Ethics In Cancer

Have I mentioned that cancer sucks?? Oh ok, just wanted to make sure that was out there. A brief post today covering the following- exhaustion, helplessness, frustration beyond frustration, and anger.

Can you be mad at someone who's dying??

If someone in front of you at the grocery store had a terminal illness and pissed you off would you confront them or give them a 'free pass' because well.... it's kind of rude to scream at a dying person, no?

A pretty straightforward case of ethics here, but what if that person was your father? Not so clear cut anymore is it... Yep, that's how my Monday started off, screaming at the cancer dude about how he was being a jerkoff and is completely unappreciative of the insane amount of work, care, consideration, and plain old bullshit that I've been giving and putting up with for two years now. I think I've been giving him the free pass this entire time because how could you NOT?? But I'm pretty tired, and exhausted and overwhelmed with it all and I'm tired of being the scapegoat. At some point you can't just continue being the punching bag right? Or maybe you should just keep taking it... because afterall they're the one with the ultimate short end of the stick. How can you get angry at them for hating this shitty journey and being short tempered when they think you're making it worse by doing things like keeping them in the hospital longer than they think they should be or by ruffling the feathers of a doctor here and there. In his mind apparently this is making things worse for him and it's my fault.

I understand the irrationality of this thinking... I understand what the real problem is, I can read between the lines. I've usually just taken it in stride, put up with it and ignored it but I couldn't ignore it today. So this Monday I broke all the ethics rules and gave the man a taste of his own medicine and now I get to deal with a mixture of guilt, anger, and frustration since the "rules" are blurred in the cancer game. Read more!

The Hospital Drive

Every time I make that drive to and from the hospital after another cancer catastrophe I tell myself I should write it down, I should write that experience down so that I never forget it. What a stupid thing to think, like I could EVER forget that... every time it's the same. The ride out is full of anxiety wondering what I'm going to find when I walk in those ER doors, my mind is busy on the ride out mentally scanning a million medical terms, diagnoses, medications, imaging reports... possibilities upon possibilities of what is probably going on, what questions I need answered from the docs, etc. It's case study time, it's get down to business time and while there is worry and concern floating somewhere in my brain it's suppressed. No time for that kind of thing on the drive out.

It's quiet. I don't have the stereo on. Depending on the time of day I am agitated at the other people on the road (part of the anxiety) because I'm in a hurry to get there. The drive out is fast and I come flying in the ER doors, past the security and into the room like a tornado. I check on my Dad, give him a squeeze to let him know I'm there and then it's time to work. I flag down nurses, I ask millions of questions, I request the doctor to come in as soon as possible. I have them pull reports from the computer, I check vitals, I examine my Dad, I check his bags, pulses, comfort... he is my patient for that time.

And the rest of the day consists of that. I have grown to have zero patience for the doctors and nurses that have not shown up for the day to WORK. I don't give them that option. Things are on point when I'm there, everyone is held acutely responsible for what they're doing and if they aren't up for the task they're asked to leave in no uncertain terms.

The drive home....... the drive home is..... something that would be hard to witness, which is why it's a good thing that I'm alone every time.

It starts with the walk out of those hospital doors. Just yesterday I walked out the doors to heavy snow falling at the end of April. (I had just posted about how my birthday this year was much better than the previous year where my Dad was currently admitted to the hospital and we were told that his cancer was back, now stage 4. Well I spoke too soon I suppose, this year went well until 48 hours after my birthday... a frantic phone call at 4am... an ambulance ride.... and we're back at it again).

The snow was falling and I stopped and stared at the sky and thought, "I've made this walk with every type of weather and season.... sunshine, rain, wind, cold, and now snow...."

After the walk I get to my car and by this point my brain is off, autopilot takes over. Depending on the days events I usually end up re-capping what the heck has transpired over the past several hours and what that means going forward. Lots of anxiety, unknowns, concern and worry. This perpetuates the knots that have been twisting and turning in my stomach since I arrived.

At some point a trigger goes off, like the dam gives way, and the tears start to fall while I shake my head in disbelief. There are a million racing thoughts....

WHY.... WHY.... why....?

Is this ever going to end, will we ever be able to finally take a deep breath?

It's not fair. NOT FAIR!!!!!

GODDAMNIT!

