What's Up Wednesday

It is time for another What's Up Wednesday since the month is ending.  I can't believe it is only a few days until December.  I took down my Thanksgiving decorations yesterday but haven't fully put up all my Christmas decorations yet.


What we're eating this week:  We hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house so we had lots of leftovers to get us through the week. We used the bones to make some turkey stock so next week we even have turkey soup to eat for lunch.

What I'm reminiscing about: I went to Disneyland the first weekend that the Christmas decorations were up and had a fantastic time but now my annual pass is expired and I keep seeing other people's photos of all the fun holiday festivities at Disneyland which makes me wish I was going again this season. 

What I'm loving: I am loving that it is time to decorate for Christmas. I love Christmas so I have no shortage of decorations for our house.  We got a tree yesterday but it rained on us while we were driving home so I am giving it a day to dry out before I bring it inside and start decorating it. Cheers to decorating and a picture of last years tree.








What we've been up to: Yesterday I helped throw a baby shower at work and it turned out wonderfully.  Hopefully the next shower at work is for me!

What I'm dreading: My husband and I started IVF a couple of months ago and have done two rounds so far. We are doing three rounds of egg harvesting before we move on to implantation so I have 1 more round to go.   I have my last harvest procedure tomorrow so while I am glad to be done with shots for the next few weeks I am still dreading the recovery and waiting that come with each harvest cycle.








What I'm working on: Working on getting my list together of who I need to buy Christmas presents for and figure out what I want to buy for them.  Some people are easier than others but we do a Secret Santa with my husband's family so that makes it a little easier.

What I'm excited about: While I am dreading the parts of the IVF process I am really excited about hopefully adding a new member to our family some time next year.  Fingers crossed.

What I'm watching/reading: I have been watching the newest season of the Great British Bake Off on Netflix but am almost done so I am going to have to find something else to watch.

What I'm listening to: Mostly whatever comes on my Pandora which is usually a mix of country and a random mix of 90s-00s pop music.  Everyone needs some Britney in their life every once in a while. I am sure over the next month I will be listening to a ton of Christmas music too.


What I'm wearing: In all reality at this point in my IVF cycle I am wearing whatever fits me and is comfortable which is mostly very flowy dresses or my husband's pajama pants.  I wore a very comfortable swing dress and my mustard cardigan for Thanksgiving dinner. I like this dress so much that I actually also own it in navy blue too.

What I'm doing this weekend: Not a whole lot probably.  I am having my last harvest procedure Thursday so I will be mostly resting and recovering at home this weekend.  I plan to finish decorating my house for Christmas and maybe do a bit of Christmas shopping at the Nordstrom Customer Rewards Night if I feel well enough by Sunday evening.

Happy Wednesday!

Thanksgiving Decorations

A couple of weeks ago I took down my Halloween decorations and put up some Thanksgiving decorations. A lot of my fall decorations are also my Thanksgiving decorations so I will let most of the photos speak for themselves.

There is a nail in the wall over my kitchen window so this season I finally got something to hand up there.  The cord is a little long but but the time I realized it I had already put my step stool away so long it was going to stay.

We are hosting Thanksgiving dinner for my husband's siblings and their families so some of these decorations will be moving this week to accommodate that. I am excited to do a fancy Thanksgiving table scape and use all my fun entertaining dishes.

Our Second Round of IVF

We are done with our second round of IVF so it is time to do a recap of it.  Before I start I just wanted to clarify the title of this post a little bit.  We are doing three rounds of harvesting so this is our second round of harvesting. Sometimes when people say a round of IVF they mean the whole harvesting and implanting process but in our case each round is just harvesting.

This round started like the first round with me calling the doctor on the day I got my period.  This month instead of 9 days of birth control I only had to take 7 and then I waited 2 days and started shots. This time my body didn't react to the medicine as fast as the first round so I ended up having to take the shots for more days this time. I think the shots lasted about 2 1/2 weeks this time instead of 2. By the end of this round I was so ready to stop giving myself shots!

One my hormone levels were high enough I took the trigger shot.  The trigger shot is my least favorite one because it hurts.  It doesn't hurt during the actual shot but afterwards as the medicine flows through you it hurts.  I always try to go to sleep as fast as I can after the trigger shot in hopes I can sleep through the pain.

