Home again

We had our home inspection today and it went pretty well. As we expected there are some repairs that need to be made, but the sellers have been very vocal about wanting to fix the big problems, so we're feeling pretty good about things right now. J and I couldn't stop marveling at how BIG it is! The kitchen alone is nearly as large as the 1 bedroom apartment we're renting at the moment! Closing is still set for June 20, which also happens to be our third anniversary. Not a bad anniversary gift to ourselves!

As promised, some pictures:


The front of the house with Juan and our inspector standing by.


The backyard--we hope the grass comes back to life once we move in--the previous owners had a swing set and it doesn't look like the lawn has been getting much water for awhile.



The living room--the front door is just to the right.



The kitchen, which I am completely and totally in love with. Look at those countertops! The tile! The cabinets!



The family room, which is opposite the kitchen.



The master bedroom, with its HUGE bay window and sitting area. I can't wait to curl up over there with a good book.



Possibly the crappiest picture ever of the second bedroom, which will be the guest room/library until it's needed for...other purposes. Not going to jinx myself by naming them, though.


And finally the view out of our back balcony so you can see our lovely view of an elementary school's relocatable classrooms. I'm crossing my fingers that they don't decide to add a wing on to the school while we live here, just because I don't want to deal with construction noise all day.

That's our house! The next step will be formally requesting money/repairs from the sellers and then we wait for the bank to process our loan. We close on the condo back in Maryland sometime next week, and we're crossing our fingers that it's just smooth sailing from here. After all the real estate drama we've gone through to get to this point, I certainly hope the next three weeks go off without a hitch.

Tomorrow I leave for Las Vegas, so probably no more posts until I'm back on the 7th. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Miss Me?

We made it! The trip was looooong. This is the second time in three years I've crossed 2/3 of the country in a car, and I think I could happily go the rest of my life without doing it again. America is really, really big.

It probably didn't help that things got off to a bit of a rough start. Our plan was to have the movers out by around 4:00 on Wednesday, relax a bit, eat dinner, then I was going to go to my last mind/body fertility class. What actually ended up happening was that the movers didn't leave until 9:00, I had to speed just to pick up some semi-crappy takeout before the restaurant closed, and I completely missed my class. I'm still upset about that, especially considering that I won't be able to make any of the group's get-togethers now that the formal sessions are over. Still, the movers didn't break anything during the packing process and the only accident was a 6" scuff mark on the wall in our second bedroom where a handcart fell over. We easily painted over it, so no harm, no foul.

Thursday morning we wanted to leave by around 7:00 am to beat some of the morning traffic. However, since the movers didn't leave until after dark the night before we didn't get to pack the cars on Wednesday, and so even though we were pretty much ready to go by 8:00 we didn't hit the road until almost 10:00. Thankfully we hit zero traffic heading out of the DC area, but it wasn't a great start to our first day. Also not good was the massive allergy attack I started having while we were packing the cars that continued to bother me all day.

Around 1:00 we stopped for lunch, and realized that the cats (who were riding in their dog-sized carrier in my car) weren't eating or drinking anything. Since our girls have a history of bladder issues and UTIs, this really worried us. We'd planned to get to Nashville that night (almost 700 miles from Maryland) but given our late start and worries about the cats, we decided to throw our schedule out the window and end our day in Knoxville, putting us 175 miles short of where we'd planned to stop. This meant that we'd be making the trip in four days instead of three and going around 500 miles every day instead of over 650. It actually ended up being a really, really good idea since even going 500 miles with no real breaks (since we were driving separate cars) is exhausting.

Fortunately the cats started eating and drinking again once we settled in to the motel, and we managed to get a fairly early start (8:00) the next day. Unfortunately, though. the allergies I thought I was suffering from on Thursday morphed into a miserable cold on Friday, and I could hardly breathe or talk. Breathing and talking became even more important when I got a call on my cell from our apartment complex that afternoon, asking if we could come in Saturday to sign our lease since they were no longer open on Sunday and closed Monday for Memorial Day. I told them, as calmly as a could, that we were driving cross-country at the moment, we wouldn't be into town until at least Sunday afternoon, and we had made arrangements with the manager to move in on Sunday when we signed the damn lease in April. To the leasing agent's credit, she did try to help me, but I was so tired and sick by that point that all I could do was yell at her that they needed to make arrangements to get us into our apartment on Sunday or else. She promised to call back Saturday morning to let me know what they could do, and I assured her that if she didn't I'd be calling her boss.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm not a very nice person when I'm sick or mad. Or just in a bad mood.