I just cry... and struggle to breathe.... I hit the steering wheel so hard that one of these times I'll surely break my hand. I scream and I cry and continue to shake my head in disbelief. I think of all the times I've made this drive, I think of all the times I've walked through those ER doors, I think of the day we found out that he had cancer.

I hyperventilate.

I sob.

I crank up the radio as loud as it goes.

I zone out the world and I see myself as if I'm watching a movie.

A zillion disoriented thoughts pop in and out of my head bouncing around like a pinball machine.

My kids, my husband, neglect, short temper, work, bills, moving, help, this sucks, my poor Dad.

I wonder if my step mom is having a similar experience in her car in front of me.

I'm tired, I hate this, why the hell was that doctor such an idiot, I wonder if they checked this lab report, at least he has a fridge in his room that's nice, how will he be tomorrow. What if he has a seizure tonight.

The drive home is slow. It drags on in a surreal time warp. In reality those short 20 minutes feel like hours.

I remember things, I remember chemo appointments and conversations we've had, I think back to the day we found out about this nightmare and how the surgeon still had his blue cap on, I remember the drawings the urologist made for us at the last appointment, I remember the day I fell to my knees on the porch with the latest news, I remember previous early morning phone calls from my stepmom and subsequent trips to the hospital.

I wonder how we got here. Again, why. I imagine what a phone call would be like if he didn't make it through the night... what would they say, how would I react, how would I tell my kids. This is not something I should have to be dealing with right now.


What the fuck?!! How can we continue living like this all the time. This is just ridiculous and exhausting. No one can understand this, if someone were watching me right now they'd think I was insane.

I picture my Dad's smile and I laugh about a memory. I think back to some of my treasured times with him and I see my life playing like a movie, memories of everything from swimming as a young girl to learning how to drive to watching him play with his grandkids. A whole life of memories....

I smile and laugh and I belt out a song on the radio, I put my head back against the seat and continue to watch myself from up above and think of how nice it would be if this were all a dream that I could wake up from some day. I think about what life will be like when the cancer is gone, gosh that will be a nice feeling.... but it could always come back and how would that conversation go.... I don't know that I could ever take hearing that news again.

I sigh at the idea that this constant state of limbo and uneasiness is something we will have to deal with forever.

More disbelief. And laughter turns back to tears. I think of how this must be from my Dad's perspective, I can't even imagine... ugh... And then rage, this is bullshit... I just want to scream and hit anyone and everyone I can get my hands on.

GODDAMNIT.

I feel like an alien with 10 different heads and emotions and thoughts all going on simultaneously. This must be what it's like to be schizophrenic with multiple personality disorder. Everything is completely disjointed, manic highs and depressive lows, laughter and tears and rage... All in a 20 minute drive.

This is just insane. I'm SO sick of having these drives!! I'm up, I'm down, I smiling and then flipping out and then angry and then sad. I'm singing and dancing and then I'm punching the steering wheel and screaming.

By this point I usually interrupt myself from going insane because I'm at the final few streets from my house. Suck it up and stop crying. Get yourself together. I surely never walk into the house like this! I turn the switch off and breathe.

This stupid mascara, why did I buy this kind it is all over my face ugh! Blink blink blink, get your eyes dry. I fan my face and take deep breaths. I give my cheeks a few slaps and grab some chapstick.

Making the last few turns into the neighborhood. Keep it together... I shun any thoughts that will bring the tears back.

I put the car in park and take one final look in the mirror. Alright, inside we go... it's still snowing...

I'm tired. Back to the real world. Read more!

Another Year, Another Candle On The Cake

Well I happened to look back at my post from my birthday last year and my first thought was that was only a year ago?? It seems like 10... it's probably aged me 10 at the least. I'm happy to say that my Dad is here to celebrate another year with me, something I did not believe I was going to be able to say. This past year has been full of ups and downs and a state of limbo, not unlike the past few years really but yet so different at the same time. I think we've found a new 'normal' with everything and seem to have adjusted to this life with cancer... if there is such a thing as adjusting. I'm not sure many people get the chance to do this because usually cancer shows up and it's a whirlwind and then the person is gone, like a tornado that just rips the earth right from under your feet. In our case it's more like a housefire, a slow burn.... It's like an extended version of a cancer tornado with the possibility that the fire may go out, you just never know. (If that makes any coherent sense to anyone that hasn't dealt with this???)

