Infertility's Common Thread Freebie *Updated*

*FREE bracelets have all been given away!*

Make you OWN bracelet: Instructions HERE

When I first started blogging and discovered Mel's blog, I learned about Infertility's Common Thread. It's a bracelet that you wear to show support and help raise awareness for Infertility (IF). I'm offering to send 100 FREE bracelets to anyone who wants one. After the first 100, the bracelets will be for sale with 100% of the profit going to an IF Charity. More information on purchasing a bracelet will be available in the next few weeks. Please check back!

The catch. Always read the fine print.
Once you receive your FREE bracelet, please include a link back to Infertility's Common Thread and put the Icon on your blog.

If you don't blog, consider including links back to the site in your email signature. Every little mention helps spread the word.

"The pomegranate* thread holds a two-fold purpose: to identify and create community between those experiencing infertility as well as create a starting point for a conversation. Women pregnant through A.R.T., families created through adoption, or couples trying to conceive during infertility can wear the thread, identifying themselves to others in this silent community. At the same time, the string serves as a gateway to conversations about infertility when people inquire about its purpose. These conversations are imperative if we are ever to remove the social stigma attached to infertility.Tie on the thread because you’re not alone. Wear to make aware." from Infertility's Common Thread

Again, visit Infertility's Common Thread for more info on pomegranates and fertility. Find out how this movement started!

To receive a bracelet, send an email with your info to: infertility.bracelet@gmail.com

*For those that are worried about this bracelet being mistaken for a red Kabbalah bracelet, put your worries to rest. The color is not at all red. It's more maroon and purple. Like the seeds of a pomegranate.
For those of you that have tried to request a bracelet and had your email bounce--please send an email to dmarie @ ureach dot com (without the spaces). I have no idea why this is happening with gmail. If you have sent a request and you didn't get a response back for me, I didn't receive your request.

*FREE bracelets have all been given away!*

Rockin' Girl Blogger

Lub over at Quest for a Baby and Chili over at Waiting on Two Pink Lines have nominated lil o' me for a Rockin' Girl Blogger Award. I'm really excited! Why? Well, it's so nice to know that people actually read and like what you write. This couldn't have come at a better time. I was just saying to D (this week in fact) that I wasn't sure how I was feeling about continuing to blog. Sometimes I think/know my posts are so depressing. After my Pursuit of Happiness post, I felt like real crap. I don't want to come off as this depressed sad little person. Even though I am a lot of the time...lol I just gotta remember that blogging is for me, to help me sort out my feelings. I hope that my honesty, even when it isn't pretty, can help others feel not so alone.

Since I was nominated twice, I'm going to nominate 10 other Rockin' Girl Bloggers in no particular order :) Sorry if you've already been nominated!

Shelby at A Sibling for Celia--She is one of the first bloggers that reached out to me. Even offered to teach me how to knit!
Lunar at Fertility Futility--I've know her (online) almost as long as I've been dealing with IF. She's been through so much, and I'm glad she made it!!
Sunny at My Journey Towards my Little Miracle--Online and IRL she's a blast!
Carrie at Precious Little--I love her honesty.
Ultimate Journey at Still Trying After all Those Pills--She's an inspiration and has a really positive and thoughtful perspective.
Forever Hopeful at Wishing it Would Get Easier--I just love her posts. I love what her sister is doing for her.
Lea Bee at Not How I Planned It--The kitty pics crack me up! Plus she plays Ultimate and is pretty Rockin' IRL.
Trace at 1 Hardy Swimmer--I'm new to her blog, but I can already see how strong and brave she is.
Helene at Motherhood Bound--I admire her Faith so much.
Melinda at Living in Florence, Italy--Her blog is where I visit on days when I want to run away. This is where I'd go. (crap, the secret is out!...lol)

Now I gotta figure out how to put that little Rockin' icon to the left...

She works hard for the money!

I have a new respect for stri.ppers. Good grief! Class was tough. I doesn't help that I'm outta shape. If you've ever done Yoga, it's that kind of hard because you have to hold the positions and maintain control. I think this class and walking/running should do my body good. If anyone in this area (MD, DC, VA) is interested in going, I'll be glad give you the info. Apparently, I need to get stri.pper shoes. The higher the better...lol My instructor was wearing shoes like these beauties:

I can't even imagine walking in these things, but she was wearing those shoes while working a chair like nobody's business! And can I just say that stri.ppers deserve every penny they get! The shit is hard. This particular class focuses on your moves and uses a chair at the end to show off all your skills. How can I explain this...there's a lot of hip rolling and rocking and using your arms to pretty much feel yourself up...lol Not really, but you do a lot of feeling your body. There's also the floor stuff. One move left me falling flat on my ass! And next time I need to make sure I wear a sports bra. I almost gave myself a black eye. I had no idea there would be jumping involved. Anyway, I'll definitely be going back.

