IF in the Headlines!

The article appears today. Here's a link, which will function for a week or so I guess.

Baby-desperate moms share every detail online

To Mel, Tertia, Julie and all the women who contributed: congratulations to you. I think you've all done a splendid job! Be proud.

Tralee, hats off to you girl! I appreciate your taking the time to talk to me the other day and to present what is a sensitive topic. This is a beautiful article. Thank you for shining the spotlight on us for a fleeting moment.

And lastly to Bill, the gentleman who took my photo for the article the other day, thank you. I hope you got something to work with!



Baby-desperate moms share every detail online
TRALEE PEARCE

Globe and Mail Update

November 27, 2007 at 6:37 AM EST

Gillian Wood has been trying to get pregnant for three years. She's used fertility drugs, tried intrauterine insemination and has even been tested for in-vitro fertilization.

She considers none of this private information. Instead, Ms. Wood, who hopes to embark on in-vitro sessions soon, is sharing every last detail of her experience, fears and all, via her blog, the Hardest Quest.

"I am so afraid to take that next step," she writes of her infertility journey. "You cannot imagine. (Okay, maybe some of you can. But right now, it seems overwhelming and immense to me.)"

This is the world of the infertility blog.

Here, women (and a few men) relay every medical moment, every disappointment and every shred of hope they find in their attempts to have babies.

They share tips on injecting fertility drugs and freezing embryos. They commiserate about insensitive queries from friends and family members, and seek out "cycle buddies" whose ovulation and fertility treatments align.

Infertility blogging has won more adherents, and sites have proliferated over the past 18 months, some say. One of the infertility world's most famous bloggers, Melissa, a.k.a. the Stirrup Queen, says that during her first hard-won pregnancy three years ago (which resulted in twins), bulletin boards and chat rooms were all she could find.

Now, her highly visible blog competes with dozens of others and, like its competitors, has a growing core of loyal readers. "I see myself as a blogger, but also as a pollinator, bringing together bloggers who may have missed each other otherwise," the 33-year-old says by e-mail from the Washington area. (She declines to share her surname.)

May Friedman, a women's studies PhD student at Toronto's York University who studies infertility and mothering blogs, says such forums bring together two of the Web's major hallmarks: anonymity and confession.

Tell-all blogs are safe places for the infertile to overcome the shame and isolation they may feel about infertility. They can "come out," if you will.

Ms. Wood, 37, says she started the blog as an outlet for all the emotions she and her husband were facing - not to mention as a practical spot to record all her drug doses and ovulation schedules. "I thought, 'I'll do it for me; if I get readers, cool,' " says Ms. Wood, a technical writer and editor in Ottawa. "You tell it like it is - you can be as emotional as you want."

Julie, of the blog A Little Pregnant, was also searching for an outlet. She has written about her ectopic pregnancy, a miscarriage and, finally, her high-risk pregnancy and 10-weeks-early delivery of a son. Now she and her husband are trying again.

The 36-year-old Vermont native was uncomfortable opening up with family members, but "my blog allowed me to do that, to be frank about what I was going through," she says in an e-mail. When well-meaning friends didn't understand, "I had friends inside the computer who could."

For many, blogs allow for some black humour. Julie defends using salty language on her blog: "You try having your uterus filled with glow-in-the-dark dye, and then we'll discuss what kind of language seems appropriate."

Along the way, readers and writers alike share any expertise they have gained. "My doctor taught me how to give myself an injection," Melissa says. But online, "another infertile woman was the one who taught me how to make an injection less painful."

Community members quickly adopt an insider lexicon - much of it built on medical acronyms: RE is the reproductive endocrinologist; OPK is an ovulation predictor kit.

As South African infertility blogger Tertia writes: "The infertility world is a subculture on its own. It has its own set of rules of interaction, its own language, class system, social hierarchy. ... It is not a culture you willingly belong to, but it becomes perversely comforting once you are in it."

It can also be a complicated place to be when you finally get pregnant. While a positive pregnancy test is the Holy Grail, it also poses a problem.

The editors of Redbook magazine recently found this out when they introduced a new blogger, Lili, to their Infertility Diaries this July. Her first post mentioned she was just back from maternity leave with twins, which threw many readers for a loop.

