Let the fun times begin!

As mentioned yesterday, I'm all set for the frozen embryo transfer on Sunday morning.  Now to get my body all prepped and ready to accept (and keep) an embryo or two, I will be taking....

• Metformin (3 per day), vitamin E, prenatal vitamin, and ASA stay the same
• Estrace (estrogen) reduces from 3 pills a day to 2 (totalling to 4mg each day)
• Fragmin (blood thinner) - one injection per day
• Prednisone - 10mg per day
• Endometrin (progesterone) - this is an "effervescent tablet" 3 times a day
• Prometrium (progesterone) - 3 pills at bed time

The bulk of these I'm taking in the morning.  I damn near needed a check list to be sure I got it all, but I'll be okay when it becomes routine. 

The Fragmin needle is quite fine and thus not overly annoying or painful.  But being a blood thinner, it will make me even more likely to bruise.  Injection sites usually become bruises and you can't inject into bruises so belly real estate will become an issue in another week or so.  I can inject into the fat in my thighs but that makes me a little nervous.  Not that I don't have fat there, but there is a whole lot of muscle to avoid too.  We'll cross that bridge when we get there.  At least this is the only injectable medication so I'm not trying to find injection sites for any other drugs at the same time.

I thought Endometrin was a cream, but it clearly says on the box it's an "effervescent tablet".  If you've ever taken yeast infection treatments that were the tablets, it's like that.  We'll see how it goes with a full day, but I can't feel any bubbly action going on with the effervescent tablet and I don't have icky discharge so we'll call it a win for now.  I'm still not thrilled about having to do this at work every day but it's better than some of the places I've done injections I suppose.

And as much as the pharmacy label says I have to insert the prometrium vaginally, the nurse said I can take it orally (which is how I have always taken it before).  Three cheers for that.  The worst part about infertility treatments (more so for women going through IUI or just monitoring for ovulation) is that it takes all the fun out of sex.  We are all sexual creatures and it's an important part of my life.  And not to say that all "happy fun time" is about my vagina, but it's hard to feel sexy when you know that part of your body is icky with medications.

So the one drug I'm feeling less sure about now is Prednisone.  Lots of people have been on it and had some pretty crazy side effects.  Googling indicates 10mg isn't a very high dose so I might be fine.  If I get the insomnia, it might be offset by the Prometrium at bed time because that makes me crazy sleepy.  I can put water weight gain into perspective and try to focus on making good choices rather than what the scale is telling me.  Good choices are that much easier when I've got an embryo hanging out in my uterus.  I'm already on metformin so blood sugar spikes might be offset by that. 

Did you know I have a pattern give away going on?  Really, it's true. 

And I seem to get about 20 minutes to work on Alma and get distracted by Mythbuster kittens.  I think I've got the back darts in the right spot and then I scooped out too much and took a step backwards.  I'll be tackling it again tonight while Mr. Lina has someone over to review the music video footage.  At least he won't call me to see what cute things the kittens are doing.

Alma V2

That's V2 as in version, not view.

A few weeks ago, I met up with K-Line and she kindly pinned out all the extra fabric on my first Alma.  While I think that shirt could end up being a wearable muslin of sorts (think camping), I didn't want to take her pins out and futz around too much and lose all the changes that needed to be made to the flat pattern.

I broke out my Ikea paper and traced new front and back pieces by looking at the pinned pieces and the original pattern.  I then cut out a new front and sewed up the darts.  It looked better just holding it up to my body, but I haven't had the time to get back to it.

Last night, I cut out a new back, sewed the front and back and then got playing with the darts.  I think the bust darts are okay, but some interesting things are going on with the lower darts. 

Let's look at the line drawing, View B is clearest because the belt isn't in the way.  The lower darts end before the hem, opening more fabric for your hips.  I had to take a lot of fabric in under my bust, my darts don't want to open back up.  They keep folding as if the stitching continued from the widest part.  So I'm going to sew them down to the hem.  I still have ease at my hips so I don't really need the extra ease space.

I took a whack of pictures last night and it was helpful to see what was going on.  It is so hard to see in a mirror since you have to twist to see things.  Or I pull the fabric straight so it looks okay, but really it's not when I stand for a picture.  I am not quite finished tweaking yet (and the camera is not with me) so I'm not sharing in progress shots today.  Writing this out is helping me take a step back and look at where I could adjust again.  Thinking time is sewing time.

