Forgot to mention.....

GO GET A MAMMOGRAM!!!

MariaElena

Just thought I'd let everyone know that last week, Paul's sister, MariaElena, was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. She had found a small lump right before Christmas and decided to wait until after the holidays to get it checked out. Time got away from them but she finally made it to a doctor who, after running numerous tests, gave her the news that it's cancer. She's going in for surgery this coming Monday. They think that's it's spread to her lymph nodes, but they have more testing to do to find out.

She's doing remarkably well, attitude-wise. She's definitely positive and upbeat about beating this, and she's relying on humor to help get her through. She has 2 little kids (Claire is 1 and Lucas will be 4 in May) so she wants to remain positive for them as well. She knows she has a long road ahead of her, but she's strong and will get through it.

If anyone is interested in reading her new caringbridge site, you can find it here. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

The winter of my discontent.

Eeee-gads, I hate winter. I hate being cold (especially now that I no longer have free access to a jacuzzi tub) and I hate snow. I miss green! I miss leaves on trees! I miss mowing the lawn! Winter, however, can provide some pretty pictures. I've taken a few of them along the way and posting them on my photo site in a file called Winter 2008, or something like that (for those who don't know, my site is here). Here are a couple I took tonight (that aren't on the site):

You can see how deep the snow has gotten in the second. It's awful--for those who are lucky enough to NOT live in the Chicago area (worse, if you live in Florida), this is what we're having to deal with. We had a foot dumped on us last weekend, and this afternoon, another one's expected. There's no where to throw it anymore.


Ok, enough about this horrid stuff. On the family front, Kate is pregnant! And there's only one in there! For anyone who might not know (I think all who read this do know), my uber-courageous sister is now a surrogate for a very lucky family. The thought did cross my mind that WE may need her services as well when she's done, but we'll figure that out later. In the meantime, she's managed to get out of having to shovel (lucky bitch).


School is going surprisingly well! I'm so much happier this term, thus the students are happier. All is well on the work front. The vet clinic job is so cool. I've gotten to see and experience things there that I had always dreamed of doing. I have a high tolerance for seeing blood, however vomit is still a problem (not so much with animals). :)


I hope someone, somewhere who's reading this is enjoying warm weather. I dream of it. Every. Damn. Night. Please don't write and tell me about it though. I don't think I could take it!

Enjoy!

RATS!

I'm almost halfway through my NCC teaching! YAY! It's actually going quite smoothly. I've surprised myself this term by tackling the thing I tend to put off the longest--grading. That's not to say I like it, but I'm taking it on head first. Today in class, the students took a short quiz that I managed to get graded before the end of the second class! They had an in-class assignment and I graded them during that, so before I even left the room, I'd handed them back. That's never happened before. :)

I start teaching at WCC tonight. This class is only once a week (Monday nights) and it's probably the worst way to learn a language, but we muddled through one semester already, so I'll get through this one with them. Surprisingly, I have 16 students! Not bad for a class that hasn't been taught there in 8 years! The other guy who teaches French there (he's like 85 years old) had one student signed up for 102 this semester, so he dropped that class off the schedule. He's just going to teach another section of 101. I have to wonder how long they'll keep him around.

Packing is going slowwwwwwwwwwwly. Holy CRAP, we have a lot of CRAP. I like to think I'm doing a good job of organizing things that are being packed away. I have to constantly leave lists for Paul to do and practically stand over him to make sure they get done. He doesn't realize that some of what I need to do is contingent upon him finishing certain things. So I push and nag and eventually, it gets done. With any luck, we'll have the house ready to go on the market by the end of February. That's my goal right now anyway.

Work at the vet clinic is going well! I'm learning so much there and actually having fun! Last week, I held rats for the first time in my life. I try not to act squeemish around clients and their animals. I've heard that rats make good pets and I'll be damned if these weren't the 2 sweetest animals I've ever held! They were great! They cuddled! I cuddled rats! I could see having one as a pet at some point. Even Paul isn't opposed to the idea.

