Foodie Friday!

I decided since I randomly like to throw in a post all about food or drink, I'd make it official. So, every Friday I'm going to post about my week in food.

Because you know, I love food. And really who doesn't?

Nothing says Summer like bubblegum ice cream.. and it just happens to be Baskin Robbins' flavor of the month!

There's one issue that I had with this ice cream. That's literally pieces of bubblegum in the ice cream. Yes, I realize that's the point.. but what the hell do you do with the gum as you're eating the ice cream? You really have 3 choices:

1) Designate a spot in the faaar back corner of your mouth to store each glob of gum until you're done with the ice cream

2) Take the gum out of your mouth & stick it on something until you're done with the ice cream

3) Swallow the gum

I went with option #3. I know, I know.. I'm clogging up my intestines. Didn't someone discover that whole thing was a myth? Or a lie that Mothers told their kids so they wouldn't choke on their gum? Hope so.

My co-worker went with option #1. Until that got out of hand and then she resorted to #3. Seriously, ice cream should NOT be this much work. And what did we do when we were kids? I want to say I probably spit the gum out as I ate the ice cream, and then put all the spit covered gum back in my mouth when I was done. Ew.

Now that I've completely ruined your appetite and any sort of craving you might have had when you saw that delicious looking ice cream, here's one of my favorite recipes for salmon. It's suuuper easy, and suuuuuper yummy. I stole the pic from allrecipes.com, which is where I got the recipe. Enjoy!

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter, melted
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans (Dan's not a fan, so I exclude these)
4 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley
4 (4 ounce) fillets salmon
salt and pepper to taste
1 lemon, for garnish

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
In a small bowl, stir together butter, mustard, and honey. Set aside. In another bowl, mix together bread crumbs, pecans, and parsley.
Brush each salmon fillet lightly with honey mustard mixture, and sprinkle the tops of the fillets with the bread crumb mixture.
Bake salmon 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven (I put mine on a foil lined baking sheet), or until it flakes easily with a fork. Season with salt and pepper, and garnish with a wedge of lemon.

Lyrics for the Soul

I completely forgot to blog about seeing Elton John live a couple weekends ago. It. Was. Awesome. He was beyond awesome. If you ever have the chance to hear him live, DO IT. That's an order.

Anyways, this wasn't a song he sang at the concert, but the lyrics are beautiful. So sweet & simple..

Blessed

Hey you, you're a child in my head
You haven't walked yet
Your first words have yet to be said
But I swear you'll be blessed

I know you're still just a dream
your eyes might be green
Or the bluest that I've ever seen
Anyway you'll be blessed

And you, you'll be blessed
You'll have the best
I promise you that
I'll pick a star from the sky
Pull your name from a hat
I promise you that, promise you that, promise you that
You'll be blessed

I need you before I'm too old
To have and to hold
To walk with you and watch you grow
And know that you're blessed

Moscow Mule

So, apparently this drink has been around since 1941 (yes, I looked it up on Wikipedia), and I JUST experienced it for the first time this past Saturday.

Where have I been??? Oh yeah, at home with my dogs, my husband, and my cheap wine. I guess I don't do the bar hopping that I used to. And I guess even if I did the last thing I probably would have ordered at the bar would be the drink that comes in a copper tin mug.

I can actually thank the fact that the Mule comes in a tin mug, for me finding & trying this delicious beverage. Dan and I were at a bar, eating some tapas. Dan was enjoying his Guinness, and me my red wine. I saw the copper tin mugs and was intrigued, so I asked the bartender what kind of drink comes in the mug.

Two choices.. the Mule or the Donkey. The mule = vodka, ginger beer, bitters, lime juice & simple syrup. The Donkey = bourbon instead of vodka, plus all the other ingredients. Yuck-o.

We ordered up the Mule and Oh Em Gee. Seriously, where has this drink been all my life?

And now a little history on where this drink came from... Invented by John G. Martin, Jack Morgan & Rudolph Kunett. As Jack Morgan tells it, "We three were quaffing a slug, nibbling an hors d'oeuvre and shoving toward inventive genius". Martin and Kunett had their minds on their vodka and wondered what would happen if a two-ounce shot joined with Morgan's ginger beer and the squeeze of a lime. Ice was ordered, limes procured, mugs ushered in and the concoction put together. Cups were raised, the men counted five and down went the first taste. It was good. It lifted the spirit to adventure. Four or five later the mixture was christened the Moscow Mule...

Now someone please tell me.. what the hell is "quaffing a slug"?

Where we're at

Once we returned from Santa Cruz I called my RE and let him know the bad news. He told us we have a couple of options.. try a 4th IUI, since technically the 3rd one did work, OR move on to IVF.

Dan and I talked it over and decided to give one fourth and final IUI a shot. I figure if it doesn't work it only pushes our IVF cycle out from September to October. One month = not a huge deal in my mind. October will mark the 2 year anniversary of us officially trying to get pregnant, so it just seems to make sense to wait and try IVF then. Plus, we're out of pocket so giving the (much) cheaper option another chance makes sense to us.

SO, because I was on vacation when I would have had to start the injections and monitoring, this cycle is our "natural" cycle. We're just trying the old fashion way and not expecting anything to happen.

Hopefully within the next week or two I'll be able to start injections for IUI#4. (joy)

BUT, just in case it doesn't work, I also have a consultation appointment set up for September 2nd with the IVF clinic. My current RE referred me to someone else in the area because he feels like he's already really emotionally invested in us and he knows this IVF clinic has amazing success rates. Check these out:

Those are their success rates for 2009.. 79.5%!! So, I'm feeling really excited about those odds, and hopeful that we will NOT fall into the other 20.5%.