Yesterday I was reading Lazy Stitchings blog, she posted her finished Mathilde blouse, a pattern by Tilly and the Buttons.  I've seen a couple of versions of the blouse, but I wasn't sure how it would suit my frame.  Would it fall from my bust line and look like a tent?  I'm all for hiding my tummy but not sacrificing my waist.  It was lovely to see a version that would more closely mimic my frame.  And while I was commenting, it clicked that it's similar to a top I want to replace in my closet.

Okay, so the Mathilde has buttons in the back and the sleeves are looser, but it's not those details I'm looking to replace, it's the place in my wardrobe.  Made in a cotton, it could be my go-to "it's too hot out to have anything touching my skin but I want my arms covered" top.  I like how Lazy Stitching thinned the sleeves a little, I'd copy that.  In a sheer fabric, it could replace this top:

It was like an epiphany in the middle of writing a comment.  So I bought the pattern, it's printed out at home, but Alma needs to be finished first.

Don't forget I have a Pattern Pyramid giveaway running.  There are some lovely dresses, the halter jumpsuit, a multi-cup Vogue blouse, Kwik Sew bra, Burda blouse...  it's a pretty good assortment to pick from.

And in non-sewing news...

Mr. Lina's film, The Post-Lifers, has won another "best short" award.  Saturday night we went to a horror festival in Hamilton, ON, not too far away.  The organizer went to the Blood in the Snow festival in Toronto in January (The Post Lifers also won best short) and thought maybe he could do the same in his community, focusing on short films.  Being the first year of the festival, it was small but successful.  All of the films were quite good, not all were to my taste, but well done for what they were.  Awards were decided on by the audience by paper ballots.  And what a great audience.  The theatre held 67 people according to the fire code and it was sold out.  All were real horror fans and clearly enjoyed the line up of films.  I hope he can run it again next year and expand the offerings. 

The next cool thing going on for Mr. Lina is the cast of TPL is being interviewed on Charred Remains, a horror blog run by Char Hardin.  Char named TPL her top independent short film for 2012.  It will be aired live on Saturday June 8th at 7pm EST, they will be taking phone calls and questions by chat.  After the broadcast it will be available as a podcast.  After that, I think the film is going to air in Calgary in August and a touring show in BC - 10 cities in 10 days. 

And in fertility news...  Today is Day 14.  In a 28 day cycle, this would be when ovulation occurs and hormones change from having high estrogen levels to rising progesterone levels.  For a Frozen Embryo Transfer, we're looking for the endometrium to be thick (it was 10.3mm this morning) and my blood work to check out.  I don't need to ovulate because we've already got the embryos on ice.  And I just got the call that we're a GO!!!!   Sunday morning (June 9th - deadline day for the Pattern Pyramid) we'll be transfering my embryos that are presently in a Manitoban winter.  This post is long enough, I'll let you know of next steps tomorrow.

Woo hoo!

Stop Press! Pattern Pyramid!

As the lucky winner of the Pattern Pyramid at Country Girl Couture, it means I get to have a give away myself.

What's the Pattern Pyramid you say?  It's a great idea from Karen at Did You Make That?.  She hosted a give away for multiple patterns to multiple winners.  As the winner, you got to keep one pattern of the 5 or 6 you were sent and pass the rest along.  What a great way to shake up our pattern stashes and share the love.  I went back to her original post to get the link and you know it's been almost a full year since the pyramid started?  Karen's post was June 22nd, 2012.  I tracked this pyramid back and the lineage is quite impressive.  I'm not the first Canadian stop for these patterns (I even had the pleasure of meeting Gjeometry at the Toronto Meet Up) and it's actually the spin off pyramid from Pretty Grievances.  As far as I can track the blogs back, these are previous winners...

1. Me
2. CG Couture
3. Dresses & Me
4. Sew Biased
5. Tropical Threads
6. So I Sewed This
7. G Marie
8. Kathy Sews
9. Hugs & Kisses
10. Curious Kiwi
11. Gjeometry
12. Symon Sez
13. Tulle & Tweed
14. Mrs Mole
15. The Material Lady
16. Velosewer
17. And Anne herself.

So here are the patterns for my giveaway (it's hard to make 7 patterns look like a pyramid, but my backyard stairs helped).

6 are from CG Couture (the Vogue pattern has cup sizes), but I've replaced the one I took with this one.

Kwik Sew 2101 is a bra I have made.  It is not a bad pattern, but it's not the right pattern for my breasts.  If you have wanted to try making a bra but lack a pattern, here is one for you to check out.  The size range is 32A to 38DD.

And what did I take?

