World Wide Walskes

Oklahoma as beach front property

2007-08-30T19:02:00.000-05:00

I do love living in a place with really unpredictable weather. Keeps one on one's toes. Did I say love? Well, that's exaggerating. Ok, well, that's just a down-right lie.

Oklahoma has crazy weather. Temperatures jumping 20 degrees from day to day is pretty common. Everyone knows, of course, about the tornadoes we get here. Oh, and did I mention, now we apparently get TROPICAL STORMS!

I have to side track here to mention something funny (!) that I just remembered about our time in Okinawa, Japan. During the spring of 2002, there was a tornado that hit one of the base housing areas. We didn't live near there, but the joke went that because of all the folks who transfer back and forth from Oklahoma to Okinawa, the two were starting to merge in some weird space-time continuum way. And now? PROOF, I say!! Go here for the satellite image of Tropical Storm Erin, the storm that ripped through Oklahoma in the early morning hours of Sunday, August 19th. At one point, apparently, there was even a well defined eye to the storm. Jeez.

The most fun of all, of course, was the loud "THUMP" I heard at about 5:30 Sunday morning. (click on pictures to enlarge)

The 50 mph winds caused several branches from the trees in my back yard to come down, one on my house. (really lucky, actually! could have been SO much worse) I crept out in the dark with flash light in hand and saw the branch on the roof, above my bedroom. What I didn't see at that point was the 2 ft hole in my roof. And it wasn't until about a half hour later that the rain picked up and the water started coming in through the hole enough to start leaking into the bedroom.

As soon as I realized that the branch did more damage than I'd originally thought, my oldest niece (who'd stayed the night) and I knocked on my neighbors doors with pleas for assistance. Sawing and heaving ensued, and we were able to get the branch off the roof. One layer of plastic was laid down, a board was drilled into place over the hole, and another layer of plastic was added over the top. All-in-all, and pretty good patch.

Then we wet, bedraggled, and tired warriors against Mother Nature went off to breakfast in town, because, as luck would have it, there was also no power with which to make coffee. And wouldn't be for 8 more hours.

To the tune of Boomer Sooner, the University of Oklahoma fight song, sing along with me:

Oklahoma, Oklahoma... !

"Ronery, I'm so ronery..."

2007-08-22T11:20:00.000-05:00

Sorry, that's supposed to be "lonely." Channeling Kim Jong-il from Team America: World Police. I suppose the rest of the song doesn't apply, just the first couple lines. Don't have plans for world domination.

After a very long, wonderful, blissful time of having my husband at home most every night, he is gone. Five years is really a very long time for a military spouse to have their other half home on a continuous basis. Sure, he would go away for a week at a time, just long enough for me to start to miss him. It's been two weeks now. And it's starting to sink in, I guess. Four months to go.

"Ronery..."

I figured it out

2007-07-24T14:12:00.000-05:00

I read through my blog the other day. Short, with infrequent posts, I know. But I figured out what I have lost, and why I haven't been posting. I have lost my hope and my sense of humor.

I promise you, nobody goes through infertility treatment - the procedures, the pills and injections, the emptying of the bank accounts - unless they have hope that all of this will result in a baby. I find the lack of success with IUI frustrating because our diagnosis made it seem like if we could just get the sperm past the first big hurdle, the TVOD, they would have smooth sailing (er, swimming?), be able to party with the egg, et voila', babyville! And since today is cycle day 1, meaning that IUI cycle 3 was a bust, clearly IUI has not been the solution we thought it would be. But it is comparatively inexpensive next to IVF, and our RE wants to do 4 cycles of IUI before moving on, so we will do another, even if hope is in extremely short supply around here regarding that particular "treatment."

So many of my previous posts have shown a sense of humor, even if it is odd. And that is such a critical ingredient to not losing one's mind when going through infertility. With my sense of hope, so has gone my humor. I have been lucky, lately, to have found some borrowed humor. There is a lady in South Africa, Tertia Albertyn, who began her blog, So Close, on the eve of her 9th IVF cycle in 2004 (yes, 9th! IVF is cheaper in SA than in the US). What an amazing woman. That she still had a sense of humor, albeit slightly black, after all that she had been through was amazing to me. Much of what she said over the course of the first year of her blog was so profound, so cathartic for me. I refer to her a lot lately, and I am feeling much more like myself.

And to comment on hope again, Tertia and some of the other infertility bloggers have something very important in common: all of these women have succeeded. And they all succeeded with IVF. So maybe that is what will work for us. Maybe not. But I will take a page out of Tertia's book. She was so stubborn, unwilling to give up, unwilling to let "fate" or "chance" or whatever control whether or not she would be a mother. "Fuck you, infertility. I will beat you. Just watch me." This is what she said, and it has become Dear Hubby's new mantra.

However parenthood comes to us, we will not give up either. We will be parents.

Avoidance as a strategy

2007-07-16T16:29:00.000-05:00

I cannot believe it has been almost TWO MONTHS since I posted!! That is not possible. Surely the dates are wrong. Right? No? Well.

That must mean I am avoiding ya'll. Actually come to think of it, I HAVE been avoiding ya'll! Why, you might ask, would I wish to avoid all of my lovely, supportive family and friends who have been, well, lovely and supportive? Well.

Mostly, lately, I am not sure from one moment to the next what I feel or think. Our second cycle of IUI was a bust. All of Dear Hubby's swimmers were thwarted. Cycle number three is in process as we speak, and we're post-insemination...waiting. Those are the hard and fast facts of the deal.

