17 Weeks!

How far along? 17 weeks and three days today! On Christmas night while talking to my mom on the phone, I came to the realization that we're now over FOUR months along... WOW!
 
Total weight gain/loss: At my appointment last week I had gained one pound. ONE pound!? My pants say otherwise. And so did the scale at the Y last week and today (which told me I'd gained three pounds). Regardless, apparently it's been just one -- but that will likely change soon. They tell me it's a pound a week from here on out apparently! So baby better get growin', or I better get eatin'... or both.

Maternity clothes? Not wearing any yet. I have a pair of dress pants, two pair of jeans and a pair of colored jeans all from GAP that have not yet been utilized. I do, however, believe everyone should wear maternity pants all the time. If you haven't tried them, please do. It's like wearing sweatpants while you're actually wearing dress pants. The ultimate facade!

Anyway, baby girl isn't quite yet making me pop out enough to warrant maternity gear. She is, however, making me appear as though I've eaten a few too many Christmas cookies by giving me a bit of a muffin top in a few of my jeans and dress pants. Lucky for me, the GAP apparently foresees this issue and therefore makes some pants (that I luckily happen to own) with two buttons running vertical. Lucky me, I just undo the top button, and, viola! The perfect solution for a few too many cookies growing baby bump.

Stretch marks? None yet. In all honesty, I haven't spent any time thinking or worrying about stretch marks yet. Should I be? Now that this silly question is on this little survey, I just might start. I did buy a cocoa butter lotion today at Target in order to be prepared if my tummy gets dry an itchy (an apparently common issue in pregnancy). No one likes an itchy belly!

Symptoms:  Nothing! Not a thing. Which is the same as my entire pregnancy for the most part. I guess the one thing that is different is that I have extremely vivid dreams every. Single. Night -- sometimes five or six different dreams a night. It's pretty wild.

Sleep: Perfect. No complaints here, except for the night before Christmas. I was too excited for baby girl to open her gifts!

... yes, we got baby girl gifts this year. But mama needed a good enough reason to buy a cute little dress from babyGAP and a pretty butterfly mobile for her room. So the gifts were probably more for me than for her :)

Best moment this week: Where to start?! I had my Quad Screen done this week and baby girl passed that with flying colors, for one thing. And we saw family we hadn't seen since announcing our news and got to share our excitement in person with them, which was incredibly fun. And we weren't the only ones silly enough to get baby girl some Christmas gifts... she got an outfit from Great Grandma and Grandpa O'Brien, a pack of onesies that I've been loving for months from Grandma Kathy and Papa Wayne, and a handmade leopard-print headband (to match a leopard print infinity scarf for me) from Auntie Jenny! 

But if I'd have to choose, maybe my favorite part was when I opened my stocking at my parents' house and found four lottery tickets (everyone else had gotten three) -- three for me, and one for "EKB" -- the initials of our future little lady (yes, we've already picked out a name. No, I'm not sharing with the world wide web just yet). My dad had put a gift tag on the lottery ticket that read "To EKB... From Santa". My heart melted. Anyway, baby girl did not win any money to put into her college fund from that lottery ticket -- too bad for her, that'll be her last chance until she's 18 to do so. Mama, on the other hand, walked away with $25 on her ticket!

Have you told family and friends: Yes! It became Facebook official this last week. All of the sweet words were so special.

Miss Anything? Nope. I'm naughty and I sleep on my back and on my tummy still, but do try to make a point to sleep on my left side as much as I can. I do miss Cherry Coke Zero, but I gave that up last March for fertility reasons, so that's nothing new.

Movement: I think I'm feeling baby girl, but can't be sure. However, whatever I keep thinking I feel continues to get more frequent... so I have a feeling I must be right. Just little "pop" sensations -- usually when I'm sitting down. I think I felt them the first time at 15 weeks while correcting math journals in my classroom :)

Food cravings: None! Most of the time my problem is that I don't know what I want -- as in, nothing sounds all that appealing. It's not that anything makes me sick -- I just don't really know and I'm super indecisive. I do know this: I used to be a pizza and ice cream lover, and I could care less about either of them now and would rather eat something other than either of them. Earlier in my pregnancy, I craved waffles, cinnamon rolls, macaroni and cheese and donuts -- I couldn't get enough donuts in my system in the first trimester.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Sometimes the thought of pizza (especially Papa Murphy's, strangely enough) just really, really turns me off. Not really sick, but just a little bit of a stomach churn.
 
