Follower # 1

Cool!!


I have my first follower :)


Thanks Willow! 

Puppy Cam!!

I'm so happy to be able to watch a new litter of Shiba Inu puppies grow up! If you're an animal lover, you'll love this live feed from a breeder's home in San Francisco. 


http://www.ustream.tv/SFShiba


My little guy is a cream Shiba Inu who just turned 3 on Jan 14th. He is my little boy, my little man, the baby of the family. :) 


I'm planning a post about each of my 3 fuzzy angels in the near future. I don't know what I'd do without them! 


And,  they make me feel like a good Mom, loved by her little ones. I just adore them. :) 

Phoenix

So I'm nearing the time of having to go back to work again. I was off for most of the year last year having to take too much time off for surgery and followups due to my endo. It was a blessing in a *huge* way because I was in so much pain all the time because of the endo and intestine inflammation. 


My thoughts about time off and going back to work in another post.... :)


I'm going thru a major house cleanup right now...I want to get rid of all the extra junk we've been carting around for almost 10 years, from high school, to university to now. Lol, I even have some favourite shirts from grade 7.


We had moved into this apartment because it is a great size, in a wonderful safe neighbourhood, with two bedrooms..one that could become a nursery since we knew we might be here for baby's first year. But now that second bedroom has become a storage room! Sometimes it's really neat, the neatest room in the house because it's barely used. Other times, it's so incredibly messy so we can hide everything in their. We've been okay with this, because we really enjoy this complex. Our backyard, literally 30 seconds away is Lake Ontario, with miles of secluded beach on one side and lots of off-leash space for my pup and all his friends on the other. So we've been mildly okay with the landlord raising rent every year without the maintenance to back it up. 


But then we got our news about IVF being our only method of having our babies, and the difference in rent price from a 2 bedroom to a 1 bedroom suddenly seems significant. So I'm starting to look and see where we can go, while staying in this neighbourhood and, honestly, not downsizing to some craptacular apartment that smells funny with no natural light (we have huge windows here, and privacy).


So I'm going thru all old boxes and suitcases of old clothes, closets, anything to see how much I can get rid of to move to a smaller space. 


And now the reason for this post.


While emptying out my dresser drawers, I found a packet of condoms. And i just felt a stab thru my heart. That I could just throw these away, not in a happy way that we were trying ourselves, but that we would never, never need to use this, no matter how many times we made love, never again. It's painful.


And so stupid and ironic. That we tried so hard to not get pregnant all those years. That we used them after my surgery until I was fully healed, then I was in pain again. Seeing them now seems like a sick joke. 


I read some advice recently...that when you feel the pain of IF, to really feel it, explore it, then have courage and keep going. I'm thankful that after I came home from my surgery in October, without my fallopian tubes, so confused, my heart feeling numb, that I had my incredible husband with me that first week, when every minute dragged on. I really believe had he not been here that week, had I not had him to cry with and hug as much as I needed and wanted to, my spirit wouldn't have been able to fight back so strongly. I needed to grieve, and do it by fully being in the deep end.


I'm not the same woman who woke up from surgery, feeling so free, so excited about the journey ahead of us..before I learned from my husband what had happened. I'm survived the absolute worst night of my life that night, alone in the hospital. I changed after the new, stronger, harder me emerged from the numbing pain of those weeks. 


And the changed me is so excited about starting IVF, about the all the possibility it brings me and my Mister.



Sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes..the words were just spilling out..


:) 

Dr's Today

So I'm off to see my family Dr. this morning to get a Pap and talk to him about night sweats. 


Since my operation at the end of October, about every other night I've had night sweats so bad I've drenched my sheets, my PJ's, my pillow, my hair...it's nuts. And I don't wake up throwing off the covers complaining how it's hotter than heck in our room but being cold enough to not really want to leave my gross sheets. And I'm still tired alot, abnormally so after so many months after surgery.


