hawaii due to the military.  We got all of the Utah family together and then brought her to us using skype.  It was a lot of fun.  We'll be shipping her gifts to her Monday.

Other than that, the weekend was pretty low key.  We went out to dinner with some friends of mine from work on Friday.  Saturday morning I spent cleaning the house, Saturday night we watched movies and ate chicken nuggets with another friend couple.  And today?  I've been incredibly lazy and loving every minute of it!

A quick update:

I know you are all waiting with bated breath to hear my rant about the book I read this week, right? 

Well, you're going to have to wait until Friday.  I just got a phone call from a friend.  She invited me to go to a bar with her tonight, which normally I would not do on a Thursday night.  Until she said they were going to drink to her dad.  Which means, Interwebs, that I am going to a bar.  To listen to an 80's hair band cover band*.  And to have a drink in memory of a really great man.

So the rant will come.  But tonight I'm going to let myself cry a little, laugh a lot, and enjoy life. 

*I tried really hard to make that sentence sound better, but I couldn't!

St. Patricks Day

I've got a blog in the works for tomorrow.  Just thought I'd throw that out there and give you fair warning!  It's going to be another rant.  About a book I just read, and how it deals with infertility.

St. Patrick's Day.  It's another holiday that America has taken as their own.  We're not quite sure about all the surrounds it (at least I'm not) but we dutifully wear green on March 17 every year.  And that's what hit me about this holiday today. 

Wearing green.  Of course we wear green Amber, I can hear you saying.  But as I was sitting on the bus this morning (haha, another green moment.  ok, that was lame, forgive me) I was struck by the different types of people wearing green.  The people who work at the LDS Church Office Building had green ties, or green pins.  The maintence guy had a green shirt under his coveralls.  Students had green anything and everything.  And it amazed me that all of these different types of people could come together like this.  Without even stopping to think about the enormity of it all.

Think about it: Republicans and Democrats who don't agree on much both wear green on St. Patrick's Day.  People of different faiths wear green.  The rich, and the poor wear green.  I even saw a homeless guy with green on today (Although that may have been his only shirt.  Work with me though, I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy).

It may sound silly, but when I stopped and thought about it, it made me smile.  And it made an otherwise uneventful Wednesday a little nicer.

The Crazy Adventures of Dingbat - Updated

I'm sure you've seen the title of my blog.  This is a full blown rant.  Feel free to skip it if you want.  I promise, I won't have hurt feelings!

Dingbat is my co-worker.  I call her my cell mate at work, and she thinks its hilarious.  Yeah, I smile on the inside when she laughs.  I like to think I'm a nice person, and that I don't hold negative feelings towards people, but Dingbat has proven me wrong.

Honestly?  She's a great person.  She's super sweet.  But some of the things she does, really truly bug the crap out of me.  And by the end of some days, its all I can do to watch her leave and not throw a computer, keyboard, pencil at her head.

I'm sure I'll end up regaling you with many stories of Dingbat.  In fact, you've probably already read one post that focused on her.  Today was something else entirely.  Today Dingbat: (and yes, you know its bad when I use bullet points)

• Told me about her lack of bladder control at work.  Several times. 
• Told me about how the dinner she had with her friend on Saturday gave her bowel problems.  Several times.
• Told me how she really likes this new guy she's dating, but doesn't like the way he kisses.  Yes, she described the kisses.  Did I mention Dingbat is 60?
• Talked to me in baby talk.  Several times.  "Oh, are you making a phone call?"  "Oh, are you cold?" as I put on my sweatshirt.  "Oh, are you going to go potty?"  I wish I was making this up.
• Showed up to work 45 minutes late but left right on time.  The reason she was late?  Daylight savings time.  The reason she was late Friday? Traffic.  Thursday? The dog "had to tinkle outside on the widdle lawn"

Ok, I think I'm done for the day.  If you made it this far, I applaud you. 

--------Updated----------
Ok, after reading fellow blogger's Samantha's post about her coworker's lack of sensitivity regarding IF, I've found one good thing about sharing an office with Dingbat.  She's an IFer too.  It took her 11 years to have her first bio baby.  So at least she doesn't give me dumb advice!  See that Interwebs? I'm not always negative!  I just found a silver lining!

Apology for Blog Problems

When I started this blog I added a gadget to count my blog hits.  I added it directly from Blogger, and promptly forgot about it.

Yesterday, when I was trying to access my blog, it redirected me to another site.  I tried again, and again, and got the same result.  So today, I decided to find out what the problem was. 

It seems that in that gadget for counting blog hits, was a sneaky little bit of code.  This little bit of code hung around for a few months, and then yesterday came out of hiding and started redirecting people to another website. 