Have you started to show yet:  I have, but I think only to those who know me. But we've been taking pictures since ten weeks, and I've definitely changed since then.

Gender prediction: No need for a prediction; we already know! I'll share about that adventure another time :)

Belly Button in or out? In, and showing no signs of "outieness" anytime soon. But my belly button is kind of a never ending pit, so we'll see how long it takes.

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy!

Looking forward to: Three things: Baby's kicks getting stronger, being twenty weeks along in mid-January and also our 3-D ultrasound on the 7th of January! We are SO excited to see our little peanut again!

... and for your viewing pleasure, here's a comparison from where we've been to where we are now. Aside from my growing tummy, you'll notice a definite difference in both hair color and style... I think I prefer the earlier. Regardless, that's for my hairdresser to tend to next week. Anyway, disclaimer: if you scroll down further, you'll see pictures of my uncovered belly. Don't say you haven't been warned! Just try not to have nightmares from the naked belly shots:

 

Pinterest Fail

A little over a year ago, a time suck lovely little website came into my life: pinterest! Since that day, I've had the privilege of testing the waters and some pretty incredible things. Since that day, I've mostly had good luck with those things.

Until last night.

Epic fail for a pin I've seen pinned and repinned and pinned yet again.

Have you seen it?




I know you have. And some of you probably have it pinned, even!

Well, I've long been a skeptic of it. In fact, I'd vowed never to do it.

Until last night.

Dang.

It was about nine, and I asked my husband what he wanted for lunch (that's what we call our 9:30 p.m. dessert. Well, actually, it's what we call any dessert at any time of the day. Because, see, lunch is actually dinner and dinner is actually supper, which leaves ample room for "lunch" to be called, well, lunch. Follow me?). I offered him two choices: warm brownies with ice cream or cinnamon roll pancakes.

He opted for the brownies and ice cream.

So being the nice wifey that I am, I headed to the kitchen to throw together some Betty Crocker. See, I don't do the whole "from scratch" brownies. I have yet to have Betty let me down. She's always so fudgey and delicious... mmmmm.

Anyway, I was feeling the pressure to get these puppies in the oven and done by a decent time of night (it was, after all, already 9:00!). So I decided, what the heck -- why not try this one-ingredient trick. Not to mention, the added bonus of it all was that it would mean we could some pretty huge brownies with our ice cream if I used this recipe.

Out of the pantry came Betty, and out of the fridge came my crack Diet Coke.

I wish I would've taken pictures of this for you all.

Trust me, it started out weird.

The batter was runny like water. That was my first inkling that something was very wrong. SO weird. But according to the blog I was reading, that was very normal.

So away I went, and after plenty of  mixing, dumped the brownie water into my 9 x 13 pan and tossed it in the oven. Being the batter lover that I am, I eagerly dove into the blue bowl I'd mixed the brownies in and started licking it up.

That was my second hint that I'd made a grave error in making these imposter brownies.

Anyone want a drink of some chocolate Diet Coke?

Yeah, didn't think so.

Anyway, I tried to believe that these would get better with baking and the Coke taste would go away. And I almost did believe it, because when I went to the oven 25 minutes later, that glorious brownie aroma filled the air.

So I nestled my hand into my trusty red oven mitt and pulled them out of the oven and onto the counter. And what I saw wasn't pretty. The brownies were not nice and raised, with a crusty, shiny top, like they normally are. Instead, they were low, matte and pulling away from the sides.

This image definitely didn't match the blog I'd read, which said "even the edges were fudgey!"

However, I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. So in I dove, with my red handled steak knife (yes, everything in my kitchen is red. And yes, I use my steak knife for everything. Don't judge.) and what I got out was indescribable.

Think of it this way: have you ever chewed on a piece of rubber that has the flavor of chocolate Diet Coke?

Oh, you haven't?

Then you should probably make these brownies. Because that's what they taste like.

