“?” !

So I tested this morning (CD 24 & 10 dpo) with the only test in the house and got “?”!

What the hell does that mean? It’s like answering a question with a question.

Of course it’s Thanksgiving and everything in our town (except Mc Ds) is closed so I CAN’T go anywhere to get another test.

Will try again Saturday.

Out Before I Even Started

I sent the swimmers back today. The faint line on the OPKs all but disappeared last night, this morning, and this afternoon. I don’t know if I missed ovulation or what. I just couldn’t wait any longer to send them back or they wouldn’t have made it back alive. I plan to try next month (depending on how things go with R). If that doesn’t work I can’t try again until August. I’m traveling to CA the first and third weekend in June and the 2nd week in July so timing and scheduling around those trips will be a bitch.

No News

I didn’t hear anything about the job today. I sent an email to the HR rep but never got a response. I hope that’s not bad news.

We won’t be moving to my dad’s. He dropped a bomb on us. In order to move there we have to get rid of our animals. As I said he can be very controlling. His reasoning: he doesn’t believe in house cats and he doesn’t think beagles make good house dogs. It has nothing to do with the fact that he doesn’t want dogs in the house at all. If we had different dogs he would let us keep them in the house. He offered to put up a hot wire to keep them in. As if we would leave them outside all the time. Oh well… Something has to work out for us eventually.

Digging Out

of the funk I’ve been in for the past week and a half. We have both been applying to jobs all over the country. We know we’re not going to end up homeless. We have options. There is an unoccupied house on my father’s property that we have been offered. It is not a prime location for jobs since it’s in the middle of nowhere (no really, the GPS doesn’t even know it exists and the closest town has a population of 400). He has offered to let us live there for free. We will only have to pay for satellite and internet (too far out to get cable) all other utilities will be covered. He has also offered us garden space and help with food costs. That will allow us to build up the savings that we ate through this past year. If one of us finds a job we will start TTC. Not unless one of us finds a job. I will be keeping my health insurance. I’m too much of a klutz to go without health insurance. I also plan to keep going to acupuncture. I’m going to drop it down to once a month right before ovulation. I’ve come so far with my cycle to stop. Last month was a 29 day cycle with very strong ovulation signs (and confirmation with the monitor) on day 14. It was perfect! We thought of isemming but I ovulated on Christmas Eve so timing with the holiday and family visits and shipping hassles made it impossible. I’m glad we didn’t since I got laid off though.

We have decided to take my dad up on his offer if we have not found jobs in the next month. The earliest we will move is Feb 28th. We don’t really want to move to this house for many reasons. My dad can be a bit controlling. He likes to have a say in what we do. We don’t want him to try to keep us up there instead of finding jobs in our fields in a city. Everyone up there smokes (except my dad) and it really bothers R’s asthma. Everyone up there drinks in excess and we rarely drink. The drinking usually lead to tons of drama that we really don’t want. There are plusses though. Saving Money! More time with my family that I love most of the time. My sister also has a house on the farm. A roof over our heads while we look for jobs. Fresh food from the garden (and meat from the farm). 450 acres to roam.

Hopefully we’ll both find jobs very soon and it won’t be a problem at all.

Back to Work

Tomorrow I head back to work at a job that I despise. I have not been looking forward to this at all. To make matters worse the president of our parent company is visiting from Japan on Tuesday. At least I missed out on all the cleaning (the last time someone visited from Japan they spent $250K cleaning, repainting, resurfacing the parking lot, pressure washing the street and sidewalks in front of the plant, spray-painting the grass green, etc). I did not miss out on the dog and pony show that will be Tuesday. We all dress alike (black company polo, khaki pants, black shoes, white lab coat) and only them men are allowed to speak. I will be a wall dressing. I’ll sit in front of a piece of equipment and pretend to work for 8+ hours. We are only allowed one piece of blank paper and one writing utensil on our desks (along with our computers and phone). Our screen savers must all be the same. Our phones must not ring all day. We are not allowed bathroom breaks or lunch breaks when he is in the building.  We are only allowed to leave for the day after he has left the premesis. It is just as ridiculous as it sounds. To make matters worse I’m in more pain than I have been one week after my surgery. I got my last cast off Wednesday and am now in a walking boot. I am not able to bear full weight so I still have my crutches. I will not be permitted to prop my foot up on Tuesday because it wouldn’t be able to fit under the piece of equipment I will be pretending to operate. I can’t wait. I hope I have wonderful elections returns to come home to. 

I interviewed for a job a few weeks ago. I haven’t heard anything about it yet, but one can hope.

R is still looking for a job. She has expanded her search area and is now looking throughout the country. I’m willing to follow her anywhere that’s not landlocked or too glaringly red. That’s my rule. 