This time our appointment was at 11 AM so I got to sleep in a little bit and then head out with my empty stomach to have the harvest procedure.  Even though I had done this once already I was still nervous.  After the procedure was over and they released us it was time for another milkshake.  Last time we drove most of the way home before getting the milkshake in case riding in the car made me nauseous but this time I was feeling fine (and hungry) so we stopped to get a milkshake near the doctor's office.

This month there were 9 follicles but only 6 of them had mature eggs in them.  After they fertilized them 3 of them were successful and they let them grow for 5-6 days. Of those 3 eggs only one of them made it to day 6 to be frozen and tested.  I was really hoping for 2 this month but I will take the one.

Thankfully the one that made it to frozen tested perfectly and we now have another embryo waiting to be in planted in me.

It is so weird to think that the embryo from our first cycle and this one from our second cycle are siblings just sitting in their little frozen containers waiting.

We are about to start our 3rd (and final) harvest cycle and then the next steps are to start implanting the embryos and have a baby!

Weekend in San Diego

A few weeks ago my sister had a medical conference in San Diego.  She lives in Pennsylvania so it only seemed fitting that that she was only going to be a short plane ride away I should fly down and join her in San Diego. My mom decided to fly in too so we turned it into a girl weekend minus my other sister.  Don't worry she is doing a semester in Germany so don't feel too bad for her.

All three of us managed to coordinate our flight so we got in within about half an hour of each other on Saturday morning. We took a taxi to our hotel and got all checked in and then headed out to spend the rest of at the San Diego Zoo.

I think this selfie as we were about to walk into the zoo was the only picture from the weekend of all  three of us together. Oh well!

We took a bus tour of the whole zoo to get an overview and see what areas we wanted to go back to and see in more detail.  It was fun but harder to see too many of the animals from the bus than we predicted.  After our bus tour we were starving so it was very much lunch time.  The food was nothing to write home about but my sister and I did have Octoberfest beers which were delicious.

Once we had food (and beer) in our stomachs we were ready to tackle the zoo on foot. Of course we saw the monkeys! We also saw the lions and tigers and bears (oh my) and pandas too.  We skipped the reptiles but make sure to stop and see the reindeer.  I didn't see Rudolph but this guy was cute too.

After the zoo we all headed back to the hotel to relax a bit before going out to dinner. My mom was tired after our day at the zoo but my sister and I headed out to the Gaslamp District to find some dinner (and a pair of pantyhose). As you can see we were successful in finding delicious food and cocktails too.  Truffle mac and cheese for me and a fancy salad for my sister!

The second day we were there my sister had to attend the residency fair at the medical conference since that was the whole reason she was there.  Mom and I decided to make it a pool day. The pool at our hotel looked out over the ocean but in order to sit in the shade sadly our backs were facing the ocean.

Even with the ocean to our back I can't say the view from our lounge chairs was bad at all.  I took full advantage of the pool day in my favorite cover up and my black one piece swimsuit.

During her conference my sister had a long lunch so since her conference was at the conference center next door to our hotel she was able to come back and join as at the pool restaurant for lunch. I took full advantage of being on vacation and enjoyed a glass of froze with lunch and then another one while I sat by the pool reading my book.

The view from our hotel room was pretty nice too!

After our day at the pool (and the medical conference) we were feeling lazy so instead of venturing out to the Gaslamp District for dinner we decided to just have dinner in the hotel bar.  We all had fancy drinks that were delicious and had a lovely time just sitting there relaxing.

I swear we didn't just have fancy drinks for dinner.  We ordered some food too for good measure. My favorite thing we ordered were these pretzels with multiple different mustards for dipping.  After dinner we went to the frozen yogurt place in the hotel for a little dessert.

The next day our flights were not until later in the day so we went to Fashion Valley to look for a suit for my sister to wear to her residency interviews. We found her a suit and a couple of blouses and because this is me we are talking about I took her right up to the Nordstrom lingerie department and got her a couple of new bras to go with her new suits. Good undergarments make any outfit look even better.

After a final lunch my mom and I headed back to the airport to fly home and my sister went back to the hotel for one final event.  It was a quick little getaway but it was so nice to get to just relax and hang out with my mom and sister.