But in that moment, I couldn't believe that I'd been duped so horribly. So, naturally, I cut a larger chunk (this time, away from the edge) to see if there was some type of mistake. After all, there had to be. I mean, the blogger said "even the edges were fudgey!".

LIAR!

What a travesty. The entire pan went instantly in the trash.

I guess that's why you don't bake brownies with diet coke and try to be all stealthy about it.

The worst part about it all was that by that time, it was too late to make cinnamon roll pancakes... dang you, Diet Coke brownies! Double foiled.

I will add one disclaimer: I did not use "low fat" brownie mix from Betty -- it was normal (though I don't think that should impact the outcome). I also used caffeine free Diet Coke (infertile ladies like me best be stayin' away from that caffeine soda pop), but again, don't think that should impact the outcome.

Anyway, learn from my mistakes. Trust Betty. Eat the brownies the way she intended.

While I Was Away...

I've been asked by a number of people why I left my blog and if I'm ever planning to come back. My response to them is always honest and forward: this little blog that I'd so planned to be about the excitements and lessons learned while becoming a real, live adult, had turned into nothing more than my dumping grounds for how horrible I felt about my infertility. I didn't think people wanted to read all about that, but yet it was all I could think to write about. So rather than putting anyone through another "poor me" post, I opted to cease all posting (on this blog) until I could post happier things.

The best part for me about telling this truth to those who asked, was that they all responded the same way: that they never minded reading it. That they were disappointed when I'd quit.

So here I am again. Ready to pick it up and get back on it.

I can't promise it will always be happy.

Because, let's face it: I have some happy days. But I also have some sad days.

And [warning!] if it's a sad kind of a day, and I feel like writing, it's going to be a sad post.

So (this is your disclaimer) if you don't like it, don't read.

And if you don't mind, any prayers or hugs would be appreciated.

What I can promise is that it will be honest. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

So here we go; here's what you've missed out on since I posted last (just before Halloween! Crazy)...

• Discovered that beavers have taken up shop just behind my parents' house in central Minnesota. More exciting, however, was the discovery that beavers really DO chew on and chop down trees in real life exactly like they do in cartoons!

• Tricked the hubs into helping me make oodles of Christmas candies!

 

• Went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for the second time! Unfortunately, we decided to go just after Christmas and before New Year's. Unfortunately, this is when everyone else in the entire world opts to go apparently. Unfortunately, this lead to a two hour wait in line just to get IN to the HP section of the park. Regardless, we got Butterbeer. Obviously this made the entire, insane day worth it!

• Took a Caribbean cruise with my grandparents, parents, sister and husband. Highlight of the trip? Winning a trivia game show on New Year's Eve and bringing home a trophy as a result! (All those childhood years spent obsessing over movies like Back to the Future, Star Wars, Beauty and the Beast and the Wizard of Oz completely came in handy!)
  

• Learned that hubby was offered a REAL job for when he graduated in May (yes, he was offered it five months prior to graduating)! Unfortunately, aforementioned job was located 100 miles away in our hometown (the hometown part was not unfortunate... just the fact that it was 100 miles away!). Operation: Decide Whether or Not to Leave a School and Staff Megan Loves ensues.

• Learned we were pregnant five days prior to my 25th birthday!


• Had my first non-Megan centered visit from the Easter Bunny! (Don't worry, I was totally okay with sharing my basket with my apple-seed sized baby :)).

• Learned we were miscarrying.
  
  
• Decided to give official notice that I would be leaving my teaching job full of students and staff that I came to love so dearly.
  
  
• Was a proud wifey as I watched my husband cross the stage and accept his diploma after an undergraduate education full of hard work!

• Interviewed and accepted a third grade teaching position back in our hometown at the Catholic school. A dream come true! I've wanted to teach there for pretty much all of my college-and-on years.
   
• Graduated from apartment living after being in some form of one (dorm, apartment -- po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe) for the past SEVEN years! Moved into our first (owned by someone else who we rent from) house!
   
• Explored NYC with my mom, dad and baby sister! 

As one can easily see, it's been a time of ups and downs. We've had some times filled with belly laughs that make you feel so great to be alive, while we've also had a few times when things looked quite bleak and like there was no light at the end of any tunnel we were in.

However, life goes on. Time passes. The sun rises each day. And we keep on keepin' on, thanking God for all the blessings we have (which, quite apparently, are abundant).