We've been in contact with the fertility clinic. I've been adament about not starting the next round until after I finish teaching, but I might go ahead and start next month (Feb), which would put our egg retrieval date in mid-March, right after I start teaching. I haven't totally made the decision to start then--I'm still more inclined to wait another month. At this point, what's another month, right? It would certainly make my life easier. Anyway, the protocol will be much different, which I'll detail later once we get started.

I have to run to school now but wanted to give a little update. More in while!

Stinky

So I've gotten through 3 weeks of school now and it's going pretty well! I've had a few minor bumps but they're smoothing themselves out nicely. It's definitely a much different semester. I think I have only 21 classes left (of 30), 7 weeks, 24.5 actual teaching hours, and 1470 actual teaching minutes left to go. WOO HOO!

Things have been BIZZY at home! We're trying to get the house ready to put on the market and sell. Well, that's no easy task. For anyone who's been to our home, you know it's pretty damned crowded around here. We have STUFF. So far, we've finished one room--the office. In fact, I'm sitting on the floor on a laptop typing this up (the computer's on a table tray). Paul has a desk and his computer, but mine is out for now--after we move, we'll each have our own again. I already miss mine *sniff*. Anyway, I've been packing like CrAzY! And throwing out, and organizing, and donating, and shredding...

The new fertility doctor is going to be ready to start up with us in March. I had to wait until I finish teaching at NCC--it's just too hard to do both. I'll still be teaching at WCC (which hasn't started yet--it will at the end of January...oh shit, we're getting close, aren't we...). Anyway, that will be only one night a week. I'll still work at the vet clinic as well but that's just a couple days a week, so it'll be tolerable.

Everyone's doing well. My mom's on her way to Florida with her best friend, Barb. I look so forward to the emails about how warm it is there (note: this last sentence was DRIPPING with sarcasm). The kids are all healthy and doing well. If you'd like to see the most recent pictures of everyone, check out the photo site: http://picasaweb.google.com/beckysensei There are some good ones on there from Christmas!

Hope everyone reading this is doing well!

HNY

Happy New Year!

So far, 2008 is shaping up to be pretty good. Obama wins in Iowa with Hillary right behind him. I'll take either one...in fact, anyone other than what's living in the WH now. Just my political opinion.

I started school this past Wednesday. It hasn't been a tough start--a few of the rotten eggs I had last term are gone. There have been a few glitches (the bookstore didn't order any new books for the new students, so about 10 of them are struggling to find something while they wait a week for theirs). This is just one reason why I detest school bookstores. I absolutely HATE how they extort hundreds of dollars from students. Does anyone know what the markup on these books really is? I encourage my students to go online and find them. Probably not what I'm "supposed" to do, but I've been there. It's sucks to have to pay $150 for a book. NCC bookstore won't buy back French ones at the end because they're initially bundled with a code to get to the online workbook (which is actually a separate entity from the book). The students use the code and it can't be used again, so they say the book is useless, despite the fact the code can be bought online. It just sucks.

Onto other things. Paul and I are trying to get the house ready to go on the market. Our target date was Feb. 1, but it's pretty evident to us both that it's going to be a bit later than that. I'm trying to get him to commit to one day each weekend to devote to getting it ready. That in itself is a nearly impossible task. We have quite a list of things--nothing too difficult, mostly packing stuff up and getting it into storage. Quite a bit of painting and touch-ups, which will take more time. And we really need to get someone in here to help tell us what needs to go, what needs to be moved around, and what's acceptable in each room. We had a 30 minute discussion yesterday on how to arrange the living room. It wasn't fun.

