A small sneak peek at the project I am currently working on. Joe had an interesting post a couple days ago about giving knitted gifts for birthdays or Christmas. He makes a good point and one that I had not thought of before. I am a new knitter and it is fun for me to make things that I think people will like and it feels like it comes from a good place, but I would hate for the gift to draw attention away from the celebration of the receipient. For my friend's birthday coming up I am going to go ahead and give it since it is only one part of the gift I am giving, but I may think twice about it for next time.

We had our visit today with the ivf doctor and things went so-so. The doctor was nice and seemed very knowledgeable, but his office staff was the worst and I do mean the worst I have ever seen! They were quite incompetant, and they actually bickered in a way reminiscent of a grade school fight right in front of us. It went something like this "if you can't listen to what I am trying to show you then I am going to tell the doctor that you don't want to learn anything" "shut-up" "no you shut-up". It was horrible I wanted to run screaming from the office, but luckily Dirk was there to be the voice of reason. So we stayed to at least see what the doctor was like (he ended up being very nice). My other doctor said that he has an excellent reputation in the field, which I think helped to keep us there. I am glad we did, but I haven't decided if I can handle having to deal with his office staff when it comes time to actual begin the ivf process. I think we are going to look into one other ivf clinic first before deciding. The first step for us, and one that caught me completely off guard, is for me to have surgery. Next month it looks as if I will be having my fallopian tubes removed altogether (sorry to my male readers out there for sharing). I am most definitely not thrilled with this prospect, but it makes a pretty big difference in the success for ivf in people who have the same condition as I do. I suppose the timing is good because I can try to schedule it for the week after finals. There were some tears shed over the prospect of losing what I think of as one part of my essence of being a woman, but I am beginning to come to terms with it. If we are going to go through with the ivf then we need to do whatever it takes to try and make it successful. The next step will be to wait a couple of months post surgery then begin the ivf process. Looks like sometime in June my eggs and his sperm will be doing the tango somewhere in a little plate and perhaps in July (fingers crossed) I will have some good news to post! = )

Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis

Saddlebilled Stork


Friday we have our first visit with the in vitro doctor. The insurance will pay half of this visit, but it is the last official thing that they will pay for. So from here on out we are on our own so to speak. Luckily, Dirk's parents have very, very kindly offered to assist with the cost of some of this, which definitely helps take some of the financial stress off. I have been feeling mixed about the upcoming appointment. I feel like I should be happy and excited since this is the first step for us to potentially conceive, but in actuality I am scared (and some what depressed) about the process. The success rate is approximately 25-35%, kind of scary when it will cost approximately $10,000 per try. Honestly, I wanted to give up after hearing the news about my fallopian tubes being damaged, but now I see that I have to at least try in vitro. Maybe we will fall into the percentage it will work for and we will end up with one, two, or even THREE little ones, who knows! This process is hard on an emotional level I must admit, but I am trying very hard to adjust my thinking so that I go into it with a realistic yet also optimistic view. Adjustment, patience, and acceptance are the things that Infertility has given me the opportunity to work on in my life (so far).



*Saddlebilled Stork picture from Exzooberance

Every knitter has to have her own sheep right?


Woolie, my new adopted sheep.

Possibly the most fearless of all sheep, this breed laughs in the face of danger and chuckles at the eyebrows of despair.
Favourite pastime: Hanging upside down in trees to impress the lasses.
Favoured bedtime reading: 'Poisonous monkeys have feelings too'
Favourite rock album:


The Beatles
Fleecy Road


Go on and adopt your own sheep at the sheep emporium tell them Woolie sent you!





I ripped out the knitting for the special birthday gift I am making and started over using a different cast-on method since the edge was bad and the tension was messed up. I am really glad I decided to do that rather than continue on with it. It looks much better now and I am making good progress on it finally. I look forward to adding the picture to my finished objects list in a couple of weeks.

We attempted our first geocache yesterday. The place we chose, Horse Thief Canyon Park, in San Dimas is beautiful! I was sort of familiar with the area from doing chaparral research nearby in the San Dimas Experimental Forest, but alas we didn't find the actual cache. We had a wonderful hike anyway. We followed the clues and it was exciting to know that we were in the right area, but without a gps device it was too difficult to find.

Here are a few pictures from our adventure:

The hillside was beautiful and lush.

This little man-made channel looks like its purpose to collect water run-off from the mountains (it was dry of course).

Dirk and Maddie hiking along the horse carved trail.

This was an interesting vine we found along the trail.

Maddie and I hitting the trail.

There are a lot of horses nearby, so it was important to keep an eye out for road apples.