Friday, December 31, 2010

Ending 2010 Right

Biggg news today...I've talked before about how we've been trying to have a baby since losing Nora and Edge. We took this cycle off from fertility meds because we're changing REs and couldn't get in before mid-cycle. It looks like we may be waiting a bit longer to go in to see the new RE because according to my fertility friend chart, I just ovulated on my own 3 days ago for the first time in over 3 years.

This is, of course, great news for us because we hated having to go to a doctor for help anyways but it means we still did it on our own even after that crackpot RE we were going to. So, pray for us that we caught it this time and that we'll have a very healthy baby that won't inherit the chromosome defect that Mike carries.

On a down note, I did gain 2.4 pounds this week, which I expected but that doesn't dampen my excellent mood because we are officially waiting to test. If I can hold out that long, we will be testing on January 8th, in the evening after waking up. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Everyone have a Happy, Healthy, and Safe New Year with plenty of cheer.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Bad Week

I was hoping to make this week a great week and hit the 20 pound mark at my meeting on Friday. Here it's almost Wednesday and I've had a horrible week. We didn't do enough grocery shopping and I've run out of just about everything that I rely on to eat right this week and we don't have the money to buy groceries until Thursday.

I'm trying to make the best of it but really there's nothing that I want to make or eat in our house because we ran out of all the good stuff. All I really have are veggies that need something to go with them and fruit. I also have meat and chicken but nothing to make with it. I've been relying heavily on chicken and veggies but I'm kind of sick of it. I love the veggies and chicken together but don't have anything to bring them together to really make a meal.

I'm really tempted to just not eat until I weigh in but that won't do anything that drastic or stupid. I don't believe in not eating to lose weight. I'm just thoroughly out of ideas.

Other than that, it hasn't been a bad week. It's just been a bad food week.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas and a Happy, prosperous New Year to all.

My meeting today went very well after a week that was fantabulous. I lost 4.8lbs this week. This is the first week on the program that I've gotten 5 fruits/veggies in per day. It wasn't hard with the exception of the fact we didn't have enough veggies on hand and I still need to run back to the store. I've also come to rely heavily on cottage cheese and chicken. I did realize this week, that this is the way I should be eating. With very few breads and refined carbs and a lot of fresh fruits & veggies and lean proteins. I also got my dance on with my new Just Dance 2 game a few days this week.

I'm hoping to hit the 20 pound mark next week, I am at 16.8lbs down I believe. I am happy with the loss but I'm even happier that I'm getting the hang of this program and finally getting somewhere on my resolve to add more fruits and veggies to my diet.

I've got a few prayers that need to go up. Pray for my aunt whose grandson/my cousin, his girlfriend, and baby are living with her. My cousin headbutted his girlfriend and broke her nose, so he's now in jail with an order of protection for the baby and girlfriend against him. Another cousin (and the brother of the previous cousin) was victim of the flooding in Southern California and is living in a shelter, thankfully, he has a good job so he can support himself but he lost almost everything. Pray for that aunt's second youngest grandson/my cousin as well because he was being a stupid/emotional teenager overdosed because of a girl and is in ICU, he hasn't come out of it yet.

Have a wonderful, safe holiday. Remember it's a time of goodwill and cheer and family (even if you can't stand them and Lord knows there are some I can't stand). Merry Christmas once again.

Monday, December 20, 2010

A Laid Back Month...Maybe

I know I just posted a couple days ago but I felt the need to do another post about how laid back this month has seemed. Maybe it's because Mike has pretty much had a vacation every week this month with the exception of this current one, but he does have a 4 day weekend.

I hate the hustle and bustle people seem to think has to come with the holidays. The holidays aren't about rushing from store to store looking for the best deals. That's one of the things I really do hate about Vegas because these people only have one speed the rest of the year which is frantic. There's no Christmas spirit to these people because they don't get to enjoy it.

That's the one thing I miss back at home. Every time we've gone back there, it seemed like time slowed down to a snail's pace. Christmas was Christmas and you could tell just by driving down the streets. To Vegas Christmas is just another day in the rat race...it's disappointing to someone like me who loves the holidays. The only places you see the magic of Christmas are the places you avoid (the malls) because of all the craziness that accompanies the ever frantic pace.