IVF will start again in March (possibly late Feb). It won't be so bad doing the shots, pills, patches, etc. this time around--having been through it once already, we know what to expect, plus not being in school, I'll have more time to go to appointments. That alone will make it tons easier. I'll still be working at the vet clinic, but if I'm a few minutes late or need an hour to take care of something, it won't be a big deal. BTW, I still really like working there. I'm learning so much and really enjoy the people with whom I work.

I hope everyone has a happy and prosperous 2008!!

My perfect jammies day

I just wanted to describe the most awesome day I just had with my wonderful husband. I told him the other day that I wanted nothing more than a day where we hung out in our jammies, took naps, ate junk food, and layed around on the couch together. And that's just what I got. Twelve glorious hours of doing absolutely nothing (he watched football and rubbed my head while I napped all afternoon). He got up only to let the dog out and go potty. He ate nothing but cookies until I made him dinner in the late afternoon. The man knows how to treat a woman! :)

That's all. It was a very good day. And I'm very lucky to have him.

A new year ahead

I can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since I last wrote! I don't know if anyone is really reading this (besides my dad) but if so, sorry for the delay! I have no excuse other than laziness.

I'm a wreck this week. School at NCC starts next Wednesday. I'm absolutely dreading it, but I know I need to go in and make the most of the 10 weeks that lie ahead. I keep trying to tell myself that it's ONLY 10 weeks and it won't be that bad, but deep down, I know otherwise. This sucks. There's a small part of me that wants to go in and do a great job, but the rest of me wants nothing more than to write to the dept chair and say, "See ya!" BUT...I've signed my life away, so I guess I have to go back. Ten weeks. Thirty class days. Seventy teaching hours. Forty-two hundred teaching minutes. Tick. Tick. Tick.

On to happier topics: Christmas! We got a ton of cards from friends and family all over the place, which was really nice! Lots of nice gifts, lots of funny munny. I bought myself a helmet case for the scooter (it matches--these are hard to find in my Daring Plum color!) and tomorrow, I'm going to buy a new vacuum. NEVER thought I'd be excited about that! :) I have 2 boxes to send to Japan--the one for Kumiko is HUGE but it'll be worth every penny. I'm so overdue with both boxes, but they should make the recipients really happy! That's what counts.

My mom is so much better--she's been driving for a few weeks now (despite not getting the doctor's approval until TODAY!). She bought her new remungous SUV on eBay and is now riding in the lap of luxury. This, until the settlement for her accident comes through, then she'll switch to an even nicer ride. At least she's happy...and still home for another 4-6 weeks before going back to work. I guess my 10 weeks of teaching is better than going back to a permanent job after 3+ months off (and having no end in sight). I have an end. This is good.

So that's it for my ramblings. I'm off to enjoy my last days of freedom. Happy New Year to you all! May 2008 bring us all great things (and babies...many babies...).

A cold and the cold

Holy crap! I caught a horrible head cold this week--today was the worst of it (so far). I'm not sure from where I caught it, but Paul was fighting something early on in the week, though his never did get as bad as mine. I woke up at 2:30am this morning, unable to sleep because of a scratchy sore throat. That is THE WORST!! The sore throat is definitely getting better though. After trying everything today to get rid of it (hot drinks, cold drinks, tortellini soup, and cough drops), I ended up with nothing more than a burnt tongue, along with the still-scratchy throat. Tonight's a bit better but since I can't breathe through my nose, my throat will be dry by morning.

Ok, that was probably a lot more than anyone needed to know!

Other than that, life is ok. I'm officially done teaching for the next few weeks, which is a nice feeling! I still have to grade the final exams from this past Monday night, but that shouldn't take too long (it's just getting the motivation to actually do that...that's the hard part).

We have my dad's Christmas party this coming Sunday. Kate's been sick, as is Robert, so Sunday should be a whole lot of fun. :) As long as there's a bit of "the recipe" (I've watched a few too many episodes of The Walton's this past week!), we should be ok. I did manage to get all my gifts ready though! That's HUGE.