So what's next?

Maybe a puppy.

Certainly a new classroom, a new staff, a new set of third graders, a new school year.

And we believe, new life.

Told you I'd be honest.

Beyonce

Every Tuesday night, my hubby has a group meeting at school to work on his Senior Design project with his group members and he doesn't get home until later in the evening. This means that Tuesday nights are mine, all mine, to do with whatever I so well please.

Typically, this includes an hour-long trip to wander the aisles of Target (and shamelessly throw money at frivolous things like throw pillows... oopsies), followed by a supper of (what else?) noodles with butter -- easily one of my most favorite foods of all time. I used to eat it practically every night when I moved off campus and lived in an apartment with some friends my sophomore year of college. Mmm, I love it.

Anyway, before my jaunt through Tarjay and five-star meal, I usually go to my gym and use the elliptical machine for 25 minutes (why 25? Easy. Because after your set time, you have five minutes of cool down. So why would I want to work out for 35 minutes? Thirty minutes (25 + 5 minutes of cool down) is more than enough). Oftentimes you'll find me zoned out on some trashy MTV show because they have cable there, my friends -- a luxury which we do not have in our apartment.

I'm a teacher, remember? That means I'm too poor to have cable.

Kidding :)

Anyhow, I'm always enjoying my trashy MTV when I'm rudely interrupted by some bass thumping that shakes the building and distracts me from some quality Teen Mom time. And you know what the culprit is?

ZUMBA.

Have you ever been?

I was a pretty good follower a couple of summers ago when it came to my hometown's YMCA for the first time. It was ridiculously fun but made me sweat like a man pig (no offense, men). I heard the feeling you have when you leave class, dripping with sweat and feeling like you're going to die, described once as feeling like a hot flash during menopause.

Now, I have no idea if that's true. But if it is, please count me out of menopause. Eeeew. I hate sweating.

Anyway, if you haven't been, Zumba is a group exercise class that's basically dancing to Latin music to get your cardio in and even some toning. It is all - the - rage at my gym. Seriously. Some nights, the lobby is jam packed with middle-to-later-age women wearing jingle bell bracelets and colorful wraps tied snugly over their behinds with little gold jingly coins tied all the way around them. Think Esmerelda from that Quasimodo movie (what was that called again? I forget. Apparently not one of Disney's finest).

So here I am, Tuesday night, made my place comfortably on my elliptical trainer, ready for some good quality Gary and Amber watching (will they get their lazy butts up off their bed in this episode? And even better: will their bed finally have sheets on it? Doubtful. I don't know why I get my hopes up), when a Tuesday night Zumba regular comes over to invite me in to "the party".

They seriously used those words.

I almost laughed.

In fact, I think I might have.

Whoopsies.

But I promise that's as rude as I get, because I'm a sucker and can't say "no" to save my life (I was apparently absent the day they practiced the broken record strategy in D.A.R.E.), so I made my way into the room and felt oddly out of place without a bright pink scarf wrapped around my bootie. Regardless, I was welcomed with open arms and away we went.

Luckily, as mentioned earlier, I'd been a Zumba junkie for a few months awhile back, so I pretty easily picked up on the steps again. But I also quickly remembered how hard it is to keep a straight face during class.

Now, by no means am I a fantastic dancer. I cannot shimmy or bootie shake to save my life (which, by the way, so totally fine by me. I mean, when would that skill come in handy, anyway? While I'm teaching fractions at the whiteboard with my backside to my students? Doubtful. So creepy). And in fact, more often than not in Zumba, I look like a complete idiot. I know this. It's a fact of life for me. Which is why I just keep my feet moving and don't bother with getting too fancy with all the hip thrusting and "booty poppin'" (yeah, my booty doesn't "pop"... whatever that means).

However, there was a woman in front of me who was all in. Except she looked just about as wholesome as you could get. I mean, like, Sunday School teacher by day, cover your children's eyes by night. Her dancing was definitely PG-13. It was hilarious! Here we are, a bunch of white, upper-middle class women, who are about as far from sexy Latina as possible, and this woman is totally shaking her rear and smiling at her reflection in the mirror like she's Beyonce. She was just loving life.