One, called SarahKt, wrote: "Lili's wonderful announcement of returning from maternity leave ... made my insides ball up into a big barren knot. ... Maybe this isn't the space for me at this time. ... It might be nice to have an expanded reach into voices in the infertile world? To hear from others whose stories are still quite ... barren?"

Julie of A Little Pregnant joined Lili as a Redbook blogger in August. So far, she has not found herself in the middle of controversy, despite having a child. This may be because she is already known as a successful infertility blogger.

Nonetheless, she's keenly aware of the fraught relationship infertility bloggers and their audience have with pregnancy.

She says discord can also arise when someone expresses disappointment about the gender of her baby-to-be or wishes fleetingly that she wasn't having twins - or even complains about how uncomfortable she is in the last few weeks before birth, she says. "It's sometimes hard to be happy for someone else when we're so unhappy for ourselves."

It's too early for Ms. Wood to worry about the politics of getting pregnant. For now, she and her husband eagerly look forward to another round of in-vitro fertilization. She may have a successful blog, but she desperately hopes to move beyond infertility. "I never envisioned a life without children."

Online lingo

Infertility blogs boast an entire lexicon of terms, ranging from actual medical terminology to neologisms that reflect the reality of infertile couples.

IF: infertility

FTTA: fertile thoughts to all

RE: reproductive endocrinologist

IVF: in-vitro fertilization

IUI: intrauterine insemination

FET: frozen embryo transfer

BFN: big fat negative (on a pregnancy test)

BFP: big fat positive

BMS: baby-making sex

DE: donor eggs

DPO: days post-ovulation

DPR: days post-retrieval (of eggs)

DPT: days post-transfer

OPK: ovulation predictor kit

Post-beta cry: the letdown after a negative or questionable pregnancy test

Follie: egg-producing follicles

Vagacamera: wand-like device that takes internal sonogram

Wand monkey: the technician who operates the device

2WW: two-week wait to find out whether a treatment during ovulation succeeded

Assvice: unsolicited, stupid suggestions made by people who know nothing about infertility

LBC: live baby check. An ultrasound for no other reason than to reassure a neurotic would-be mom that her baby is, in fact, just fine

DBT: dead baby thoughts

Sources: stirrup-queens.blogspot.com, http://www.alittlepregnant.com, thehardestquest.blogspot.com and fertilityplus.org/faq/acronyms.html

An Interesting Turn of Events

I sat at the keyboard the other day, checking gaming forums, reading your blogging updates (heavens I really need to update my sidebar!), perusing flights to somewhere sunny for the Christmas holiday season (you know, to forget that this is yet another holiday without a child), among other things. And as I frequently do, I opened up my g-mail account to check my messages. What I saw there piqued my interest.

I received an e-mail from a writer for a prominent Canadian newspaper. She had stumbled across this blog and she wanted to know more; would I be interested in speaking with her?

Here, I have to confess (because I know she'll be reading this!), my initial thoughts were, "Riiiiight," (insert sarcastic voice), "Who's yankin' my chain?" So I do what any technologically inclined blogger would do: I Googled her. That lead me to some of her previous articles. She is real and no one is yankin' my chain. Neat!

Now the best part: she's not just interested in me per se, she's interested in the community of IF bloggers. Get that girls?! Yes indeed, you read that right. Our community.

Well, after I got over my initial shock, I replied to her via e-mail. In short, my answer was, "Oh yes, I'm interested in speaking about this. Here's my number, give me a call."

This morning I spent about 30 minutes on the phone with her. I answered her questions surrounding blogging in general: why do I do it? What lead me to it? What sorts of readers do I have? And other questions about my personal journey on this road: where are we now? What are our next steps? What does having a baby mean to me?

You know... the questions we all have answered a dozen times in our minds. It's interesting to know that someone out there is listening.

I can say this with absolute certainty: Even if we never get anywhere with our quests, if we never reach our goals, if we never fulfill our dreams, at least we can educate. We can put a face on the pain and hurt. We can show the world that infertility is real. Infertility affects many people in a myriad of ways. Infertility is not something to be ashamed of or afraid of. Infertility is part of our lives, it is a part of who we are now.

