The Brooklyn Beat; or, Odds and Ends

Since lovely Irene is sweeping through town tomorrow, I should probably post something so everyone knows I made it back from California just in time for an earthquake and a hurricane. I'd been holding out for a longer post with lots of news, but I've been too overwhelmed with preparing for my qualifying exam (in two weeks exactly) to write anything substantial. So, in sum:

-- Napa with Lawyer Guy was incredible: gorgeous scenery, great food, relaxing hotel. I even got a prenatal massage, and lying on my tummy (propped up with special belly-craddling pillows) was utter bliss.

-- I did have one massive freak-out our last night and day in Napa when Smudgie decided to play coy with me and not move. Naughty baby. Scared the hell out of me. Now he/she is back to tap dancing.

-- My sister's wedding was utterly beautiful (I may post some shots of the reception site so you can see how gorgeous it was--outside on a bluff overlooking green, vine-covered hills). I had tons of fun dancing and didn't even mind not being able to drink. (Okay, true confession: I had half a glass of wine and felt like falling asleep. Then the waitress topped off my glass without checking with me first, I got nervous about losing track of my consumption, and stopped drinking altogether).

-- Plane ride with LG is much better than without. Plane ride with LG + wumping Smudgie is best of all.

--Smudgie looked great at the 33-week appointment. He/she is about 4.5 lbs and right around 30% for size, which my docs think is fine. The MFM estimated I'll deliver a 6.5-7 lb baby, which sounds pretty normal to me and I'm totally cool with that. I'm feeling really good, with lots of energy despite not sleeping well and very few aches and pains.

-- I scheduled all of my remaining Ob appointments, growth scans, and biophysical profiles for the remainder of the pregnancy. That was pretty intense, though it's good to have it all on the calendar.

-- I thought my old, small apartment building was in the early stages of collapsing during the earthquake last Tuesday. The thought of a natural disaster never occurred to me. I grabbed Bella and hightailed it to the street.

-- My studying just keeps getting derailed by natural disasters. I spent all day tracking Irene's progress, debating whether to decamp to my mother-in-law's in the suburbs (for now we're staying put), and stocking up on water and non-perishables. Doesn't leave much time for studying Walter Scott. I'm so going to fail.

-- Studying has also been derailed by the beginnings of setting up our nursery. We put down the rug and set up the glider, crib, and dresser this week. I managed to not hyperventilate and it's already my favorite room in the apartment, though I still get overwhelmed and nervous when I think about it too much (then I just shut the door and go back to real life). I really hope it's not destroyed by torrents of rain or a roof collapse tomorrow night.

-- I have nursery shots and a belly pic, but don't have the time or mental space to add them.

-- My shower is next Sunday out on the Jersey shore. I hope the hurricane damage is cleaned up by then (can you tell that this freaking hurricane derailing my last few weeks of pregnancy is really pissing me off? Because obviously it's all about me).

--- Hurricane also led to the cancellation of our birth education class at our hospital tomorrow. We've been rescheduled for two weeks later. 36 weeks isn't too late to learn about this stuff, right?

-- I'm 34 weeks today. Six weeks to go. Wow.

-- I reaaaaally need all four weeks between my exam (the day I turn 36 weeks) and my due date in order to prep. I have done NOTHING--nothing's washed, nothing's finished, we've bought barely anything. I desperately need to focus on school that last week after my shower, so I can't even start to take stock of what we still need until after 36 weeks. I'm probably the only woman alive who wouldn't mind being overdue. But just a little.

-- I am grateful grateful grateful every day for this sweet, squirmy baby inside me. I love him or her so much.

San Diego Sunshine; or, California Recap...So Far

My Californian peregrinations continue with a 6-day stay at my BFF Doctor Lady's home down south. I'm once again wireless-enabled and checking in with my beloved blogs and tweeps whenever I can, but I'm also in a serious time-crunch with reading and paper writing prior to my exam in early September, so blogging and twitter are of necessity on the back burner.

The conference was incredible. It was also incredibly exhausting. It's an annual conference that brings together academics, funded graduate student participants (so my conference fees, room & board, and meals were all paid for by my institution), high-school teachers, college students, and members of the public with an interest in the figure whose work is discussed. Over the 9 days I was there, I attended 21 lectures, 12 of them 1-hr long keynote lectures. I participated in a writing workshop every morning at 8:30 and had a seminar with fellow grad students every afternoon. I attended a party with grad students and faculty every night that started at 9 and went to the famed ? of "crazy" birthday party invitations (I usually lasted until about 11:30). I spoke about my "project" more times that I can count and met some incredible fellow-students working in my field whom I hope I can encounter at future conferences and gatherings.

It was academically enriching, professionally fulfilling, and lots and lots of fun. I'm so glad I didn't let my fears keep me from going. But I also ran myself a bit ragged. I'm not good at saying no to things. About half-way through the week, I woke one morning to see a sudden shower of metallic spots filling my vision. I thought lightning bugs had infested my room until they disappeared after 20-30 seconds or so. After some frightened googling and a self-diagnosis of pre-eclampsia, I called my doctors' emergency number that evening after hours and was told it was most likely morning low-blood pressure and to keep an eye on things but not worry too much. I think my body was sending me a definite signal that it was time to slow down.

