Mission Accomplished!

Blurry me and Thomas O'Brien

I wasn't planning on another post today, but it was such a good one, I couldn't help myself. I breezed into Tom O'Brien's lecture this morning, which was a great walk through of his new book.


All those empty seats were "reserved" and went unfilled, grr...

I figured I should buy one and get it signed since I was there. It's just a gorgeous book. My favorite part, since I haven't read it yet, is the design on the liner pages. Beautiful!



Last weekend, when we drove down Irving Park in the city to get to our event, I saw sunburst mirrors in the window of Lincoln Antiques, but we were already late. And since both of my nights of JD went so late, I stopped by today to check them out. I bought this and LOVE IT! It looks like it was made to go in this spot in our dining room, opposite the picture window.

Taking the day off

I'm taking the day off to go to the city and play. I am not pg, but AF has not shown up yet. S was supposed to be off today too, but he is busy with a new proposal, so I'm flying solo.

We head up to WI tomorrow for my nephew's baptism on Sunday. I can't wait to see the kids and my fam, but honestly I'm not really dying to see all of my extended family. My immediate family knows exactly what's happening with us, but I have no idea what any of the rest of them know.

We are looking forward to our meeting with the RE on Tuesday to figure out what we are doing next. Have a great weekend!

Stalking Thomas O'Brien

Of course I'm not really stalking him, but he is coming to the Merchandise Mart tomorrow to do the keynote address at the International Antiques Fair. And guess who waited too long to RSVP? It is now full, but I'm going to go and see if I can get in anyway. He is promoting his new book, American Modern.


Some of my favorite Tom O'Brien pieces:
Marielle (my phantom daughter's name)- Indigo dinnerware by Reed&Barton
Marco Rug for Safavieh

And of course there are all of his yummies @ Target...

Handpainted dinnerware

Boring, I know, but his towels are the best. We have them in multiple shades blue, sage, chocolate and white because I couldn't pick fewer colors than that...

TOB throw

Justice is served

I didn't think that jury duty would be so traumatic that I would look forward to coming back to work. But here I am. I don't really want to talk about it yet. We had to deliberate late into the evening and ended up finding him guilty on both charges. I'm just enjoying being connected back to the world. I missed my phone and my computer and my sheltered life.


Love this pillow on OKL today. I'm a bicentennial baby...

Jury Duty!

So I got picked today (lucky me, right?). I can't talk about it until it is over, but I'm learning a ton. It's boring and sad and fascinating all at the same time. More to come...

The Trust Hormone and A Life without Fear

There was an interesting story on NPR this weekend on Williams Syndrome called, When the 'Trust Hormone' is Out of Balance. My eldest sister Sara, who is now 40, was born with Williams Syndrome and since it is quite rare, it is always interesting when it gets picked up in the media.

As a gene deletion/chromosomal condition from conception, there is no "cure", but this is the first time I've heard it characterized as having the same affects (though not stated as being influenced by) having too much oxytocin. Today's installation is called A Life without Fear. Last week the series talked about those w/WS lacking racial bias.

Also,
NPR story on WS and language from 7/06

NPR story on WS and music from 10/06

Nice to see that over the last four years they've dropped their description of those w/WS as "elf-like"... Hope there is increasing depth to the series.

Three strikes and you're out

I'm finding this is my rule for evaluating RE's. Here's the history...

RE #1:
strike 1: didn't want to do anything about septum which she found on initial HSG a year ago (RE #2 ordered MRI and we learned it took up most of my ute, and as it was fibrous its presence basically guaranteed I'd never get pg, as no blood flow @ implantation site = not viable)

strike 2: insisted on giving me Clomid even though we both knew I O'd on my own (and I had lowish E2)

strike 3: botched IUI #2 by "waiting for more follies" when I had a 19.
After the IUI fiasco, she had the balls to suggest we go right to IVF. No thanks...

RE #2: (her nurse is actually a big part of the problem here)
strike 1: Dr/nurse wouldn't address my reaction to post-surgery prog (stop taking cranberry pills was their reaction to my multi-day excruciating stomach bleed)

strike 2: RE's SB vacation (or rather her insistence on doing test herself) pushed back my HSG a month (as I refused to go on BCP/lose a mo. to accommodate her schedule)

strike 3: this is shared w/RE #1 (but she was useless and #2 is actually decent), but no thought of and actually resistant to checking my post-O prog levels when I present what everyone agrees is a "fertile" profile, but am not.getting.pg.

I can't wait until the mtg. on the 4th. Needless to say, it's no longer an IVF consult (which she didn't think I "needed", but I had resigned myself to doing...)