Let me show you what Christmas is to me (in borrowed/found online photos):
The Tunnel Leading into Our Lady of the Snows Shrine in Belleville, IL
An Entry into the Annual Main Street Gingerbread Walk
The Santa Claus house in downtown Belleville, IL
Sherman Hall @ Western Illinois University in Macomb, IL
Across the street from the Santa Claus house there's a huge Christmas tree lit up on the town square and horse-drawn carriage and trolley rides. The street lights on main street where the Santa Claus house is located are the kind that look like old-fashioned gas lights and the street is lined with storefronts that house the entries in the annual gingerbread building contest known as the Gingerbread Walk. Every neighborhood you drive into has Christmas lights and displays. The main streets through town have lit wreaths, candles, or some other kind of holiday symbols.
The Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows has a light display that they do every year that if you drive through it shows the journey of Mary and Joseph as well as the birth of Jesus and arrival of the 3 wise men. They have a live nativity scene at the visitors center. The shrine also houses the annual Nutcracker ballet performance by one of the local ballet schools as well as the Christmas trees from around the world exhibit.

This is Las Vegas at Christmas:

Blue Christmas Tree @ Caesar's Palace
I'd post more but it's all the same...the only decorations you really see in Vegas are in the malls and in the casinos. That's not Christmas to me. I have never seen an outdoor Santa's house here, they've only been in malls. That's not the kind of traditions I want to raise our future kids with.

Back to the reason behind my post. This month has seemed a lot less stressful, even though we are a bit sleep deprived from 2 weeks of visits from out of town and this week isn't going to get any easier because Mike's grandparents will be in from out of town. I think we're going to need that 4 day weekend to sleep. Maybe it's a good thing we had to take a break from TTC this month.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

One Week Until Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas!!!


This week wasn't so good at my weigh in as the week with my dad, probably because we didn't do much in the way of exercise like we did with my dad here. It wasn't horrible, up 1.4lbs but I was hoping I would have stayed the same...oh, well, I know part of it is because of AF (I'm not going to explain that to those of you who don't know what it is). I am positive that I will lose it this week.
The craziness will continue for the next 2 weeks because my meeting days fall on Saturdays and so do Christmas and New Years Day, so I have to go do my weigh in a day early the next 2 weeks but a positive of that is that I get an 8 day week the week after New Years.
We may have to put off going to the new RE until after the beginning of the year if there's a copay because our money is pretty much spoken for until New Years day. It sucks but I'm going to stay positive about it and look at it as a temporary break if it happens.
I also got Just Dance 2 for Christmas from my parents...so I get to have some fun exercising with it for now. I'm hoping to get the Wii Fit Plus some time next month too. I'm anxious to get my exercise on and keep losing the pounds. I'm looking at it as the healthier I eat and the more I exercise = baby sooner than with depending on just the clomid alone.

There's something else exciting too...I've posted in the past about dreams that I've had and things just working out the right way for us when money has been tight. A couple weeks ago I was praying, something I've started doing much more of in the last few months, and I always pray for the same thing. Well, you know how it seems repetitive at times and you sometimes doubt that God can hear you? Well, this time I was praying and more or less having a conversation in my head. Usually, I don't get any answers but I do anyways. That day it was like as soon as I thought something the answer popped into my head, like I was being answered. I was wondering my prayers if we were ever going to have a healthy child and I heard "Yes." Before I could even ask when I got the date of December 13, 2011...now that's a bit creepy to me but it excites me all the same.
I know I shouldn't look at the next 2 months as free months but in a way that's what I'm doing because that would mean I'd have to conceive around March 20th. I want to take full advantage of those 2 months and get as healthy as possible before I have to be concerned about nourishing a growing baby for 9 months. It also doesn't mean I'm not going to try for it sooner than 3 months away, it just means that I have hope. Maybe God is letting me know. We, honestly, will be happy with one healthy, living child if that's all we are able to have, but we would like more. When I posed that question in my mind I heard 3. Now, I don't know if that includes Nora and Edge along with another or 3 healthy living children. Regardless if we end up with 3 we will be happy and if we end up with 1 we will just save up to adopt.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Happy Birthday Nora

I'll admit that today will be a sad day for Mike and me. Four years ago today, our angelbaby was born still and grew her angel wings. Usually the anniversary of her birth and official day of her death, with the exception of the first, I have been stoic and refuse to think about all of the unhappiness this day brought.

It brings such pain to remember how from the day of our first anniversary when we found out she was gone that I would not sleep because sleeping just made the time when that final separation would happen come even more quickly. Three days of tears, gut-wrenching tears with only snatches of sleep in those moments when it just became too overwhelming to handle. All we wanted was to be alone so we could deal with our grief together but it seemed that we had to be there for our family, to comfort them because of our loss. They wouldn't leave us alone for fear of what I don't know. They didn't understand Mike and I needed to be alone to comfort and grieve together.