There are videos you can buy that teach ex.o.tic dance. Here's one I found on YouTube:

Stri.pper Class

So tonight I have my first str.ipper class. Ok...it's actually called "ex.otic moves," but that's just a nice way of saying it. No, I'm not making a career change...lol. I'm excited. Kinda. I'm doing something. For me :) I've been planning to go for a while, but with both our cars in the shop it hasn't been practical. Hopefully this will be a fun way of exercising. We'll see...

Pursuit of Happiness

I feel like I've always been a little depressed. My mom was (still is) depressed when I was a child and so was my grandmother. I'm an only child and I lived with both of them for the majority of my childhood until around age 12 or so when my mom bought a house. So there you have it. There has always been a sadness, heaviness. It seems major stressful events send me into that deep dark place. IF has done it. I'm constantly in that place. The hole. I come out at times when I see some hope, but then right back in when those hopes are dashed and I dig a little deeper each time. I sometimes feel so guilty for wanting a child so badly when I feel like I'm such a mess. It's like knowing what's right and running toward wrong. I have hopes that this magic baby will cure me. After all, not being able to have a baby is what has helped send me here. But then logic says what if there is no magic baby cure? What if I'm still depressed but worse? Shouldn't I find happiness now?

Mel posted yesterday about trying to be happy in the meantime. I know that I feel a lot better when I'm actually doing something proactive to get pregnant. More feelings of being in control, I suppose. The things that are in my control, I'm working on--exercising, working more. I wish I felt like I could take some kind of break and dedicate myself to me. But I can't do that. I won't do that. It's gonna have to be a joint project.

Happiness doesn't really feel tangible to me. Neither does sadness. I have things that can change my mood. Music is one of the biggest mood adjusters for me. I can go from feeling like total crap to screaming "C'est la Vie" (by Robbie Nevil) and all seemingly becomes sunshine. Sometimes I feel like a fake. I'll play with D and joke with him, or go out to dinner with new friends and smile and carry-on conversations like I don't have a worry in the world. But let me see a mother, or a story on the news of an abandoned baby and I can produce real tears in less than 10 seconds. Moods are one thing, happiness is another.

If someone asked me what has been the happiest time in my life--I wouldn't have an answer. I've had happy moments. Flashes. Like pictures in my mind. But there are no periods. So how can I get there, or even can I get there? I have no idea really, but I know I won't be happy without children. I'm not going to try and fool myself into thinking I can have this full wonderful child-free life. Is there a way to somehow solve my depression before children? I don't know that either. But I'm still fighting for my chance to be a mother. I have to believe that I deserve to be a mother. I have to believe that for now, it's enough that I'm still in this fight and willing to continue.

Pic from Cute Overload.

Does any of this make sense? I feel like I'm rambling...lol

Weekend wrap-up

I had lovely time with all the DC Stirrup Queens at The Melting Pot. As always! Can't wait until September 23 for the next one!

My Jeep is still sick, but outta the shop for now. I'll have to take it back "once it's gets worse." Lovely.

One of my favorite dishes is what D and I refer to as Tuna Puna. It's grits, tuna and turkey bacon all mixed together. Fish and grits is a really common dish in the south, but tuna and grits is what's common in my house. Everyone I've convinced to try it has loved it. Anyway, I was making Tuna Puna and my animals were stalking me as usual so I decided to snap some pics. Pretty funny. At least to me and D.

The ingredients:

Grits, tuna and crumbled turkey bacon

The stalkers:

Pumpkin and Shelbie waiting for tuna. They listen for the can opener and then come bolting into the kitchen.

The finicky eater:

He sniffs it and if it doesn't meet his special kitty criteria he just looks at it like it's going to change. And then he looks at me with such disgust for attempting to try and feed him something so clearly no up to his standards. What kind of cat rejects tuna??

Finished:

Just mix and eat up!

Now I know no one will make this based on this post, but I thought I'd share anyway.

Show & Give support!

Please go show/give support for fellow blogger Looking for 2 Lines by voting for her!

Go to: My Bad Boss Contest
Read the story and vote for LJ!!

My Jeep is sick!

