Salt and Pickles

well, I took a few weeks to eat stinky cheeses. go to karaoke and get drunk and sing at the top of my lungs. I have taken uncountable hot baths .. and now I feel like myself again.
I don’t feel so deep down hurt, but I’m not very good at wallowing and only once have I ever been.

Tonight I’m having a lovely date with myself. Hans is away on business.
The first night alone, I had my two favorite girls over and we ate Cioppino that I made (with scallops & mussels & halibut. crab in mine only , since they have contact allergies) .. with crusty bread & salad and crisp white wine.

tonight I have been eating these bright green olives that are amazing, artichoke hearts, a creamy wonderful cheeese with acme bread, champagne, and slices of salami
meanwhile I’m indulging in a fabulous Jane Austen bender. That bender is coming to a close (after watching 4 jane austen movies and reading 2 novels in one week) and i’m continuing with more BBC miniseries (North and South next)
I’m having a wonderful date with myself.

I do miss my boy, though. especially when I wake up sleeping diagonally on the bed, hugging and smelling his pillow in my sleep.

I actually had some other intention when i started this blog post. I’m not sure what it was. I think I had something I wanted to say, but I can’t remember it for the life of me.

One thing I love about watching and reading too much Jane Austen is that I have found that it has a profound effect on my language. As a girl who indulges in way too much vernacular, this is a good and silly thing.

The hippie dance jam is going on behind the loft right now. It’s tempting to go join in.

We’re going on a ski trip to Whistler in a few weeks as I had to find a time consuming thing that would make up for not being pregnant. I figured, I should do something that I won’t do when I *am* pregnant. so skiing it was.

Next IVF (frozen embryo transfer) should be sometime in January.

I love having a date night in my house. This house is so beautiful that I’m always aware of a low level happiness just being here doing nothing.

especially in this room:

In the tub I could see the last faded bit on my pudgy belly. “please stay, xo xo” with a few hearts in addition. good thing there are no i’s in please or stay, or i might have dotted witha heart like a 12 year old hopeful girl. Dr. Bronners and some exfoliation and it’s gone til I’m ready to buy into hope again. which i will, like an amway devotee.

last night, after the muffled “my life sucks” .. i faux pummelled hans’ chest. My fists barely touched him.. it was just an empty gesture so i could feel better. He turned around so I could actually pummel and somehow it turned into me pounding on his back in opportune spots to best massage his sore muscles.
funny, that.

So, in the 2 week wait.. I tried to keep busy. I read a lot of books. I did a lot of daydreaming (always dangerous) and I socialized a little. It actually wasn’t so bad and went by much faster than past 2ww’s.
my clinic doesn’t do betas until 14 dpt. . 17 days past ovulation!!

One thing i left out of my last post was that I’d borrowed from Mother Rising and had written “welcome home” on my belly for transfer day. The nurse thought it was the sweetest thing she’d ever seen, and my doctor laughed at me a little. That was ok since I was laughing at myself a little too.

I continued to write new messages every other day through the two week wait. messages like “stick around little monkey” and “stay” and “please stay xoxo” (because x’s and o’s always help)

well, it seemed to work and when i tested on 13dpo (so 5 days before the beta), I got my first ever unequivocal positive pregnancy test. on a digital even!! the most i’d ever seen was a light light positive on a cheapie that was gone by the next morning. the highest beta i’d ever had was a 2.. which combined with my super high progesterone at the time, did lead them to believe I’d had a chem pregnancy.

I continued, this week, to pee on sticks to see the line get darker. Except the line wasn’t getting darker and I was getting increasingly stressy and spazzy. I hate being spazzy and I was officially in spazland.

I moved my beta up to Wednesday and then the lab took too long getting back with results so I still didn’t find anything out til thursday.
My beta came back.. 16dpo and 13dpt at 32.
not good.
not out of the running . but not good.
I took thursday off to deal with the concept that it might not be happening. I wanted to do some grieving and be able to move on.
Todays beta came back 39.

so .. today I’m off the meds and we’ll go back in tuesday for another blood draw to make sure the #’s are coming down and it’s not ectopic. I’ll have one natural cycle and then the cycle after that we’ll do FET. I’m gonna transfer two of those puppies this time.

tonight I bought 5 juicy books (including a few young adult fantasy books, because I never out grew my love for young adults novels). i have a bottle of red wine. some cheddar & crackers. some popcorn & butter. all my guilty foods.
I have a hot hot bath. I am going to stay in that damn water til i’ve read at least one book if not two and not just my toes are pruned but my whole ass is a big prune. that’s right
one big white pruney ass, my friends.

Yesterday when things weren’t looking good initially… Hans came home from work and hugged me. I leaned my forehead into his chest and said in a muffled manner
“my life sucks”

we immediately started laughing .. because really.. my life doesn’t suck.
THIS sucks. but everythign else is still pretty stellar.
I work with great people, i have awesome friends, i have an AMAZING home that i’m madly in love with, we went on some great trips and that guy I married has a great butt.

not bad. I know this.

I will get pregnant.