definitely by Christmas (part 2)

In July of last year, I said my famous last words, "We'll be in the house definitely by Christmas." Who knew that I was talking about Christmas 2010? Well, I was. heehee.

I thought we'd be moving in when I got home from CHA the end of January, but now it's looking more like March....or April....or May. Eventually we'll move in.

But, as you can tell from everything else going on in my life, the less I stress about moving in, the better.

So, here we go on the progress made as of Saturday.

This is one of my favorite places in the house. It's at the landing at the top of the stairs. We knocked out a wall and added a desk area. I love how it opened the space up.

This is the guest bath...the sink is set, but it was covered up, otherwise I would have taken a photo of it. We used the existing cast-iron tubs and added the tile surrounds. The penny tiles on the floor are a mixture of whites and off-whites, so we echoed that in the bath surround.

The upstairs hall bath has a doorway into the toilet/tub area. There's lots of light in here since we added windows in the dormer on the front of the house. We added beadboard and painted the walls a charcoal color.

Love the contrast in here.

The tub surround here is my favorite in the whole house. I love this subway tile 4x12".

This is the front of the bathroom in the sink area, looking at the linen closet and into the tub/toilet area.

Take note of my doors. I fought hard for those doors. :)

And this is the sink area. There's going to be a trough sink here underneath the medicine cabinets. Got these 25% off during Restoration Hardware's sale. Originally, the plan was to buy the inset ones, but we had a pipe in the wall that made it impossible. Instead, we put them on the wall and built the trim around them.

Now, the downstairs master bath. Subway tile again....this is 3x6" (I think). And, 4x4"s on the floor. The shower will have a glass surround where you see the dam built up. The clawfoot tub will sit at an angle between the windows.

A close-up of the shower floor with those tiny marble circles.

Addy posing for a photo by the rug in between our sink consoles. Love that over-the-shoulder look.

Our sink consoles fit in a tight space here. We worked really hard to rearrange this bathroom to give us more light and had to make some concessions with space. We ended up with these sink consoles from Pottery Barn. They're 55" apiece, so that's nice. I'm going to take the one you see here because it's the one you first see when you walk in the door. I'm more apt to keep my counter cleaned off, so I'm giving Greg the one behind the door. Aren't I generous? :)

A shot to the left when you walk in the bathroom....I can already tell these white tiles are going to be a pain.

This is a shot of the living room looking into the kitchen.

I'm really looking to decorating this mantle when we move in by Christmas.

A shot at the back wall of the living room and the ceiling. Greg fought hard for the ceiling. Like I fought for my doors. We took planks from a barn in Cumberland County, KY and the beams are 7x7" from a barn in Michigan. They're all different wood species, but we whitewashed them to give them a consistent look.


My man with the vacuum.

Seriously, he loves the Dyson.

He could be a Dyson salesperson. That or an iPhone salesperson. I'm loving the rough ceiling with the clean white cabinets and smooth concrete countertops.

Oh, and my tile is done in the kitchen backsplash. White....surprise! Actually, this is about 3x6" and has a beveled edge, which gives it some dimension.

The bench for the banquette is complete.

And, right off the breakfast/kitchen area is the mudroom. We put these lockers there to hold boots and coats and general junk that gets dropped by the back door.

And, the bathroom off the mudroom....wow this has been an ordeal. I found this photo in an issue of Martha Stewart Living:

I liked the pavers on the floor with the open concrete shower...oh, and the exposed pipes. We finally worked out the paver situation and can lay it on the floor. The weight was an issue as was the moisture, but the engineer cleared us for the weight and the tile guy is going to put down a waterproof backer board and seal the concrete.

Lu, a friend of ours that's an interior designer found an outdoor faucet that will work with some exposed copper piping and a rain can. She even found us a sink like the one in the photo, a 1928 basin from California.

But, we were stuck on the concrete walls. I wanted something smooth enough that could be wiped off, but we couldn't find anyone that knew how to apply it.....and guarantee it wouldn't crack.

Finally, Lu found a guy named Richard who is a handyman/contractor of sorts who was up for the challenge. He and the tile guy, Dave (who we might claim as a dependant on our taxes since he's been living at our house the last 4 months....well not living, working) talked about their strategy for waterproofing it and I was optimistic it could work.

Thankfully, it did! Now, we wait for Dave to put in the pavers...

Moving to the laundry room, the countertops were installed on Saturday. They're concrete with a tint in them.

They're a chocolate brown color and we're going to add a stain to them when they cure in a couple weeks to give them more of a variegated look.

And, that wraps up the update to our house. Anyone want to start a pool on when we'll move in?

ivf - day 34 - calendars are of utmost importance

I'm speaking to the choir to those who've gone through IVF, but if you haven't, trust me on this: you live, breath, die, and inject by your calendar.

It's seriously what you live by.

I think of it kind of like a syllabus in college classes. You know EXACTLY what you're doing each day, down to the very minute.

Just for fun, I thought I'd share my first cycle calendar with you. This was from my IVF cycle back in the summer of 2009. I was brand new at this and had no idea how much information would be thrown at me, so I just printed some calendar pages from a template in Word. As you can see, I filled them up rather quickly.


1st month (not so bad)

2nd month....oh my! I'm writing all over the place. You can see I'm tracking my follicles and my bloodwork, not realizing this is not NEAR enough room for that. I think I got one or two appointments on here and surrendered.

I had also pre-filled the important dates, like the egg retrieval and different appointments, not knowing they could change by a day or two here or there. Silly me.

3rd month....I've finished highlighting my days to the pregnancy test. I can still remember what a relief it was to highlight off that last day.

This cycle, I thought it would be more fun to make my calendars pretty. Considering it's a brutal process, I figured it needed some style, right?