The one good thing that happened Friday was that our offer on the dream house in our new city was officially accepted! It's kind of amazing (and scary) that you can do so much real estate business while driving 80 mph on the highway in the middle of rural Tennessee.

That night we made it to North Little Rock, celebrated with some decent Italian takeout and chocolate cake, and the next morning Juan woke up with my cold.

The third day of driving was probably the worst for all of us. We got stuck in the world's worst traffic jam in Dallas, J and I were both sick, and the cats started fighting with one another. It was M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E. It also started getting really freaking hot that day, and both J and I got sexy farmer's tans on our left arms. Thankfully the apartment leasing agent called back and worked out an arrangement to get us our key on Sunday when we arrived even though we wouldn't be signing all our papers until Tuesday. I almost felt bad for yelling at her, but not really since they did spring this on us just 48 hours before we were supposed to move in.

Finally, Sunday we started the final 475 mile stretch. We got up at 7:00, hit the road by 8:00, and were set to roll into town before 3:00 until I needed to pee every 20 minutes for the last 100 miles. Fun stuff. I'm probably lucky J didn't just abandon me at one of the rest stops after my second or third request to pull over.

I can't even say how wonderful it was to see the "City Limits" sign, and then to pull up to our apartment and walk in to a space that wasn't a motel. It was fantastic. We collapsed for a little while, unpacked a few things, then made a quick grocery run to pick up basics (Diet Coke, beer, and cottage cheese were on the list).

We've now been here for almost three days, and things are starting to really come together. The cats seem to be settling down, we have internet access again, we have a home inspection scheduled tomorrow where I plan to get lots of pictures of the new house to post and obsess over. We're also taking a well-deserved vacation to Las Vegas this weekend. I'll be spending part of it working, but since the hotel, entertainment, and all the food is paid for by my former employer, I'm not complaining.

Tomorrow: the new house, and possibly some thoughts on where we're going with this whole infertility thing.

Texasssssss

Catch y'all next Tuesday!

Boxed In

Yesterday morning three men came to our house to pack all our stuff. Six hours later they left, and this is what my living room now looks like.



95 boxes of my-life goodness. That doesn't count the bathroom full of "essentials" that we're taking with us in the cars. Clearly, I have too much stuff.

This? This is just books.



The sad thing is that there are at least another dozen boxes exactly like these scattered throughout the condo. If I wasn't such a book whore (and J didn't have so many heavy medical-type books) the movers probably coulod have finished before noon.

At least the cats seemed to be enjoying themselves once we let them back in the main part of the condo last night.



Today the movers come back to put everything in their truck, and then we won't see it again until June 7. It's a little scary knowing that everything you own is being carted cross-country by strangers. The good news is that we're taking all the internet connection stuff with us in the car (since who can live without the INTERNET for a week? Not us!) so I should be back online by next Tuesday. In case I can't blog again until then, though, I hope you all have a wonderful week and I'll talk to you soon!

Congratulations Dr. J!!!

As of last Saturday, J is offically an MD! Our camera wasn't working during the ceremony for some reason, so I'll post some pictures when we get them from the family. The graduation was great, though, and seeing J get his hood and then take the oath of office again (in addition to being a doctor now, he's also a Captain) brought quite a few tears to my eyes. He's worked so hard for the last four years, and it's all been worth it.

Congratulations, sweetie!

Fish, and Turtles, and BATS, Oh My!

Yesterday we went up to Baltimore with the in-laws to visit the aquarium and tourist around the Inner Harbor. We had a great time, especially with the fish. I love fish. Rather, I love to look at fish. Swimming with them is an entirely different story, and one that usually involves me pantomiming how I once ran away from a pair of harmless parrot fish while snorkeling in Cancun.