Which isn't a bad thing. Granted, I did let some giggles sneak out here and there about it, but as I thought about it more, I realized it's probably an outlet for some women to just let loose and not worry about other people watching you.

Except me, I guess. Whoopsies.

But I'm sure I had someone loving on my uncoordinated moves. Good thing my club has a "no boys allowed" sign on the door.

And next time (yes, I said next time. I'm going back to join "the party"... HA!), she won't make me giggle. Because maybe next time, she'll become an inspiration. And slowly over time, I, too, will begin to channel my inner Beyonce, conquer that bootie shake (highly unlikely) and sport a jingle bell bracelet on my right wrist.

Succumbing to wearing a jingly scarf over my bootie will take a bit longer, though.

MIA

It seems that just about every other post I make begins with an apology for being so MIA, followed up with a lame excuse for it. But really, I have some good ones this time.

Lame excuse number one: our laptop died! Yes, it came to its' untimely demise a few weeks ago. The screen turned some crazy colors and then went black. No luck making it come alive again, either. So, as hubby says -- we now have a nice, big paperweight. And, many hundred dollars later, also a nice, new desktop computer from Best Buy!

Lame excuse number two: my heart hasn't been here. I'm sure you noticed in my last few posts, I've been far from myself. And I don't really want to subject you to all the gloom and doom that I find myself submerged in during bits and pieces of the day. I'm typically a very happy, optimistic person -- but this infertility business has made me a more anxious, stressed, sad person. Luckily, we've finally gotten a few pieces of good news that will hopefully turn into bigger, even better, pieces of good news. After a few weeks of feeling really, really sad, I'm feeling much better. And eager to be back! Lets hope that continues. If you're the praying type, hubs and I would appreciate all the messages to God that we could get. Thank you!

Now, the one good thing about this whole infertility business is that I've been pouring every free moment (so as not to have any extra time to over think things) I have into different projects and recipes from (where else?) Pinterest! One of my first projects was an infinity scarf. I was feeling the urge to buy one with the up and coming autumn season, but decided to try making one of my own first. And it was so simple, I promise.


The urge first emerged in the evening, so I dragged my eager husband along with me to JoAnn's to pick out some fabric (because goodness knows it takes me at least an hour to make a fabric decision. You might think I'm kidding, but trust me: I'm not). Unfortunately, even when he comes, it only cuts the amount of time it takes me to make a choice by probably a fourth. So about 45 minutes, five dollars, and a cranky hubby later, I skipped out of JoAnn's with a smile on my face. Don't worry, hubs was smiling on the inside; after all, if momma's happy, everyone's happy (never you mind the fact that I'm not a momma... yet).


Here's what we walked out with:

 

One(ish) yard of this purple, navy, white and tan plaid. I wasn't so sure if I was in love with it initially, but now I do really like it. Anyway, here's how it all came together at midnight that Saturday night.

First, I zigzagged the whole way around the edge of my fabric to prevent fraying. If you're fancy lucky, you could serge the edges of it. But I'm a teacher, so I'm poor and can't afford a serger unless I want to eat ramen for supper each night.

KIDDING! We already eat ramen for supper each night.

KIDDING again. Anyway.


Lay your fabric out in a single layer as shown above. Then, fold the fabric over so that the right sides are together, hot dog style (elementary art class, anyone? Mr. Raske, my elementary art teacher, had a thick, black, shiny mop on his head for hair. He eventually became my middle school art teacher, too, and the rumor around school was always that he had a TOUPEE! Trust me, it was a huge scandal that kept every pre-pubescent teen preoccupied for at least a few days in my middle school. Anyway, Raske always told us to fold our papers hot dog or hamburger way).

Pin the fabric together on the open edge like so:

(How impressed are you with my little point and shoot Canon PowerShot right now? That's a pretty dang good picture, if I do say so myself.)

After you've pinned it together, sew the baby up with about a 5/8 inch seam allowance. You don't have the remove the pins as you go (just sew over the top of them), unless you're weird like me and have an irrational fear of the sewing machine needle hitting a pin and making an awful "clank" noise. It happened to me once, true story. It made an awful sound that I liken to nails on a chalkboard. Eeeeee!