The rest of the deal is that I've been an emotionally messy wreck most of the time. And I am, quite frankly, embarrassed by it. So I didn't really feel like sharing much.

See I have this thing. I've mentioned it before. I greatly dislike people who whine on endlessly about how their lives suck. I also greatly dislike the behavior in myself. My motto: Change the situation or shut the hell up! So the IUI's aren't working. And now, I really just don't want to talk about it. The next thing you're likely to hear on the subject is if we actually do get pregnant or start IVF.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Infertility humor

2007-05-24T10:44:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, Dear Hubby forwarded me an e-mail exchange with one of his co-workers regarding our most recent IUI attempt. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I read it.

Flipper,

Ah, yes. I remember my days training Iki. Always an adventure, no?

P.S. Package delivered, expected BDA 4 Jun. Payload was determined to be 48% active with over 70M sub-munitions.

Gonk

Gonk,

Awesome MISREP, dude. I dearly hope there are secondary explosions.

Flipper

Flipper,

Based on satellite intelligence, we had solid data on three hard targets. With any luck, our combined forces have infiltrated her perimeter wall and are holding fast in a defensive position and building in strength.

P.S. Yes, I am a big, big geek.

Gonk

Gonk,

I just shot really cold water out of my nose.

Flipper

Just in case you were wondering

2007-05-23T11:18:00.000-05:00

I'm not writing about my post-insemination days this month because I have my head well and firmly stuck in the sand about it. I am not paying any attention, other than taking my daily temperature for my BBT chart. I'll let you know when my next cycle starts. Or not.

I am instead focusing on the wonderful progress that Dear Hubby and I are making in the front yard, and the impending move of my mother and sister-in-law.

Mom is coming from my home town in New Mexico. She has finally decided that there is nothing left for her there, and is interested in a change of scenery. I applaud this momentous change she is making! She has never been known to make momentous changes in her life without a looonnngggg period of deliberation beforehand. But this will be her 2nd momentous life change in 4 years, which is almost spur-of-the-moment for her! So, Dear Hubby will fly out in a couple of weeks to pack up her entire life and move it to the flatlands of Oklahoma.

The sister-in-law is moving back here from Texas. She moved there when my brother came back from Korea. But now that he has been extended in the desert, she is tired of living amongst other military wives who live in constant fear that the next knock on the door will bring the unit commander bearing the worst sort of tidings a wife who's husband is in a war zone can get.

And given that Dear Hubby and I have been in the military for so many years, this abundance of family coming to live so near is exciting. And a little scary.

And now, a refreshing sidebar

2007-05-22T15:02:00.000-05:00

My cat licks windows. Information I've gotten on the Web says that he might have anemia or a vitamin deficiency. I plan to get it checked out. In the meantime, I'll just continue to think he's odd.

He's a snuggle kitty at night, but like clockwork every morning at 6:00 a.m., he makes his way from the bed to the bedroom window farthest from me. This is probably because he knows that the further the target, the worse my aim. Then he starts licking the window like it's the yummiest thing in his little kitty world. And I'm a light sleeper, so as soon as the licking begins, I'm awake. At 6:00 a.m. Which would be fine except that I don't have to get up for work until 7:00. So after I have thrown at him whatever I can reach, I try to go back to sleep.

But it gets worse! As if to make up to me for his early morning transgression, he climbs back on the bed and asks to get under the covers with me next to my pillow to snuggle! So now, I'm falling back asleep, and the snuggle ensues such that when my alarm goes off at 7:00, I oversleep and am then late for work.

This is just not fair.

To Blog or Not to Blog

2007-05-15T14:30:00.000-05:00

I have been on the fence as to whether or not to post regarding the events of the last week and a half. As we all know, IUI cycle 1 was a bust. But what happened after that, well...

Let me explain.

I have always been the kind of person who, when stuck in a stagnant situation, will change course. I do not like stagnation! I have known too many people who complain about their situations but who don't do anything to change those situations! Onward and upward, I say!

So. We are now at 3 years and 2 months infertile with one miscarriage. But I can't change this. I have no control whatsoever. I can do nothing but pray.

Sidebar. I have become both an infertility blog writer and reader and have found that these women are either "out" or "in the closet" about their infertility, at least to the world at large. And these brave women who are "out" about their infertility and who write about what they're going through and how they feel are a source of comfort and inspiration to me. So because of these women, I have decided to write about what has happened since the end of my last cycle.

May 4: my period showed up
May 5: trip to Dallas, Cinco de Mayo, copious margaritas during dinner
May 6: my 35th birthday heralding my change in status to "Advanced Maternal Age"
May 7: meltdown in the UPS store

I called my boss after the oh-so-embarrassing door-kicking incident and told her I thought I would need some time off. Maybe a lot of time off. She has always been super supportive and this time was no different. I love my boss! On Tuesday, I went for my first ever appointment with a counselor. See, this is part of my whole "change of course" need. What I've been doing hasn't been working. I need to do something, anything, different to keep from losing my mind. I spent the rest of the week puttering around the house and had my second appointment with said counselor on Friday.

I like my counselor so far. She motherly and I feel comfortable around her. She's in the process of picking my brain to see what makes me tick or what stresses me out. Hopefully she will be enough of a catalyst for change that I will keep my wits about me through whatever comes: more IUI, maybe even IVF (panic, panic!)

As my husband likes to say, we'll burn that bridge when we come to it.

Postscript

Today is cycle day 12. My experience with Clomid this month was pretty uneventful, with almost none of the side effects of last cycle except for some slight moodiness. Tomorrow I go in for my day 13 ultrasound and should trigger tomorrow night. That means insemination 2 should be on Friday morning.