I'm resting a lot down at Doctor Lady's: reading on the couch while she and her husband are at the hospital for work and her adorable little boy (who has a total crush on me) is at day care; cooking easy dinners for them all each night to earn my keep; trying to sleep in and nap as I feel like it. It's wonderful to see her for an extended amount of time. But I am also so very happy that on Friday morning, Lawyer Guy and I will be reuniting at the San Francisco airport and heading up to Napa for some much-needed alone time before the wedding.

Wish me luck on the flight--my last solo journey before LG is with me again. They've been hard, but I think I'm coping okay. Smudgie kicks up a storm and I focus on those precious movements and that seems to get me through.

Hope and Hunger; or, How I Spent My Winter Vacation

So here we all are. Back together again. New year, same us. Four days in and I'm all ready to sum up 2011 with one word: Hungry.

That's probably because I began an intense 28-day detox/cleanse yesterday, the day we traveled home from the Bahamas, and I have had no wheat, soy, eggs, corn, dairy, alcohol, caffeine, packaged foods, or added sugar in the last 24 hours. I started taking 150 mgs of Clomid a night the day before the cleanse began. So I'm malnourished, hormonal, and travel-fatigued: yup, about ready to rip off my own arm and eat it raw with just a little salt. After I finish typing this post, I'm off to the grocery store to stock up on all the things I'm allowed to eat during these weeks of torture disguised as self-improvement.

But I'm hungry for a lot of things right now, not all of them carbs. I'm hungry for success and accomplishment and satisfaction. I want to feel good about myself again, inside and outside (but today, strangely, mostly inside). I want to feel again like I'm the girl who goes after her dreams and wins. I want to look at my reflection with pride instead of disappointment.

But where was I? Of course, How I Spent My Winter Vacation. In all the lovely ways one would expect: with lots of reading and sitting by the pool or beach and drinking rum cocktails and dressing up for dinner and getting a massage and even hitting the gym multiple times. True to lovely form, my period showed up on New Year's Eve, which part of me wanted to take as an awesome sign that this was the LAST period of 2010 and there won't be any in 2011 and part of me wanted to take as a dreadful sign that the next year will just be one failed cycle after another.

But it wasn't a sign of anything except the fact that I'd ovulated 14 days before and wasn't pregnant, so I stopped thinking about it as soon as I could.

That night, we ate at a great sushi restaurant and then Lawyer Guy played blackjack while I drank and cheered him on (I don't mind watching other people gamble--even with our joint money--but I don't like doing it myself) and then we got more drinks and watched the fireworks over the harbor at midnight.

And I remembered that last year, I felt such relief when the calendar switched over and in the days later, even an incredible joy. Losing our m&m at the end of 2009 was such a deep stain on the year that I couldn't wait to change the clocks and switch the date to something that was bound to be better and happier. I had a whole year to get pregnant again, and I was certain it would happen.

And now I've got no certainty and not always much optimism, and I felt such failure as the yachts all around us started blowing their horns and people were cheering. One whole year later with nothing to show for it and me no closer to my dreams.*

*And of course there's much to show, and of course I'm closer every day, but that didn't matter at the time.

We kissed, and I started to cry a little, and I know LG was worried and a little frustrated that we'd been having a good time and all those inconvenient feelings had to rise to the surface, so I pushed them back down and looked back over the water and thought to myself:

"Okay, 2011. Do your worst."

Which was perhaps the sort of blithe dare I should have learned by now not to make, considering all the evidence I have of fate's awful sense of humor (and all the fairy tales I read as a kid). Maybe, at about 2 minutes and 30 seconds into the new year I doomed myself to twelve months of disaster. But I still feel invigorated when I think the words to myself. I feel strong and competent and resourceful and all the things I want to be because it's abundantly clear that 2009 couldn't break me and 2010 couldn't break me and 2011 won't either, whatever the tricks it has hidden in it's New Year's top hat.

A Weekend Away; or, AF Right Around the Corner

Some bloggers can disappear for four days without feeling like they've abandoned their legions (hear me? LEGIONS) of fans, but not me. I have been terribly worried that you're all wondering: Where's Sloper? Did she finally lose it from yet another BFN and has been committed to Shady Brook by Lawyer Guy for threatening to stab pregnant women in the park? Never fear, the pregnant park-trawlers are safe from my wrath for now, because I never test early (hello, have you met me before?) so the BFNs are at least a day or so away. But I have been too busy to blog for the following reasons:

1) Sickness. On Thursday afternoon I suddenly came down with sharp, AWFUL stomach pains right above my belly button. I was gripping the side of my desk to keep from doubling over while my students worked on their peer review of each other's essays. It was awful. Every time I ate for the next two days the pain came back. On the drive home, I also started to feel like a flu was coming on--muscle and joint aches, chills, tiredness, the works. I spent the night on the couch watching Jane Eyre for the 80-thousandth time and eating chicken soup and drinking Gatorade and went to bed super early that night in the hopes I'd kick it.

2) My stellar immune system did its usual awesome work (this was the first time I'd felt sick in about 4 years!) and I was much better the next day, with the exception of my stomach aches, as I mentioned. This was great because it meant I felt up for my trip to Atlanta with Lawyer Guy for a friend's wedding. We flew out of NYC that afternoon and had a great time not only dancing up a storm at the wedding--which had one of the best wedding bands I'd ever heard--and hobnobing with publishing types (to whom LG kept pitching my one finished novel, the sweetheart) and drinking vodka gimlets, but also spending some time with my second-youngest sister, who just started her first year of law school down there. We ate bbq and grits and biscuits and I'm glad I don't live in Atlanta, because I would be fat(ter) than I am already. Small blessings, right?