What we go through here makes us stronger. We never realized how much we could do until we were pushed beyond our limits. We never understood that there was an entire world of women (and men) out there going through the SAME thing and with whom we can relate.

You, ladies and gentlemen, you GET IT. And I am proud to have such a wonderful community to turn to for advice, assistance and emotional support. You have helped me more than you can possibly know. Kudos to you. YOU make the difference.


By the way, as a follow-up, I expect a photographer at my house on Sunday. Frankly, I don't think he'll get much to work with (not unless they want to frighten their subscribers!) but hey, if I can put a face on infertility and tell part of my story, shining a light on this subject for other suffering infertiles, our government and policy-makers, then I'll do everything to make that happen. Wish me luck. Oh, and if I can find out when said article is going to be published, I'll let you know.

I need a virtual bar. Now.

I'm getting back in the swing of things at the office following my return from Newfoundland. It was lovely to see the folks and to spend time at Cape Spear, go to Middle Cove, have proper fish and chips, and all that good stuff. Of course, it's also accompanied by the recognition of changes in my family each time I go home now. Seeing my mom and dad get older. Watching them try to do the things that used to come so easily and quickly... and now things take time. Seeing them slow down is tough I guess. I mean, realistically you know it has to happen, but you always hope you can prolong it. Just a little more. Hope that you don't have to see it in YOUR parents... that sort of thing. In the last few years, I've debated moving back home. I haven't ruled it out yet, but you can be certain there are no opportunities for IUI or IVF in Newfoundland. The closest in Nova Scotia, and that would be rather costly on a repeated basis. That's for sure.

Back here in Canada's capital, it's downright chilly today. Yesterday hubby and I hung the Christmas lights. No, they're not turned on, but they're up! It's so much easier to put them up when it isn't -5 outside! Brrr! Would you believe I saw my first snowflakes of the season today? Winter's coming fast! And here I am with NOT ONE CHRISTMAS CARD DONE! I'd better get a move on.

In the office this week, I talked with one of my co-workers. He and his wife (she's my age, 37) have been married for quite awhile. They had decided before getting married that they weren't going to have a family. Well, as they grow a little older, they are rethinking that plan. But his wife still doesn't want/need to experience the whole "being P" thing. So they are looking into adoption with the Children's Aid Society. They've been to an information session and have the package of documents that they now have to fill out. They're considering taking a sibling pair, either same or opposite sex. I would like to pick his brain a little more (in private) about how the process works and more to the point, how did they, as a couple, come to that decision. What fears and concerns did they have and how did they resolve them before getting to that point?

I've been asked (as many of us have), "Well, why don't you just adopt? There are so many children in the world looking for a home." I don't know why we haven't looked into it. Something tells me it isn't our route. I can't explain it really; but it's just not calling to me. It's not something I can see myself doing, but again, I don't know why exactly. Very hard to explain. And very hard to understand. And if I can't understand it myself, then what is stopping me at all? Tough questions. I dunno if I have the answers.

And where are we with the IVF stuff? Nowhere. Not at all. I haven't made any decisions. I haven't gone for bloodwork. I haven't thought about "what next" because it scares the bejeesus outta me. I am so afraid to take that next step. You cannot imagine. (Okay, maybe some of you can. But right now, it seems overwhelming and immense to me.) If I make the decision to try, and fail, I will be devastated, with little support around me. If I make the decision to not try, it's a 50-50 thought: part of me will regret and always say, "I should have tried it" and the other part of me can justify it and say, "So it could theoretically have worked (and thus I'm not a total failure)." That is huge in my mind for some reason. Why? I don't know. But it's immense.

I'll tell you what's immense: hubby and I are going to a girlfriend's 30th birthday party tomorrow. Said girlfriend, myself, and one or two others who will be there are in the IF boat and have tried IUI more than once with no success. We're on the rollercoaster. Still. And yet, tomorrow evening, one of my former co-workers and her husband will be in attendance... accompanied by their six-week old infant.