Thanks to everyone who sent wishes for my birthday last week! I got a ton of cards, calls, and emails, which really made my day! It was otherwise very uneventful--I had to work all afternoon, then come home to an empty house as Paul was bowling that night. But it was still a nice day.

Enjoy the upcoming holidays!! And, for heaven's sake, STAY WARM! I hope everyone downstate now has power!!

Power naps

This past weekend was so nice! Paul and I spent Friday night through Sunday downtown Chicago, enjoying the sites, having fun with friends, relaxing...it was perfect! We took the train down in the late afternoon and checked in at the hotel (where we had 2 full-sized bathrooms in our room--we don't have that many in our house!!), then went that night to see Phantom of the Opera, which both of us have seen before but not in a long time. It was so good! I had the brilliant idea to walk back to the Hilton from the Cadillac Palace Theater, which would have been a better idea had we been wearing walking shoes. I ended up with HUGE blisteres on the bottom of my feet (just below my toes, and on my heels).

The next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel (which was deee-lish!) and went for a short walk around town. We ended up at a store on Randolph called Pastoral Artisan (or something like that), which was a wine shop and deli. We bought a bottle of wine, a baguette, some cheese, prochuitto, stuffed red peppers, and olives, and hauled it back to the hotel (via the bus) to enjoy. It was so nice! The afternoon was spent NAPPING! At least for me it was--Paul watched movies on TV and rubbed my head. That night, we went out with some friends of mine who live downtown and we don't get to see much anymore. It was my first time in Dave & Busters. I lived up to all the talk about my latent Skee-ball addiction, which I've managed to keep at bay for many years. That was all shot to hell Saturday night. I long for my own Skee-ball machine!

Sunday, we had breakfast, then packed up and headed to the train station. Given the bad storm that hit Saturday afternoon and evening, taking the train was a great decision (even if it originally was to avoid the $40/night parking at the hotel). Overall, a very relaxing weekend!

I have 4 weeks and a day left of my Christmas "vacation" before starting back to school. Sadly, I'm dreading going back. It shouldn't be as stressful next term as it was this past one, but I'm still not looking forward to it. I love teaching, but being there (at NCC) is no longer fun. I still have one Monday night class to go (at WCC), but I'm not sure if I'll have enough students to have a class there next semester. I do enjoy teaching there and hope to continue!

I wish everyone a very happy holiday season! Congrats to Lisa & Mike on baby-chan Cassia, and to Kim & Jim on their upcoming wedding!!

How long has it been?!

I was spending a lazy morning before I get ready for work and thought I should update this site, given all the emails I've gotten from friends in the last few days asking me what's new, why they haven't heard from me in a while, etc. Then I sign on and saw it's been weeks since my last update. Oops! Not much has happened fertility-wise since I last wrote. Lots of other things have happened though.


I'm done teaching for the moment at NCC, but I start back up January 2nd. I'm still teaching at WCC, tutoring (once a week), bowling, and working at the vet clinic, so I'm not having much of a vacation. But I do get to sleep in and there's a lot to be said for that. :)

Thanksgiving was busy, as usual. Paul and I started off at his mom's for appetizers and cocktails, then went to my brother's for dinner. It was nice to see all 7 nieces and nephews in one day! We're not really crazy about having to split our time, but it's really the only holiday that we have one day to see everyone. Maybe next year, we'll be in a house where we can host everyone at one time.

Paul and I are going to Chicago this weekend. He bid on and won at an auction last February a 2-night stay at the Hilton Chicago, so we're cashing it in. We'll take the train down early Friday afternoon and check in, then get dressed and go see Phantom of the Opera. Saturday, I hope to go walking around downtown, seeing the stores, buying Christmas presents, then we'll have dinner with some friends that night. Sunday morning, we'll likely have breakfast somewhere (Creperie?) and take our time getting home on the train. I'm expecting a nice, relaxing weekend away! My mom, who is doing remarkably better, will be watching Bailey for us while we're gone.