Anyway, yes, sew it up... except leave a couple of inches that are not sewn at each end of it... and don't sew it shut on short the ends. Remember, we're only sewing shut the long side. The short sides do not get sewn shut.

After you finish sewing it up (except for those two inches or so on each end), go ahead and turn it so the seam is now on the inside and you've got the right sides on the outside and wrong sides on the inside. Make sense? Good. If it didn't, here's what those two inches on the ends should look like:

See? No stitch at the ends.

So here's how mine looked after that:

Mmhmm, a nice long tube of plaid. In my messy sewing/computer room. Whoopsies. I promise it's much more clean now, thanks to my hubs. He's nice like that.

So next, we need to take care of those open ends. So now you bring those two open ends together and start pinning them together so that you can sew them together almost the whole way around.

So the thing is with this part, is you're not going to be able to sew the entire way round here. In fact, you'll only be able to sew about as far as the ends that you left open when you first sewed your fabric together (hot dog style, remember?). Which, my friends, is exactly why we left that two inches at each end: so we could get this part of the job done.

At this point, you should have the entire scarf pretty well put together. The only problem left will be that little opening there that we need to fix, as shown below.

For this little fix, go ahead and pin the fabric on each side of the opening together, closing up the hole like so:

Now you could do a little secret, invisible stitch here. However, at this point it looked like this outside:

And I know you can't see the interstate, but there was literally like, zero cars out there. Because it was midnight. Infertile people do weird stuff. Like start making an infinity scarf at 11:45 p.m.

Anyway, the point is, it was late and we had mass in the  morning -- so it was time to get the show on the road. So I opted to just sew a straight stitch with my machine just about 1/16 of an inch in from the edge of the fabric. It ended up looking just fine and dandy:

And so my infinity scarf was officially created! From start to finish (not including the whole, 45-minute fabric-picking-out-sesh), it took me about 20 minutes... it was awesome.

So naturally, after I finished, I couldn't just go to bed and be satisfied knowing that I made something neat. Oh no, I had to do something else. I had to take a picture and send it to my mom, of course!

Obviously my mom was mega proud of my mad sewing skills.

Unfortunately, this story ends sadly: I have yet to wear my scarf! It hasn't quite been cool enough yet. And I'm a horrible outfit saver... always "saving" it for a "special" day (which makes no sense -- what am I waiting for, the day I find out I'm pregnant? HA!).

Sorry for the snarkiness. It's because I've missed you. Have you missed me?

I promise I'll be back soon. After all, I did somehow find myself in a Zumba class today. And goodness knows I'll need to get that experience off my chest somewhere.

Struggles

As mentioned in previous posts, I'm working through some unexplained fertility issues. It's been a very emotional past six months trying to get to the bottom of it all with virtually no steps forward. However, about a week and a half ago, I met one of my favorite people in my life right now: Dr. C. He's a reproductive endocrinologist who started an infertility clinic in my area because he thought infertility patients weren't getting the careful attention and special care they need (holla!). I waited almost four (excruciatingly long) weeks for my appointment with him and creepily cyber-stalked him on his website and watched his provider profile video sometimes more than once a day.

Yeah, I know you're totally sitting there thinking I'm a complete nut job after hearing that.

But don't worry, I'm not a nut job. Basically just because women who are infertile get a free pass to do weird stuff like that when they want a baby.

Anyway, like I said: Dr. C. and I? BFFs. Hubs and I went in to see him and he ordered blood work and an ultrasound straightaway. He then proceeded to call me the following morning at 6:50 in the morning because he knew I taught elementary school and wanted to have a chance to talk with me before I went to school.

Um, yeah. At that point I realized we were kindred spirits. (I'm hoping everyone is picking up on the sarcasm at this point. I promise I'm not that psycho.)

Anyhow, he called because he found out that my thyroid was a lil' sluggish (as my momma had previously diagnosed sans a medical degree because she's just that smart and awesome... and because mommas just know these things about their kids) and put me on some thyroid medicine that I'll take indefinitely to help my body out a bit. Wonderfully enough, a sluggish thyroid can lead to infertility. I say "wonderfully" simply because I've been dying for a reason for all of these baby-makin' troubles we seem to have. At this point, we don't know if that's been my problem or not; in fact, we may never know -- because my BFF (Dr. C., if you've forgotten -- but how could you forget?), who I got to visit with yesterday morning before school, put me on a lovely little pink pill called Femara.