Now I know it isn't fair to the new parents to ask them to leave such a young child at home. And rationally, I know it's silly of me to want to avoid this new young family. But I do. Yet I WANT to go to my girlfriend's party! Dammit, I do NOT want this to control my life. But it seems to, far too often. I talked to my girlfriend tonight (she and her husband made sure I was aware this infant would be there, God love them for their sensitivity and knowing I need to be prepared). I told her that hubby and I would be there, and the duration of our stay would really depend on how I felt and how well I would be able to handle it all. She understands, of course. I just hate that my brain stops to dwell on this at all. "Normal" people don't think twice about it, do they? I know I wouldn't have in my pre-IF days. In fact, I would probably have been excited to see the baby. But now? Eeesh.

Hand me the rum. I think I'm gonna need a drink to get through this. Pull up a stool and share. I'm not sure about Mel's bar, but this one is open.

A Halloween Horror Story

So, here I sit. It's November 2 and I'm at 'home' in Newfoundland with my family on a bit of a vacation. It was sorely needed, for both me and my family I think.

I sat at the kitchen table last night, talking to my mom, and her best friend for a few hours. This is a woman I've known since I was knee high to a grasshopper, whose children played with me and my sis when we were all children together, living on the same street. The topic turned, as it often does, to the 'kids' from the old neighborhood (yes, yes, I'm one of the gaggle of 'kids' included therein), and where they all are, who's doing what, who's working where, etc. La la la... work, husbands, problems... and the elephant in the room, children. Mom looks at me and says, "So tell Mrs. M. what you've been up to this year Gil." And I give her THE LOOK. Raising a brow, and sort of insinuating, "Do you really want me to tell what I've been up to this year Mom, or are you looking for something else here?"

I stammered. *insert shifty eyes here* I "ummed" and "errred" back and forth and then I finally said, "Well, this year has been a helluva year for me and hubby, so we indulged around August and took a vacation to Vegas to celebrate our anniversary." I thought: Okay, I'll leave it at that and see what comes of this convo. I pick up my mug of hot tea and Mom pokes me, "Tell her why it's been a helluva year. Not like you are getting divorced or anything. You just can't say it's been a helluva year and leave it at that."

I set down my mug and looked her square in the face and said, "Hubby and I have gone through our third year of infertility treatments. I dealt with a second miscarriage last year. We've spent over 9K and used donor sperm. And now, we're looking at IVF in Montreal at a cost of about 15K. That's been our year. The trip to Vegas was a sort of consolation prize."

Seriously, when Mom pulled out pics of Mrs. M's second (and latest) grandchild (who looks just like her mother, one of my childhood friends), I almost cried. I had to bury my face behind that huge mug of tea and try not to think about it.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE coming home and hearing about all of what's going on, how everyone is doing, where everyone is these days, etc. But knowing that our family seems to be the only one without grandchildren... it is so painful to deal with. Mom knows what we are going through, and although she understands the logistics of it, no one here really "gets" the psychological aspects of it. They cannot fathom what it's like for me. They do not know how hard it is to see those photos and hear about this one's new baby and that one's pregnancy, and oh they just had their third. Part of me cracks inside each time I hear that. I cannot get away.

It's the most difficult thing in the world to dress up for Halloween, and answer the door at my parents' home, loving the costumes the little kids are in... and wishing to God that I could go out Trick-or-Treating with my own daughter or son. I don't know if I will ever get that opportunity.

And there it goes again... the sound of my heart cracking.

I've been busier than busy! No really!

God love you sweet ladies (and men!) for checking on me now and then. Sometimes I just want to slink away, hide away, and put the covers over my head, forgetting the craziness of the IF world. But you never really forget do you? You never really go back to how you were in the pre-IF days? All innocent and hopeful?

I've been a bad blogger, once again, in my extended absence from here and in keeping you all updated. No news to report really. AF is on the horizon yet again; today's CD24 so I expect another two or three days and the wench will make her appearance.

I'm a much more sane person though without all those drugs in my system and both hubby and I are happy about that. I often wonder, if we do decide to go through with the IVF, whether I'll really be able to handle all those drugs and monitoring again. It's really taken its toll folks. I just don't know if I have it in me to be honest.

We're still looking at it I guess. I have a last little bit of bloodwork to do and then we send off the papers to Montreal. And then... it's anybody's guess. It might be a few months before we even get a call from them.