But I digress. Yesterday's fish were in tanks.



Also in a tank was my favorite thing at Baltimore's aquarium. The giant sea turtle. It lives in a huge tank on the ground floor of the aquarium with a whole bunch of stingrays.



I love this turtle.

My second favorite part of the aquarium was the new Australia exhibit. The first thing we saw as we walked in were six or seven big bats, just hanging out around the ceiling.



BATS! Hanging from the ceiling! Right above our heads! It was cool. J's 11 year old nephew thought so too. Then these birds flew by and almost hit my sister-in-law.



It's practically like the outback, only indoors and with a higher concentration of animals. In any case, if you're in or near Baltimore and haven't' been to the aquarium in awhile, I highly recommend it.

Happy

We're getting another offer tonight. The couple seems nice and REASONABLE, and apparently are willing to close as soon as June 8. All of this is making me very happy tonight. Also making me happy is the pint of Haagen-Dazs Light Caramel Cone ice cream sitting on the table in front of me. And the week's worth of Daily Show episodes I have on my TiVo. And possibly the stuffed panda J bought me at the zoo yesterday.

It's been a good night.

Many Thanks

Many thanks to Miss Zoot for the lovely new template. I have a Mac, and my last template change looked like ass on Internet Explorer even though it looked great in Safari, so if you're looking at this on a PC and it doesn't look nice, let me know.

Status Report

Since there are so many crises happening in our lives right now, here's a rundown of today's headlines until I can find the time and energy to write a real post.

1) The contract--fallen through. Our buyers pulled out this morning, which apparently they could do because they didn't initial one thing on the contract. It may be a good thing since they were very high-maintenance and pains in the ass, but it's still upsetting. We have another couple who may make an offer coming over to see the condo for a second time tonight, and I've got my fingers and toes crossed that they want the place. This means that we can't make an offer on the house in our new city unless we get another contract in the next few days. Blech.

2) My dad--released from the hospital. He's doing better, still in a lot of pain and still not very mobile, but he's well enough to go "home" to his hotel room before they head up to DC on Thursday. We're getting him a wheelchair, and hopefully he'll be feeling well enough to go to the graduation on Saturday. The girl who hit him was supposed to be arraigned today on felony hit-and-run chages as well as reckless driving, and I can't wait to hear how that went. I still can't believe this happened to him, and still so glad that he's going to be okay.

3) The family--lots and lots of in-law drama. We're up, down, and all around with Juan's family this week. Too much to go into right now, but we're surviving.

4) The infertility--still out there. I'm now on cycle 14 since we started TTC, after getting a rather emphatic BFN last week. Haaaaaaate being infertile, especially around my pregnant SIL on Mother's Day.

Make your own fucking lemonade

My dad was hit by a car yesterday. He's been on a bicycle trip around the perimeter of the United States (this year's leg was supposed to be from the Florida Keys to Annapolis, MD) and got as far as Wimington, NC. Yesterday afternoon a 16-year-old girl hit him as she was turning into a shopping mall, and then took off when he went down.

The good news is that aside from a broken hip and a broken arm, he's okay. He was wearing a helmet, thank God, and there were over 20 witnesses to the accident including his cycling buddy. They've caught the girl--she was turned in by a kid who got arrested for underage drinking and gave the cops her address in exchange for some leniency--and are pressing charges. This could have been so.much.worse, and as angry as I am right now about a number of things, I have to keep that in mind.

He's going to try to walk tomorrow, and he and my mom are still planning to come to Juan's graduation next weekend. All I want to do right now is to give him a hug and reassure myself that he's really going to be okay.

Memo to God (if He exists): All these lemons you've been throwing my way for the last six months? You can have them back. I'm done making lemonade.

Under Contract

It's official, we're under contract! The buyers seem a little on the high-maintenance side, but we're just happy that they've commmitted to going through with this sale. We're not sure if we're going to get the house in our new city yet--our agent is checking with theirs to see if they'd be interested in another contingency contract from us, but I'm very hopeful.