So we've found a way to 'adjust' to life with cancer. What does that mean?

Well basically it's a constant life of good and then bad and then good and then bad.... It's weeks where things are quiet with nothing to report and then weeks of chaos, emergency admits, doctors to argue with, a stubborn patient to argue with, and stress. Lots of stress. On average it's at least a lot of appointments and things to keep track of, surveying the situation on a constant basis and an unending nagging in the back of your brain. The time I spend with my Dad is also a mix, sometimes I feel like the "old" Dad is back, we talk like we used to, we have coherent conversations, he remembers things, he smiles and jokes, he has energy, he calls ME to see how I'm doing ..... and then there are other times where the lights are on but no one is home, he's tired, conversation is forced and awkward or we're fighting over his stubbornness to heed my advice.

That's what an extended life with cancer is.

I've come to a place of acceptance with the situation, not acceptance that this is happening because I will NEVER accept that nor understand why but an acceptance that this is our life so we need to roll with it. There's a bit less panic (depending on the week) and a bit more calm about it all for lack of a better word.

I have stopped clinging to things so tightly, like the idea of moving which we had intended to do last year before we found out about the latest diagnosis and we put an abrupt hold on shortly after. I would never in a million years have conceded to the idea of moving farther away from my Dad (even 30 minutes) this time last year. With all of the uncertainty I wanted to be as close as possible to soak in every last thing that I could, if it was the last.

It's not that I don't still want this, I do, but I've decided that putting my life on hold for the sake of cancer and the havoc it's caused is making me even MORE powerless against it all. The truth of the matter is that life is going to unfold the way it is supposed to, I don't have a cure for cancer so I certainly have no control over what is going to happen with my Dad.... I can kick and scream and fight and hold on for dear life but it isn't going to change anything. In the short term it makes me feel better to at least know that I am here for support, all caught up in the middle of this ball of yarn, and that probably won't change but in the long term I am letting cancer take over even more aspects of my life by doing this and not letting go....

So this year, we will move.

It's things like this that are a part of adjusting to the new normal. And I can't say if this is how I'd feel if we didn't have great feedback on my Dad's prognosis, if things were progressing I'm pretty sure I'd still be clinging. For dear life. But since things are stable for now I feel like I can let go a little bit. My Dad's cancer is just that, stable, at the moment. Essentially for the past 9 months of scans there has been no cancer progression. The original mass is gone and there are no soft tissue indicators of cancer at all. The bone lesions are all still present but have not spread or grown or gotten any worse. The thing about bones is that they take a long time to heal so these spots will show up on the scans even AFTER the cancer is completely gone until the bone has regenerated. This process can take a long time so it is possible that the cancer is gone and the lesions haven't healed yet, or it's possible that the cancer is still there, only time will tell. What we do know is that whatever treatment we're doing right now is helping, it's doing it's job.... so we hang around in limbo as usual. The main problem at the moment is dealing with complications from the cancer and chemo, dealing with the nephrostomy tubes, ureteral fistulas, and constant infections...

And that is how the past year has gone. We continue to be cautiously optimistic but mostly we've all been learning to continue to live while dealing with this instead of wallowing in stagnation. We've had a lot to celebrate, a lot of good things that have helped us keep perspective I think. Family weddings, my graduation, vacations, new houses, a lot of firsts, and 2 little dudes to provide laughter and distraction.

Overall year 26 was an experience- both good and bad, lessons learned, struggles endured in all ways. My mental capacity was stretched to the absolute maximum and through it all I've learned a lot about life and myself. It has given me some much needed perspective on so many things from friendships, to unconditional love, to marriage, to perseverance, to my own strength. I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't give all of that back to crawl back under the safety of normal life before all of this but at least I know I survived it.... and so the mission for year 27 is to continue to move forward, eyes ahead not back.


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The CPNE Weekend In Photos

This is part of my post series on Excelsior College's ADN nursing program and the CPNE experience. See all related posts over here. 



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The Gauntlet: What is the CPNE- Clinical Performance In Nursing Exam

This is part of my post series on Excelsior College's ADN nursing program and the CPNE experience. See all related posts over here.

Gauntlet noun

1. A form of punishment or torture in which people armed with sticks or other weapons arrange themselves in two lines facing each other and beat the person forced to run between them

2. An onslaught or attack from all sides
3. A severe trial; an ordeal. 

Yah.... that pretty much sums it up perfectly actually.