It was a really fun, happy weekend and even though I still feel super pessimistic about this cycle and was facing some dark, sad, hopeless emotions before we went, the fun times out-of-town did a lot to pick my spirits up. I'm ready to get my period tomorrow and not jump out the window afterward.

I've also been thinking a lot about the conference I'm supposed to attend later this week. More and more, I just don't feel I have it in me to go, for a lot of reasons. I think I've mentioned that I'm afraid of flying, and pretty much the only thing that gets me through it is holding on to Lawyer Guy (and Xanax). I'm seriously stressing over a cross-country flight without him when I've been in such a funk.

I also don't want to be so far away when I need to talk to Dr. Wonderful about the failed cycle and get started on treatments for next cycle. I don't think I want to be thousands of miles from my doctor and my husband when the nail is pounded into the coffin of this first IUI cycle. And I've lacked any drive or motivation to work on my presentation over the last few days.

I feel like a crappy student and a total failure to even consider backing out of this (and for the record, I'd just let them know that I'm ill and can't fly--which is sort of true if you take neurosis as an illness). But when I think of not going, I feel immense relief. I feel excited to start studying for my oral exams and to start preparing some articles to submit for publication. When I think about going I feel dread and nausea.

I'm going to think about it over night and then call Jet Blue in the morning and find out the penalty for switching the flight. My gut is telling me to cancel. My gut is also a total wimp.

More Pictures While We Wait; or, Scandinavia, Part II

In just two days, we finally go to the RE. As the time has ticked down to the visit, I've gone from excited to terrified and back again. Last night I spent hours googling PCOS and convincing myself I have it (then convincing myself I don't). I think I'm afraid of being told there's something definitively wrong with me but also afraid of being told there's nothing wrong with me and nothing can be done. Or maybe I wanted to check in with that cold-hearted Dr Google one last time before turning things over to a professional.

Whatever the case, the upshot is that right now is a time full of anticipation but very little information to impart. I ovulated recently, which is nice I guess, but I don't have much expectation of it leading to anything--except for those days when I do. So before our rash of RE visits and the recaps that will no doubt follow (and the decisions that will have to be made and the appointments that will have to be scheduled), I figured I'd finally catch everyone up on the rest of our Scandinavia trip.

When last you left our fearless heroes, we had spent an action-packed evening at Tivoli Gardens on their last day in Copenhagen. They next morning, we boarded the high-speed train to Stockholm and arrived in that fair city some 4 hours later.

As with our arrival in Denmark, we got to Sweden on a grey, cloudy, mucky day. And since we'd read in our guidebooks that Scandinavian taxis are hella expensive (the meter STARTS at $9), we decided to walk from the central station to our hotel in Ostermalm. Which required us to cart several large carry-on bags and a massive 60-lb suitcase on a 15-20 walk through downtown Stockholm in a drizzle. That turned into an abrupt thunder shower. And we only had one umbrella (that I shamelessly commandeered).

But we arrived at our hotel no worse for our drenching and quickly settled in. This hotel was not in the red light district as our previous one was, but right on the harbor in an area that we kept likening to Madison Ave on the UES. Lots of great shopping and restaurants nearby. On first night there, we ate on the recommendation of the concierge at a local restaurant that seemed to be more Swedes than tourists and then wandered around the city by night, getting our bearings and checking out the shopping and nightlife:

The next morning we were up early for breakfast and a long walk (thanks to the price of taxis, long walks became a routine with us). Stockholm is built on a series of smallish islands connected by bridges. We walked along the waterfront to Djurgarden, a huge island of parkland where several museums are located. We visited the Vasa Museum, which is dedicated to a salvaged 17th-century Swedish warship that sank on its maiden-voyage and was discovered, pulled up, and preserved in the 1950s. Then we walked through the park to Rosendals Tradgard, a nonprofit working organic garden in the middle of the island. Here's the pick-your-own flowers plot:
They had a lunch stand with organic food grown on the premises (Lawyer Guy had a sandwich and I had an amazing rabbit & veggie risotto) where we ate before starting the 45-minute-or-so walk back to our hotel.

We were quite tired when we returned to our neighborhood, and it was later than we planned, so we scrapped our intended sightseeing trip to Gamla Stan--the old city--and instead made a reservation at a restaurant there for dinner that night. We had a few late-afternoon hours to see things, so we went to the National Museum for an hour before it closed. Then we sat at a sidewalk bar at a nearby hotel and had beers while overlooking the harbor and the palace across the water.


Interestingly, most sidewalk cafes have seating facing out to overlook the water or the street rather than seats that face each other across the table. I guess Stockholmites really enjoy people/boat watching!

After returning to the hotel and changing, we walked to Gamla Stan for dinner at a modern Swedish restaurant in a 17th-century tavern. (We both sampled reindeer mousse!). We then wandered about the old city by dark, ducking into teeny little alleys and posing in front of short, narrow doorways, before walking back to the hotel.

The next morning, we woke up early and headed back to Gamla Stan to tour the royal palace the moment it opened. Poor Lawyer Guy did not enjoy this part of the trip. He has zero fetishistic enjoyment of European royalty and is strangely unmoved by antique furnishings or dec arts museums. Sad. I, however, fully enjoyed seeing the largest (or was it the oldest? I can't recall.) European palace still used as an official residence. And yes, it was quite large. We saw the ballroom where the crown princess's wedding was recently held and the banquet room where the Nobel prize winners are given a dinner following the ceremony. The crown jewels were also fun to see (and Lawyer Guy did like trying to figure out their value).

