appliances, cooking and more…

I’ve been meaning to write this post for over a week now, but there’s been a lot going on and it just hasn’t happened.  12.45am may not be the best time to start it, but it’s my last chance before Monday and I just need to bite the bullet and get it done…

So, last Friday the oven was installed!!  Woo hoo!!  And after paying to have an electrician come to disconnect the old one and install the new one, it turned out that both ovens plugged into a simple power point in the oven recess, rather than being hardwired in…  Apparently this is quite rare, but we could have done it ourself, we just had no way of knowing.  Oh well…

Here is the finished product in all it’s 65 litre goodness:

There was one hitch with the installation process though:

When we were buying the oven, we were assured that all ovens were a standard depth.  I’m not sure if that was a load of bullshit or if the standard depth has changed?  But either way, now that it sticks out by about 2cm, I’m inclined to approve DH’s plans to redo the kitchen!  ;)

Just as the electrician was finishing installing the oven, the dishwasher arrived, or so we thought:

It wasn’t until they had almost finished installing it that I noticed that it was the wrong model!  So, after a quick call to the store, they were told to remove it and take it away.

The correct dishwasher arrived and was installed this morning.  Sorry the photo isn’t good, but it’s 1am, the kitchen has bad lighting (yet another reason for a renovation) and I couldn’t be bothered cleaning the fingerprints off it because I’d rather go to bed 5 seconds earlier…  Just call me lazy…  Anyway, here it is, in all it’s fingerprinty glory:

We haven’t used the dishwasher yet, but the oven has definitely been tested out!  On Saturday we cooked a couple of lasagne – one for us and one to take to a get-together with friends the next day.  Here’s a slice of the one we made for us (the other was vegetarian):

Mmmm, so yummy!  I’ve got to admit, the best meals we cook in this house are ones that DH makes!  This lasagne follows in his father’s footsteps and the other favourite is his mother’s meatloaf which we made on Monday:

We’d been craving this for months!  We had even discussed borrowing someone’s kitchen to make some or taking DH’s dad into making it for us!

An interesting fact for the caffeine dependant out there is that the meatloaf sauce contains 2 teaspoons of coffee powder.  DH and I don’t drink coffee so this recipe is literally the only reason we have any coffee in the house!

So, appliances – check, cooking – check, that leaves “more”.  This is, after all, an infertility blog.

It has been 6 weeks since our m/c and for most of that time I have been insanely busy with work.  This week I have not been busy.  This week, all of those suppressed and ignored emotions have snuck up behind me, knocked my legs out from underneath me and then kicked me while I was down.  Monday sucked, but I got through it.  Tuesday was worse – I spent half of the day at work crying at my desk and the rest hoping no-one noticed.  Wednesday I just couldn’t do it – when DH said it was time to get up and get ready for work I burst into tears.  DH called in sick for me and stayed home to keep me company.  Thursday was a repeat of Wednesday morning and Friday I didn’t even try…  So, I’ve been off work the last three days…

I sent an email to my manager on Thursday, explaining what was going on.  Fortunately I didn’t get any argument from him, just questions about when I’d be back.  He also confirmed I was entitled to 2 weeks of bereavement leave (which was how I had interpreted the policy), so I don’t have to use any of my annual leave!  I haven’t decided yet when I will go back.  I’d like to take next week off, but I know that this period of “not being insanely busy” will be fleeting and I don’t think I’ll get away with the whole week.  If nothing else, I’ve got a full day training course on Friday (my first training in over 2 years, so I’d be crazy to miss it).

Anyway, it’s 1.25am and I’m going to get very little sleep as it is, so I should go.  Oven, dishwasher, cooking, grief – yep, that pretty much covers the last 2 weeks.  The only other noteworthy item is that I’m hoping I O’d today, which would bring us into the 2 week countdown to IVF#4…

The Oven is here!!

Our oven stopped working very early this year.  We got someone in to fix it and were told we had to order parts, which would arrive in 2 weeks.  One and a half weeks later, the oven manufacturer went into receivership.  Strangely enough, we never got our parts.  The parts were only worth $12, so I’m not overly broken up about that (particularly when people who had paid over $10,000 in advance for an entire kitchen’s worth of appliances weren’t getting either the appliances or a refund!), but the $400 for the service call which only achieved replacing the seal on an oven that didn’t work still makes me a little cranky…

So, since we were in the middle of IVF#2 we just left it alone because the stress of calling the repairman back out and fighting to get parts was just too much on top of IVF.  And then we did IVF#3.  And then I was sick on and off all winter.  And then I just didn’t care and we both agreed we’d rather replace it.  Let someone else have ours for parts!

Here is the offending appliance:

Note:  I refuse to clean it, so it looks pretty disgusting.  But if it’s not going to work, I’ll be damned if I’m going to clean it, and once we decided to replace it I really didn’t see the point!

So, DH & I did some shopping.  To be honest we didn’t look far.  DH had looked a few times without me and I was too busy at work to spend more time on it, so I left it up to him.