Onward and upward!

And we're out of the game

2007-05-04T13:34:00.000-05:00

My period came this morning.

*tears, frustration, kicking the couch

I don't want to want a child anymore. I want to go spend my money on diamond earrings and power tools for my husband.

Does anybody have a pill that will make the wanting go away?

Pregnancy Watch: Day 11

2007-05-03T13:30:00.000-05:00

My temperature fell this morning. Damn.

Pregnancy Watch: Day 9

2007-05-01T16:34:00.000-05:00

Ack! I can't stand it! I don't know if this cramping I'm having in my abdomen is pre-menstrual or implantation related. The two weeks one has to wait between ovulation and pregnancy confirmation is the very definition of torture!

In other news, Dear Hubby and I are currently house hunting for my mother, who is moving to Soonerland in June. And let me tell ya, it's amazing how much housing prices can go up in just one short year. It's truly a crime that wages don't follow suit.

Stay tuned!

Pregnancy Watch: Day 3

2007-04-25T10:25:00.000-05:00

The insemination was done bright and early Sunday morning.

Last night I dreamed of madly dividing cells.

A good omen?

All I've got to say is ... OOWWW!

2007-04-20T22:34:00.000-05:00

Don't you just love how, right before the doc nails you with the needle and you feel like you're being stuck with a pitchfork, he says, "now, you'll feel just a little pinch..."

As I have said before, my reproductive endocrinologist is not really a "communicator." You know, really, I don't like my doctor. I see this whole process as a means to an end. He's just a tool we're using (and you can take that however you want) to obtain our goal. Now I LOVE my midwives and OB/GYN. But that a story for later. For now, we're discussing the "tool" who is my RE.

Anyway, so today I went in for an ultrasound to determine the status of my follicles after the Clomid. The doc was a bit concerned that our timing was off, and that we'd have to call knock it off and try again next month, but the blood tests showed that all was well. We now proceed to Sunday morning and the insemination.

But before that can happen, tonight I had to have an injection of HCG to trigger my body to ovulate on command. Now I don't like needles, but I usually do fine when I don't look at what's happening. Sooooo. Dear Hubby had to give the injection. The nurse who instructed him how to give the shot was very nonchalant about it. There was no mention made of the stabbing pain that would be involved.

The instructions involved mixing the injectible ingredients and preparing a syringe. The needle was only about 3/4 of an inch long, and we'd been told that the needle had to go into the skin in my abdomen all the way. Again, the nurse acted like it was no big deal, but you know, I'm not a big girl. I don't have a lot of extra padding. That needle looked really long to be going all the way into my stomach. Dear Hubby prepared the location with an alcohol pad, waited for the skin to dry, pinched together as much skin as he could, and stabbed. Yeah, it hurt. But the worst part was the burning after the fact.

The biggest problem here was I had no idea what to expect. I feel very abandoned by my doctor and the nurses at the clinic. I really think that they should have been more forthcoming about what to expect. And maybe I'm just whining and need to suck it up, because this is just how it goes. Millions of women all across the country do this every day, which is probably why such a pervasive air of disdain for infertile women seems to hang over that clinic. We're the desperate and they're our saviors, so we need to just do what we're told. There's a saying in the military that perfectly describes this situation: shut up and color.

I don't like the drugs, nor do the drugs like me

2007-04-16T16:02:00.000-05:00

I was so scared to take The Clomid. Since my doctor is not a, shall we say, communicative person, the only way I've been able to find out ANYTHING about what is happening when I go into his office or "do what I'm told!" is by reading about it on the internets. So The Clomid? There's a whole ginormous lot of information on the internet. And what I know is from the laundry list of side effects, here's what I've had so far:

Hot Flashes
Nausea
Nervous Tension
Insomnia
Fatigue (duh! see aforementioned)

Today is may last day on The Clomid. What I haven't been able to figure out yet is when do these symptoms stop? Do they get worse as my cycle progresses? Will they intensify next month if we're not successful this month and have to do cycle 2?

On another topic, I had a client come into my office today who is four weeks pregnant (!) (shout out to all you TTC ladies out there!) and who got pregnant doing IVF with another doc in the same practice that I go to. It was her first cycle. I was so thrilled for her, and we just sat there talking about this drug and that procedure and basically, I'm sure, sounded like a couple of crazies. But you know? When you're on this TTC train, you're on it body and soul. And everyone around us is along for the ride, whether they want to be or not.

It's time

2007-04-09T16:22:00.000-05:00

So yesterday was cycle day 1 for this ovulation cycle. And this was the cycle Dear Hubby and I decided would be The One. So that means that today after work, I get to pick up two prescriptions: one for 3 Clomiphene Citrate tablets, aka Clomid, and the other for an HCG injectable. I plan to pick these items up after seeing my chiropractor.

Why am I bothering to mention this to you? I do so because I am torn. See, many years ago - I think I was probably 13 or 14 - I attended the wedding of one of my mom's college friends. This friend was 40, and had hooked up with her new husband after they had run into each other at their 20th high school reunion. I still remember her wedding dress and how happy they looked that day. Not long after that, she and her new husband started trying to get pregnant. They tried and tried. The story then goes that he insisted she do fertility treatments, despite her concerns. At 45, she started IVF. She did finally get pregnant with triplets. But then things went terribly wrong. The babies were born prematurely, and were severely brain-damaged as well as blind. Her husband left her a short time later.

This story left a huge impact on me. It has always seemed to me to be a cautionary tale about the risks inherent in messing around with nature.