In the meantime the update.
- Yes, I continue to go to the gym. So far so good. I feel better about myself at least.
- Yes, hubby and I are still doing our date nights, once a week. (In fact, yesterday we went out for dinner together for the first time in two months!)
- No, there is no way to do further testing on hubby's sperm unless he has surgery. And that will be for the TESE (with donor sperm as a backup).
- Yes, I DID try to contact all the candidates in my riding for next week's election with a question regarding their party's platforms regarding IF and costs. Alas, not one response from any of them. Good to know they listen to their constituents huh Aurelia?
- Yes, I continue to game and lose myself now and then in EQ2.
- No, I still haven't gone home to visit my folks. But Mom is definitely on the mend; her follow up with the surgeon was very positive.
- Yes, I'm still the manager of our team and it looks like I'm in that position until at least April 2008. Yikes!

And this weekend is Thanksgiving in Canada. It stands to reason that our harvest would be earlier than yours in the States and thus, we celebrate it earlier. So Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I will be cooking a full turkey dinner for... two. I just wish it were for more.

Bloodwork Results

So there's good news and bad news. I got the results of last week's CD3 bloodwork this morning and here are the numbers. Normal values for the follicular phase are in parentheses.

TSH - 3.39 (0.30-4.70)
LH - 1.3 (2.4-6.6)
FSH - 4.6 (3.0-22.0)
Estradiol - 131 (0-921; CDN Values) OR 35.7 (25-75; US Values)
Prolactin - 14.1 ( 3.3-26.7)
Blood group - A+
Rubella - 58 (>12 is Immune)
Hep A AB (IgG + IgM) - Negative
Hep B Antigen - Negative
Hep B Antibody - <10 (Non-immune)
Hep C AB - Negative

And hubby's sperm count? Zero.
*Curses the stupid vasectomy that worked and the reversal that failed... yet again*

So the good news is, my FSH is very good. The bad news is, my LH seems to be really, really low. From what I have learned, low LH levels have been associated with poor egg quality and poor implantation as well as higher rates of early miscarriage.

Great... something else we deal with.

Or not. I guess that remains to be seen.

Anyone care to weigh in?

IVF Testing

Thank you all for your kind words regarding the e-mail I had sent to my friend (see previous entry). I still haven't gotten in touch with her, although I know I need to. It's very hard to face as I am sure you all know. Funny, it never bothered me to be around p/g women before... or even as this whole process of pain has continued. But I find that the further I travel along this road, the more disheartening it becomes and the more frustrated I get at seeing women like that. I never used to avoid things like baby showers or weddings. I never cringed in the supermarket lineup when an obviously p/g woman stood in front of me. I never heaved a dejected sigh when my mother told me about yet someone else back at home who got p/g or had a baby. But now... I do. I avoid. I cringe. I sigh. And while I hate doing those things, it is very hard NOT to. The hurt and the pain is so raw. When I am not faced with these situations, I can SOMETIMES forget for a little while and I can be just Gil. But as soon as it enters my personal space, I am "IF Gil" and I hate who she is. I wonder if I'll ever really be rid of "IF Gil" and be just Gil again. I suppose the bigger question is, do I want to be rid of "IF Gil"?

Anyway, Hubby and I went last week to have bloodwork done (again). On Wednesday, attached at the hip to my MP3 player (which is full of a host of soothing music), we headed down to the clinic for my CD3 workup and this time, HIV testing to boot. That all needs to be done if we are going to pursue the IVF route in Montreal.

At the clinic, the phlebotomist (aka My Angel) did a superb job. When I told her why we were having the tests done, she asked if she ought to add a "Prenatal" workup to the list. Heck, sure! Why not? Yanno, if I can get it over in one stick versus two or more, it's all good by me! Even when one of the tubes was uncooperative, she handled it with aplomb. It still hurts like a bugger, but at least now, I don't need to take Lora.zepam to have blood drawn. Mind you, I felt awfully dizzy when she was done, so I remained on the bed, lying down. I stayed there like that til Hubby was done with his bloodwork too. Eeesh... and his was awfully quick. I heard her snap off the elastic from around his arm and said, "What? He's done ALREADY?" They both got a giggle out of me for that one. Yeah yeah, laugh it up. *eyeroll*

This morning I called my local clinic to ask that the results from last week's tests (and Hubby's last semen analysis) be faxed to me for my own knowledge and files. We'll see what comes back to us. Next up, we finish filling out forms for Montreal and forward them along.

