Allergies & Dinosaurs

Today was a lazy beach day. The most strenuous thing I did was pool aerobics (which wasn't that taxing).

It was lovely just lying on the beach lounger.

And moving to the quiet pool.

Then the party pool.

Then back to the beach.

I'm not the best at doing nothing, so I tried really hard.

It make me kinda sad that tomorrow is our last full day here.

Which brings me to my allergies: I didn't realize that we were getting fed on our flights. The tour representative can't help us, so I emailed the airline. I'm supposed to organize my special meal 72 hours before departure so I'm a bit late.

The worst part is that our airport shuttle leaves at 6am and the buffet isn't open for breakfast until 7am. So I'm in a pickle.

Or in this case I'm out of pickles.

Cross your fingers that I can find something in town that's allergy-friendly!

Here's our cute dinosaur:

Pope Francis I, pray for us!

What exciting news!!!

We have a new Pontiff!

Habemus Papum!

Even the doggy towel animal was glued to the television.

Papal Conclaves & Ruins

Mr JB and I had a great day visiting the Mayan ruins at Ek-Balam and also visited the Cenote Maya (which is an underground natural pool that's 80cm in diameter). Mr JB repelled down and I took the stairs.

This is not the most exciting news of the day.

Most of you know that my brother-in-law is a Jesuit priest. He's currently studying in Rome and this morning he was interviewed by our national broadcaster's morning show. If you're interested in watching the clip you can send me an email at jellybelly_75 at yahoo dot com. I don't want to post the link here since this is technically an anonymous blog.

Needless to say, Mr JB and I are so proud of him!

Here's our towel animal of the day. It's clearly an elephant.

[sigh]

So, Mr JB and I are taking it easy before we head to dinner -- it's International Night at the buffet, I'm so curious! The food has been amazing (even when I had to have a special meal because there was nothing I could have). AND there's nothing like a breakfast buffet, especially one that has a Vi.tamix (if you don't know what a Vi.tamix is, google it, we LOVE ours at home!).

Anyhow, back to my complaining.

We're watching "Fri.ends" on one of the few English channels that we have and the episode is all about Monica and Chandler's IF. I remember watching the episodes when they first aired, but they didn't make any impression back in 2004 when I was blissfully ignorant to my body's brokenness.

I also can't help but think that Dr Hilgers could've helped them.

I should look at the bright side: they did end up adopting.

Perhaps this is a sign?

Or perhaps I got too much sun (which I did, I got a little burn on my chest despite the sunscreen) and we shouldn't watch TV while on vacation.

I just wish that IF could take a vacation too.

Btw, here's our towel animal of the day:

A dream come true!

I've always wanted to stay at a place that made towel animals.

I guess I'm pretty easy to please.

[Yeah, right!]

We went to mass in Spanish this morning at a beautiful church on the beach. It had to be one of the most picturesque masses I have attended.

I think it may be time to get acquainted with a beach chair....

Leaving on a jet plane...

It is once again March Break!

I almost didn't make it, particularly because of my student teacher, but that is a story for another time.

I'm going to try to sleep a bit before the airport limo comes to get us at 2:30am. Honestly, leaving at 6:30am seemed like a good idea when we booked our trip!

I am so excited to be going away. I hope to post when we're in the sun!

The Wringer

First off, I am so grateful to have been the recipient of all of your prayers. February has not been an easy month, particularly this last week.

The pg announcement from one of my oldest friends has been especially hard to deal with -- particularly since she doesn't have a motherly bone in her body and she isn't 100% sure about her fiancé (he proposed to her with a ring he had bought for his ex-girlfriend, I can't even wrap my head around that!). It was hard not to feel like God was mocking us. I wish that I didn't feel that way, but I did.

This past week I've had a hard time praying -- Mr JB and I were praying the rosary together every night as part of our Lenten promise, and I every night for the past week I've either fallen asleep or just plain forgot. I know that being angry at God isn't the best way to cope with my jealousy, but that's where I am right now.

Not only did I get the surprise pg announcement, but I found out that same afternoon that my credit card had been compromised AND that a mystery bill of $1150 materialized from Omaha (yes, after paying off almost $8000 at the end of December).  And top to it off, I woke up on Sunday morning with a killer sore throat.

It amazes me that I could even function. 