So now, at least for the next five days, I'll be injesting a nice, pastel-colored kitty cocktail of medicines that will (cross your fingers!) help my body do what it needs to. Which means I'll have to wait for another ten days (only nine now because one day has already passed... woohoo!) to see if it worked.

And you see, that's the hard part. Waiting. Well, yes, waiting is hard -- but staying positive for that entire ten days is the hardest. It's been a mere 36-hours since I visited with Dr. C. and he told me what we'd do next, and I've already experienced a whole smorgasbord of emotions. First I was excited: we have another shot at getting pregnant! And then I was convinced we were going to get pregnant this round, so I shopped online after school for maternity clothes (what the -- who does that before they're pregnant, much less prior to having the chance to be pregnant? This girl does. Remember: going through this gives one a free license to have a case of the crazies).

Unfortunately, the positive crazies bug wore off by around 8:00 and my mind wandered to worst-case-scenario. I had been with my friends (my real ones this time, as opposed to my fake BFF) and came home to my husband around 10:00 and had a good cry, convinced this fertility treatment wouldn't work either and I'd never get to have my tummy grow or have a reason to eat handful after handful of skittles, washed down by a chocolate-Oreo milkshake or have the amazing feeling of my baby kicking me from the inside or get to complain about stretch marks (which, by the way, I'll never complain about. I'm totally fine with having a tummy like a tiger if it meant being blessed with babies!).

And you know why I love my husband? He refuses to buy into the gloom and doom that I so easily throw out there to him. He remains steadfast and convinced that this will work and that I shouldn't worry about it. And while it made me totally want to throw a pillow at him across the room when he was arguing with me about why he was so positive and confident that it would work, he helped me see something. Because when I calmed down, I asked him the question I find myself pondering pretty frequently lately.

"Why do you think this is part of God's plan? Why do you think He's saying 'no' right now?"

And it became extremely apparent that he has put lots of time into thinking about that same question. Except he actually thought about it -- versus me, who thought about it and never took the time to pray about it and listen and instead chose to throw a mental temper tantrum and mega-sized pity party in my mind. The thought he shared with me that I'm trying to continue to be mindful of was this:

Maybe God has a plan for our baby. Maybe he or she can't be born yet, because God's plans for them are that they will cure cancer -- but they won't be able to do it until such-and-such time. Or maybe He's just planning who they'll meet, marry and have a family with -- and maybe for that, they need to go to school a little later so they can meet.

And at that moment, I realized I'm totally selfish. This whole thing isn't just about me and how badly I want a baby. It's not even about my husband and how badly he wants a baby. It includes this other little life too, and God's plan for them.

Ultimately, we may never know the reason why this is happening. But for now, the thought of my baby's life already being mapped out really provides at least a small amount of comfort -- even when I get a case of the crazies.

Broadening My Horizons

Recently, I've begun to expand and broaden my horizons in terms of food. Yes, as a lifelong vegetarian opposite (in other words, a complete carnivore... literally NO veggies), I've finally begun trying to incorporate leafy greens into my diet. I did this originally because I read somewhere that not eating certain foods while pregnant (which, alas, I am not) can make your child allergic to that particular food. Whether or not that's for rizzle, I don't know -- but I'd rather not take the chance. And thus began my relationship with the only veggie I'll eat, which also happens to be a "super food": SPINACH! So every single day for lunch, you'll find me with my usual (I am a creature of habit -- same thing every. Single. Day. Just ask my teacher friends who eat lunch with me every day) and a side salad of spinach and strawberries. Mmm mmm mmm.

But this post is not about my superveggie friend, spinach. No, friends -- this one is about this evening's horizon broadening recipe that I tested out.

Yesterday, I made a rotisserie chicken in the crockpot. Oh so yummy and made the apartment smell completely delicious. And even better: it'll last at least four meals for the hubs and I. Saweet! Delicious + thrifty = my fave.

Anyway, with the delicious leftovers, I decided to try something new: a buffalo chicken calzone.

And let me tell you... it was awesome.