I never thought I would be doing this.

Spring is a time for lovers...and landscaping

2007-03-23T13:40:00.000-05:00

For those of you who may be wondering if our vacation was the ticket to pregnancy, well, it wasn't, at least not for us. In the meantime, that other couple? Yeah, twins. Nice.

So, Dear Hubby and I have turned our attention to landscaping! You may remember back a bit to the weekend last fall when we laid the Old Man to rest. Let's just say that when we bought the house last summer, the landscaping left something to be desired. In addition, since Dear Hubby and I are card-carrying environmentalists, having great swaths of turf needing constant watering goes against our basic moral principles.

Our stated desire was and is to install a low- to no-water-use landscape, minimizing turf area and maximizing use of native plants. After many phone calls to all the "Landscapers" in the Yellow Pages met with little success ("Well, miss, we mostly make our money installing sprinkler systems, so we're really not interested in a project like this.") we happened upon a young women newly hired by our local plant nursery. Fresh from Wisconsin, the land of milk and honey according to Dear Hubby, and with a degree in landscape architecture, she has been renamed "the Plant Goddess."

We made an appointment to meet with her to discuss our little project. That is if you can call a 1/4 acre landscape renovation a "little project." A dinner meeting and a few measurements later, she handed us a complete landscape plan, drawn to scale with all the plant details, such as what, where, and how many. It was nifty! Or is that neat? Apparently this is a Wisconsinism. Actually, the plan is super cool. Which may be a New Mexicoism, or maybe an Oklahomaism. Regardless, you get my point. And all it cost us was our promise to spend at least $250 at her place of employment, not hard considering our first outlay was for two trees for the front yard.

Dear Hubby and I never venture far into the yard without The Plan in hand. We've spent the better part of March digging and shoveling, planting and pruning. Ah, nature. It's truly a spiritual experience. And all the neighbors are jealous. Or at least, all the wives are jealous and all the husbands are being henpecked to get out in their yards and get busy.

What's in Fort Smith, Arkansas?

2007-01-31T11:33:00.000-06:00

They're pregnant. No, not us. Them. The other couple in Supper Club who've been TTC for the last year and a half. Not so long as us, but still, long enough to reach the despair point. Mrs. J had endometriosis, and so they were on this drug and that treatment. They did their first round of IUI in November with no success. But at that point I knew that any day it would be us or them. It's them.

But not the way you would expect! Oh no. They did it naturally! Serious! How, you may want to know? So did we. Apparently, the secret is going on vacation. And for them, it was having sex at her parents' house. I'm afraid we draw the line at that, but vacation? Yeah, we could do that. The fact that we haven't done that since we got married 7 years ago may have something to do with our current situation.

Actually, we have taken time off from work, but time off does not a vacation make. Our time off has usually consisted of this family crisis or that minor emergency... which, according to my husband's most recent Master's class, Stress Management, produces cortisol, the stress hormone. Cortisol then inhibits the production of endorphins, the feel-good chemicals in your brain that you are supposed to feel when you ACTUALLY go on vacation. But I digress.

So, on our way home from Supper Club, my husband asked me what I thought about going on vacation during our next ovulation window. Granted, taking time off from work is stressful in and of itself. We know that when we get back, we are always buried for a few days as we try to get caught up. But I digress again.

Vacation. We're actually on vacation! I swear! We're in Fort Smith, Arkansas for a week. What's in Fort Smith, you might ask? That's not important. What's more important is what's not in Fort Smith. Work, friends, family, our house, our cats, our dogs, laundry, homework dishes... I could go on and on. What have we done so far? Dinner, sleep, breakfast, and, well, lunch is pending. Oh, and so is sex. After all that's the whole point.

A sorrowful heart produces no blogging

2007-01-23T12:24:00.000-06:00

Why is it that I am comfortable telling the whole world about the inner workings of my reproductive tract, but am loath to set down the pain in my heart over the loss of a loved one?

There has been little to inspire me to write since December 23 when we found out that the cancer our second oldest cat was diagnosed with in November had spread to her lungs. I should have written about the Winter Solstice night we spent decorating our tree with two of our best friends. I should have written about the blizzard in Denver that kept my mother from getting her luggage for two days after she arrived here 4 hours late on December 22. I should have written about the compound miter saw and the Wusthof knives that Dear Hubby and I gave each other for Christmas. Or, finally, I should have written about the hours my mother spent sleeping on the floor in the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport trying to get home after her annual holiday visit. But the sadness that hung like a cloud over my house after the diagnosis and that has haunted us since January 2 when we put our precious girl Nhalla to sleep has left me without words.

I have told almost no one except close friends and family. Work has kept us crazy busy and stressed out and, overall, has not helped. During the last few days of our vigil, I read somewhere that humans need to believe in something greater than themselves, or they will fall into despair. We have leaned on our belief in that something these last few weeks to get us through this difficult time.

Our beautiful Nhalla - of the chirping meow, green eyes, and fuzzy tummy - who loved to chase the laser dot and curl up for a nap in any random ray of sunlight. Baby girl, you will be missed so much.

The Seeeecret Ingreeeedient

2006-12-18T16:46:00.000-06:00

Dear Hubby and I have been involved for the last year and a half in a cooking club: once a month we get together and meet for a themed potluck-type of meal. We call our little group the Norman Noshers Nine, and we are comprised of the following: a vegetarian gas and oil attorney and his vegetarian social worker wife, who, by the way, are also TTC; a fledgling criminal defense attorney and his quadriplegic attorney girlfriend; a gay, Jewish attorney and his ballroom-dance instructor boyfriend; the social services attorney; and us, the environmentalist military officer and the environmentalist officer's wife (yes, that's a job in and of itself).