It was just too soon to let go of that precious little girl. I choose now to consciously remember only the joy we felt when Mike and I discovered we were going to have a baby. There was such happiness in knowing there was a new life developing day by day. We couldn't wait to tell everyone we were expecting and did.

So, here we are on Nora's 4th birthday. I'm in our apartment writing this while Mike is on his way to work. At one time, it really upset me because it seemed like he wasn't grieving the way I thought he should, but I realize now that is something that is his own to do and not for me to judge.

Later this morning, because my mom insists not out of any desire of our own, we will go to Nora's grave and put little decorations to celebrate her birth and for Christmas. To us, Nora is only in our hearts, she isn't underneath that cold granite stone. Nora never knew life, so where her body lies now is not really where she is. To us, a cemetary is for the living because the graves and memorials there are a way to comfort the living about the ones who they knew and loved. With a stillborn child, they never knew the world, so they only lived in the hearts of those closest to them, the parents.

So, yes, today I have cried and mourned the loss of our precious baby. I cry thinking about how she would be today if she had lived and what we would have. Our life and hearts would be filled with joy at having Nora with us alive even for one day. Happy Birthday, Nora, our angel, our joy, our love. We know you are watching out for us and when you are ready to send a brother or sister to us, we will rejoice to have you as an angel watching over them and us.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Long, Full Week

Had a great meeting today. It's the first week since starting the new program with WW and I'm down 3.2lbs and 13.4lbs total. I'm happy with that but a bit disappointed as well because it's been 9 weeks and I feel like I should have lost more. I just have to start exercising and choosing healthier options. I am hoping to get my Wii Fit Plus soon, maybe the 1st payday of the new year and I'm hoping to get Just Dance 2 for Christmas.

I have been baking a lot with a homemade baking mix with about 1 cup of fiber one and 1/3 cup of steel cut oatmeal. It's filling and high in fiber. My next attempts with it are going to be biscuits. I already made chocolate chip cookies and apple brown betty with it. After the biscuits, I'm going for pancakes. I'm also going to try to make snickerdoodles. I'm going to make fudge for Christmas at Mike's parents house though apparently his mom has started making it from the same recipe I used when I made it last year...maybe I should try divinity instead but my grandma tells me it's hard to make.

So, Sunday (12/12) is our 5th anniversary. Not sure if we are doing anything...probably not since we just spent our movie money at the grocery store and Mike has to work later that night. It's never really been a big deal for us, except the day we got married and our first anniversary which was the day we found out Nora had died. We are happy being together and we don't need a single day out of the year to remind us of that or celebrate it.

My mom flies in on Monday and will be here until Friday. It's really a pain in the butt to have my parents do separate visits because it disrupts two weeks of work and sleep. I'm glad to see them and have them here but it takes a lot of work to make sure we spend as much time with them as we can without trying to take away time from my sister and her husband; and without staying up way past our bedtime. The other pain is trying to make sure I eat as healthy as possible if we are going out to eat...I'm going to try to cook at home as often as possible so that way we can avoid going out to eat. I have the feeling we'll do with my mom what we did with my dad. Since my sister and her husband work during the day, we'll have my mom pick up Mike from work and stay here until about 1pm or so, then we go to bed and she heads out for a few hours on her own until my sister gets off work.

Then Mike is off for another 4 day weekend this coming week and he's going to want to do stuff too. We still have Christmas shopping to finish up for each other as well as a few more family members on each side.

On to Mike, he had to go in for a biometric screening before doing bloodwork and a physical to make sure the price of our insurance won't go up. Of course, the day they reminded him of it was the 2nd to last day he could do it, so he had to go to Bally's on Thursday afternoon to get it done. He is healthy in every way except for his slight heart murmur and he is pre-hypertensive.

Without the bloodwork we aren't sure whether this is a result of his bad diet, even though they measured his good cholesterol and it was ok, or if it's a result of his chromosome defect. The defect could predispose him to hypertension...guess we'll find out when he goes in to see the nurse on Monday morning. Oh, yeah, he has to leave work more than 2 hours early to go to this appointment 4 casinos down on the strip because that's the only time he could get in before the deadline of the 20th.

I could really use a glass of wine right now just thinking about the busy-ness of this next week. Oh, and this month we aren't going the clomid route because we are in the process of changing REs since the last one was a total ass. Maybe with the less stressful/hormonal cycle we will get lucky...stranger things have happened.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Overhaul (in More Ways Than One)

Okay, so I began drinking my grapefruit juice today even though I couldn't find 100% natural, I guess the cocktail will have to do for now until I can get to Sunflower Market to get the natural stuff. It wasn't as bad as I feared it would be, similar to the tartness of cranberry juice. Mike is drinking 1 cup per day along with me because I also read that grapefruit juice has DNA restoring properties, so anything that can help with his chromosome issue is worth trying.