It's probably a good thing that I decided at the last minute not to go to law school, as the main word on the tip of my tongue right now is MALPRACTICE. I need to cool down. Maybe I would have gotten further faster if I'd followed my initial plan and gone to med school. This is truly unbelievable.

A breakthrough, perhaps.

I'm still processing all the craziness of Friday. I went to the RE in the morning for my 7dpo progesterone test (which I called and scheduled on my own, only to get a call back from the nurse asking why I was coming in). When the new nurse who did my blood draw called with my results in the afternoon, I knew right away when she said it that it was low (7.48), but she said nothing and since I was sitting at work I didn't want to get into it right there. So I doubled checked what is normal (>10 natural cycle, >15 medicated) and turned to the board to see what they thought I should do. The consensus was ask for a supplement next month, but I thought, why wait?

As I was running out of the office at 3pm to go to the city for my acu study consult, I made sure I had the info I needed to call from the car to get some sort of action from my RE. When I spoke to the nurse (SA, not the new one), she still seemed puzzled as to why I had come in for the test (she guessed to see if I had O'd, not because I actually thought and wanted to confirm that I have low P). Her exact words, "we didn't think you were trying this month." I don't know if I've ever been so angry. Was she kidding? I mentioned to her twice that our meeting with the RE next month is an IVF consult, so why does she think we aren't trying. It's really beyond me to understand her reasoning at all. She is the worst person in that office.

So after she acknowledged that if we were trying, she'd like to see it at 15, I asked if I should expect a call from the Dr. on what we are going to do, or if she already had or what. She only then agreed to try to get a hold of the Dr. to see what she wanted to do this cycle. Within a few minutes, she called back and left a msg. that the Dr. wanted me to start Crinone 8% that night and then to continue every morning (until when, TBD) and she had already called it in to our local fertility pharmacy. This is the fastest, most proactive thing that has come out of this office, and they are the good RE.

(Crinone, my new best friend)

Then when I finally made it to the wellness clinic for the acu study consult, I got to rehash my entire history with the dr. (who I had spoken to on the phone and had my doubts about, but who was very nice). She had to stop me several times as she was a bit overwhelmed with what I was telling her (which should probably worry me). It's so old hat to me, I could recite it all in my sleep. She also maintains that I am "out of balance" and fortunately I was able to share with her my newly discovered hormonal issue.

She is still interviewing candidates for the study (so not in the clear yet), but she seemed very positive. I should hear in the next two weeks. Sadly, she did tell me that my 4+ mos. of weekly acu sessions likely were not really helping me beyond making me feel better for a bit after each one, as infertility needs to be treated with a minimum of two treatments a week to actually have any benefit. So like other recent discoveries, this made me at first very mad (how many thousands would I spend at the other clinic before she upped my regimen?), but then it made me happy that now I knew better than I had before.

Thanks to my DH, I got my Crinone before the pharmacy closed and now I just trying to feel out the side effects. So far, constipation, hot flashes, general not so great feeling, but somehow I feel fabulous that we might be closer to an answer. I'm trying not to think of the fact that we could/should have found this out a YEAR ago. I'm due on Friday and I'm not holding out for a miracle, but besides making my month/year, it would certainly make our weekend at my nephew's baptism with all the family much more palatable.

Choosing the perfect house color (update)

We've lived in our house for nearly 4 1/2 years and one of the many great things about our HOA is that they paint the houses every five on a rotating schedule. So we bought the house, despite not being crazy about the color, knowing that we could change it when the time came (without having to pay to do it ourselves, which we are much too practical to even consider). We didn't realize the house had just been painted when we bought it, so we've patiently waited and the time is finally here. Yay!

One of the not so lovely things about our HOA is that they dictate the colors that you have to choose from to paint your house. Weird, right? But given the options, we figured we could come up with something.

Our subdivision is comprised of single family and town homes all in what I've discovered is a "mountain style," like this... (NB: this is not our house)



Cedar siding with brick accents and natural/neutral colors. Since my go-to style is cape cottage, this was not a natural fit for me, but I bit the bullet since the layout, location, etc. was what we wanted. One of my main criteria was no vinyl siding, which may sound strange, but I have a sort of allergy (design wise, of course) to it, so that ruled out most of the houses in the areas we were considering given when they were developed. Any who, back to colors.

Our house is currently "beige gray" (Ben Moore solid siding stain, all color representations from here)



With trim in "cocoa"


And when we replaced our old brown leaky aluminum (ick!) windows a few years back with Pella's Impervia fiberglass super energy efficient ones, we got them in brown.



We spent a lot of time thinking about this, since we knew we wanted to change the house color as soon as we could, but after we discovered the brown sliding glass doors on the front of the house (yes, you heard that right) were of a non-std. size (of course), they would have cost a fortune to replace. So we just upgraded the glass and went with brown windows so that everything would continue to match. Since we figured a house with non-matching windows = really bad.