So I have been finishing up further nursing degrees through Excelsior College, more on that whole journey later. For now I'd like to journal a bit about my CPNE experience so that it may help any future students gain some insight. I share it here because, well this is my life and this is a HUGE part of what I've been busy doing the past yearish and because I can be long winded so I have plenty of "space" to dish it out here. If there is anything I can do to help anyone attempting this complete insanity of an experience I'm more than happy to do so. It is a weekend that I will never forget as long as I live and goes down in the history books as one of the top 3 hardest experiences of my entire life, for those that know me, that is saying something. 

For those unfamiliar with Exclesior's program, the CPNE (Clinical Performance in Nursing Exam) is the capstone for the ADN nursing program. After finishing the classes/coursework you ship off for the capstone to one of a dozen hospital testing locations. The CPNE is essentially a weekend long hospital examination testing your comprehensive knowledge and application of practice of everything you've EVER learned. It must be completed with 100% accuracy and is highly subjective, survive all 3 days and you are granted your degree, make a mistake and you buy yourself a ticket back home. 

Stress doesn't even begin to explain it. Pressure is laughable. This experience has brought former combat marines to their knees. Seasoned paramedics and nurses with triple decades of experience have crumbled.... with a pass rate of around 40% (or less, even though they will tell you it's 62%) it's a doozie with all of the cards on the line. I won't try to explain this to anyone who isn't going through it because most will laugh at you and think you're overreacting about doing something so basic. All I can say is that I could cherry pick ANY nurse, ANY doc, ANY nurse practitioner, surgeon, etc and bring them to the exam and they'd fail the first 4 seconds easily. I can also say that there are very few things in my life that I have ever doubted my ability in, not just been uneasy about but really and truly doubted myself. This was one. You could be the best nurse in the world, the smartest individual on earth and still fail this exam.

    Day 1 is your lab simulation day, completing an IM or Subq injection after mixing two separate medications in a single syringe. Packing a wound with a wet to moist sterile dressing. Hanging a secondary medication and calculating an appropriate drip rate. Administering an IV push medication. Simple skills that must be done precisely, systematically, to the approval of your examiner in the way that THEY want it done, in the amount of time allotted. If they tell you the sky is yellow you better say it's yellow... 

    Day 2 is the first day of your patient care scenarios. You receive a Kardex with a variety of areas of care that you must assess and/or treat. Simply speaking, you must first write a care plan for the patient which must include specific elements and then be approved to the T by your examiner. Then you must implement all of your interventions and areas of care assigned. Then you must evaluate and document narrative notes on your care plan and all care you implemented. This again must be done within very precise parameters, must include very specific information, and the entire thing must be completed within a set amount of time with timed phases within the entire scenario that you must hit on point.

    Day 3, if you survive to this point, is again patient care scenario/s. You walk out of the hospital with either a passing letter of congratulations or absolutely nothing but a $3000 bill for your efforts and 'encouraging' words to take a break and try again another time. 

I wish I had been prepared for how insane this conquest was when I decided to enroll in Excelsior's program. Sure I was told about the 'clinical weekend' at the end, I was told it was your capstone and that obviously you had to complete a variety of tasks to pass the program. I was told that there were no traditional clinicals for the program and that this weekend served as an 'ultimate' clinical for the school to sign off on your ability as a nurse in practice. I thought well sure, no problems with that, one weekend is much better than hundreds of hours at a hospital! I was NOT told that it was this. That this would be one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. I was not told that it was a "do or die" set up. I was NOT told the real statistics of the pass rate (they still wont admit it, but I can do math and I know that 1 passer out of 6 each weekend is NOT 62%). So I offer this info to anyone looking into this program as an option thinking it's great. Do your research, talk to students, read the boards, get the REAL scoop. It is obviously do-able, people DO pass and graduate but you will fight for every second of this degree. And IF you make it to the end, to the CPNE, you will fight even harder, pushing yourself farther than you knew you could to survive the gauntlet and get your hands on that precious letter.

Had I known then what I know now, I probably would've opted for a traditional nursing bridge program, forked out the extra cash, and saved my heart the equivalent of 80 years of stress. For those of you finding me that are already in the midst of CPNE prep, 2 things: 1- you're probably thinking those exact same things. 2- It CAN be done, eye on the prize folks, eye.on.the.prize.