T-minus 6 days and counting until J's graduation. T-minus 11 days until we move.

Nostalgia

Today is my last real day of work. It feels so weird to type that. Like I don't quite believe it myself. Yet, here I am, sitting in my almost empty office, working on a massive memo to my as-yet-unnamed replacement. It's a very, very weird feeling.

Have I mentioned before that today also happens to be the 3 year anniversary of the day I started this job? I don't think so. How coincidental is that? Three years EXACTLY since I walked in this office as a real employee for the first time. Back then I had a cube, an ancient computer, and a tiny little office plant my boss gave me as a welcome gift. Today I have an office, a slightly less ancient computer, and that tiny office plant has gotten HUGE. I've actually had to prune it a few times to keep it from taking over my desk.

So many things have changed in the last three years. J and I were engaged when I started here, and now we've been married for almost three years. We weren't homeowners yet, and I was still planning to go back to school to become a librarian after working here for a year (HA!). I spent most of the first summer I lived in Washington massively homesick for Salt Lake, and used to enviously look at women on the subway who had suitcases with them, wishing I was getting on an airplane too. Now I'm already feeling homesick for Washington, and I save my envious glaces for women who are obviously pregnant. Things certainly do change in three years.

And yet, so many things stay the same. I'll still be coming in Monday morning to orient a new intern, and I'll telecommute part time until they find a replacement. So I'm leaving, but not really.

Regardless, this is the end of an era. It's the end of my first honest-to-goodness adult job, and of some pretty amazing years of my life. It's also the start of a new chapter in my life, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Madcap Adventures in Real Estate

It's been an exciting 48 hours in the This Sorta Fairytale household.

First off, my going away party at work was yesterday. It was actually a lot of fun, even though most of my favorite people couldn't make it because they were at an out of town conference. Still, we had a blast (i.e. we got a little tipsy) and I got a pretty cake (decorated with candy rocks and cowboy boots) and some gorgeous crystal champagne flutes from Waterford. Why champagne flutes I have no idea, but they're very pretty and will collect dust very nicely in our new house.

Wait, did I say new house? Because if I said NEW house, that must mean something has happened with the old house, right?

Why yes, yes it has.

We got an offer this morning. We knew it was coming, but I didn't want to say anything before we were really and truly sure about it. Ironically, if I hadn't been running late coming home from work on Monday, we wouldn't have it at all.

Monday night was hellish. My boss called me in for a meeting right at 5:00 that lasted awhile, then I missed my train, then I hit every red light. I just wanted to get home already! When I pulled into the parking lot, though, I saw three people standing outside our building with papers in their hands. They were looking up at the "For Sale" sign on our building, and I figured that they were probably going around to all the units for sale in our neighborhood.

I jumped out of the car and asked if they were in the market for a home. They said yes (probably thinking I was some crazy person) and I asked if they wanted to see the unit in our building since I was the owner. They were pretty enthusiastic about it, so I let them in and J and I waited in the hallway while they looked around.

They looked and they looked and they looked. They probably spend 15 minutes in our teeny tiny condo. Most people go through it in under 5 minutes, so we knew they liked what they saw.

They came out, asked a few questions about the neighborhood, and then asked for the disclosures. We didn't have any, but told them that our agent would fax the forms to them ASAP. Then we ran inside and called our agent who practically had a coronary when we told her that we thought we had a buyer. She faxed the papers and then we waited.

Tuesday we got a call that they wanted to tour the condo again. Both J and I raced home to be there when they arrived, and again they spent a lot of time inside. Over 20 minutes. They came out, and the wife seemed anxious which made US anxious. We didn't hear from them again until Wednesday morning when they asked us to get a letter from the HOA about some repairs that are going to be made. Still no commitment to write a contract, though.

Finally, late last night we got word that the contract had been signed and that our agent had it in her hands. It's not a bad contract--we'll counter it because they want more than we want to give in terms of concessions--but we're pretty certain that these are our buyers. The final decision will be made on Sunday/Monday after our next open house.