I've heard great things from a few people who have gone or are currently going to this clinic. Wonderful staff, the clinic is right down the street from my work, and fabulous success rates.. I'm feelin' good about this.

So, that's where we're at right now. Enjoying our break from all the injections and appointments, while feeling excited and hopeful for the future.

Thankful

I just want to take a moment to express how thankful I am for the friends I've met through theBump. At first I figured the "Getting Pregnant" board would be a great place to get some good info and share some laughs with some online peeps.

Well, something else happened.

I found myself there longer than I really ever wanted to be.. but you know what? I've made some great friendships. I have "e-friends" that I consider true, blue girlfriends of mine. Some of them are still struggling to get pregnant, some are pregnant, and some have babies.

They root for me, they cheer for me, they listen to me, and they cry with me. A few of these girlfriends sent me these beautiful flowers after our loss..

I was so touched and grateful to have such thoughtful people in my life. People who can understand exactly how I feel, and who would do anything they can to put a smile on my face.

I consider myself extremely lucky to have them in my life, and hopefully they feel the same way about me.

Love you ladies :) xoxoxo

Some much needed R&R

So, miscarrying on the drive up to your week long vacation has it's ups and downs...

I was thankful that I didn't have to face a week at work, but I had all the time in the world to think about what happened. I was surrounded by Dan's family, but that included my niece, who I was meeting for the first time. Being around a baby all week was rough, but I dealt with it and managed to really, truly enjoy myself on this vacation.

We stayed at a beach house in Santa Cruz with my Sister-in-Law (Beth), Brother-in-Law (Mike), my 3 year old nephew Jack, my 4 month old niece, Olivia, and Dan's parents (Carol & Doug). Oh, and I can't forget about our two dogs, Bootsie and Cali, and Beth & Mike's dog, Nola. It was a full house!

Meet my adorable nephew and niece:

I spent a lot of time sleeping in, relaxing on the beach, eating good food, and drinking lots of wine. We took walks around cute neighborhoods, put a huge puzzle together, played dominoes, and showered in an amazing outdoor shower. We made s'mores in the outdoor fire pit and fish tacos from the fish the boys caught on their fishing day trip.

We went to the boardwalk one day where I got on a ride that I initially refused to go on. You know the one that shoots you up into the air, drops you back down, and makes you feel like your stomach is going to fall out of your mouth? Yeah, that kind of ride. Go me!

Here's a picture of Dan and I on the pier in Santa Cruz. You can see the boardwalk in the back ground, but I think Dan's big head is covering up that ride! Oh, and I also rode the merry-go-round.. check that off my list!

The house we stayed in was one block from the beach, and we picked the perfect spot! Apparently all the locals go to this beach with their dogs because even though there are "leash laws" there's no way for a lifeguard truck or police car to get on this beach. So, the rules go out the window! The dogs were able to have the time of their lives, running around and playing in the water. And the humans got to drink beers. A win-win!

Here are all the dogs pooped after a day on the beach. We called this "dog row":

It was a wonderful trip, and just what my soul needed.

Where to start?

I've been a bad bad blogger, and now I feel like I have waaaay too much to share. For now I'll share with you the happiest single moment in my life, followed by the worst.

On Thursday, July 8th, I woke up and took the obligatory HPT. And to my absolute shock, two blue lines popped up. I emphasize the color of the lines because stupid me bought a cheap-o test, and decided that it would be a good idea to use one that morning. So, I woke Dan up and told him I got a positive test, but not to get too excited because the blue dye tests are known to give false positives.

I called my RE's nurse when I got to work and she told me to come right in to take another HPT, and they would get my blood drawn afterwards. Long story short, this is what came of that:

Total shock! I started crying, my RE high fived me, and off I went to get my blood work done. Was this really happening.. after almost 2 years was I FINALLY pregnant? Holy crap. I still had this sinking feeling that something would go wrong. I doubt it was intuition. I think I'm just used to nothing but bad news when it comes to getting pregnant.

My RE called me that afternoon and confirmed my fear.. hCG = 22, progesterone = 12. An hCG of over 5 means you're pregnant, 22 is still pretty low, but the progesterone was definitely lower than it should have been.. even though I had already been taking progesterone suppositories since the IUI.

I had to come in the next morning to get another blood test done, since I would be leaving for vacation that Saturday morning. Friday morning I decided to test with my digital, and got this:

At this point I thought maaaaybe this was happening and all would work out with the blood work.

The results from Friday's blood work.. hCG = 30, progesterone = 10. crap. My RE said he was surprised to see my hCG go up so much, and that because of the progesterone level he figured we had about a 50/50 chance of this pregnancy working out. All we could do was wait it out.

I tried to remain optimistic, but of course when someone says 50/50 I'm looking at that glass half empty, not half full. Old habits die hard.

Saturday morning we started our 7 hour drive up to Santa Cruz for our week long vacation. Not long into the drive I started spotting and I had the worst cramps I've ever had. By the time we got up to Santa Cruz I had started bleeding, and I knew it was over.

So, that was that. For a short time I had what I have been dreaming about for so long. I saw those two lines. Dan and I created something, even if it couldn't stay with us. After we lost it I was pissed. I was angry at the world just in general. Why do bad things happen to good people? And why do good things happen to bad people? Obviously there's no answer for those questions, it's just life. And sometimes life is cruel and unfair. Sometimes more to some than others.

I'm starting to feel better though. I'm trying to think positively.. this proved I can get pregnant. I should consider that a huuuuge step in this whole journey of ours. I think we've decided on our next step, but I'll save that for another day.

Onwards...