We are an interesting and odd lot.

This month's NNN included:

The Walskes hosting
An pseudo-Iron Chef theme with pears as the secret ingredient
No new news on the TTC front
A new girlfriend for the social services attorney
A new client for the fledgling criminal defense attorney
Lots of wine
A Dirty-Santa gift exchange that was rather tame considering the crowd involved
Chatting in front of the fireplace until midnight

Thanks, NNN, for another great gathering.

What if...?

2006-12-13T14:52:00.000-06:00

What if you only had one small, all-purpose general store in your town? And what if from that store you were expected to buy all your clothes and toiletries and, well, basically everything? And what if that store was meant to serve over 10,000 people? And what if that store only got small shipments of random stuff at irregular intervals? What would you do?

What would you do if one week they got a shipment of socks and deoderant and that was all, and the last time they got a shipment of these things was 6 weeks ago? Do you think you would buy all the socks and deoderant you could afford, just in case?

Let's add to this scenario. What if you couldn't use a check or a debit card to pay for what goods you could get at this store? And what if the closest place you could cash a check was an hour's drive away over roads that on any given day you could get killed by driving on?

My brother, as you may know, is currently in Iraq. And he is dealing with just such a scenario. I tell you these things because, even though our politicians are talking abot bringing our men and women in uniform home, they are not home yet. And they are not able to get the basic things they need, such as socks, T-shirts, shampoo, and toothpaste, much less frivolities like chewing gum and books. We have set up a new blog that will detail our endeavors to get my brother and his troops some of the things they need.

Please visit and do what you can to help.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

2006-12-01T11:43:00.000-06:00

It has been the worst winter storm to hit Oklahoma since December 2000. And let me tell you, when it snows here, the city shuts down. Dear Hubby is from Wisconsin, where ice and snow such as we currently have laying about is a daily occurance. Schools and government offices shut down? Ha! They'd need feet of snow before such a thing came to pass. But here? Three little inches of snow fell yesterday -- of course that was on top of the inch of ice that coated the streets the night before -- and the city has shut down for two days. Ok, maybe I'm underestimating things a bit. The folks north of OKC did get upwards of 10 inches. And, after living here for a few years, I believe that the main reason the city shuts down is to prevent the overly confident SUV and 4-wheel drive owners who normally dominate the roads from piling up in the ditches like so many snow drifts. See, these folks seem to believe their vehicles make them invincible to ice on the roads.

But all this inclement weather has enabled me to catch up -- and catch you up -- on all the fabulous knitting that yours truly is up to. Ah winter. Nothing like a little frigid weather to put one in mind of fabulously warm knitted things made with alpaca and other fabulous fibers. First off, I finished the two-tone red scarf scarf last seen as a WIP (work in progress) in the Dallas-Ft Worth International Airport. It is oh so clever with a hole in the middle to tuck one end through to tighten it. Then, I picked up some grey and green alpaca from The Celtic Knot Yarn Shop in Ellicott, Maryland for which to knit Dear Hubby, he of the shaved head, a fabulously warm hat. Unfortunately, said hat is still a WIP, a serious issue what with the below freezing temperatures currently entrenched throughout the OKC metro. And my final side project currently in the works is a lucious slip-knit scarf worked in a Noro silk-angora-wool blend.

Projects upcoming: knitting for soldiers in Iraq. The Ships Project and Operation Toasty Toes are two such groups that connect knitters stateside with sailors, soldiers, airman, and marines deployed around the world. I plan to support my brother's unit with as many hats as my little fingers will knit, all made from Super Wash wool that my local yarn store has ordered for me.

For other charity knitting this holiday season, check out Knitting for Peace, by Betty Christiansen. There are loads of projects, organizations to knit for, and charity knitting history and lore in this little book.

And just remember, when it's cold and blustery outside, there's nothing like knitting to keep your fingers warm. Knit long and prosper.

How did it get to be almost December?

2006-11-26T14:26:00.000-06:00

There have been so many times over the last month that I have thought, "I really need to blog that." But alas, I have been lazy. Actually, I have been the opposite of lazy. SO INCREDIBLY BUSY I CANNOT EVEN BREATHE. And of course right now I can remember only three really big things about November. (Here I will be utilizing my Dear Hubby's patented TQAD and TROTS writing formula, giving you The Quick and Dirty up front, and the The Rest Of The Story further down):

TQAD

1) I went on a 36-hour whirlwind trip to New Jersey for work that should have been 48 hours but I had to get back home sooner because ovulation was imminent. (Sane people around me, i.e. my boss, are beginning to think that maybe this baby obsession is, oh, A BIT OBSESSIVE! Of course, I have nothing on some of the women whose forum postings I read: "infertility drugs: $750; IUI: $6400 ; IVF: $25,000 ; 1 pound of baby: priceless")

2) The baking-soda solution was not a solution after all. All the sperm died. Doctor-assisted reproduction, here we come!

3) We carefully planned a trip to see the family for Thanksgiving that changed to the completely unplanned Plan B when the call came that "Grandfather is in the hospital with a broken hip!" Then the plan became: GET THERE AS FAST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE! Oh and by the way, we are still planning to do Thanksgiving dinner so we can keep things as normal as possible.