December is shaping up to be busy already. Paul's best friend (and best man from the wedding) is coming in for 4 days next weekend (after our Chicago one). Then we have a couple of weekends of Christmas parties before hosting my family on Christmas eve. I'm SO EXCITED about getting to do this! It's my first time hosting Christmas (but hopefully not my last) and I've already started planning the meal, which will likely be practiced many times before the big day. Christmas decorations have been up for 2 weeks, including my long-awaited tree skirt from Beverly (step-mother), which took 5 years but was so worth the wait! It's gorgeous and I'm honored to have her work displayed in my home!!

That's all for now. It might be some time before I post again, since nothing exciting is happening for a while. Happy holidays!

The new doc

Today was informative! We met with Dr. Rinehart, the new fertility specialist we're going to start going to. I had heard things about him that made me a little nervous--primarily, that he had no personality. I didn't see this as a bad trait though because I want the truth about what we're dealing with, not some souped-up bullshit (like I felt we were getting at the last place). Well, this guy was GREAT! His personality wasn't nearly as bad as we had expected, and he gave us a lot of information and told us where things stand with us. What it all boils down to is this: my eggs are old and on the edge of being pretty useless. We can go through another round of IVF but being our second shot, our success rate drops to 10-15% (from like 22%). A third attempt would be like having 0% success, so that may not be discussable later, if need be. He gave us a lot of really good information and explained things in ways that we understood. We never felt hurried to get out of his office, and I didn't see a million people waiting around, being shuffled through.

So here's the scoop: we're going to try it again next year (probably starting in late Feb or early March) and see what happens. Our chances are quite grim, but at least at the end, we can say we did everything we could. We've already started tiny discussions about adoption, but we have a lot more to talk about. This is something that we'd both be in favor of doing, but as some of you may know, domestic adoptions can take years (for a baby) and international ones are becoming more and more difficult. So it could be a while before we see anything.

Despite the bad news today, I feel pretty good! I will gladly give IVF one more try, but I also love the idea of adopting. Having a plethora of different kinds of children (white, black, purple, Chinese, Guatamalan, anything!!) running around my house is something that I've always wanted. Will I miss the opportunity to have one of my own? Maybe, but give me just one or two to love and that's all I'll need.

Until the next time...

Almost the end!

This is my last week of school!! YAY! It started off a little rough--I was sidelined yesterday with a bought of stomach flu (which started late Sunday night). It was gross and I spent the whole day yesterday on the couch. I'm feeling so much better today though, so this afternoon, it's off to work!

I'm sorry if my last post offended anyone. I know that no one means us any malice when telling us different things, but please understand that it's not always that easy to get pregnant, and it certainly won't be with Paul and me. We know what's ahead of us and what we need to do, and we're both pretty damned realistic about (and accepting of) it all. I just hope everyone else will be, that's all. Know that it's not going to happen conventionally for us and if you want to do anything to help, just encourage us on this journey. I've said my peace. :)

So again, this is my last week of school. It's going to be really busy, between doctors appointments (me and my mom), French oral exams, and everything else we have to squeeze in. Paul and I have an appointment with the new doctor tomorrow (Wed) to discuss what lies ahead. This new guy, Dr. Rinehart, has been around a while but I've heard he has ZERO personality. At least I know we'll be hearing it straight, no bullshit. There are advantages to that. Next week, I have final exams on Monday and Wednesday, then I'm done with NCC until January 2nd (ick...too early for me!!). I can't wait to have a break from that place!! It's been a really bad semester.

My mom is doing pretty well. She's getting around ok--we all help her run errands and get out a bit. Vincent goes by almost every day to see her, whether it's for 5 minutes or a couple hours. It's nice because it gives the rest of us a little bit of a break. I won't get there until Friday and possibly over the weekend. Her arm is still sore and giving her trouble--I think she finds out on Friday how she's doing with it. The six-week mark is coming up (when she's supposed to have the cast removed). I'm not sure what they'll say. I think once that comes off, her life will be so much easier!