We found a donor that we love. Hopefully we can buy some DNA before he’s sold out. I’m on CD62 and am on serious red alert. I’ve been sleeping in a bra because the girls are full, heavy, and painful. Commercials make me cry and I’m a bitch. I’m not sure what happened to this cycle, but I think the surgery screwed things up. We’re still planning on late Dec/early Jan insem.

Happy (Belated) Birthday to Me

Yesterday I turned 29. A woman at work asked me if I was turning 29 for the first time. It made me laugh. I don’t generally get too hung up about my age. In college I was always older than my classmates. There were a few of us “nontraditional” students so I was never the lone one old enough to buy beer. I’m not scared or worried about getting older. What does bother me is that I’m not where I thouight I’d be at 29. I thought I’d be a few years into my career, living in our own home with our family. I’m not as financially stable as I’d like to be and I’m not a mother. I never thought I’d be married though. More because it wasn’t legal, not because I didn’t think I’d find anyone. I skipped my 10 year high school reinion last year. I had just graduated and didn’t have a job yet. I didn’t want to have to answer all the questions. Where did you go to school? Where do you work? Are you married? Have any kids? I didn’t have a job. I was embarassed that I didn’t make it through more than 1 year of college right after high school. I didn’t want to have to come out over and over and over. A few people knew I was a d.yke in high school. There were rumors too, but in my small home town I would
have definitely been ostracized, even in 2007.
Plus, I had enough of questions during my senior year of college…are you going to grad school? What do you want to do with your degree? What field of chemistry are you interested in? I didn’t know the answers to these questions then and I’m just starting to figure them out now.
What I do know:
I am not done with my education.
I do not have enough human interaction in my current field.
I am not happy as a chemist though I love chemistry.
I have decided to go to nursing school. There are quite a few
accelerated B S N programs for people that already have a bachelor’s
degree in another field within a reasonable commute from where we live
now.
I am going to start taking prereqs in January. It will take a year of
before I can start the nursing program. I’m looking to complete the
program in 2011. Right now that seems so far away to me, but it’s doable. My end goal is to become a mid.wife. It will require a master’s in nursing. See, that GRE wasn’t a waste of money! I have to hustle
though. Scores are only good for 5 years and I kicked serious ass on the GRE so I want to make sure I get to use my scores.
My lovely wife is only applying to law schools in cities that also have a school with a nursing program for me as well.   I just hope we each get into a program in the same city.

Job Update

I am still miserable at work. I sent out several resumes and applied to a few jobs in my area. We live in a relatively small town and there are not a lot of places within a reasonable commute that employ chemists. I got a call this week about a job. It was in the same town where I’m working. I had a brief phone interview and the HR manager determined that I was overqualified for the job that I had applied for. She asked me if I would be interested in a different position. It pays more than I’m making now. It is actually in the area of chemistry that I focused on in school (current job is no where near it). Sounds great, right? There’s a huge problem. It’s about an hour from where we used to live in PA. I moved all the way down here to get asked to interview for my dream job where I used to live. I am still going in for an interview. I was planning on taking a trip to PA next weekend to visit some friends anyway. Now I’m taking a vacation day to drive up Thursday evening and interview Friday morning. If the pay is right and they offer relocation assistance I will consider moving.

R still hasn’t found a job in the area. She has 3 weeks of unemployment benefits left. We’re starting to sweat. She has even considered begging my dad for a job. She has had a few interviews in the past few weeks. One is very promising and she hopes she gets the job. It’s a state job so things take forever. They told her she should know if she got the job in a month.

R is convinced that as soon as she gets a job down here I will be offered the job in PA. I told her that I’d turn down the job in PA and keep looking in this area if that’s the case.

I hate my job

So remember that job that I loved 6 months ago? Well I can’t stand to be there anymore. I’m looking for another job. There’s not enough work coming through to keep even one chemist busy. There are three of us. I spend most days just staring at the wall.

You know it’s bad at work when your doctor tells you that your ankle may require surgery to repair ligaments that you tore when you broke your foot and sprained your ankle and you get excited because you won’t have to go into work for a few days.

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck

So our donor called me this evening. He said that he didn’t feel comfortable donating for us anymore. He said that he really hoped that it didn’t work last month and wanted to talk to us then but didn’t want to back out at the last minute. That he didn’t think it would take so long. That it was starting to feel weird and someday he wanted to have a family of his own. What does that mean? We always said that if he didn’t want to continue helping us he could stop. We never thought that he would. If you remember he was the one that came to us a few years ago and said that if we ever wanted to have kids he would be willing to donate. So now, on day 5 of Cl0mid, we don’t have the other 26 chromosomes. I sobbed for a while. R said she knew it was too good to be true. Now we have to pick out a donor.

Know any good spεrm banks?

CD 32

Why is it that AF is late every time we insem? It is really quite annoying. Has anyone out there had unusually long cycles when taking Cl0mid?

Bring on the flo so we can plan another insem.