TROTS

I work for a department of one of Oklahoma's public universities that helps bring graduate education to military members around the world. In an effort to spread ourselves around, I was sent to New Jersey to do a site survey of McGuire AFB/Fort Dix to see if opening an office there might be feasible. As the date to leave drew increasingly near, I realized that I would be gone smack dab in the middle of my cycle: days 13, 14, and 15. Since we had a standing appointment with my RE for a post-coital test the morning after my OPK color change, and since properly timed sex was CRUCIAL, it looked like we might be out of luck for this cycle.

The week before I was scheduled to leave, our travel department sent me my itinerary for approval. I would be leaving on the morning of day 13 and getting back the afternoon of day 15. A quick calculation told me that we could meet our appointment if my color change happened on day 12 or day 15. Not good. So I went to my boss. "I could ovulate at any point during this trip," I told her. "So what if I came back on Wednesday afternoon right after my meetings instead of Thursday?" I asked. "That way I'm not gone so long during my window." The look on my bosses' face clearly said, "Give the crazy TTC lady whatever she wants." So my travel plans were changed. And lucky for us, too. I had a color change on day 14. Due to my bosses' tolerance and thanks to the airline for getting me home only 3 hours late (2 a.m. instead of 11 p.m.) on Wednesday night, I was able to have groggy morning sex the next morning and meet our RE for our post-coital test.

During which we were informed...

The TVOD (Toxic Vagina Of Doom) is too powerful for mere mortal attempts to alkalinize it. Frodo and Sam are out of luck. Our options are thus: let nature take its course and see if another pregnancy ever happens, (rewind to last year and my first pregnancy that ended at 12 weeks) OR go on a toxic infertility drug and have Dear Hubby's sperm injected directly into my uterus, thereby bypassing the aforementioned TVOD. At first, we vehemently declined any sort of invasive, non-natural methods. We conferred with friends and our chiropractor. The decision was made. But...

At odd moments, regret would sneak up on me, like just after waking up, or in the shower. Was this the right decision? I wondered if I could live with it if we didn't get pregnant naturally like we hadn't in the last, oh, 3 YEARS. So we did more research. It turns out, as nasty as Clomid is, it does dramatically increase the odds of a pregnancy when paired with IUI, and there is a low incidence of multiples with Clomid. And since we have no other indicators for infertility, this seemed to be our best route. Our midwife agreed that 4 cycles of Clomid with IUI was acceptable. So, doctor-assisted reproduction, here we come!

Our Thanksgiving trip home to see my family was well planned out. We were going to take a detour to take my sister-in-law a washer and dryer, and then travel as a group to the grandparents. However, the best laid plans...

I got a call from my grandmother the morning we were planning on leaving. "Your grandfather's broken his hip and I can't get ahold of your mother." Ok. So I called my mother who was at work. I asked her if she was sitting down and then I told her. She promptly told her receptionist to cancel all of her appointments. "So," I asked, "should we still plan on coming for Thanksgiving?" She told me she'd call me back.

I thought and I thought, "What to do?" I decided that no good would come of my grandmother sitting around in her house fretting about my grandfather. She needed family surrounding her, darn it! So, I called my sister-in -law and gave her the scoop. "I know this isn't what we planned," I said, "but how long will it take to you get ready and leave?" A pause and then, "Well give me an hour to pack and get the girls out of school, and I'll be on the road." God bless military people. They do know how to move when the situation calls for it.

And indeed, the word finally came from my grandmother that we would have Thanksgiving like normal, because, by God, she'd already bought the Turkey and we just didn't need to sit around fretting. Grandfather would be fine. And that was that.

My sister-in-law didn't get her washer and dryer, but we were all together for Thanksgiving.

And that's definitely something to be thankful for.

Our brothers go off to war

2006-10-30T15:20:00.000-06:00

When I was little, my mom had a faded photograph on her dresser that was cracked and rolling at the edges. It was of a handsome man in khaki green standing next to a old Army jeep. That man was my uncle, her baby brother. My uncle had gone to war in Vietnam, and, she said, was never really the same ever after. He went to fight in an unpopular war, and although he may have come back to his home country to scorn and derision from the populace, he never lost the love and respect of his family, his sister.

My baby brother left this last weekend to go to war. To go and fight in another unpopular conflict. He has been once already, and he is not the same carefree young man I remember. He likely will never be again. But he will remain in our hearts, and he will never lose the love and respect of his family, his sister.

I salute you, brother. Take care of yourself and come home to us.

The toxic vagina of doom

2006-10-27T15:59:00.000-05:00

Warning: Gross-out Alert! Those of you family members who don't want to think about the Walskes having sex, do not read this post!

The sun had not even risen above the furthest peak this last Saturday when Dear Hubby and I had to, er, "get it on." I'm sorry, people who like morning sex are just weird. People are not attractive and good smelling in the morning, and those are two ingredients I require in order to have sex. So, why, might you ask, would I be engaged in such activity before being appropriately showered and good-smelling? Much less before having my morning coffee? Let me tell you a little more about the fascinating world of infertility! One of the litany of tests required to determine what might possibly be going wrong when two otherwise healthy folks are not able to reproduce is the Post-Coital Test. So, basically, the premise here is to see what happens in the vaginal environment after "the act."

Suffice it to say, Dear Hubby's sperm never had a chance inside the toxic vagina of doom. To quote my doctor, "all vagina's are acidic." Well, apparently, mine is really acidic. So acidic in fact that sperm cannot survive. Here's how this "sperm to the egg" process is supposed to work in an ideal non-super-acidic environment: semen is alkaline as is fertile vaginal mucus, the kind that is produced when women ovulate. This protects the little swimmers on the mean streets of the vagina so they can make it to their goal: to party with the egg. But on my mean streets? The sperm get beat down early, and partying with the egg is but a pipe dream. My best analogy here involves the Lord of the Rings. See, the sperm are Frodo and Sam, and the egg is in Mt. Doom. The goal is to get Frodo and Sam across the toxic land of Mordor. And in this case, Frodo and Sam don't make it.