Every recipe I found initially on Pinterest (what else?) called for bleu cheese. Now, I said I was broadening my horizons with food -- not going completely abroad with them. And when I Googled "What does bleu cheese taste like?" (yes, I really did Google it. And yes, I believe Google knows just about everything. Just ask my doctor. I'm a walking encyclopedia on infertility thanks to Mr. G. and my obsessive compulsive behaviors toward self diagnosis of my woman problems. Anyway.) I found out that bleu cheese apparently tastes like feet.

So with that quick bit of information, I abruptly crossed bleu cheese off the list and decided to leave that key ingredient out.

Until, of course, hubby (a buffalo chicken extraordinaire, thanks to Applebee's half price boneless buffalo wings) shared with me that a wonderful complement to buffalo sauce is a rich, creamy ranch to cool one's palate.

Okay, you caught me: he totally didn't say that. Well, he did. Just not in that whole, foodie snob way. But basically, he told me that when you go out to eat and order something buffalo-esque, your choices for dip are typically either a bleu cheese sauce or ranch.

Unfortunately, I don't like ranch. Or any salad dressing for that matter.

But, in the spirit of becoming a little more brave on the food front, I decided I'd give 'er a try. And, as previously stated... it was awesome. Let me share, please.

Buffalo Chicken Calzones

Here's whatcha need:

• One packet of Great Value pizza crust mix (no, I don't make my own dough... sorry. I've made many versions of pizza dough over the past few years of married life, and they're really not that outstanding -- this Wal-Mart brand is ridiculously cheap [59 cents!], quick and nummy. I promise. It's all I use for homemade pizza.)
• One cup of pizza cheese (it has a mixture of shredded mozzarella and cheddar cheese in it. Obviously you could also go for 1/2 cup mozze and 1/2 cup cheddar instead... same diff.)
• One tablespoon of ranch dressing (although this next time, I'd probably up it to two tablespoons... and I don't even like ranch).
• Two-ish cups of chicken, already cooked, cut into 1/2 inch(ish) chunks.
• 1/4 cup Frank's Red Hot Buffalo sauce... or more, if you like more heat :)

And here's whatcha do:

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees (yes, 500! I know, I couldn't believe it when lucky me could turn the oven all the way up. You never get to do that. Eeek!)

Make the pizza dough as directed on the package. Let it rise five minutes like it says on the package.

While you let the dough rise, cut up your chicken into half-inchish chunks. Put it in a tupperware or a bowl and drizzle a quarter cup of Frank's Buffalo sauce on it. Snap the lid on the tupperware and shake-shake-shake until it's evenly coated.

After your dough is done rising, it should be real easy to press out on a pizza pan into a squoval (that's a square-oval, for those of you who don't do "calzone-speak", by the by).

On half of your squoval, spread your ranch dressing. On top of that, add your freshly-sauced chicken.
Then, add almost all of your cheese on top of the chicken. Spread it out evenly...

This is just prior to adding the cheese...

Next, fold the undecorated side of your dough over the side that has the party going on on it. Roll the edges together in an upward motion and pinch them down so no yummy insides can sneak out.

Finally, sprinkle your remaining cheese on the top of the calzone and spread a little olive oil on it, too.



Send it away to the oven for 12 minutes and cross your fingers that you'll actually like the taste of this concoction.

When the time is up, pull it out (obviously) and let it cool for five or so minutes. Unless you have a hubby that's staaaaarving. I only let mine cool for about a minute because the aforementioned event occurred in my kitch. So I caved and cut into it too soon, which resulted in cheese oozing out when I cut into it. But that was fine. I was maybe a teensy hungry too. Just a bit. And curious. Just a bit.



So I cut her up and on the plates she went.



And let me tell you. It was awesome (yes, I know that's the third time I've used awesome in this post to describe the taste of this calzone. I'll use a thesaurus next time, okay?).

It was so good that we ate the whole thing. Mmmhmmm, not even one little corner piece of leftovers.

So anyway, I now know why buffalo sauce and ranch are often paired up like PB & J. Like Bert and Ernie! Like me and the hubs.

It's a perfect pair that I'm so glad I broadened my little foodie horizons for. So try it, enjoy it... hey, you could even Pin it (ha)!

Happy Wednesday!