Lastly, I will preface this information with the fact that I did this program while working from home. I continued to run my business, deal with your average life stuff, raise my dudes (they were about 1 and 2 1/2 when I got going), and continue to maintain half time status with online classes at my community college while doing this program. I'm a bit crazy when it comes to that, if you have the ability to devote more time than I was able to into this program you're already doing yourself a favor, TAKE THE TIME, realize from the start that it is going to require a LOT, and plan accordingly.

More Excelsior & CPNE posts here-

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Frugal Living: Practical ways for ANY family to save

So I saw an article on frugal living via Yahoo today and it didn't sit right with me for a VARIETY of reasons, mainly the insinuation that an average American family of four can live on $14,000 a year, afterall this was the title of the article. As I began reading I kept thinking over and over, I call BS... or as my Dad would say, "there's a fly in the ointment"...

Here's a few of the things that got my eyebrows raised without getting into the whole details- I can say that your average family doesn't have phenomenal government paid for health care (our family health insurance, should we opt to have it, would cost a mere $600 a month, and that's for a pretty much CRAP plan with a $5000 deductible before they pay a dime and a $25,000 family out of pocket max. Even if you never have to use the plan and only incur the monthly premium... well half of your "$14,000" budget is dunzo.) Not to say that our military and their families don't deserve great healthcare, they do, but unless you've served don't count on anything close to VA benefits!

 Next up the idea of having no house payment because you laid down $30,000 cash for a 3 bedroom "fixer-upper"... I literally shudder at the idea of an inhabitable (and I use this word loosely) space with 3 bedrooms that I could move my family into for $30k. I don't care if it was foreclosed, abandoned, auctioned off, whatever. I find it a wee bit of a stretch to think that this price could buy you anything NEAR a 'house', I don't care where you live. Perhaps I am wrong... in which case I will say to anyone who lives in an area that has a decent property in this price range consider yourself lucky and go for it. The rest of us are S.O.L. on that idea. And that doesn't even account for the fact that you don't save $30k in cash on a $14k salary. Obviously. So the real story here is that they saved all of this money over a long period of time while the family was making a helluva lot more than $14k a year.

Same with cars and car payments- see above, you don't save this much cash with your tiny $14k a year, especially if you're spending $400 a month on groceries (that's a whole OTHER issue). Or hand baking your own bread rather than buying prepackaged (fyi, your single packet of yeast is more expensive than a .99 cent loaf of store brand). So what I'm getting at with all of this, I could go on, is that after I read this and picked the story apart (which may have been Yahoo's irresponsible false portrayal of this family's situation) I thought, what can I get out of this?? And that is, what can your average family do to save money and live more frugally in a realistic scenario.

We most certainly aren't living on $14k a year, but we do have pretty much a single income household, and while my hubby works his butt off every day for us, that income is most definitely sub par for what he's worth. Meaning, we aren't rolling in dough here folks and we've learned a LOT of ways to keep costs down while still enjoying things that we like. We sacrifice in certain areas to splurge in others. After you get used to stretching a single paycheck for several (8+ months) when you're self employed you tend to learn to be creative in managing your funds, or lack thereof.

I'm all for trying anything new and practical that can save us money but I do draw the line on certain areas, and I firmly believe there should be some sort of line, whatever that is for your own family. For example I will not drive a Prius or tiny little car; my SUV is huge, gets horrible gas mileage, but is safe, snow capable, and holds all of our crap. That is something I won't budge on. We have decided to purchase only organic and gmo free food (as much as we can afford) which has tripled our grocery bill each month, that's something we feel strongly about so we find a way to make it work. And things like homemade toothpaste, toilet paper, or whatever other extra-creative money saving extremes are out of the question, I'll gladly pay some green for the real deal.

Here are some of the things we do to save money that your average family can easily do to clamp off the outgo each month.

Utilize The Dollar Store: If you haven't been in one, go! Make sure it's a true dollar store- some are not. The best rule of thumb for the dollar store is to check there first before buying it somewhere else, chances are they have it. Price check your typical household items a couple of times at your grocery store and compare. You can get a TON of stuff here that you wouldn't think about that'll save you money!