To create my calendar pages, I just used 4 products. Very simple, I know.

• Calendar Pages - sold out, but we will manufacture something similar at the end of 2010, and you don't want to miss out :)
  
• Months Stamps - These will be back in stock by Tuesday
  
• Noah Stamps
• Stampin' Up! Ink: Old Olive, Rose Red, Summer Sun, Going Gray, Not Quite Navy
  

At the top of each calendar page, I've just documented a few sentences about what's happening that month, or what I'm hoping to happen. Then, I'm documenting my appointments, injections, oral meds, etc, so I don't forget anything.

These are hanging above the desk in my office on a magnet board. I like having a visual in front of me at all times. Before, I highlighted the days off, but this time, I'm not doing that, just keeping the calendar in front of me helps tremendously. So far, so good, I haven't forgotten anything yet.

I'll be sure to post the entire calendar toward the end of my cycle so you can see how it compares to last time.

If you've been through IVF before, I'd be interested to know how you kept track of all your appointments and such (especially if you kept track of your follicles - more on this later). Just comment here or shoot me an email if you'd like.

Last, here's the update for me this cycle:

• On Tuesday, I was lowered to 5 iu's of Lupron.
• Saturday, I started my stimulation meds: 150iu Follistim at 6:30am and 75iu at 6:30 pm. I also have 75iu of Menopur at 6:30pm and 5iu's of Lupron at 6:30am.
• My first Estradiol check (E2) and ultrasound will be on Wednesday.

Grow follicles grow!

snowy cow photos

I hope you like snowy cow photos because this year has been exceptional for them.

1. We've had lots of snow...more than we've had in 10 years, I'd say.
2. We have cows.

And that, folks, are the reasons I have lots of snowy cow photos.

I've also learned that some cows know how to stay clean and others are first to find the mud.

Here's cow #1, which Greg has always described as "She's pretty but she's crazy." That also characterized G's prior 2 girlfriends before me, so I would say he knows what he's talking about.

Now, she's all gussied up in her winter coat and she couldn't be more gorgeous. But she's still crazy, so you might want to stay away.

I took this photo to show the difference between a cow with calf and without calf. Above, you see a skinny cow.

Below, you see a fat cow.

Notice the width difference. It's quite humorous, actually.

A cut little calf who somehow got mud on his face.


awwwwwwwwww

Getting tired in the sun.

She's awake now....waiting for food.

Still waiting.
Just a bit disheveled.
Compare her to #1. Now do you see why Greg says she's pretty?

Wondering when I'm going to stop taking photos and feed them.

Still wondering.

I guess they got tired of waiting and went back to the hay.

which is after all, how they stay warm in the winter.

I used the PW's tutorial on these photos to really make the cows pop in the snow. She used it with horses, but all I had to work with was cows. :)

ivf - day 30 - all about injections

"IVF" is synonymous with "injections."

Once one decides she's going through with IVF, she comes to a quick realization that (1) she needs a personal assistant and (2) she will become a human pin-cushion.

I didn't have a problem with #2, but #1 is a post for another day....

I'm a pretty easy patient because needles don't bother me and I'm the strange one at the dentist and never want my mouth numbed, so I'm okay with a little pain, too.

IVF injections begin with Lupron. I mentioned this earlier, but it's basically a suppression drug that takes me into a menopausal state. My ovaries are at rest. And, they need rest, because on Saturday, I'm puttin' 'em in to overdrive!

So, this is what I do every morning at 7:00am:

Open the alcohol wipe (sorry for the blurriness, it was 7:00am and I was holding the camera and working my magic at the same time).

Wipe off a spot on my belly. This must have been a day for the right side. I toggle back and forth, since, well, I have ovaries on both sides.

And, as a side note, I never thought my belly would be making its blog debut under these circumstances.

Then, I use the other side of the wipe to clean off the top of the Lupron container.

Next, I insert the syringe/needle into the top. Notice how there's air in the syringe. I then depress the needle to put air into the container, to make withdrawing the liquid easier. Otherwise it creates a sort of vacuum....I'm no physicist and this is how I was taught to do this, so this is what I do.

Then, I turn the container upside down. Air goes to the top (duh) and I get my liquid with no bubbles. I pull back on the syringe until the stopper is at the 10 iu mark (now I'm down to 5 iu's).

Drumroll please....it's time for a one-handed injection while holding a camera.....

Ta-da!!!!!!
Now it's time to dispose of the syringe/needle in my very own sharps container. Safety first, you know.

Just a few closing remarks now:

• I pulled my shirt down before leaving the house.
• Later on the day I took these photos (Monday), I had an appointment at the fertility clinic: a suppression check. At this appointment, they took blood and did an ultrasound to see if I had any cysts and to monitor how many micro-follicles I had growing. All was well there. Then, I went to another room for my trial embryo transfer. Ultimately, I didn't have to do this since I had just had one done last June. But, normally they would lay me down and insert a tube through my cervix and measure the length to where the embryos will be placed later that cycle. It's not the most comfortable thing, I'll be honest, so I'm glad I didn't have to do it. We did go over pre-op protocol and Jennifer, my IVF nurse, explained my upcoming meds. I got to practice with some placebos (the real stuff is too expensive) and now I'm ready to go on Saturday with my stimulation meds. My Lupron was decreased to 5 iu's as well.
• The question was asked on my folate post regarding purchasing folate over-the-counter. I get mine at Vitamin Shoppe, but I'm sure you can find some at Wal-Mart or any pharmacy. One thing to consider when purchasing folate is the amount in each pill. You need at least 1g (gram) of folate per day, but vitamin companies don't make it that easy for us. It's available in 800 mcg (0.8g) and 400 mcg (0.4g). Chances are, you're getting 200mcg in the food you eat each day, so taking the 800mcg is fine.