I was sorely tempted by the halter jumpsuit in this pattern:

But it would have required grading from a 34" bust which is well beyond my skills (and attention span) at the moment.  So I went for a fun sundress instead that will not require grading.

 

 

 

THE RULES

• Anyone, anywhere can enter the giveaway by posting a comment below by midnight EST Sunday June 9th BUT you must have an active blog.
• I will randomly select one winner.
• I will mail the above 7 patterns to the winner.
• The winner will pick a pattern to keep for themselves (although some people have picked more than one and replaced them with others, that is in the spirit of the pyramid), then host their own giveaway.
• Although I've added a pattern, you are not required to add to the pyramid for your giveaway.
• If you are a winner, Karen would love it if you could make a small contribution to The Brooke. This is a charity close to the heart of Catherine, who so generously provided the original patterns.

Victoria Day List

Provera is making my head rather fuzzy, paragraphs are challenging so let's go for a list...

• It's actually Friday, not Tuesday!
• 4 of 7 pills have been taken of Provera
• No hot flashes, no tears, no apathy
• Horrible brain fog.
• Grocery shopping with brain fog is not very efficient or effective.
• I wanted to buy non-paper tape for wrapping up my toe (it still aches with some motions) and Mr. Lina's hand.
• I am sure I looked at cloth tape
• I am sure I priced out that the roll was cheaper than the tape dispenser.
• I bought paper tape.
• It's a long weekend - Victoria Day.
• We have an unofficial early close, if nothing is due, you can leave early.
• Like I should be trusted to get anything done without errors when I can't buy cloth bandages.
• I am 7lbs down from my high weight and feeling rather happy about that.
• The strategy to make better choices is working and one good choice reinforces wanting to make the next good choice.
• My pants fit better, I don't feel bloated, it's good.tr
• I think I felt a small earthquake this morning.
• The Pattern Pyramid has arrived, post and contest to come soon.
• It's almost time to go!
• Yay!

Spoiled

I was lucky enough to win the lovely assortment of orange from ElleC.  I will say I'm not often drawn to orange, it's one of those warm colours I like on others but not often myself.  I figured the orange mix of zippers, bias tape and lace would be good for me because I would never reach out and buy it myself.  That doesn't mean it wouldn't match a print or as a contrast to what did catch my eye, or that I shouldn't stretch myself to other colours from time to time.

Mr. Lina is the mail checker in my house, he's the one that is more likely to be ordering from eBay and the like.  He put that envelope on the stairs so the minute I got home from bowling, it would be the first thing I saw.  I started giggling because I *knew* it was my orange winnings, but ElleC, she put a little bonus in there for me.  An additional vintage pattern.  Now if I was smart, I would have taken a picture myself, but you can see it on sale on eBay.  It has lovely optional collar, looks like enough ease and few pieces that grading up from a 32 bust isn't impossible, just a lot of math.  I LOVE it.  Thanks!  (Side note, the eBay seller says it has princess seams... um... no... not so much.  Side bust darts and it needs a belt to cinch in the waist, that's not a princess seam).
As mentioned, work has been busy.  Monday has become the perfect storm where everyone seems to want everything.  We offered to present an ad hoc project that I worked on, my manager would be tagging along and I'd be presenting.  I like presenting, never been to this client before (although a past manager works there now so there may be a familiar face), but... they need this prior to the 8th, so it was booked for the 7th.  Two other ad hoc projects kind of need to be done for Monday too.  It's insane.  Still, I was thinking I could work on it this weekend, wrap stuff up Monday morning... but no, the clinic has also decided they want me on Monday too.  Day 1 arrived, I'll be in tomorrow for my standard Day 3 baseline and Monday will be the endometrial scratch (think pap test with an additional scratch) and intralipid IV.  Roughly two hours of an IV line limiting my movement, they recommend napping through it, relaxing - not working.  Add a little wait time and the other procedure, I'll be there for about 3 hours starting at 7:45am.  So there goes Monday morning.  And after working until my brain felt wrung out Mon-Wed, I really can't care about this client and I feel overwhelmed.  Also, Day 1 is only exciting until the cramps arrive.  This may have something to do with yesterday not being a good work day (even if I was happy).  You know, just writing that out feels good.  I just have to start somewhere, it all has to be done or I'll be standing at the front of a room with nothing to present at 3pm Monday.