As we left, we ran smack into the changing of the guard, an impressive (and very loud) spectacle on horseback:


We then wandered about the old city for several hours. I visited the Cathedral, across from the palace, where there is a famous wooden 16th-century statue of St. George slaying the dragon. A bronze replica of it stands in a small square nearby:

We ate lunch and did some shopping (I bought Swedish yarn for my knitter best friend for Christmas and LG got his mom a linen shawl in thanks for her dogsitting while we were away). We ate lunch as a small tavern-looking restaurant decorated with vaguely Viking-ish murals. We ate herring and meatballs for our most authentic meal of the trip.

After lunch, we walked south to another island, Sodermalm, which we insisted on calling "the Brooklyn of Stockholm" (yes, we are your typical myopic New Yorkers who insist that NYC is the benchmark by which all else must be measured). The main character from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo lives here, and as Lawyer Guy was reading it at the time, we decided to visit his address. We went down to SoFo, which the Times travel section had just featured as an excited shopping destination, and checked out the super hipstery stores and restaurants and tried on fedoras and marveled at the global commonality of hipster fashions.

We also sat and rested our (by that point) aching feet in several pleasant, shady squares and churchyards. I accidentally hit a color-highlight button on our camera while trying to take a picture of Lawyer Guy in one of those churchyards and took what turned out to be a pretty cool picture (the building was a sandstone-y color, the pink and yellow are just the patches of shadow and light turned into color):


We had dinner reservations for our final night at a restaurant called Le Gondolen just over the bridge from Gamla Stan in Sodermalm. There's an early 20th-century iron elevator/gondola that takes passengers from the bridge up to the level of most of Sodermalm (otherwise you have to climb about 300 steps cut into a stone wall). We rode the gondola when we first arrived, wandered around the neighborhood, and then came back to our restaurant, which is in the gondola structure in that glass-windowed space suspended in the air:


You have an incredible panoramic view of the harbor and the city from the window, but unfortunately I didn't get any particularly great shots of it. We need a better camera, clearly.

After a very good dinner and some very good wine, we walked alllllll the way back through Gamla Stan to our hotel on Ostermalm. Because we'd had such an early reservation, we walked home just as the sun was setting and got some lovely pictures of buildings in the harbor with hot-air balloons floating over them (I kind of wanted to take a hot-air balloon ride, but am afraid of heights, so these pictures took the place of one). Here's a red balloon over the National Museum:

And here's a green balloon over (what I think is) Skeppsholmen, a smaller island near the art museum:

Not bad considering I was rather drunk when I took them!

We had talked about getting a reservation to go to the Ice Bar than night but were so, so tired from our 8+ hours of walking that we just got a drink at our hotel and then went to bed very sleepy.

The next day we were up and out early and back to Copenhagen for one last night before flying out. We got into the city around 5 pm and headed to our next hotel, in the lively Nyhavn district. Our hotel was in an 18th-century warehouse right on the harbor, as you can see from this picture of the view out our window:

We were upgraded to a suite with windows overlooking both the canal (the one shown above) and the harbor itself. We had dinner that night at a great nearby restaurant called Salt (in another reclaimed warehouse) and walked around Nyhavn for a bit before going to bed-- only to be woken by what sounded like bomb blasts but were actually fireworks over the national theater next door. I had a great view from the other window. After that settled down, we went to sleep.

The next day we had to leave around noon for the airport, but I insisted we spend some of the morning exploring Christianshavn, the Free City where hippies have lived commune-style in free apartments since the '60s. It was the nicest day we'd had in Copenhagen on the trip (the weather was better in Stockholm), and we enjoyed walking along the water and seeing the beautiful canals (like this one in Christianshavn) from the shore rather than a boat:


Disappointingly, though, nothing was free. Maybe we didn't walk far enough into the Free City, or maybe they know a non-hippie foreigner when they see one.

Then it was back to the hotel and into the first taxi we took all trip for our ride to the airport. And 9 hours, one beer-stained carry-on (thanks to the passenger in front of me) and a spot of petty theft in our building (everything fortunately recovered), we were home and ready for a jet-lagged night's sleep and a return to work, school, and many hours of paper writing.

But Scandinavia was great and I definitely need to return to Stockholm one day, which is one of the prettiest cities I've ever seen.

Thus ends (for now) the travelogue portion of this blog. I hope it was illuminating!

A Picture-Filled Post; or, Scandi Part One

I'm a little embarrassed over my last post, even though everyone who commented was kind and supportive. I know I've not had the worst or hardest road in this community and it isn't fair to refuse to be happy for other people. After talking a bit with Stef B. and Egg, I realized that it's the preponderance of women in first tri on my blogroll right now that got to me. All the first tri posts are so extra, extra stabby for me in a way that posts about second or third tri or even parenting are not. Because watching my friends meet all their first tri milestones either reminds me of how it was when I was pregnant and happy (telling Lawyer Guy about the pregnancy, seeing that gestational sac at the first ultrasound, feeling morning sickness) or reminds me of all the things I hoped and expected to do, but didn't (getting an all-clear on a good heartbeat, getting a due date, telling my parents and friends in a happy way and not a doomed, depressed way). Right now it's just too much and I need to step away. It doesn't mean that I'm not still reading and caring, though.