So now what, you might ask. Well, as it turns out, there may just be a really cheap, non-invasive, old-wives' kind of remedy for this here situation: baking soda. Yes, you heard me, baking soda. For those of you who remember back to basic high school chemistry, you may just be able to recall that baking soda dissolved in water makes an alkaline solution. Alkaline is the opposite of acidic. And if the goal is to tone down the acidic environment of, well, say, a vagina, I suppose one might do so with an alkaline solution.

So next month, Dear Hubby and I have to, again, have early-before-the rooster-crows sex and do another post-coital test. But next time, we're supposed to add, um, a baking soda solution to the mix beforehand. And then, I guess we'll see how Dear Hubby's swimmers do.

The Old Man's demise

2006-10-01T10:17:00.000-05:00

This summer, we bought the house we're now living in. When we toured the house, there were several features that made it "the house we had to have." One of those quirky features was an old pine tree in the front yard that had bent itself over and then over again in an effort to get out from under the huge cottonwoods and get some sun. We named it the Old Man.

Now, for some back story. This last spring and summer in Oklahoma was one of the driest on record. It just didn't rain. And not only that, we hit 100 degrees just about every day in July. There was a severe water shortage, and watering restrictions were put in place. And then at one point, just when we thought it couldn't get worse, two of the town's water mains broke. In consequence, we didn't water this summer.

Some stuff died early, like the annuals in the window boxes on the front of the house. But what surprised us was the Old Man. When we bought the house, he didn't necessarily look good. We knew that there was a fungus attacking the local pines, but we figured he, like the majority of the established pines, would make it. I guess the drought was the last straw for the Old Man, however. In August, he died.

My dear hubby and I hemmed and hawed about how to handle taking down the Old Man. We wanted him to be respected in this death; we wanted to ensure that his ashes went to fertilizing new plots of growth, not be shredded up and forgotten. So we decided that we must do it ourselves, even though several business cards were left at our front door by tree removal services. So my husband assembled a crack team of tree removal experts, and this weekend, we laid the Old Man to rest.

**Hubby's Input**
Although I would NEVER contradict my wife, I do have one clarification to make. When she said assembled a crack team, she simply forgot to conjugate. It was more that I assembled a cracked team.

*Photo coming soon

The first bloke to show was the guy who is now renting our old house. There's a long and obfuscating tale that goes along with him, including pending legal action on who really owns a dog, he or his brother. That will have to wait for another blog...or five. Needless to say, I was glad to have his help, even though the only reason he showed up was to play with the chainsaw. He was quite the trooper, showing up after a long night of drinking and frivolity. Granted, I probably shouldn't have let him operate heavy machinery in his state, but the ensuing work sobered him right up and the consumption of large quantities of water kept the hangover at bay. I'm sure he's in "very much" pain today.

He and I cleared the lowest branches on the trunk. Those familiar with felling trees will remember that when the tree first comes down, if the lower branches hit the ground first, the tree has a tendency to roll as it falls. Looking at the view of the house above, you see I had to keep the Old Man from hitting the light post on one side and cracking the driveway on the other. Lets call it, "between galvanized steel and a hard place."

We cut up the cleared branches and waited for my best friend, the Hobbit (yes, that will require more blogs as well) to show up. He, too, had spent the night carousing. Only, less drinking and more losing money at poker. He said he was going to bring some guy with him to help. I didn't know he meant literally. Seriously, this guy's name was Guy. Guy was actually a great guy to have help. Guy was one of those guys who knew exactly how to handle a chainsaw, probably a farm guy. Guy was a guy's guy. Does your head hurt yet? Ok, I'll stop.

With the new infusion of testosterone, it was time to bring down the Old Man. The notch and back cut were made. The Old Man made one last bow and then laid his old bones to rest. It was sad to see him go. He landed right where we had hoped. A kindly old gentlemen to the last.

After that, the real work began. Clean-up. I don't' know if I've ever seen that many pinecones. Otherwise, nothing overly remarkable, just a lot of cutting, hauling, and raking to try and get all the pine needles in a pile to be mulched. We plan on using every last bit. The trunk and branches were cut up and stacked to be dried. The sticks and twigs will make great kindling. Some of the nicer pinecones, with sticks and needles attached, will be sold for holiday decorations. One last harrah for the Old Man.

Once we got everything cleaned up, we had to take a picture. We were manly men doing manly things. And then, we washed our hands.

Ah, the valiant crew poised here with their chosen implements of tree removal. Surprisingly, the Hobbit was not as efficient cutting through the gnarled bows with his crosscut canine. However, the yard was amazingly clear of sticks.

In my heart, I know I'm cool

2006-09-28T23:07:00.000-05:00

So I finished the knitted cell-phone-thingamagig, and you know what? My niece dug it!! She really did! Of course, she dug the cell phone more, but what self-respecting pre-teen wouldn't? Here's a shot of the finished whosiwhatsit:

And of my niece, The Nodster, modeling said whatnot:

The problem for me was, I took my small knitting back with me to Texas with only the supplies for the cell phone cozy. And let me tell ya. Texas? It's big. You know the saying, everything's big in Texas. And driving across Texas? It takes a big, long time to get anywhere. And I get bored super easily. So there I am on Sunday, with a big ole long drive ahead of me, and nothing but 8 bazillion country music stations standing between me and my house. Sorry. Not a big country music fan. But that's a story for another time. ANYWAY...