Some little niggling part of my brain wonders though if we will really go through with it though. With IVF that is. You see, I have no hope. I have no faith. I have no expectations. Correction... I have the expectation of failure. And I have no expectation that we will even be accepted for IVF. I think I've pretty much written myself off. God that is really awful of me to say isn't it? But it is the truth. The circle of immediate people who would be here to support me in the event of a failure is so minimally small, I don't know if I want to bother going through with it. There's a lot of thinking to do yet. Good thing this clinic has a waiting list, huh? I'll need that time obviously.

And on the election note, thanks Aurelia for giving the low-down on at least one of the party platforms with regards to IF. Now to go ferretting out what the others have to say about it, if anything. Like you, I'm thrilled that IF was mentioned in the platform at all! We might get somewhere yet. Here's hoping!

Something fun to distract me this evening: local friends were just back home for a visit and through them, my family (Mom and my two aunts) has sent a bucket of freshly picked blueberries to me. I pick them up this evening after dinner. I can't wait!

The hits just keep on comin'

Well first off, let me thank all of you for the kind words and compliments on the pic in my last entry. It's a pretty decent pic I suppose. I liked it well enough to show it to all you guys huh? And I have to agree with Katie, hubby is kinda hawt. I'm so very lucky that he's mine and I know that.

It has been a bit of a rough weekend though. Nearing the end of yet another cycle and all, with bloodwork on the horizon, and some difficult news to deal with.

A friend of mine got married in May. She and her husband decided that they wanted to start trying to have a family. You know where this is going don't you? Of course you do. Anyway, my friend called me late last week and left a message. She didn't tell me the news in the message but when she left her message, I suspected. So instead, I wrote her an e-mail.


I got your message last night. Thanks for calling. When you called, hubby and I were out and we never got home til a bit later.

While I have your message, I'll be honest and tell you that I'm really hesitant to call you back. Not that I don't want to talk to you of course! Because I do. I just don't think that I can handle hearing any "good news" that you might have to impart. Certainly I wouldn't be able to handle that on the phone. And I am sure it would be awfully rude of me to cry in your ear or to hang up on you! That wouldn't be cool at all.

But as you know, it's an awfully sensitive subject with me (and with hubby) and while I would be very happy for you, actually HEARING the news would be extremely difficult and I'd need time. I hope you can understand that.

When other people are trying to have children, and they then talk to couples like me and my hubby who are in a very tough place with regards to our own efforts, it's easy to forget that our feelings are EXTREMELY raw. That's all.

So... if you DO have good news (and I'm crossing my fingers that you do), it would be much easier for me to receive it by e-mail and give me time to process it first. I hope you can understand that hon.

Get in touch when you can and in the meantime, give my love to your hubby.



My friend got back to me via e-mail and told me the news; her first month of TTC after their wedding and it worked.

I wish I could crawl into a hole and forget this pain ever existed.

Preparations

News... news... news... *taps chin*

Absolutely nothing. Really. Honestly! I kid you not. Life goes on.

It's CD20, and next month I'll go for some of that bloodwork that is required for the IVF I suppose. I don't want to put it off much longer. Now that the finances have come together, we can look at moving forward with this soon after the new year I would think. In the meantime, we have the fall to get through.

In preparing for all that, I'm still at the gym and/or doing laps in our pool. The pool is a mere 35 feet, but I've worked up to about 70 laps per day in it. I love that; it lets me zone out and forget stuff. I'm like the Energiz.er Bunny, I just keep going, and going, and going and... well, you get the idea. The other day I lost count of my laps cause I had totally zoned and my thoughts drifted elsewhere. Heavens knows where, but certainly they weren't in the pool with me!