Mentally, things are... mixed.  Mr. Lina is sending me lots of pictures and videos of lambies and sometimes goats.  The FET feels a bit surreal.  Like I know that odds are we will trigger me to ovulate on day 14, transfer the embryos on day 19 (May 21) or so, but... I saw a "how to adopt" seminar for May 22nd and my first thought was that it would be good to go to.  Even though:

•  I will not be walking farther than the couch/bathroom/bedroom.  I am physically able to walk after the transfer, there is nothing painful about a transfer, but the clinic doesn't want me going farther than I have to.  I take them quite literally because by that point, 3 days of doing very little are just good for me.  You all better blog a lot on those days, I'll be looking for something to read. 
• I will believe myself to be pregnant that day and absolutely basking in it.  It is my favourite part of this whole process.  There is a multicelled blastocyst in my uterus at that point, it's maybe not attached to my uterus lining, but it's dividing as I sit there.  So in my mind, I'm pregnant until told otherwise. 

It doesn't really seem like the best time to listen to someone talk about adoption.  We aren't going to go, but I'll keep an eye on the schedule for other dates.  It has me firmly believing that I have made the right choice in only educating myself about adoption up until now.  When people ask me about adoption, they ask if the wait for a newborn is so long, why not get on the list now?  The thing is it doesn't really work that way, it's not a matter of taking a number at the deli counter.  Birth moms generally pick where their babies get placed, so there is a lot of work going through the Home Study and PRIDE training and then marketing yourself out on top of that.  I know in my heart, I'm done after this.  Talking about adoption, getting more specific contacts and information, it feels right, but it's still surreal while booking my Day 3 appointment.

Last weekend, I got to see the lambies that Mr. Lina drives past.  They are associated with a garden centre next door and they encourage you to see the animals (two birds, one stone, I bought my perennials and a hanging basket for my Mom for Mother's Day AND I got to pet the donkey).  Donkeys and llamas are often kept with sheep as protectors from coyotes etc, that is my something new for the week.  We did take pictures, I should see if Mr. Lina took them off the good camera yet or not.

Anyhoo, time to start one of the projects, I'll be good once the panic of being overwhelmed eases.  Here is my favourite from the lamb-sheep-goat-donkey-llama video extravaganza that Mr. Lina sent me yesterday.  Two day old kids and a very patient llama.

And this just in... Mr. Lina's movie The Post-Lifers has been accepted into The Other Venice Film Festival in October, his film is even listed on the main page.  Also, there was a very positive review from the London Shock Stock viewing.  I have a very happy husband today. 

Questions anyone?

I'm working on having a FAQ page.  When I visit a blog for the first time, I like reading a little summary of them.  Even just 2 sentences that pretty much says "I do/not have kids/cats/significant other.  Isn't sewing wonderful" sums up where they are coming from.  When people use a lot of made up names and words, I like a little cheat sheet when I'm new to their blog so I get the in jokes. 

Now a Frequently Asked Question implies that more than one person asked you.  Thus far, I'm just writing out what I would ask about, but that would be a FARQ - frequently asked rhetorical question (at least until I develop a second personality to answer I suppose). 

So... any questions? 

And while I'm looking for comments...

A while back, I signed up for Living in Red's Pay it Forward.  I think I had written maybe 25 posts and there were like 3 people visiting a week.  There are a few of you commenting (thank you!  it still makes me giggle) and there are more of you reading, so maybe it's worth revising that post. 

The deal is that Living in Red will be sending me something within 365 days.  I would send something hand made to the first three people who replied to that post.  Now I am looking forward to whatever Living in Red is going to send me, she does such beautiful work both sewing and knitting (those shawls are to die for), but I sure will feel like I'm not living up to my end of the bargain without sending something to someone.  This is open to anyone (yes, you, in Portugal, Germany and Australia, I'm looking at you), I know the bulk of my readers are not from Canada (particularly when I take out the occasional boost from Mr. Lina reading a month of posts in one sitting - I once emailed him all excited that someone in Canada was reading multiple posts on my blog only to find out it was him).  The parameters of Pay It Forward require you to have a blog, but at this rate, I'll send something to anyone so long as I don't feel guilty about getting an awesome surprise.

Pay it Forward

Living in Red has put out a Pay it Forward offer and as much as I suck at mailing things out, I figure that I have a year to do it and I do like surprises in the mail.  My issues with mailing things is getting to the post office more so than the postage cost, so this is open to anyone.

1. I  will make a little something for the first 3 people who comment on this post. It will be a surprise and you will not know when it will arrive.

2. I will have 365 days to get this surprise to you. The catch? To get a goodie from me you must play along too! Share the giving love on your blog by promising to send a handmade goody to the first three people comment on your blog post.

3. You must therefore have a blog!

4. After commenting on my post, you have to go post this on your blog.