Eager for ER

I am so ready to get all these little buggers out of me! I am really bloated and uncomfortable. I know this is normal. It hurts to walk and to sit, so I've been basically laying on my back most of the day. I have no idea how people do this and work. I guess I'm spoiled, but it really would be inhumane. Though that could be said for the whole process. My boobs are killing me too. They tend to be pretty sensitive to the hormones I've taken over the last year, but the last few days they are really hurting. It hurts to wear a bra, it hurts not to wear one. I can't win.

S is missing another important client meeting tomorrow to take me to ER, so he had to tell his bosses why he can't be there. One is the the great guy who takes us sailing and the other apparently went through all this with his wife (they have since adopted two children), so they are cool. My bosses have been good about leaving me alone the last week, which I guess is good. It'll be interesting to go back.

Since I seemed to respond well to stims, I'm really eager to see how many eggs they retrieve, how many are mature, how many fertilize (we are doing ICSI). It's going to be a whole lot more waiting the next few days and weeks, but I could be pg in just two more. It's so hard to believe.

Triggering TONIGHT!

My follies liked the big kick they got yesterday and took off, and after a good monitoring appt. this morning (which I brought S to, I figured he needed to meet the vag cam at least once ;) ), I just got the call that I'm triggering tonight @ 10:30pm! Just took one last shot at 225, finishing nearly every last drop of my Gonal-F. My ER is Tuesday morning @ 8:30 am, ET on Friday or Sunday, so we'll likely be going up to WI for Thanksgiving. Beta on 11/30... :)

IVF update

I promise I haven't been being coy about my IVF cycle, my clinic just isn't very forthcoming with specific info. When they called this afternoon, instead of putting instructions on the med line, I made sure to ask for numbers. When I've been going in every other day for monitoring, they've just told me everything looks great and my Dr. has been keeping my meds pretty steady. As of this morning's early morning monitoring appt...

14 measurable/25 total follies (17 x 2, 15 x 3, 14 x 4, 12, 11 x 3, 10), 11 smaller
lining: 9.5
E2: 1619
LH: 3.0
P4: 1.6

The u/s tech said that my right ovary looked "gorgeous" this morning... :) Thirteen of the follies and both the 17s and two each of the 15s and the 14s are on that one.

I just took another 300 iu of Gonal F and go back in tomorrow AM again. I could trigger as early as tomorrow night, for an ET Tuesday! If not then, Mon. trigger for an ET on Wednesday at the latest!! I AM SO EXCITED!! :)

Pattern mixing and subway tiles

For those of you who read for the infertility coverage, I apologize in advance, as I'm breaking my own rules (of not filling my blog with mag pics) again. But trust me, it's worth it. I thought it was time for some pretty pics. I find home design to be the nearly perfect opposite to infertility, kind of irrelevant in the whole scheme of important things, but it makes me happy (when done well, of course).

So my latest assignment for my design class was "pattern mixing", which is actually much harder than it sounds. And in catching up on all my magazines from the last few months, I found two homes (in NYC and the Hamptons) which jumped out at me and put a huge smile on my face, and show pattern mixing done well.

The first is the home of Nancy Tilghman (featured in the October House Beautiful), designed by Daniel Sachs. The second is of Cosima Von Bulow Pavoncelli (featured in November Town & Country), designed by Markham Roberts. They are each, in nearly every room, just chock full of John Robshaw and Peter Dunham textiles. I didn't stand a chance...

From House Beautiful...
I love the dark blue in this foyer, and am still looking for the perfect blue for our den (to become a boy's room, if needed). Some crisp white beadboard will balance it out and lighten it up nicely for a kid's room.







I loved this use of paper, and yes I had to run out and do this with our china cabinet immediately.









From Town & Country...






In case you missed it, in addition to having a very similar vibe (feminine colors, great patterns, global influences), they both have great white kitchens with nearly identical blue-gray subway tiles. I love these! When we finally redo our kitchen (replacing the old white cabs with new white ones), I am so getting these.
*HB sources

Hormones

...are not my friend right now. Not only am I starving (like don't stand between me and food hungry) all the time, I'm having terrible dreams. Like violent, awful, horrific nightmares. Lovely.

We may spend Thanksgiving at home instead of going to WI to see family (bc of ET), and S has decided that he needs to go back to India to deal with family stuff the last few weeks of the year, so I will be spending my brief time off for the holidays alone/with my family. The timing is such as he has several days off of work already for Christmas and New Year's, and since he is completely out of PTO from September, he can minimize the amount of time he needs to take unpaid. He would have gone back already, if we weren't cycling. My family is five hours away, but they are not easily mobile with my wheelchair bound grandmother and my sister's three small kids.

I'm usually pretty levelheaded (or at least I like to think so ;)), but my drugged out body/mind is already working up scenarios where even if we get pg this cycle, something terrible happens when he's gone (either to him or the baby). I'm not sure how I got to this point where my coping skills are so crappy.

Because I'm a sucker...

for cute baby animals... (these pics were just sitting on my desktop)




and cute baby stuff (and anything Indian...)

the Taj blanket is on its way from OKL... (yes, I've succumbed to buying baby stuff again, even though my "babies" are just follies on a TV screen. Hell, it's progress.)

Like these...


How did I not know Rikshaw Design existed before now? I am in love with all of it. It's the company I would start, if it didn't already exist. Love.love.love.

Bombay


Udaipur


I wonder if the owner of Rikshaw (Catherine Fitzsimmons) is the one who was doing baby kurtas @ PBK a few years back? Hmmm...

Our green house

If/when we build one, I've found one I like, the Carson with addition model from New World Home (the blue one on the home page). If you follow decor blogs or read CL, there has been lots of talk about the New World Home/Country Living "Home of the Year" built this summer in NYC (and designed by Katie Ridder), but if you go to the NWH website, you'll find lots of other fun models for various lifestyles.

We've come to the somewhat sad realization that after five years in a 2,300 sq. ft. house that we will probably not comfortably be able to downsize our primary residence to anything much smaller than this anytime soon, as much as we'd love a bit place in the city, which we are also working on. I used to have all of 400 sq ft. to call my own, but you know what they say about expanding to fill the available space. But we also don't want anything much larger, even if/when we have a couple kids. We just aren't aspiring McMansion people. And regardless of how many eco-friendly renovations we undertake, our quirky early 70's contemporary will never be an energy saving marvel.

And since DH is a LEED guy (certification pending) and I am a designer-in-training (ASID card in the mail ;) ) it might be a fun project, especially given the relatively turn-key nature of modular building, but we gotta get this baby making thing out of the way first of course. My sister and her husband built their green home before they had their three kids, but they did it the hard way, almost completely by themselves. We know this is not for us.

My favorite things about this model: the big/open kitchen and family room (similar to our current layout, only bigger), and a master big enough for a sitting area. Things I would want to work on: bathrooms are small (no tub in master), switching living and dining rooms and maybe opening them up, exactly where to put the garage and mudroom? (on the left for symmetry, or on the back of house, and adding a 2nd story). A few of these modifications have been made on this model built in NY.