Field of Dreams

Sorry for the radio silence lately.  You'll be glad to know, however, that it's been a very productive silence.

We received bad news about our last IVF cycle last Friday.  I had a nice ugly-cry for a while, then turned to the interwebs to read all about my new protocol for this coming cycle.  Let me tell you, the internet is a great and calming place to a gal doing IVF.  There are so many chat rooms, message boards, blog posts, and articles that I can browse to my heart's content.

About twenty minutes after I got off the phone with the doctor, my parents arrived at our house direct from their flight from Italy (they'd been there for the 10 previous days for work).  So we all had another good cry.  It was a soggy day.

But the best part of their coming to town was that we got a mini vacation.  It took me a couple days to start feeling normal again as the meds left my system, but then we had a grand time together.

We tagged along with the BYU Law group to see West Side Story at the National Theater.  I'd forgotten all of the fun music in that show.  That said, this particular interpretation of the show was pretty darn dark and depressing.  Also, it's hard to buy guys as tough gang members when they're so obviously teeny dude ballerinas.  The Sharks and Jets have never looked less intimidating.

We also ate out at all our favorite places with my parents.  Pacci's Trattoria (it says something that even though my parents had been in Italy for 10 days, they still wanted to eat here right away), District Taco, Parkway Deli, and Seasons 52.  It was a busy, and full, week.

My Dad left the day after the conference ended, but my mom stayed an extra couple days to hang out.  It was the first week in a long time that I haven't been abundantly medicated.  I can't tell you how wonderful it's been to start feeling more normal.  Even though I'd be happy to start right up again, I'm sort of glad that this new protocol has a built-in time off period.  No daily shots for a bit! Hallelujah!

My mom and I spent a lot of our time working on the someday nursery.  I think I'm going to start calling it Maybe - the Maybe Baby, just for ease of description.

Over the past few years my philosophy has been "don't count your chickens before they hatch."  I haven't really let myself buy or do anything baby-related because I didn't want it to bring more cosmic bad luck on me.  But, at this point, it's not like our luck could really get worse, so my philosophy has changed to one of "if you build it, they will come."

Now, as a self-admitted non sports enthusiast, it's funny that I'm governing my life with a quote from a baseball movie, but I've got to say that it's helping my outlook immensely.  So, with that in mind, Maybe's room got a preliminary gender-neutral make-over.

We painted the walls a soft grey and made black-out curtains for the big window that gets sun all day long.  These sheets from West Elm were marked down 50% and then an extra 15% off at the register. It's hard to tell from the photo below, but they're a white background with small navy blue arrows that almost look like polka dots from far away.  I bought the king set and used the flat sheet to make two panels.  We lined them with a heavy white black-out fabric (also 50% off at JoAnn's - it was my lucky day!) and they now hang beautifully.

After using the flat sheet for the drapes, I've still got two king-sized pillow cases and a huge fitted sheet.  I'm going to make a few crib sheets and a quilt with all the extras.  So, for $70, I'll be getting two lined curtains, three crib sheets, two pillowcases (for someday big kid beds) and a quilt.  That's not too shabby!