And this morning this arrived:

Isn’t it pretty?  ;)

Someone is coming on Friday to install it, so you’ll have to wait for proper pictures then.  But if you’re super keen and impatient you can always check out the Australian LG website!  I can’t wait to use it!!

Also arriving on Friday is a dishwasher!  That one’s more for DH since he does most of the washing up!  ;)  We went with a German-made Bosch for that one and you can see the model we bought here if you can’t wait for Friday’s photos!

Next on the agenda is replacing the blinds in the master bedroom and ensuite!  We just need to find something we can agree on within our budget – DH doesn’t like curtains and I don’t like the vertical blinds we have now…  After that we need to get one of the air-conditioners fixed (it stopped working the day before the repairman came to “fix” the oven, so it’s been a while, but now Summer is fast approaching!).  And then last, but not least, is repairing and selling my car which we haven’t driven for over a year!

Oh, and IVF#4 fits in there somewhere!!

Ah, yes, and DH has just reminded me that he is very keen on us getting the patio built out the back (ouch! – we’re talking $20k there!), but that’s not on my priority list…  Sorry DH!

jacaranda time…

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while but got busy…

The Jacarandas are in bloom!!

Now, I realise that may not sound like overly spectacular news (although the trees themselves are certainly spectacular), but for anyone who attended UQ, they have a special significance.

I was surprised to stumble upon this when I was searching for a photo (which saved me typing up my own version):

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:University_of_Queensland/Archive_1#Jacaranda_folklore)

Jacaranda folklore

History

Jacarandas have long graced the St Lucia campus of the University of Queensland.  They bloom towards the end of the academic year which has led to the common comment within the campus that if you haven’t started studying by the time the Jacarandas bloom, you’re in trouble.

Myths

From this kernel of truth – you need to get studying before the exam season starts – the Jacaranda has come to represent a malign Cherry blossom in the hearts of University of Queensland students. There are a number of myths and legends popular among students, concerning how the falling blossoms affect academic performance.

• If the blossoms fall on your car, you will fail your next exam.
• You will drop a GPA (Grade Point Average, ranked 1-7) for each blossom that falls on you.
• If a blossoms falls on you on your way to the exam, you will fail the exam.
• A student once articulated this in poetic prose in a message to his loved ones:

“The amazing thing about Brisbane at the moment are the jacaranda trees. They bloom in mass purple and in such abundance that students associate them directly with exam performance. There is a saying up here that if a jacaranda blossom falls on your head before an exam you will fail. I am staying indoors”

Now, I don’t remember the second one in that list, but we certainly used to joke (or sometimes panic!) about the first and third one in our years at UQ…

ps. Yes, I am writing a post about trees in an attempt to distract myself from the 2ww!  I’ve been obsessing terribly and I’m only halfway through the 2ww!  My head may explode before the end of it!

flat out like a lizard drinking…

Sorry for the delay between updates.  It’s been full-on hectic here!

I’ve been kept busy with that project that was due last Friday.  I got my draft report in on time, but they changed the parameters 2 hours before I submitted it, so I now have to submit a revised one this week after I get the new info and analyse it…  I can’t say I’m overly surprised – this client does it to me all the time – but I was hoping that it would be done and dusted at the scheduled time for once.  Especially after I pushed so hard to get my report done in time, in spite of my personal woes.

Unfortunately, now I need to try to revise it amidst preparing the other report that my manager wanted complete before I go on leave and that I said I would have done this Friday.  Great – double the fun this week!!  I was just exhausted after last week.  And then my sister was in town this weekend to do some wedding shopping, so I didn’t get any time to rest.  Which all lead to me taking today off work to regroup for another big (but now short) week…

On the plus side, the wedding shopping went well.  We found shoes to match her dress before lunch and we got a lead on some jewellery for her to wear.  However, we worked out it’s going to be very difficult to find shoes to match my dress (pistachio colour), especially since I’m no good in heels…  But you can’t win them all…  Hopefully the next season’s shoes will have more greens?

Sorry, that’s all for today.  I’ll catch up more later when things settle down a bit and I’m less exhausted.

ps. The cake at the party was ice cream cake, and it was made from cheap (generic brand) ice cream – very disappointing!

pps. I lit a candle for my lost bean on the 15th.  I had it burning next to my laptop while I worked on my report.  And it looks like I O’d on that day too, so maybe we’ll get lucky again in a week and a half?

chocolate cake fixes everything, right?