Then, as if that wasn't good news enough, Juan got a call from our agent in our new city this afternoon. Remember the house we had a contract on there but lost because we couldn't waive the contingency? Well, it's back on the market! For some unknown reason, the sale fell through, and now they must be absolutely desperate for a buyer. We don't know why the sale didn't happen, and our agent is trying to find it out as I type, but there's a very good chance that we're going to get a second shot at our dream house!

I'm so excited I can barely see straight! Everything seems to be going our way today, and part of me is afraid to think about it because something bad could still happen. Still, it's been so long since I've been happy like this, I think I'm just going to bask in the knowledge that we WILL be okay, and that our luck is finally starting to change. It's a very good feeling.

Strange Things Found in My Office, or Why the $%#*& Did I Keep This?

I've now spent the last two days de-personal-item-izing my office. Since I just moved into this office from a cube down the hall 18 months ago, you wouldn't think that I'd have that much crap to deal with. You would be wrong. So far I have found:

-14 plastic straws from Subway (Why? I don't even use plastic straws)
-1 bobble-head doll of one of our former clients
-4 collectible pins from cities I've never visited
-Approximately 47,000 copies of a single issue of our in-house newspaper that contains one tiny story I wrote three years ago.
-NO copies of the issue of our in-house newspaper where I was the author of both front-page stories.
-3 glass vases
-1 knee-length cardigan minus its sash
-1 winter hat I thought I'd lost two years ago
-3 videos of news stories I never watched about a program I run (oops)
-7 bottles of lotion
-1 giant Super Bowl XL mug and t-shirt
-3 calendars from 2004
-$5 worth of pennies
-and a partridge in a pear tree

Tomorrow I'm going to tackle my e-mail inbox. 8,615 items of pure fun!

No news isn't good news

Two people came to see the house on Saturday, and no one stopped by on Sunday. Not a single solitary person. I'd feel pretty bad about that except that I know no one came to the open house at the unit just down the hall from us either. The market is just so damn slow right now.

So, we continue to wait. Moving day is in two and a half weeks, and we'll be discouraging potential buyers from walking through the place from the 21st to the 25th since the house will be full of boxes and packing materials those days.

I'm trying not to think about the fact that it's still on the market and we don't even have a good chance of getting an offer soon. I'm mostly successful during the day, but I've woken up at 3:00 or 4:00 in a cold sweat every morning for the last week, panicking about what we're going to do if it doesn't sell. Just typing this entry is making me anxious.

On the plus side, today marks the start of my last week of work! I've now gone to my last boring as dirt staff meeting, written my last legislative briefing memo, and cleaned out my desk drawers. Tomorrow I think I'm going to tackle my corkboard-o-crap.

Call me Weepy McWeeperson

Hoo boy, it's been quite a day.

In a nutshell, I'm now thinking that I won't do the IUI. More research on my part (specifically on taking Clomid when the doctor isn't monitoring you) as well as advice from friends who have been through infertility treatments has made me really question whether or not I want to trust this clinic with my reproductive health. To compound that doubt, I got a chance to talk to someone today who has done both IUI and IVF with that clinic and had only bad things to say about them.

So, it appears that my first negative impressions of the clinic may have been accurate ones.

I haven't made a final decision yet, and I've placed a call to the RE to discuss my concerns, but right now I'm leaning towards not doing the IUI and not taking the Clomid. I'm pretty upset about all of this, since I'd started to let myself hope that we would be able to do the IUI and it might (GASP!) work. Silly C, getting her hopes up.

Living with infertility has meant managing my emotions on a day-to-day basis. One day I'm happy and optimistic, and convinced that this WILL happen soon for us. The next I'm miserable and weepy and generally feel like everyone in the world is pregnant but me. And then there are the days when I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic--my life is what it is, and I have to deal with it. I can't predict today what the next day will be like, and as someone who likes to know what the future has in store, this emotional unpredictability been frustrating and draining.