Okay, so in an effort to raise my mood out of the chronic doldrums it's fallen into, I'm giving you Part One of the long overdue Scandinavia trip recap I promised. Get ready for everyone's favorite activity: boring (faceless) pictures of other people's vacations!

Our trip started rather inauspiciously in Copenhagen in the middle of a torrential downpour:


We saw a bit of the city anyway, visiting some art museums and attempting to follow one of the walking tours in my guide book (yes, I am the kind of traveler who insists on seeing EVERYTHING that a guide books stars or recommends, much to Lawyer Guy's dismay and aching feet). The rain quickly became oppressive however (the most rain Denmark has received on a single day in FIFTY YEARS, I kid you not), and we had to go back to our hotel.

A few words about our hotel. First, it was really lovely and well appointed and the staff was exceedingly pleasant. Second, um...it was in the red light district (forgot to mention that detail, Conde Nast Traveler!), so Lawyer Guy and I entertained ourselves with games of "Prostitute or Just Waiting For a Ride For Over Three Hours?" on our walks back to the hotel at night. (And another note: prosties in Denmark certainly cover up more than their North American counterparts. I've seen whores on Tenth Ave--from the safety of a cab--in the dead of winter wearing miniskirts and heels, but these gals were in jeans and boots.) Third, when we were shown to our room that first morning THERE WAS A CHILD'S CRIB SET UP NEXT TO THE BED. Awesome. Thanks for the reminder, Denmark. They took it out in a hurry.

Okay, so despite the driving rain and gale-force winds and our jetlag, we went out to dinner at a fabulous restaurant around the corner from our hotel, Cofoco. Probably the best meal we had our entire time there. It reminded me of our favorite NYC restaurants in its trendiness and yet lack of pretension, and the food was exceptional (part of the New Danish movement that uses local, seasonal Scandinavian ingredients in inventive ways). It was awesome. Worth getting wet and walking past the "All-Naked Arousing Sex Show" twice.

The next day was still overcast, but we headed about three hours north of Copenhagen (by train) to Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark, to visit K, my family's former exchange student. We had a wonderful, authentic Danish Sunday lunch and we got to spend time with my Danish sister's kids, these total cherubs:

Incidentally, her home is like a parody of clean Danish modern design, all light, open spaces and (authentic original) midcentury minimalist furniture. To wit:

I could not believe two children under the age of five lived here. There was not a toy on the ground or a single piece of clutter, not even in the bathroom or the children's bedroom.

After a wonderful lunch and a walk down by the sea (which they have a view of though that giant window), Lawyer Guy and I took the train back to Copenhagen for cocktails and dinner reservations at Nimb, a fancy-shmancy hotel in Tivoli Gardens. Then we walked around Tivoli at night, which is a beautiful, whimsical amusement park in the center of the city. Here's the exterior of Nimb seen from the park to give you a sense of what it looks like in the dark:

The whole park is lit like that, with Chinese lanterns hanging in the trees and lights on all the roller coasters. It's quite a sight. We lingered there eating treats and walking around until about midnight, when we went back to our hotel, a short walk away.

We started off the next morning right, with this for breakfast:


Those pastries were utterly insane. We then walked (and walked and walked) the calories off, visiting Stroget, the long pedestrian shopping street through the center of town, and some cool women's clothing shops that the New York Times travel section had recently recommended. I got an adorable tunic top and pink cheetah print winter hat with pompom! (And I'll talk more about shopping in Stockholm, but I just want to say that the prices in both cities were SO reasonable. Things that I'd expect to see priced around $300-$400 at places like Scoop and Searle in NYC were $100-$200 there. This note is mainly for Sienna, who I think will appreciate this information).

After shopping, we went on a canal tour of the city and then walked up to Rosenborg Palace, a gorgeous seventeenth century moated castle in the middle of a lovely and peaceful park. We ate a crazy-good lunch in the park:

(Yes, I take pictures of food. My favorite thing about going on vacation is eating, so I want to keep my delightful gustatory memories fresh. And the big hunt of red meat is mine, all mine!)

We walked the length of our city back to the hotel and rested for an hour or so before changing for dinner. I put on my charming new tunic, bought that morning. But before dinner, we went back to Tivoli to go on some rides, which had already closed the previous night by the time we finished dinner. I am not a daredevil, to say the least. This ferris wheel was about as scary as I was willing to get:


It gave us an incredible view of the park and the city. Later, there were some bumper boats that I did a piss poor job of steering, much to Lawyer Guy's amusement:


I live dangerously.

We finished up the night with dinner at an excellent Thai restaurant near our hotel and then glasses of wine in the hotel's pleasant and private back courtyard. Then it was off to bed in anticipation of an early rising the next morning for our train ride to Stockholm--which must wait for another post, as this one is too long already.

Jet-Lag; or, CD 1

Just a quick post to say that I live, I breathe, I bleed!

(Is this too much info for my first post back? Should I have reacquainted you with my charming ovaries and lining-rich--yet frustratingly barren!--uterus with chatter about the lovely efficacy of diflucan? Sorry, but AF showed up today somewhere between Greenland and New Foundland and her bitchiness tends to be catching).

Overall, though, the trip was lovely. I highly recommend spending every 1 week wait in Europe, if at all possible. Unless you live in Europe. Then I'd recommend Asia.