Our car has a GPS navigation system in it that has found us many a place to eat on long stretches of cross-country driving. So I wondered to myself if it was smart enough to find me someplace to buy yarn. I pulled up the Point of Interest by name menu and typed in Hancock Fabrics. And by all the dumb luck, there it was, not a half-hour drive away. So yours truly was able to get her knit on while driving back home across the some of the most boring radioland this side of the Mississippi.

Life is good.

Bliss is a Sopapilla

2006-09-21T20:44:00.000-05:00

After a hard week of anxiety and pain, there's nothing like a little taste of home to make all things right in the world.

Let me explain.

I grew up in southern New Mexico, and I'll tell you what. I took New Mexican cuisine WAY for granted. I can remember a time when I was bored, for pete's sake, with the food at the hole-in-the-wall Mexican food place near the dental office where my mom has worked since the earth was young and, oh, sorry, Mom. Anyway, that all changed when I moved away from home and learned that the Mexican food I grew up with was regional. You just can't get that kind of Mexican food outside of New Mexico. But I'm always on the lookout for anything approaching what I remember from my growing-up time.

So tonight we tried a new Mexican place that opened up in what was formerly a "chicken shack." Clucks-R-Us, I think it was called. Ok, that's mean. Not important anyway since they went out of business. So, the food was actually pretty good! Not perfect, but hey, we're in Oklahoma. They do this thing with cheese sauce here. What can you expect? And if you don't know what the problem is with cheese sauce, you're obviously not from New Mexico. It's just not right. But what sealed the deal with this place was the sopapillas. For all you folks who don't know what a sopapilla is, well, it's a little slice of heaven. A 4x4 square of puffed pastry that the New Mexican food connoisseur will fill with honey after biting off one corner. It's lickable-yummy goodness in a small puffed dough pocket.

On to other topics. My niece is having a birthday this week. The reason I say this week is because with all the various family that has to visit to celebrate said birthday, it's taking a week to get through it. So this weekend is our weekend to whoop it up with her, her sister, my brother and sister-in-law. The Nodster is 10 this week, and we, Auntie and Unka are getting her her first cell phone, one of those kind where there's no dialpad, just buttons for ringing up mom and dad. So that's the cool thing we're doing. The OTHER thing we're doing, well I'm doing, is knitting her a cell phone cozy. Is that a cool thing for kids these days? Am I going to get "The Look"? You know. Is she going to sell it next week on Ebay or worse, is she going to give it away on Freecycle? "Free to good home - knitted cell phone thingamagig." Let me know what you think. Anyway, here's the "knitted cell phone thingamagig" as WIP (work in progress).

TTC and TLAs in OKC

2006-09-20T13:27:00.000-05:00

The military has a TLA (three-letter acronym) for everything, it seems. Well so does the infertility world. Yesterday, I went for what is known as an HSG, or hysterosalpingogram (try saying that three times fast; hence TLAs). I was warned by all my other TTC friends that this procedure was going to hurt like the dickens. So I was prepared. I took the ibuprofen that my doctor required, but just in case, I took a Lortab an hour before the procedure. Now, something else I've got to fess up to is having a wee bit of the anxiety about pain. So, I reasoned that the Lortab would conk me out so my anxiety didn't get the best of me during the procedure. And of course, the pain relieving effects of the Lortab couldn't hurt either.

Just before I was led into the radiology suite (lamb to slaughter?) my doc took one look at my conked-out-ness and just chuckled. What he didn't realize is that in a few short minutes he was going to have one stressed out, sniffling patient on his hands. So we go into the suite, I get undressed, and he starts doing what he does: inserting the speculum, swabbing the anesthetic, setting up the catheter, etc. I, of course, am tensing up. And all you ladies know what happens we we're in this situation and we tense up? Finally, the doc's ready, and the x-raying begins. "Lie flat, now roll left, good, now flat again, and roll right. Very good! Beautiful!" You would have thought I was back on the runway in New York. "Hey, are you okay?" Me? Sniffle, sniffle, tears, "yes..." said in a small voice. And just like that, we're done.

Now wait a minute, where was this pain that I was warned about? The crying had begun, yes, in anticipation of it, but it hadn't really hurt at all. And then, BAM!, like a bolt of lightening right through my innards, he pulls out the catheter, and you would have thought I'd been stuck with a cattle prod. That hurt!! Now, I had a miscarriage last fall at 12 weeks, and let me tell you, uterine contractions? No fun. And that's what it felt like all of the sudden. But just as suddenly as the pain came, it was gone. And I had gone to all that trouble with the Lortab and the tears and all. And the outcome? Lovely, clear fallopian tubes, and my uterus in equally as good shape.

One test down. Next one? Post-coital test. I wasn't sure it was possible to take even more of the fun out of baby-making sex.

Ruminations on the World Wide Walskes

2006-09-19T11:41:00.000-05:00

Greetings world! We are the World Wide Walskes, a military family hailing from wherever the military sends us. Today, we are in Oklahoma, home of the Sooners, and the weather is fine! The Walske World encompasses many diverse elements: we are patriots, environmentalists (read: treehuggers), animal lovers (stop back by for the ongoing saga in the lives of our 7 pets), and Green Bay Packer fans. We are desperately trying to conceive (TTC for all you fertility folks) our first child; in an effort to not stress over the TTC process, Mr. Walske plays video games and Mrs. Walske knits. It's a rough life out there in the infertility jungle. Stop back by and check us out to see where the world brings us on any given day.