I knew going to my WW meeting today that it was going to be a day full of changes because they were rolling out a brand new program. I just wasn't expecting the program to be so different that everything from the old one is obsolete even the points calculators. They calculate points differently and calorie count doesn't come into it. It seems they are trying to encourage more healthy eating and carbohydrate (especially refined carb)reduction, which works perfectly with my plan to go lower carb anyways. My daily points increased by almost 10 and they increased the optional extra weekly points to 49 but they also increased the points on foods too so it really balances. My leader said that even though he wasn't trying, the leadership team has been on this program for 3 months and he's lost 15 pounds just from the change.

I can tell you that I attacked my food in a different way today. I weighed and measured (which I usually do) but my new points calculator was essential. I would have been lost without it. It was also really hard to finish my points today but I figure with some planning and ingenuity, I'll be able to easily adjust to the new program and be more successful at it than the previous one.

A bonus is that after 3 weeks of struggling with my sugar addiction yoyoing me with my weight I lost 4 pounds this week and hit my 10 pound mark finally. I was so excited but with all of the talk about the new program didn't get a chance to get my 10 pound ribbon, so I guess that'll be next week. I'm hoping to also get my 5% ribbon next week too. I just feel like this is going to be a good week. The only downside to this new program is that the daily points are more individualized so every week you have to recalculate them to see if you've lost a point or if your value stayed the same, unlike the old problem where if you dropped a middle digit you lost a point.

Here's hoping for a great week and that it doesn't go too badly food-wise with my dad being here. Then, after I find out how this week went I've got to gear up for my mom's visit starting next Monday. Heading to the Las Vegas Rock N Roll marathon in the morning to root for my dad since he's running in the half marathon.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

RIP -Two Losses in a Week

So, last week was a sad week even if I didn't say anything on here. The world lost two wonderful souls this week and they will be forever missed. The first I had in my life for more than 15 years and he was much loved, our family dog then my mom and dad's dog Bubba. The second was a wife and mother of three who succumbed to stage IV breast cancer after more than a year of fighting.

Bubba sleeping next to his cat buddy, Medaja.


Bubba was adopted by our family the summer before I turned 15. He was a puppy then but in horrible shape. Bubba was so small and malnourished that he could stand up on all four in the palm of my sister's hand. He was covered in fleas and my mom had to give him about 3 flea baths before they were finally gone. Then he almost died from illness before my dad saved him. He had a stomach bug and refused to eat anything and the vet told us the only way he had a chance was if we made him eat. My dad stayed up with him all night forcing him to eat rice and boiled hamburger. After that he was a normal puppy and a much loved part of our family. He went on family trips with us and camping with us. Initially he was my dog and even slept with me most nights, then when I went up to college he became my mom's dog (you know how dog's are a family's but become more attached to one person in the family). He had a good long life with the Robinson family and he was the only dog that we ever kept after getting. He went to doggy heaven two days before Thanksgiving.

I met my friend Melinda while I was working at the player's club booth at the Flamingo. Shortly after I began working there she changed positions in the department to become the department coordinator. I started working in close quarters with her when I was first pregnant with Nora. We'd talk and everything while she was working and I was doing mountains of departmental paperwork. Eventually she decided she wanted to move up the management ladder and took a job as an assistant slot floor manager. I'd see her and her husband occasionally after that. When we lost Nora, Melinda was the one that gave me the address to a website for parents of children with heart defects and she knew what we were going through because one of her children was born with a heart defect.

Melinda was always a fun-loving and mostly happy spirit. She could always bring humor to any situation. She did a lateral transfer to another property shortly before I was let go from the Flamingo and was diagnosed with breast cancer. Melinda fought the cancer and was given a clean bill of health. A year later her doctors discovered she wasn't in remission like they thought and she'd progressed to stage IV. It had spread to other parts of her body and the outlook was grim. But Melinda was never one to let something like that keep her from fighting. She had to have a gamma knife procedure done as well as 15 once weekly treatments of chemo and radiation. She appeared strong and in good spirits when she finished the last round of chemo and radiation the beginning of October this year. Slowly, though, she lost her strength and eventually ended up in hospice. She fought for as long as she could to stay with her three kids and husband of 18 years and made it days longer than anyone had hoped for. Melinda grew her angel wings on the day before Thanksgiving. She will be forever missed by everyone who knew her.