Going to the mechanic is a little like going to the doctor when you're not sure what's wrong. My Jeep is sick with a serious cough and the shakes. Of course they call today and they can't "reproduce" the problem. I swear that word haunts me, and now I seem a little nuts to the mechanic. My air-conditioning isn't working either. Actually it works, but there's a leak so it works for maybe 2-months before it needs to be refilled. Yeah, they can't trace the leak either. AND I'm stuck in the house with no car!!! Maybe I'll put on my inline skates and...not!

It's cd1 today. Isn't that exciting. Not surprising though. I'm going to start walking/running again. I use to run 3 miles a day once upon a time 60 pounds ago. Starting is always that hard part. I was going to Curves last year, but I decided it just wasn't for me. I don't think any gym is really. D got me a new mp3 player to motivate me. However, it's huge and has some volume issues, so I think I'll stick with my Mobi when it comes to exercising for now. But I love him for doing something so sweet for me :) Actually, this is the 3rd player he's given me. We have a total of 6 in our house. D is a gadget and computer freak!!

Weird Balance

Matt posted this week about feeling optimistic when it comes to IF. Feeling like in the end everything will work itself out even if there is no baby at the end of this fucked-up crooked rainbow. Most of my optimism is in a landfill somewhere with about 100*-negative hpts. D tends to be the optimistic one. Most of the time his cheery a-baby-will-fall-from-the-heavens-onto-our-doorstep attitude gets on my nerves. I used to be hopeful, but with hope can come disappointment so I'd rather not be hopeful in the first place.

Sometimes I wish my husband could just go "there" with me. I wish he would wallow a little bit. I know he sometimes tries to keep hope alive in an attempt to make me feel better, but what really ends up happening is I feel worse. Which leaves me feeling so very alone in all of this. I'm trying to understand that people handle stress differently, and perhaps his way of dealing with IF is to remain hopeful. Maybe that's what keeps him sane, and somehow that's a good thing cuz who needs 2-depressed nut jobs living under one roof. I'll bet he feels alone too out there on Optimism Island.

Bottom line--I need to allow for his optimism and he needs to allow me to be hopeless. Balance...I guess.

*Good grief how much $$$ does that add up to???

Abandoned Baby near DC

Sweet Lord--why would someone abandon a baby in 90-degree heat?? What. The. Fuck. Just left him on the street. Two men found him in a stroller with a bottle of ice tea. The men watched the stroller for 40-minutes before they finally saw movement and realized there was a child in the stroller.

Dum dum

Law and Order is my new obsession. I just discovered this show in the last month or so and like it most out of the collection--SVU, CI, Without a Trace. I've been able to see tons of it too b/c 5-10 episodes show per day. Who-hoo!! D and I have a habit of catching-on to a series once it's off the air or almost off the air and in syndication. However, we love it b/c we don't have to wait week-to-week to see what happens next. Just a little impatient :)

Weekends

I have noticed that weekends are the worst for me emotionally. There is a sense of serious boredom. I sit in front of the tv looking for something t0 watch and when that fails I always go back to the same thought--if there were a child here. What do you do with your weekends when you're childless? I mean sure--there's a ton of laundry and our bathroom is a mess. There are several piles of mail scattered around. Nothing fun, but stuff that needs to get done. I know that parenting isn't a cake-walk with tons of fun and sunshine all-day-every-day. And I try not to romanticize it. Really I do. But on weekends I sit and think and think. Think about how if we had a little one what we would be doing. So I'm finding weekends tough. I'm in such a funk. It's a Monday.

Meme pt. 2

10 Things I like

1. Yellow roses.
My favorite color is yellow :)

2. Watching the hummingbirds.
See here.

3. Cooking.
New hobby for me.

4. Taking naps.
I think they are necessary for good mental health.

5. Doing research online.
Most recently learned about sitting shiva.

6. Talking.
Although I feel a bit outta practice.

7. Swimming.
I was reminded of how much I enjoy it when we went on vacation.

8. Strawberry flavored anything.
Not a cherry or grape fan tho.

9. Skittles.
I never eat the green ones tho. I throw them into the garbage. I eat all the red first, followed by the purple. Eventually I eat the orange and then lemon outta desperation.

10. Video poker.
Only video game I play.

I intentionally made this a like list instead of a love list :)

Blurbs

I'll do the Hate list today and the Like list tomorrow. Tagged by Shelby
10 things I hate

1. Being late.
Although I seem to care less about it since meeting D who is late ALL THE TIME!

2. Having to watch what I eat and diet all the time.
No explanation needed.

3. Infertility.
Nuff said.

4. Arrogant people.
There just is no need. Everyone is unique and special.

5. Being hungry and having a recipe come out wrong.
I've had fits and thrown entire dinners into the trash.

6. Plants dying.
I can't do anything that flowers indoors. And I keep killing my herbs as well.

7. Paying bills.
I just don't like doing it, but it's a necessary pain in the ass.

8. Getting junk mail.
Ughhh. I just want the stuff I have to pay!! I even canceled all my magazine subscriptions cuz I just can't stand getting extra shit in the mail. I need to look into that service that eliminates your junk mail.