I also thought the trim should probably continue to match the windows, so it all blends well. Also if we were to change the trim color we'd have to prime and then repaint the fence.

We also redid the roof, and those shingles look like this...
(CertainTeed architectural in "mission brown")

So everytime we go to buy stain @ Ben Moore, I look at the color options. I found this one, called "stone hedge," awhile back...


(it's really a sort of blue gray)

But then when we went recently for fence paint (we have to do this ourselves, ugh!), S thought we might be able to pull off this with the brown trim. It's called "cape cod gray" What a tease (the husband and the color), right?



So we got some of the cape gray to try out on the back of the house to see how it would look like w/the trim. And sadly, it didn't do it for me. So I went back and got the stone blue. They look almost identical on the house, but somehow the stone hedge looks better. So now we get to "apply" to the HOA for a color change and hope they approve. I knew I should have run for the board. Wish us luck! :)

Update: I was overruled and we applied for the Cape Cod Gray. More to come...

What I'm not doing while I'm not getting pregnant...

When I started this little blog, I posted this detailing all the things we did in our first full year TTC (from our unsent holiday letter). Unfortunately, now we are well into our second year, and lately I've been thinking about what I'm not doing (as much) now that we are really in the trenches.

For one, I don't sleep like I used to, which I attribute mostly to stress. I also am not exercising as much as I used to (this is likely not helping me in the sleep dept. either). I also sadly don't spend as much time with friends as I used to. The time and energy I am devoting to getting pregnant, used to be spent in these other (based on our track record, more productive) ways.

The sadness leads to isolation and I find the most helpful refuge in my marriage and family. Don't get me wrong, I have great friends, but none who know first hand what it is like to go through what we are experiencing. I think, in an odd sort of way, I'm trying to protect them from the horrors. But I'm probably not doing myself any favors in the process. I am also not at all focused on my work, which doesn't trouble me as much as it probably should, but it sure makes the days go by much slower. I'm also not drinking, as it just isn't pleasurable anymore.

As an example, this morning I had my blood draw for my 7 dpo prog test. I had to get up extra early (i.e. less sleep, no morning workout) to get to the clinic for the 8am appt. I then got to sit there for 30 minutes waiting for the nurse to do a 5 minute blood draw. In a few hours, I'll need to leave work several hours early to drive into the city for my consult w/the clinic that is doing the acupuncture for fertility study (link). Bonus is I get to pick up dinner from here. Marigold is one of my favorite Indian restaurants in the city.



Anyway, not to get totally sidetracked... Then I get to rise early tomorrow to go to my existing acupuncturist for my weekly visit. Tomorrow night is the big fundraiser, so I get to put on my happy face and fancy dress and try to avoid getting smashed at the martini bar...

City getaway

I SO need to plan another weekend city getaway for S and me. We haven't stayed over since January (eek!). I need my city fix. I love this new hotel. The Elysian.

Arrival


Lobby



Spa


King room w/fireplace :)


A Gold Coast suite


w/balcony...


source: jetsetter.com

Happy Earth Day!

Celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day by doing something (even something small) to help keep it a nice place to hang out.

Four cheap ideas to get you thinking...
-If you regularly get drinks out (coffee, etc.), carry a reusable mug
-If you haven't already, switch to reusable shopping bags and nix the plastic
-Recycle everything you can (out at the curb or give HH items to charity)
-If you live in a house, compost your table scraps and yard clippings

Four earth issues that keep me up at night: Clean water, air quality, waste disposal, impact of hazardous chemicals.

A very long year

As of this month, it's been one year since we first went to see the RE. We had only been TTC for six months at that point, but with my regular cycles but terrible AF's, our perfect timing and advancing age, we were more than eager to get to the bottom of what was (or in our case, was not) going on in there. Sadly we got more questions than answers. Two surgeries, two IUI's, and another RE later, we are not much further along than where we started. :(

I would be remiss to not mention how awesome my DH, S, has been over this long year. He's still wonderful and always my anchor. I am so glad that I married a man who is strong and sensitive and supportive and not some jerk who flips out when things get tough (not thinking of anyone in particular, of course ;)). This is what I picked out (and received) for Christmas...


We have almost exactly as much left to our infertility coverage as an IVF cycle costs with our clinic. $12.5K is a lot of money. And we may not be successful... And then where will we be? A bit older and planning to divert money that could/should go to our retirement, travel, charity, and home improvements for the possibility (a gamble really) of conceiving a child. I would need to be pg before the end of the year in order to have a baby in my arms by the time I turn 35.

Where does the time go?

Lovelies on OKL

One Kings Lane

Let me know if you need an invite. Lots of lovelies today, enjoy!