Lately I've had a lot of the good days, which has really surprised me since life in general is kind of falling apart right now. By good days I mean that I don't cry at work or glare at every pregnant woman I pass on the street. I can be around my friends who are pregnant on those good days, and even spend time on pregnancy-related websites and message boards without being a total bitch to the optimistic Cycle 1 ***BABY DUST*** ladies. I think most of the reason for this is that I have so many things to worry about at the moment (selling the condo, moving, my job, all the hoopla surrounding J's graduation) that infertility gets pushed to the back burner. While I wouldn't mind having fewer life-changing experinces all at once, I'm glad that all the craziness has distracted me from not being pregnant.

Today, however, was not a good day. I've cried at my desk twice, and didn't even shut the door. I completely ruined one of my favorite Ben Harper songs by looking up the lyrics online (I love the man, but he MUMBLES) and realizing that it perfectly describes what I expect to feel the first time I look into my baby's eyes. That alone set off a 15-minute crying jag.

I have some decisions to make. Both in terms of my treatment and in terms of my expectations for the next few months. Regardless of what I decide about the IUI, we won't do anything medical until at least this fall. Hell, we might not do much more for another year. I don't know. The bottom line is that I need to let myself be sad, but I also need to keep that spark of hope alive that I WILL be a mother someday, and I WILL NOT LET THIS BEAT ME. Those convictions are pretty much the only life raft I have to cling to, and dammnit I am not letting go.

More on being young and infertile

A friend brought this article from Slate.com to my attention today. Apparently yesterday was National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, and while teen pregnancy numbers are down, some researchers are now thinking that the cause may be less due to teen behavioral changes and more due to the decrease in both male and female fertility. It's an interesting and frightening read.

EDITED 8:30 PM

Thanks to Jamila for pointing out another article to me from this week's news about links between environmental toxins and infertility.

On Being Young and Infertile

Today was a pretty big day. I had my follow-up appointment with the RE to review the results of my tests and to talk about our options. The HSG and bloodwork looked good--everything is normal enough to theoretically work the way it's supposed to. The RE felt that further testing probably wouldn't tell us anything new, though it's something I may revisit in the future. That leaves us with getting treatment.

Because our move is coming up in less than 30 days we've decided to attempt an IUI cycle before we leave for our new city. Chances are about 50/50 that we'll be able to do it, what with all the moving logistics that will be happening right when the IUI will likely have to be performed, but I really want to do it if we can.

Oh, and we got one other thing out of today's meeting. I now offically carry the "unexplained infertility" diagnosis.

I'm 25 years old, and I'm infertile. At an age when most women are supposed to be able to get pregnant at the drop of a hat, my RE tells me that I have a 2-3% chance of getting pregnant every cycle. Normal, fertile women have between a 10-20% chance every cycle, depending on whose statistics you believe. Of course, when it comes to individual cases, statistics mostly become meaningless, but those are the only numbers we have.

It's a hard postion to be in. Not just because of the infertility, which has become a constant heartache, but also because I don't fit the expected mold of an infertile woman age-wise. It's not something that's ever bothered me until recently, and after today's appointment and other recent events, it's something I need to talk about.

In the last two weeks I've had two friends separately tell me that I should "just relax" about my infertility because I'm so young. The implication is that my infertility isn't a big deal because I'm only 25. These two women are close to the infertility community and I previously respected their opinons very much. I trusted both of them with my pain, and now feel like they've betrayed that trust.

When I first heard "just relax, you're so young", I didn't know how to respond. Almost a month ago, J and I decided to take a break from testing/treatments until after we were more settled in our new city. The decision was a personal one, based on factors that had nothing to do with age. It just felt like the right thing for us to do. That plan has changed a bit now, but this IUI is a one-shot deal. It will almost certainly be at least a year before we can attempt another IUI or IVF. If we get to that point, we will have been trying to have a baby for two years.

According to Resolve, the leading advocacy and lobbying organization for infertility, the fastest growing group of infertile women are under age 25. Environmental causes are suspected to be at fault.