To that effect, I've lost about 20 pounds or so I think. I still haven't weighed myself (for fear of shocking myself I think!) but neighbors and colleagues have noticed a difference, as has hubby. And of course, my clothes fit much more loosely on my frame. I can tell too. Sure, I can still stand to lose a boatload more. I'm not giving up yet. I guess the desire to have children is motivation huh? If nothing else is...

I'm also trying to organize my flight home in the fall, hopefully for around about Thanksgiving (which is in early October in Canada, for you Americans in the audience). Mom's surgery went well; she is home recovering. She was out of bed and walking one day after surgery, and we are cautiously optimistic. She has pain in the soles of her feet, but we take that as a good sign because for more than a year, she has had absolutely NO FEELING whatsoever in her feet or legs. So this is progress. She's limited in her mobility for now though, unable to bend or stretch, or to lift or move objects over five pounds, so that is why we're all helping out. My sister is flying home on Saturday to spend ten days with my parents. That will give my aunts a break for a bit. They'll need it I'm sure. We'll see when I manage to get home; as I said I'm still trying to organize that. Right now I'm hoping around the end of September for two weeks. I'll keep you posted.

And you know something? Acting in the Manager's shoes is d-mn tough. I've never been swamped with so much paperwork in my entire life! It's insane. The red tape one must go through to move offices, have a phone line switched, hire someone, order software, pay bills, justify expenses, etc. Oh dear Lord. I'm just overwhelmed. I'll be glad when a new employee arrives the week after next to take on some projects. And the week after that, we have a clerk starting. At least she'll be able to take care of the files and the admin stuff, entering details of the budget, etc. Whew!

Before I sign out, here's a pic of me and hubby (on the right). On the left is a good friend of ours who went to Vegas as well. This was taken earlier this month at Fan Faire in Las Vegas. I hope you like it.

To Pam and V, it is a shame that your weekend in the Capital is falling through. I'm so sorry to hear it. We'll do brunch another time, promise!

And the insanity continues...

So it seems that my mom's surgery has been pushed from mid-September to THIS FRIDAY! Yeah, you read that right. My sis and I are frantically trying to figure out flights home and getting time off earlier than expected to help around the house while Mom recovers. Wish me luck that it all works out.

In that mix, I'm trying to figure out if I have to attend a funeral. My cousin's husband passed away very suddenly last week while they were home in Newfoundland on vacation. Age 51, massive heart attack. Apparently even if he were in hospital at the time it had occurred, there would have been nothing they could have done to save him, it was that severe. Anyway, my cousin (accompanied by her father; my uncle) returned home to their 20-something year old son, with her husband's ashes in an urn instead of her husband at her side. Very shocking. It all happened so fast. I can't imagine going somewhere on vacation with my husband and having to return home with his ashes rather than with him. *shudders* I am so sorry for her loss. Anyway, I'm still trying to determine if there is a service of any sort. If so, I need to attend that. Must try to reach them today.

Today is my sister and brother-in-law's Third Anniversary! Happy Anniversary sis! They got married one week after hubby and I did so we had a month of insanity surrounding the weddings in 2004. It was such fun though. I'm glad we did it that way. And I just adore my sister's husband; he's such a sweetheart! With that West Virginian accent of his too; God love him! *smooches*

And today, August 14, is the anniversary of my grandmother's passing in 1988. She was one of the strongest women I know and she, along with my mom, are two of the most important women who helped me become who I am today. Shortly before her death, she gave my mother two $20-dollar bills. She said to her, "Give these to the girls" (my sister and I) "to buy something to remember me by." I still have that same $20-dollar bill. Nothing I could ever purchase could remind me of her like that bill can, and the caring, loving, giving woman she was. So in memory of my grandmother, Edith, I give thanks today for having had 18 years with her. I miss her every single day. God Bless Nan. Wherever you are.

And I have to say, thanks for your encouragement everyone. Last night, I was talking to my sis who reads this blog and she said, "You know, you have some great friends on that blog of yours. They're very supportive and caring. It's a wonderful network to have." I couldn't agree with her more. So to all of you, kudos guys. You are the best. I've known that all along.

P.S. For My Reality: I play a level 70 conjuror on the Antonia Bayle (roleplaying) server in the game EverQuest II. Let me know where your cousin plays and what class/level he is!