Hope everyone is well!

So have I mentioned...

...how much I dislike stories about so-and-so who tried so hard to get pregnant using IVF and one day they magically found themselves pregnant on their own?

Or when people tell us the trick to getting pregnant is just to relax (or "stop trying") and it'll just happen?

News flash: it's not that easy. It may happen once in a while to some random couple out there, but it's not going to happen that way for us. It's not going to happen by us trying and trying with fertility drug shots, pills, patches, etc. only to fail, then one day having sex and BOOM! We're pregnant. Or wait...we try and try, fail with IVF, and just decide to not think about it during sex and BOOM! We're pregnant.

The reality is, we always think about it (or, at least, I do). There's never a time that we have sex and I DON'T think about it. That's just not possible, unless of course, I'm hopped up on 4-5 of those vodka/peppermint schnapps drinks and the world is spinning and things are blurry and, Oh hey! What's that thing you're putting me?! Yeah, that's the only way that's going to happen.

It's not possible to just turn off the thinking part of it all. It's always there, looming over us like a dark cloud....the wondering, the possibility of could this be the time? Frankly, I resent people telling me stories of someone they knew who got pregnant on their own after years of trying fertility treatments, or that not thinking about it will somehow make me magically pregnant.

Thanks for reading.

I love weekends!!

This is the first weekend in a long time where I actually have time at home! No running around from family member to family member, no shuttling people anywhere, no having to get up at some horrific hour in the morning to be somewhere...I'm home, able to do some serious laundry, and catch up on Tivo while grading papers. The poor Tivo was maxed out this past week--70 hours of tapes stuff that I haven't been able to get a handle on. I'm getting better with that though.

Paul and I have an appointment with a new fertility doctor (Dr. Rinehart) on November 14. We both feel so much more informed than we were before (stands to reason, since we've been through this once already) so I think we know all the right questions to ask. I've heard this doctor is short on personality, but he's been doing this for a long time. We've had a ton of recommendations so we'll see what this guy has to say and go from there. We may end up meeting with a couple doctors before making a choice. Regardless of who we choose, we won't be starting anything until March. I can't go through this process again while in school. It's way too stressful, so we'll wait until I'm done teaching MWF before going at it again. Not really what either of us wants, but I think the process will be easier if we wait.

My mom is back home after 10 days in the nursing home. She actually liked it there (except for her awful roommate)--the people who worked there were wonderful with her and the food was pretty good! She's home in the condo now and finally has cable TV and internet access, so that should help tremendously during the next few months she's homebound. She can get around pretty well and we drive her to appointments, plus she has therapists and nurses come in to help as well. I think this will work out well for her. Hopefully, she won't be pulling her hair out after a few weeks of this though. The only major problem she has to deal with is the crazy guy in the building (some of you may remember him from when I lived there). He's once again off his medication and wreaking havoc throughout the building with other condo owners.

Work is going pretty well. I've had a couple tough students to deal with this semester, making it really hard to want to go into work everyday, but I only have 2 weeks of classes left (plus a week of finals, so I'll be done by Thanksgiving). My Monday night class is going pretty well--I really enjoy the students in there! The vet clinic job is also going well, though my hours keep getting longer and longer as time goes on. This will only go on until about Thanksgiving, when the technician starts full-time. In the meantime, I get to help with lots of operations! That's the coolest part to me.

Paul and I are going away for a weekend in December. He booked a room at the Hilton in Chicago for the first weekend in December. I'm so excited! It'll be nice to get away with him. I feel like we hardly see each other anymore, especially during the week. Last night, I cooked dinner and we both ate at the table for the first time in months! I miss that....and him.

Hope everyone is doing well! My friend Lisa is due to pop out a little girl in a couple of weeks. It's amazing how far we've come from our days in Japan!