Lukcily, Interwebs, I have a great husband who understands html code!  We sat down this morning and fixed the problem. 

So if you tried to visit me yesterday, and were redirected, I apologize.  The problem has been identified and fixed.

Premonition?

I’ve always guessed that I’d have problems becoming a mom.  When I was 13, I had to go to our family doctor because of an almost three month period.  I was so anemic they almost gave me a blood transfusion.  The Doctor put me on bc pills and sent me home.  No tests were run.

I was on and off of bc pills for all of my teenage years, and college years.  When I was off, my cycles were screwy.   Talking with my new obgyn, themostfabulousdoctor, it’s probably saved me a lot of heartache now by being on them so long before.  He said that being on the bc pills probably saved a lot of my eggs.

In college, I did stupid college girls things, had one steady boyfriend, and a couple of pregnancy scares.  Looking back on those scares made me start to question my fertility.  I’d done everything I wasn’t supposed to do to avoid pregnancy (ie, stopped taking bc pills, having unprotected sex) and hadn’t gotten pregnant.  That told me that maybe it wasn’t going to be so easy for me.

Putting that together with what happened to my 13 year old self, and I came to realize that I might not be able to get pregnant.  It wasn’t, and isn’t, a for sure thing that I won’t.  I still have hope that I will be a bio mom.  But when things started getting serious between me and my hubby when we were dating, I told him what had happened to me up to that point.  Not a fun conversation to have.

And you know what the sweet man said?  That it didn’t matter.  That he’d be happy if we adopted kids.  He wasn’t with me for my ability to give him a family, but because he loved me.  Interwebs, if I hadn’t known I was in love with him before then that would have sealed the deal.

We got married, and decided we wanted to wait a few years for kids.  Fast forward to last May.  I went to my yearly exam, talked to the doctor and decided to start trying.  Removed the goalie.  Told everyone how excited I was to start trying, knowing it would just be a matter of time right? (even though I suspected problems I was still optimistic)

That brings us to January.  9 months and 4 cycles later, I knew I had a problem.  That’s when I found the obgyn, themostfabulousdoctor, and he tentatively diagnosed me with PCOS after hearing my history.  And so, here we are.  In the midst of The Plan. 

I’m really getting excited to have a real chance at having a baby.  But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if anyone else had any idea that they would have problems before they started trying.  Am I the only one?

Thinking Time

I wrote this post Tuesday when I was sitting in court:

How much do you know about fingerprint analysis?  After today I know a lot more than I ever thought I would, more than I will ever need to know.  I'm sitting here in court, waiting for cross examination of this witness to be over, so I can get the next witness.  And until I can get the next witness, I don't have anything to do.

As always, given the time to think, my brain jumps to my IF.  I don't have a diagnosis of IF (infertility) from the doctor.  Not one in writing at least.  And I haven't been trying tor the requisite year.  It's only been 10 months.  10 months and 4 cycles.  Which is why I went into the doctor in January.  And why the doctor gave me a hypothesized diagnosis of PCOS, and helped to set The Plan into motion.

I'm halfway done with the first part of The Plan.  I'm halfway through my second month of birth control.  If everything goes perfectly, on what I feel is our first "real" try, we could have a baby by this time next year.

Part of me is so hopeful.  The other part of me has already given up.  In the back of my mind I'm already trying to figure out how to pay for an IUI, IVF, or adoption.  I'm trying to figure out how far I will go before I stop.

Why do I do this to myself?  Am I trying to prepare myself for heartache?  Am I just sabotaging any happiness I have?

I truly feel alone in this process.  My sister in law, R, is going through this, and that helps.  But I feel my husband doesn't understand how I feel, and that my mother can't comprehend why I focus on this.  Other people with blogs have such great support.  I don't feel I belong there.  I have no official diagnosis of IF.  I haven't been trying a whole year.  As far as we know, the only problem we have with trying to conceive is me, and my lack of ovulation, potentially from PCOS.

So where does that leave me?

Spring

Remember how I promised a positive, happy post?  Here it is!

On Saturday I set out to clean up my gardens for spring.  Yes, it was still February, but it was such a beautiful sunny day!  I started in my front yard and pulled out all of the winter detritus.  And you know what I found?  Hyacinths and tulips poking an inch above the ground. 

Proof:

What a fabulous surprise!  Out of the frozen earth, from underneath blankets of leaves and snow, life arrived.  What beautiful symbolism, and a ray of hope.  I'm awed every spring by this renewal of life.  My faith in a higher purpose, in God, is reborn with the fresh life and soft green of spring. 

Spring may not quite be here officially, but I took so much from seeing those small shoots of life.