9. Shopping.
I only like to grocery shop. Anything else drives me nuts. But I can spend a good 2 hours in a good grocery store.

10. Pumping gas.
It's just an inconvenience. It's a disruption in my schedule to wherever I'm headed.

______________________________________________

Tonight is copycat Benihana night!! Who-hoo. Meaning I'm making Benihana Delight (shrimp and chicken) with the cream sauce and ginger sauce with a salad and the dressing. Yummm!! I haven't made this in years so I'm pretty excited! I mean, you know, cooking is the highlight of my life :)

Our own dear LJ was featured in Women's Health July/August issue which just happened to be in the RE's office. I took a pic with my camera phone, so sorry for the poor quality. She Rocks!!

Back from doc...again

The consultation lasted all of 10 minutes. The Mini-IVF program was designed for those that can't afford to drop $15-20,000 AND don't have insurance. However, if you want minimum stimulation IVF and you have insurance, you can get it and pay the $5-7,000 out-of-pocket. So that's it. He said I was a good candidate (due to my age and no health problems) for the MS IVF and can go that route if we choose to. D and I chatted with a nice woman about how we could possibly pay for all this. Co-insurance, contract rates, co-pays--blah, wah, blah, wah. I was confused most of the time. This is all so unfair. And I know life isn't fair. But I'm just pissed now. I'm pissed that this is all so damn expensive and our insurance only covers $5,000. I'm pissed that I have to make these choices. I'm pissed that we have a "0% chance" of conceiving on our own and a "5% chance" with IUI and a "40-50% chance" with regular IVF. You fucking serious???

As I had been warned, the doctor is rather dry and to the point. Reminded me of Dr. Y at G.BMC. Nice, but dry. Not a lot of warmth.

I don't really know what else to say about the appointment. If anyone has a question--I'll be glad to answer...once I stop drinking.

Food and waffle

I'm in love with Chili's honey chicken chipotle crispers. Oh my! I've had these things about 6-times in the last month. It's the damn sauce! Yum. So as usual when I find something I love in a restaurant, I tried to make it at home. Mine came out pretty well. I found a recipe online for honey chipotle sauce, but it was terrible. So I ended up using Tabasco chipotle and mixing it with honey and some lime juice. It was ok, but not exact and I require exact. I can't tell what it's missing. I'll keep trying.

I swear, appointments are weird for me lately. I keep getting the days wrong. Like I thought my appt. with yet another RE was for Wednesday. Well, it's tomorrow. How's that possible when I wrote it down while I was on the phone with her? It's happened a couple other times with a dental appt. and a hair appt. Weird. I'm losing it. Anyways...

This past weekend was full of dreams. Mostly baby-related. Which isn't unusual for me since it's on my mind 865-days-a-year. But the thing that was unusual was the presence of the number 3. Everything was in 3s. Perhaps it's because Karen has been on my mind and I've been yapping about her and the babies to D. And again I had a dream this morning where I was trying to decide between 3 different OBs. So a total of 3 dreams all with 3s! Funny :)

Update on my friend: She decided not to do the ovarian drilling procedure. Instead she's doing IUI with gonadotropins.

Egg drop soup

This month I'm referring to ovulation as egg drop soup. I seem to come up with a new term almost every month. So maybe I'll turn it into a game and record a new name for it each month. Keep myself entertained so I don't run away.

Can I just say I hate commercials that YELL at ME!!! Freaking shit it's so damn annoying. And I WILL NOT be purchasing a jit.ter.bug phone for ANYONE ever. EVER!!!

No other news really. Oh, my little birds are still hanging around. They are still fighting and chasing each other away from the feeder. Below are the best pics I could get. Look for the white arrows cuz the birds are sooo ting and hard to see. I'll try to get better ones.

They move and fly so fast it's hard to get the shot. I think I need a better camera or to adjust the shutter speed.

We call this one the "Guardian." He sits there guarding the feeder on that same perch...lol

Ovarian drilling?

One of my best friends is also in the IF boat. She doesn't ovulate on her own. Her most recent round of Clo.mid was 250mg with an HCG trigger. She found out yesterday that the trigger didn't work b/c her progesterone was 1.6. She meets with the RE on Friday and they are going to discuss ovarian drilling. Anyone else heard of this or had this procedure?