• Holiday things- easter basket stuff, valentine candy, xmas decor/wrapping/bows, halloween candy, etc.
• Gifting supplies- all of them from wrapping paper, to tissue paper, to bows, and gift bags, not even Walmart can beat $1.
• Household Items- cleaning supplies, kitchen goodies like zip locks, aluminum foil, trashbags
• Organizing supplies- bins, buckets, closet organizers, totes, they have TONS of this stuff
• School & Project supplies- paper, pens, folders, envelopes, posterboard, homeschooling goodies, etc
• Party supplies- plates, utensils, decorations, serving wear, I always get a handful of party things here

Re-evaluate your cell phone plan or carrier: We opted for Sprint since their data plans were unlimited, it saved us a considerable amount of money.

• Price shop all of the carriers for what your specific needs are, see if they offer to buy out your old carrier contract if you switch. 
• You can get really good prices on new phones by going through Walmart. When we switched to Sprint I signed up via Walmart online and ended up getting a $500 phone for $100 and they waived the 'activation fee'. If your intent on going to the phone carrier store to sign up at least ask them if they will pricematch, can't hurt. I'd do the same thing for plans or deals that another company is offering, always ask, the worst they can say is no. 
• Be creative about your plan, hubbs and I opted to do separate accounts instead of a family account because we were able to get both of our phones for super cheap, we waited 6 months to secure our deal and THEN switched to a family plan. By doing it this way we ended up saving a couple hundred in the end.
• Always see if your employer or spouses employer gets a company discount at your carrier, we save 18% I think thanks to this!

COUPONS: Did I mention coupons?? If you don't know how to coupon, learn. It can be very time consuming if you want to go crazy with it (which I used to do), but you don't have to go all or nothing. I still find time to do a decent haul 1-3x a year and when you get things for free it's clearly worth your time! I typically only coupon for household items now since they have a better shelf life than food products and it's something we'll always need so I'm free to stockpile galore. We have a VAST supply of laundry detergent, toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning products, toothpaste, razors, shampoos, body soaps, and various medicines that I got for free that will last at least a couple of years. You do the math... And they are all name brand products (Tide, Crest, Pledge, Garnier, Dawn etc) no need to worry about getting some unnamed mystery product.

GROUPON: Along the same lines of couponing, utilize Groupon, Living Social, Moolala, Tippr, Weekly Plus, etc.

• This is how we save a bunch of money on our 'fun' things like dinners, activities, movies, etc. I plan to use this for a family getaway when the timing works out too.
• We get our formal family photos done this way for pennies on the dollar. 
• I get photo canvases for our house here that would normally cost me thousands for $30-$80. 
• Occasionally grab yourself some mani/pedi, massage, and hair coupons, no need to completely forego these extras if you can get a deal. 
• These also make great gifts!

SNAPFISH.com: I wait for their 'penny print' sales to stock up on the bazillion pictures I've taken over the past few months or year. I ended up ordering ALL of our wedding photos doing this, paid about $50 in total for 800 4x6's shipped to my house!

Be thrifty with clothing: STOP shopping at the mall or any other 'specialty' store, splurge every once and a while and that's it.

• Ebay it- I have no problem getting some gently used kids clothes on Ebay, this saves us a good amount between both dudes.
• Ross/TJ Max- get your namebrand stuff here for a fraction of the cost, it's fine, no one will know and you can laugh allllll the way to the bank at anyone who side eyes you for doing this.
• Utilize online discount sites- 6pm.com is great, free shipping and a TON of brands that will periodically go 70% off. Gilt.com, Hautelook.com, Zulily.com all of these 'deal' sites will save you money if you insist on owning some ridiculously priced item.

Pricematch your household bills: I recently got fed up with our latest trash bill since every time one comes in the mail it seems to have ANOTHER increase in "fuel surcharge", like they figured out people would accept this and just continued to run with it even though gas prices have been pretty stable for over a year.....

• So I merely Googled a handful of other ones and found one for $15/mo (as opposed to our $30/mo) AND they offered new customers the first 3 months for only $10/mo. Well duh, no brainer there so we called our current company to say buh bye and they offered to match the price!! We didn't even ask, so lesson learned there, should've done that a LONG time ago. 
• Same concept for our Comcast (cable/internet) bill, extortion is putting it lightly, I need to own Comcast. For easily 5 years now we wait for our bill to magically go up, as it always does, and then I call and ask whether they're running any promos that we can switch to. Every time they have something that ends up cutting the bill back in half. They're starting to be more stingy but by entering into a 'contract' you can usually get similar results, or ask them to match Century Link or another competitor.