Dempsey & Carroll Hydrangea Notes


Pur Cashmere Jacquard throw


Oscar de la Renta Island three wick candle (OKL must haves)

Our house = Romper Room

We are hosting my sister E and her brood tonight, as they are out on their first midwestern roadtrip since nephew I was born in January. The last time they visited was last fall (b4 I's arrival), see pic here. I somehow didn't get any pics when we were up in February, I think I may have forgotten my camera... Will definitely get some cute new pics up soon.

Her kids are nephew B (38 months), niece N (16 mos.), and nephew I (3 mos.) We'll be heading back up to WI the first weekend in May for I's baptism. Conveniently S will be away teaching a class at UIC tonight. There is definitely some Veggie Tales in my near future... ;)

Making Decisions

So hopefully the above is what's happening right now and we'll be blessed with a January 2011 baby, but given the last year and a half we are making decisions about how we want to proceed if this once again does not come to pass. After these 19 months, we know little more than when we started about why we are where we are.

Well, we do know that S's sperm is fine and that after two surgeries, my uterus is all clear and available for occupancy. My blood tests and exams indicate that I am ovulating, my tubes are open, and I've always gotten AF at regular intervals. What we don't know if why we are not getting pregnant.

So this leads us to the decision to pursue IVF. We are moving forward early this summer if we are not yet pregnant. This is at the same time terrifying and reassuring (how often does that happen?). I'm hoping for a baby (by 35, preferably), but I guess even some answers would be a huge accomplishment at this point. We have insurance coverage for one cycle and then we will be OOP.

But I don't know yet who will be doing my procedures. My current RE is nice, but we've had several instances where she and her nurse were less than helpful, to be kind (detailed here and here). And while the office I see her at is convenient, FCI's IVF centers are not. They are in HP and the city. My previous RE is very convenient (i.e. across the street from my office), but given her indifference about my septum, I don't know that I feel comfortable going back to see her. There are several other clinics in the area, but they will need to be interviewed.

So there will be much more to come, but we've finally made the decision...

Nantucket morning

Nantucket harbor-July 2009
Happy Patriot's Day!

Finallys, finallies?

Antiques & Garden Fair

So it's finally Friday. I think this may have been one of the longest weeks ever. Work is really slow, so I've been exploring the blogosphere... Lots of great design stuff out there. S is home today, as he does flex hours to have every other Friday off. Besides hanging my painting and curtains, he says he'll be day trading. :| There is nothing worse than having to come to work when he is at home. :(

My temps are up. I. am. finally. ovulating. Probably tomorrow, actually. So like my wacky sleep patterns, (if I get up at 4am one morning for an early flight, I get up at 4am for the next hundred mornings), I'm thinking am now ovulating after three weeks (instead of my normal 17 days) because of those three weeks of high dose estrogen I was on in Feb. And then my luteal phase is still the super predictable 12 days. Wonder how long this will last. The good news is that means I won't be getting AF next Saturday at our black tie event. But I also won't be drinking anything at the open bar... Hope you all have a great weekend! :-)

Looking for light

Williams Sonoma Home-Crisscross Hurricane

I probably don't need to buy any more candle holders, but here is just one.last.one. I think I'll put it in the family room.

Recent additions to the living room...

Arhaus broken glass candle holder
and

Z Gallerie Casablanca lantern

I.love.this.magazine.

The April/May issue is finally here! It's Green! Enjoy!

Lonny Mag Issue #4

My faux snake skin tray from Jayson is featured twice! On pages 83 & 167. Their source is Global Table, and I think this was originally featured in Domino (back in the day...)
Here it is from I Suwannee, as Lonny wasn't letting me grab photos. I think everyone has one of these now...



Oh and the Pratesi chain link duvets/shams on 113 & 143 look just like my new ones, except mine are from the BB&B clearance section. ;) I guess I should have figured they were a knock off of something spectacularly expensive (my taste...) As in ~$2K for a king duvet cover and two euro shams vs. my steal of <$60 (incl BB&B coupons, of course). Wow!

It's only Tuesday...

And I'm already thinking about the weekend... Not a good sign, huh? It is supposed to be in the 80's the next few days and then cool down for the weekend. Perfect for the Antiques and Garden Fair at the Botanic Garden. One of my favorite events at one of my favorite places. I can't wait!
Chicago Botanic Garden

S is away at Toastmasters tonight, so I'm thinking of checking out Glee. I typically avoid shows that have anything to do w/high school, so we'll see how it goes. ;)

We finally got our taxes done. I am so done with our accountant, what a heel. I end up doing most of the work myself, since he apparently doesn't know what he's doing. Good news is we ended up owing about half of what we originally thought we would. Yay for positive business revenue so we could take our start-up write-offs from last year!