I'll post plenty of pictures soon (Lawyer Guy was instructed to take several clever face-disguising shots just for blogging use), but right now I need to watch last week's Mad Men before some cretin spoils it for me or I go into convulsions from Don Draper withdrawal. Then I need to continue ignoring the 1,000+ e-mails in my inbox by going to sleep.

Outward Bound; or, Thank God for 24-Hour Pharmacies

In January, right before Lawyer Guy and I left for our cruise I came down with a yeast infection. (I have since learned that this is incredibly common right before the first AF after a natural miscarriage or d&c.) Tomorrow we fly across the sea to Scandinavia. And guess what? A huge glob of something thick, creamy, and white literally fell out of me into the toilet last night! Now, I have no itching or irritation yet, but I didn't have that at first last time either. Thankfully, my doctor was able to call in the prescription to my pharmacy today, so I at least don't have to worry about running through the aisles of a drugstore in a country where I don't speak the language and mistaking hemroid cream for monistat.

When this happened in January, I immediately began googling "yeast infection early pregnancy" etc. etc. ad nauseum. And of course, yeast infections are a sign of early pregnancy! Wanna know what else they're signs of? You guessed it, PMS! And sometimes a yeast infection's just a yeast infection.

As long as mine goes away before I set foot in Copenhagen, I'll be okay with it. I'll admit I'm tempted, but I'm not going to google and I'm not going to speculate. This month more than ever, it's just a waste of energy. Thank goodness I get to spend the entirety of the 1ww in Europe, exploring and drinking and eating and sightseeing and (I desperately hope!) not having any time to over analyze each cramp/twinge/itch. I don't need to bring peesticks of any variety. I don't need to bring stack of pads and tampons. I'm going to treat this as a real vacation--from everything.

And on that note, I'm off! I'm not going to check in with you lovelies while I'm away, because I really want this time to decompress and forget as much as possible about TTC. But I will certainly catch up when I get home in 8 days.

Don't miss me too much! I know it will be hard to get by without knowing every detail of my yeasty discharge, but you'll just have to try.

Bitch Stole My Bagel...Again!; or, Welcome to My Black Hole

Does my empty uterus emit high-pitched signals audible only to pregnant women when I'm PMSing? Is that why they like to announce their happy expectations to me right before I start my pre-period spotting? CAN I PLEASE HAVE ONE FUCKING MONTH WITHOUT HAVING TO ACT EXCITED ABOUT SOMEONE ELSE'S UTE FRUIT???

The faint brown spotting started today, 13 dpo. AF will start tomorrow. At least this is predictable. At least I didn't feed my stupid, pointless hopes by taking a pregnancy test.

Not so predictable was the email I got yesterday from the incoming co-chair of my Junior League committee entitled "News!" Oh, I definitely waited about an hour before opening it.

Sigh. Of course she's pregnant. Of course she's due on November 18th: the fucking anniversary of my d&c. Of course she's going to be giving birth and going on maternity leave right when I'm planning to take my oral exam and was counting on her to pick up the slack for me. Of course I'm going to have to carry the committee on my back all year, when I'm trying to become ABD (All But Dissertation, the last stage of the PhD process) AND when I'll most likely be undergoing fertility treatments.

And sure, she's a few years older than me, so maybe in one sense it's "her turn." But she WASN'T EVEN MARRIED YET when we started trying. In the sixteen months that we've managed to conceive one non-viable pregnancy, she was engaged, got married, went on a honeymoon, spent some time as a couple with her husband, got knocked up, and gestated to the point where she can announce it.

And now I have to work with her all summer while her fucking belly grows and arrange things to accommodate her pregnancy and I'm just pissed off about the whole situation.

COCKSUCKINGMOTHERFUCKINGSONOFABITCHGODDAMNPIECEOFSHITASSMUNCHINGCUNTWIPINGFUCKBALLS!!

Sorry about that.

The worst of it was the sound of the silence on the other end of the phone this morning when I told Lawyer Guy I started spotting. Just pure devastation. I thought it was hard back when I was the only one worried, the only one stressing, but this is 1000% worse. If Mr. I'm Not Going To Worry Until There's a Reason to Worry thinks we're doomed, we're really screwed. And I just feel so guilty. Especially because I know he's worried that this is his fault. Oh, this sucks from top to bottom.

It's not all bad, and I do know that. We booked the trip to Scandinavia last night-- seven days in Copenhagen and Stockholm in August. A last blast before we meet with the RE. And yesterday afternoon, FedEx delivered a package from my best friend, Doctor Lady--a beautiful bouquet of flowers to let me know that she's thinking of me as what would have been the m&m's due date approaches. I started to cry when I opened them, shocked that she remembered the month when I haven't spoken of it once since the miscarriage. I felt so alone, thinking I was the only person who remembered I could have had a baby in a few weeks, the only person on earth who still thought about my baby and grieved the life that he or she never got to live. I know how blessed I am to have a friend like this.

And I promise that I'll be okay tomorrow. I'll pick my spirits back up and start drinking my tea again and peeing on sticks and hoping that this will be the month. And I'll schedule some RE appointments and mark them in my calendar and hope that we'll get pregnant in the next two cycles and tell myself it's okay if we don't.

And I'll study and write papers and go to Father's Day dinner with my inlaws and help my parents move out of my childhood home and go to a Mets game with my husband and tell him every day how much I love him and walk my dog.