Thankfully, my class received their First Reconciliation last Tuesday and I had the chance to go to confession. I'm not sure if the priest understood my confession completely because he kept on saying that I need to be open to human life -- I said more than once that we were, but his comments indicated that he just didn't understand. Perhaps it was two hours of listening to seven year old children and their sins or just inexperience with us scary infertiles, who knows. I figured as I left the confessional that my sins were absolved regardless of whether or not he knew what he was talking about.

Which brings me to today.

We had an appointment with our wonderful Napro doctor which I wasn't really looking forward to, despite getting the miraculous news that my FSH lowered.  I did a hormonal profile, but no ultrasound series last cycle and she says that I'm ovulating late judging from how my estrogen numbers. Based on this she wants us to do a trigger shot TONIGHT! It's a day later than she would normally want to do an HCG trigger, but she figures that it's still a good thing to try.

I'm going to be quite the pincushion for the next two cycles: low dose HCG pre-peak, HCG trigger on day 15 and then post-Peak HCG (on P+3, 5, 7 & 9). Holy crap! Have I mentioned that I really don't like needles???

We also had an appointment with our social worker this afternoon. It was our first official homestudy appointment which was exciting. We went over all of the paperwork that we need to fill out and she started asking us questions about our upbringing and our home. I can't believe that we're finally on our way! She thinks that we can be done by April which would be amazing. Is it actually possible that we will be parents in the next year????

So, on this last day of being "adopted" myself. I am so thankful that all of you have prayed for me. I know that it was your prayers that kept me going this past week especially -- there were many times that I wanted to just curl into a ball and give up, but your support carried me through it.

As Amy and Rebecca both texted me today that it isn't a coincidence that two BIG things happened on the last day of adopt-a-blogger.

I believe that there are no coincidences: I just hope that one of the things that we did today will lead to parenthood sooner, rather than later.

Gobsmacked

I shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning.

I have a killer headache.

I was nauseous.

But I'm attending a big reading conference so I had to drag my sorry self to the city.

I get a text from my best friend from elementary school. We don't text often, so I was surprised.

I assumed that she was going to tell me that she got engaged. She's been shacking up with her boyfriend and I thought it was the next step.

She did get engaged.

And she's pg.

It was like a punch in the face.

Yet again.

I am trying my best to hold it together, but I want to curl into a ball and cry.

FML

And Lent begins...

It was P+17 today.

And I knew better than get my hopes up.

Because, of course, it turned in CD 1 soon after getting to school.

What a great way to begin this Lenten season.

I am going to try really hard not to think of how great a BFP would have been as a Valentine's Day present for Mr JB.

I'm going to try REALLY hard not to think about that.

[sigh]

And we're off...

First off, thank you so much for your prayers during our first month of Adopt-a-Blogger! I have felt your prayers and I appreciate them so much. I am beyond blessed.

Mr. JB and I had a meeting with our social worker/my IF therapist this evening. I wanted her to meet Mr. JB before we officially started the home study process, but we ended up talking about all things adoption since I didn't have any issues to talk about -- again, your prayers have helped!

Since we already completed our PR.IDE training the home study should only take about three or four months. She even thinks that we may be far advanced in the process that we could go to the Adopti.on Re.source E.xchange that's happening in April. At the ARE all of the Chi.ldren's Ai.d Societ.ies in Ontario present children that are up for adoption -- kind of like a massive presentation of all the available kids that need homes. I can't believe that we would be at that point so soon, but we already have the first two home study appointments set and it'll only take two more after that.

I'm sure that there will be stress involved in the process, but I feel like this is what we should be doing at this point.

Could we be adoptive parents by the end of the year? By next year?

We are ready.

Bring it!

The biggest issue is that we also need some work done around our house and the estimate is about $2000 and the home study costs $2600 plus tax. I'm guessing that the latter is going to be the focus, and perhaps we'll get another quote for the work since it seems that the cost is higher than I expected. We definitely don't have the cash to do both! And since paying off our Omaha bills we would like to refinance our mortgage so we could pay off our line of credit (what we used to pay off the extra costs of my surgeries). Our financial planner seems to be taking a really LONG time to figure out the best way to do this. It doesn't bode well.

And it's also P+15 and I'm sure that AF is right around the corner.

The fun never ends!