I don't always get along with my family doctor...he can be out of date on endo issues (he told me I had PCOS even tho I only had one giant endometrioma growing on each ovary) and doesn't know much about my gluten sensitivity. It's just too hard to find a new GP in my city and my current Dr is only a short bike or bus ride away.


Hope he has some ideas today on how to help me!

Sister Chat

Just had a really nice talk with my sister-in-law! She had a laparoscopy in Nov because of severe period pain. She thinks she has PCOS but her surgeon never explained what he found and what he removed! Crazy, huh? She has an appt with him on Friday and I told her to ask for the surgery report and for him to go over her surgery in detail. I'm an information junkie, so I would have gone a bit nuts not knowing what happened.


After my surgery in October when my fallopian tubes were removed, I read every gruesome detail of the surgery report, as painful as it was. 


Anyways, I finally was able to tell my sister-in-law about what happened to me...I just wasn't ready to before. She said "Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't feel sorry for you. You are going to be a mom. It's just going to take some help. It might be harder for it to happen, but you'll cherish your baby even more. So enjoy it! Get ready emotionally and physically. Instead of saying 'I'm going to be pregnant, say I'm going to be a Mom.' And I'm going to be an Aunt!!"


I just love this girl! We've been sisters-in-law for 2.5 years, but cause of miscommunication or something or other, we've gone thru periods of not talking or having unspoken issues between us that always got cleared up when we saw each other and talked it out. We were both nervous to see each other over the holidays at the in-laws house, and it was a bit awkward at first. But, as usual, the wall was broken and we started talking..but this time it was different. We knew that this time we had both just come thru such similar experiences and needed someone to talk to. We've talked more in the past 2 weeks than we have in the past year! 


I have a sister who understands me, understands IF and has the ability to be a cheerleader for me :) I'm so lucky! 

My Story

Short version:


Always had pain...was told 'it was normal'....was on BC on and off for 8 years...came off BC after getting married in June 2007...started getting horrendous period pain in August 2007..lying on the floor crying kind of pain...pain, cramping, leg and back pain started happening all the time in Dec 07...went for an ultrasound in Feb 08...laparotomy in May 08 to remove endometriomas...pain returned in Oct 08...started progesterone supplements while on waiting list for surgery...Oct 09 lost both my fallopian tubes to endo damage...hmmm, I wonder if all this waiting around on stupid wait lists contributed to this....Spring 10 starting IVF!


Long verson:


It's coming!! 

New Year, New Hope

Happy new year!

After spending the last few weeks going over why 2009 was a terrible year, the worst of my life, my husband snapped me out of my doom and gloom mood by simply saying  ""Cutes....2009 is over. It's a new year now." And with those words of wisdom (he always has some lol) I felt refreshed..I felt, and feel, like I've sufficiently called out 2009 on all the crap it put us through and now I can focus on the huge year ahead of us. :)

We'll be starting our first IVF cycle in the spring and I am *so* incredibly excited about it. 


I've been wanting to write this first blog for months now...but I just couldn't get the words out. I guess I put too much significance on the first one, and even tho I was writing daily blogs in my head, I just couldn't get this one done. Then, the above talk with my DH happened and it clicked. The first blog I found on IF was 'My Journey with Endometriosis'..I highly recommend you check it out. Please send her and her DH your support and thoughts.  


I am so grateful for the community of sisters out there...I'm not alone, and your journeys and courage inspire me. No one can understand our pain like each other..the operative word being *understand*.


I'm also grateful for the incredible support of my parents, my in-laws (especially my Mom-in-law), my aunt, and my close friends. My DH and I are so blessed to have two women in our lives who've told us that, if we need it, they would be surrogates for us. Words can't adequately express how honoured we are, and just how blessed we feel to know women who would want to do this for us.


Of course, I would love to be the one to be pg, But really, who knows what will happen? I still don't know why we were put on this path, why this IF happened to us, why why why...


Fingers crossed that 2010 will be a big year for us :)
And for all my sisters who are on their own baby journeys