But right now, I need to revisit my friend, the sobbing bridesmaid:

School's Out For Summer; or, Different Times Ahead

About nine months ago, I was finalizing my syllabi for the fall semester and learned that I needed to take over as chair of my Junior League committee a year earlier than planned. I looked at the year to come--my first semesters teaching, my last semesters of course work, my volunteering career, and a host of other responsibilities--and I panicked. It seemed so overwhelming (particularly the teaching). But I knew I had to get through the year, so I told myself, "This year will suck. Be prepared. But you'll survive."

I had no idea at the time how very much this year would suck and how much more I'd have to deal with than the busy schedule I'd originally foreseen. But I got some of my prediction right, in spite of that. This year did suck, but I also did survive it. I'm still standing, having taught my last class of the semester, having not completely screwed up a generation of young American minds, having managed to advance toward my own degree, and having hauled myself out of bed morning after morning, forcing myself to comb my hair and brush my teeth and get out the door, even on the days when I wanted to do anything but.

Whatever next year brings, I know two things: I can handle it, and it will be different from this. Whether I'm pregnant again or starting fertility treatments, I'll be doing something new and ideally hopeful. And if there's more heartbreak to come, I'll survive just as I have done.

It feels good to know that I can look at a bad situation and muddle through. Nine months ago I wasn't sure I that I could.

Meanwhile, no more 6:30 am wake-up calls for me! A summer to look forward to--even a busy, hectic, work-filled summer--feels so good right now!

Whiny Whinerson; or Good and Bad

Today is a BAD day because:

- I had a temp drop this morning (boo)
- Right before I went to jury duty (booo)
- Where I was selected to be on a trial (boooooo!!)

and because:
- my pre-AF nausea is intense (it's a new post-m/c PMS symptom)
- and I have a tummy ache

Today is a GOOD day because:

- No blood means a teeny bit of hope (yay)
- The weather outside is delightful (Yay)
- The court had wifi so I planned the itinerary for our Scandinavia trip (YAY!)

I hope your April Fools Days were more good than bad.

Be It Ever So Humble; or, Two Weeks Later

Ahhhhhh.

Did you hear that? That is the sound of a relaxed Sloper following two massages, four islands, and ten days away. I am tan(ner, anyway), rested, and ready as I'll ever be for the upcoming semester.

Did you miss me? Because I missed you guys! I missed hearing about your treatments, your pregnancies, your plans. It was good to be gone, but I'm glad to be back.

I'm also glad that I got my period on the trip, just a little. Oh, I cried a bit when I first started spotting and moped on the day she showed up. But unlike my last "period", which may have just been further post d&c spotting, this was unmistakable. (Honestly, I've never bled that much in my life!) I feel like my body is finally back on track, I feel good about where we've been and where we're going, and hopeful about the trip to get there.

I've got some exciting plans for the next few months: health and fitness ideas, school and teaching goals, home improvement projects, and a big-ass 30th birthday in May. It's going to be a good spring, and I'm ready for what comes next.

Ship Shape; or, Pulling Up Anchor

First of all, thank you for your encouragement the other day. It was just what I needed.--to know that I'm not alone and these crappy-ass days come to all of us. I was feeling a lot better yesterday and today. I don't know if I just needed to cry it out or if you all cheered me up. Either way, I appreciate your support.

But maybe my good spirits are due to my second piece of news: I'm leaving tomorrow for a 10-day cruise to the Caribbean! I am so excited for this vacation for a number of reasons, not least of which is the misery-inducing weather we've been having in New York recently (Is it just me or is January the most depressing month of the year?) Lawyer Guy and I really need this time to relax and reconnect away from family and job stresses. We'll even stop worrying about baby making, since I'm in the 2ww and any sex we have is strictly fun times only.

So that's the other thing-- I've mostly given up on this cycle, and I'm mostly okay with that. I never got a Peak reading on my monitor. But my temps continued in the low/mid 98s, the most recent temp being 98.4. That's absolutely a post-o for me, but I can't be positive I ovulated, since I wasn't temping the whole cycle and never got the affirmative from the CBEFM.

So--I'm giving up worrying. I'm going to go on my cruise and eat and drink and swim and read and hang out on the beach (with SPF 70 and a large hat, so don't worry about my Irish skin, chickadees). I will do a bit of schoolwork, but I will mostly just have fun and enjoy this wonderful time away. And I'll get my period on the trip, or I won't. I'll deal with the consequences of either when I get back.

So enjoy the heart of January, my dears. I won't be checking your blogs with my usual dedication, but I promise to check back in when I return on the 24th.

Odds and Ends; or, Collecting Thoughts

I forgot to relate a little event that happened at the d&c. Before anything began, I had a stack of medical and other forms to fill out. Slipped in among them, they had accidentally put the consent form for termination of pregnancy.

I'm Catholic and have huge moral problems with abortion. (Which, I want to clarify, doesn't mean that I think people who have had them are evil or bad or immoral. One of my closest sources of support during this process has been my friend who aborted a first trimester pregnancy with a d&c two years ago, and I understand her reasons for making her choice. (The political aspects of the issue are a whole other kettle of fish. I'll just say that I tend to vote Democrat)).

Anyway, seeing this legal consent form intended for a woman voluntarily ending her pregnancy just made me flip out. I started sobbing. And weirdly, the first thing that popped into my head was that if I ever decided to run for political office people would think I had an abortion if I signed these forms.

I didn't sign them, and they cleared up the mistake and gave me the right ones. But my husband found my reaction a little bizarre--simply because he knows running for political office sounds like hell to me!