Since our bad news 11 days ago, I’ve allowed myself to indulge a little.  The day after our third beta, DH came home from work with three (yes, three!) blocks of chocolate!  And soft drink!  Now, for the preceding two months I had done really well at limiting my refined sugar intake.  But this was a weak moment, and I indulged.  I indulged quite a bit…

And then I craved cake.  Moist, light, chocolate cake.  Nothing fancy – basic cake, basic icing, but an intense chocolate flavour.  Well, that was what I wanted.  In the end (some days later) we bought a chocolate cheesecake. Actually, half a chocolate cheesecake.  We’re being good, remember?  The last serving is still in the fridge and it’s very much on my mind…

The problem is, I love a light cake with a madiera-like texture.  DH doesn’t.  He really doesn’t.  So we usually get what he wants because I’ll eat what he wants, but he won’t eat what I want…  *sigh*  Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing – he won’t eat my cake, so I should get more, right?  But, no, I get less…

Anyway, tomorrow we have a birthday party to attend for my BFF’s 3yo daughter.  Should be interesting.  Of our friends that will be there, only one knows about our m/c.  And I’ll be driving down with that friend (for an hour) along with her 4mo twin girls and 2yo son.  But that should be a good warm up act for the plethora of children under 4 who will be attending.  I think the adults are starting to get outnumbered?

But, you know what, I think I’ll be fine.  In fact, I’ll definitely be fine if there’s cake!

almost over…

I’m kind of floating around in a vague haze these days…  I cried last Tuesday when we got the beta results, but aside from a few other (very random) times scattered through the week, not much more.   I’ve been very busy with work (in a distracted sort of way), so maybe that’s why?  Maybe I’m just going to fall apart at the seams when this project is (due to be) finished next week?   But, anyway, floating in a vague haze…

And I haven’t been terribly talkative either, so please forgive me if there are any protracted silences…

But, on the TTC side of life, I’m quite ready to try again.  For a long time I’ve heard tales of women being more fertile after a m/c because their body is already geared up for a pregnancy.  I’m not holding my breath, but I’m okay with trying again as per usual.  I just wish I knew how DH felt about it.  He has been wonderfully supportive and caring for the last week, but he hasn’t said anything about what happened.  It’s got me worried.  I know I’ll be okay and I know it’ll just take some time, but I don’t know about him.  He hasn’t read as much as me; he hasn’t seen (too many of) my (wonderful) FF friends go through this same experience and come out the other side intact.  I did ask him last night – hopefully I’ll get an answer before it’s time for me to O…??

To DH:  Sweetie, if you’re reading this – I’m fine.  I’ll cry, it’ll take time, but I’m fine.  Please take the time to look after yourself too.  I love you!

And now it’s time for bed…

ps. I almost forgot – it’s “almost over” because AF has pretty much left the house.  We’re down to spotting, so it’s almost finished…  I was surprised that AF was only a day longer than normal and not overly heavy either.  But, boy o boy, did it hurt!  The first day was excruciating and after that the cramps (less painful after CD1) lasted pretty much the whole AF instead of the usual 2-3 days.  It was different in other ways too, but I’ll spare you the gory details!

poem…

One of the ladies on the BB forums posted this today.  Hope was in short supply for me in the months between my third failed IVF and our surprise BFP and, now that my hope has been renewed, I found this particularly touching:

Do you believe in fairies?
In wishes that come true?
Did you think your lucky star
Would shine its light on you?

Have you crossed your fingers?
And triple crossed your toes?
Hoping that the pain will go
That pain that grows and grows

Have you thought that your sorrow
Must surely have an end?
When a baby born so near to you
Is your sister’s, your best friend’s

Did you wonder where in life
You were meant to play your part?
When all that ever happened
Was each month you broke your heart.

Believe in luck and fairies
And stars that shine anew
Have faith, hear what I’m saying
For dreams – they do come true.

Author unknown

Thanks for sharing that Emerald Star…

okay, a bit better now…

I decided to risk the “phonecall in the bathroom” scenario.  And, you know what?  They never called!  Grrr, I was sitting here at this computer in agony for an hour or more and I could have been on the toilet, in the shower or, better yet, downing a bottle of something very strong (for medicinal purposes only, of course) until I passed out…  *sigh*  On the other hand, I am actualy glad they didn’t call, so I shouldn’t complain…  And I am joking about the alcohol…

Anyway, 2 hours later I am feeling somewhat better.  I’m hoping that was the worst of the pain, but I guess it just depends what else needs to come out.  Sorry, we’re deep into TMI territory here, aren’t we?

On the even brighter side, DH brought me home some soft drink and chocolate tonight.  I’ve been so good lately with avoiding the refined sugars that I was (briefly) tempted not to accept them, but then I caved.  I have to make him promise not to buy more though, because I don’t think my willpower is up to resisting it at the moment…  ;)

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O!M!G!!!!

Pain!  Pain worse than I’ve ever felt before!  Pain so intense I want to vomit!  I know there’s an end to this, but I wish I could sleep from now until then…

And instead I’m waiting on a work phone call.  Would it be inappropriate to take that call in the bathroom?  Probably…

the end is nigh…

I can’t say it was a surprise, but of course it’s still a huge disappointment.

Today’s results:

HCG:  81
P4:  5

Thanks so much to all of you who have kept me company during this long wait.  Your words and support have meant the world to me!

This isn’t the end of the journey, just a brief pause along the way…