I know I'm not the only young infertile woman out there. I also know that I'm not the only young infertile woman who feels like she isn't a "real" member of the infertility club because she's not backing up against advanced maternal age. The benefit to being young and infertile is obviously that I do, in theory, have more time to try to get pregnant before I hit menopause. I'm incredibly grateful for that time, especially since we'd like to have more than one child someday. Still, I am infertile, and that it hurts me just as much as it hurts someone who's 10 years older than I am.

I've read other blogs that talk about the crazy competitive nature of infertility. Women who have their diagnosis are "better" than those who are still just shy of one. Women who have started treatment are "better" than those who haven't. Women who've been thorough multiple cycles of IUI/IVF are "better" than those in their first cycle. Etc... It goes on and on. I freely admit to participating in this to some degree. I frequent a couple of pregnancy-related message boards where I've been known to give the "just relax" advice to women who haven't even been trying for 6 months. I'm "better" than they are because I know I'm infertile and have been through a year's worth of cycles that haven't resulted in a pregnancy to prove it.

Now there's another aspect to this crazy, nonsensical race to be "best". Age. Someone older than I am is "better" because of their age. Because they likely have less time than I do to get pregnant.

I don't know what the answer to all of this is. I can only hope that with the increasing numbers of young, infertile women like myself, people will start to realize that we hurt too. A lot. And all the "just relaxing" in the world isn't going to change that.

Good Things

This blog has officially become to whiney. There ARE good things happening in my life, as astonishing as it may seem if you come here very often. Here are just a few things I'm happy about.

1) My awesome mind/body fertility class--This class has really changed my outlook on both infertility and how I deal with everyday stress. I tend to automatically think worst case scenario whenever a roadblock pops up or something doesn't go the way I expected. Even just a few weeks of structured meditations and really thinking about my reactions have made a difference in how I handle stress.

2) My angel kitties--We had to board the cats while we were in our new city two weeks ago because we couldn't trust Arcadia not to pee on any of the furniture when we were both away for so long. Amazingly, not only did they do okay being boarded, but we've had no peeing incidents and no threatened peeing incidents since we brought them home, even when 12 strange people came to the house Saturday night.

3) Work--Even though I'm very glad to be finishing things up here at the office next Friday, there's a good chance that I'll be able to continue doing some contract work for the office after the move. This would be awesome for several reasons, mostly because of the money. Being employed from the get-go would be a very, very good thing.

4) Family--The in-laws start arriving next Saturday, and my parents will get here on the 19th. We're going to spend a lot of time touristing around and getting to visit, which I'm really looking forward to.

5) Snarkies--I cannot, CANNOT overemphasize how happy I am to have these women in my life. If nothing else, they're a constant source of support and humor in my day, and that means the world when nothing else is going the way I've planned.

We've officially lost the house

Very sad, even though it's what we've been expecting since Saturday. Also, spending half the night signing papers and making phone calls to cancel the sale hasn't been a picnic.

I think they should give you a lollipop when something like this happens. Everything else sucks, why not add a little candy into the equation to make things seem a little less bitter?

Weekend Roundup

The sellers of the home we want in our new city accepted a second offer on Saturday. This means that we have until COB tomorrow (Tuesday) to waive the contingency in our contract or we'll lose the house. Since we can't swing two mortgages, we're not going to waive the contingency unless we get an offer in the next 24 hours. Both J and I are bummed about it, but not devastated. I think we both knew there was a good chance this would happen, and no matter what we know that we'll eventually get into a great house down there. Probably not THIS great house, though.

In other news, I had a party with my DC friends over the weekend and had a ton of fun even though it was probably the last time I'll see some of them. We laughed, gossiped about girly stuff, and J came home just as we started talking about puberty. Good times. I'm going to miss them all very, very much, and I'm getting a little teary eyed just sitting here writing about them.

Coming up this week I have a follow-up appointment with the RE (my first since the HSG) to talk about next steps. Since they didn't find anything abnormal during the HSG, I'm not entirely sure where we'll go from here. There are more tests that they may want to run, but we don't have much time left here and I'm not entirely sure I want to continue with that clinic.

That's pretty much all that's happening at the moment. Just have to buckle down and push through these next two weeks of work before the family starts arriving for J's graduation.