* * *
Today we're going down to my parents' house for an engagement brunch in honor of my sister directly below me in age. We're going to meet her fiance's parents, sister, and brother-in-law. I've been really looking forward to this. But I woke up this morning at 4:30 crying. Emotionally this doesn't feel like a stable day. I'm going to have to get past that for my sister's sake.

* * *
Rapidly fading/fluctuating pregnancy hormones don't just mess with your emotions. They also fuck with your skin. The clear, smooth, slightly dry skin of my pregnancy is gone. I've got zits now in places I didn't know they could grow.

* * *
Finally, we're going on a cruise in January! I've never been on one before and usually like more personalized vacations. I pour over travel guides, search online for deals and tips, try to cram in as many sights (and sites) as I can in a short vacation time. But right now, paying someone to take me around to sunny islands while providing me with booze and unlimited food (and a gym) sounds pretty great. My husband is delighted I've come around to his planning-free mode of vacationing.

Anyone been on a cruise before and have any recommendations? We're planning to depart from NYC just to cut down on bother and expense, and the only cruises leaving from their in our time frame are the Queen Mary 2 (ha!), Norwegian, and Royal Caribbean.

Non-Babymoon in Vegas; or, The Art of Self-Distraction

I had a brilliant idea last night for something that makes me feel excited and optimistic even when work and school overwhelm me and the wait to be pregnant feels so long.

I've never been to Vegas and have wanted to go for a while. My husband hasn't been since his bachelor party over two years ago.

So...we're going for New Year's! My old roommate who now lives in San Fransisco is going to come with her boyfriend!

I can't wait to start researching hotel deals. It will be the perfect little getaway, something to look forward to and plan when all I want to do is obsess over fertility monitors. If I'm not pregnant by January, we'll have this fun trip and then come home and start the testing with my doctor. And if I am pregnant...that will be the perfect way to celebrate!

I'm so proud of my genius right now.

What the Hell?; or, Seriously, What the Hell?

I used to be a textbook. I used to be a clock. I used to be the hatching cycle of the northern cicada, or Halley's Comet, or some other eminently predictable natural occurance. I used to be regular.

What the hell happened?

Two years ago, my always-35-day cycle decided predictability was out and intrigue and surprise were in. "Why not 30 days?" it asked. "Okay, how about 34? Still too boring? Let's do 39. Oh, oh, and now 44. And back to 34. And now we'll do 31."

Fun. It's tons of fun never knowing when I'm going to ovulate or exactly how long my luteal phase will be afterward (yeah, that's in on the hijinks, too). But the most fun of all is my exciting mid-cycle bleeding!

That, too, started two years ago. I think the two have to go hand in hand. I now bleed for anywhere from two to five days consecutively and four to ten days total preceding my ovulation (there are often breaks of several spot-free days between consecutive days of spotting). Sometimes the blood is very light and one pantyliner will last all day. Sometimes the blood is heavier and I'll need to change the liner twice or so. One horrible month, it was so strong I bled right through my skirt. Thank you menstrual cycle for allowing me to relive the worst moments of junior high in my late twenties. Really special times.

Okay, so now comes my What the Hell incident of late. I'm on day 28 of my cycle. I'd guess I'll get my period in the next three to six days...BUT:

- I visited London two weeks ago with my husband. International travel across time zones has always screwed with my cycle.
- I've been spotting for the last eight days straight.

So I have no idea what's going on. This isn't ovulatory bleeding, as usual. That's usually pink and quite watery for me. Plus, I had that while I was in England. This is brown and kind of viscous.

I was supposed to ovulate while abroad. Since I don't temp any longer, I'm not sure if I did--but the mucus was right for it while I was there. But, since I traveled I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't. Plus, I NEVER spot after I ovulate, just before. But, like I said, this isn't normal spotting.

I see four possible causes:

1. I didn't ovulate yet and I'm going to have a seriously long cycle/delayed ovulation/anovulatory cycle.
2. I did ovulate, and now my body's just thinking up ways to mess with my head and screw with my system.
3. It doesn't matter whether I ovulated or not, because the spotting is being caused by some serious underlying fertility problem that my gyno hasn't caught yet.
4. I'm pregnant.

Yeah, that last one always slips in there uninvited. Party crasher.

Getting There; or Relaxing Can't Make Things Worse

There's a new plan, and it's no plan at all.

Meaning, we're taking a break from "planning." I'm not temping, not checking cervical fluids, not worrying about the timing of our sex life.

Things have been much better since then. Husband has felt less pressure and I've felt more relaxed.

I've spent the last few weeks thinking about all the things I can do in the next year if I don't have a baby: Finish all my coursework for my PhD program; teach my entire first year of my fellowship; attend my friend's wedding in Florida in June; present a paper at the Wordsworth conference in Grasmere, England next July.

And... my husband and I are planning a big trip to Scandinavia for Midsommer's Eve!

Basically, there's a new timeframe. I'll wait until I'm 30 before I worry about getting pregnant. When I turn 30 in May, we'll have been "trying" for 15 months, so that will be long enough to move forward with any testing or treatments we may need.

In the meantime, not planning lets me enjoy my life. It's not about "relaxing makes babies." It's more that relaxing makes babymaking more...relaxing! I'm young, I'm fine, I'm happy and I have a wonderful marriage, a fulfilling career path, good friends and family, and a city in which I adore living.

When the baby comes, it will be great! But I should make the getting there good, too.