Get rid of your house phone: unless you really need it or something, get rid of it if you haven't already. Even cell phone carriers will offer plans to add a line that will ring to a voicemail for much cheaper than a land line.


CFL lightbulbs: I will say that I haven't seen any enormous change in our energy bill since switching over but anything is better than nothing and I DO know for sure that the CFL bulbs last a lot longer in our house than the traditional bulbs. And you can buy CFL's everywhere now, even the dollar store.

Amazon: This little gem saves me a lot of money.

• 'Subscribe & Save' for diapers/wipes- MOMS, I can tell you this is the cheapest way to get diapers, I've price matched it everywhere. Granted we buy Pampers since they're the only thing that work so if you're set with a storebrand that may be a better alternative, check and see. No one, not Walmart, not coupons, not Babies R Us can match Amazon's subscription prices and it is wonderful to walk to my front door to get diapers rather than piling everyone up in the car to go.

• Prime Accounts- If you order things online frequently, check prices at Amazon, they usually have excellent prices and if you enroll in the prime account you get free 2 day shipping. This isn't for everyone since your prime membership isn't free but for us it saves a LOT of money because I order things constantly for business, birthdays, and especially around the holidays. I also get a discounted membership price for being a student ($49ish/year) so I'll milk that for all it's worth! 

Craigslist: We use this all the time to get deals on things. Kids toys, backyard climber toys, miscellaneous household things like a stand up freezer for the garage, car parts and accessories, lawn mowers, you name it we've gotten one for a phenomenal deal and I couldn't even begin to add up the savings. We sell things here too when we periodically go through our things, easier than sitting all day for a garage sale. Also, be careful on Craigslist, people can be creepy- act accordingly, never go alone, never show anyone something alone, avoid showing things at your home if possible, etc.

For business folks: I save money on biz expenses by doing a handful of things

• Get rid of your fax line and use email-fax services, or just email since it's 2013 and that's how things are done. 
• Vistaprint is your friend for all things advertising. I always scout for free coupon codes and discount codes to get free postcards, biz cards, cheap brochures, hang tags, yard signs, banners, etc. 
• Stop paying a monthly website hosting fee and convert your site to a blog. If you don't know how to set up a blog with a custom template, adjust the html/css coding, or route and transfer domain names.... LEARN! I save $40+ a month doing this.

Alrighty so if you're still reading, you can see there are a million ways that you can save some cash in your every day life. These are all realistic practical things that ANY family out there can do, so why wait? Set a savings goal, make it a hardfast rule that any money that goes into that account does NOT come back out for any reason and start stashing it away. One of the best things I heard about managing money is to "tell your money where to go, or else it will just go away". This is so true, when payday hits I immediately pay all of our bills and throw money into savings before that money starts to disappear with random gas station purchases or fast food runs here and there, it will vanish if you don't put it somewhere, trust me! Once you get in the habit of spending less and putting a little bit away at regular intervals you'll notice a big difference.

Any other great tips on how you save money?? I'm always willing to try!



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Del Monte Tomato Kick-Off $25 Football Giveaway

So how about them Broncos!! Ok, well I am extremely bummed that my donkeys and Peyton will not be contending for the Superbowl this year BUT that doesn't mean we can't have a kick butt Superbowl Party. And oh.my.word. if they make it next year, watch out! I am a big football fan, of all the major sports I like the pigskin best (and UFC... it counts in my book as a professional sport).

In the spirit of football season coming to an end and Superbowl goodness, I present another awesome giveaway. Now trust me, you will want a piece of this one.... first off you get the chance to win some goodies straight from here at the blog including


Two (2) cans of Del Monte Southwestern-Style Petite Cut® Diced Tomato varieties

o   (1) Del Monte® Petite Cut® Diced Tomatoes with Green Chilies

o   (1) Del Monte® Petite Cut® Diced Tomatoes with Chipotle Chilies

  And A $25 gift card to purchase other meal idea items


 BUT at the same time you can enter to win the mega prize from Del Monte which includes... wait for it....

A Sony® 55” LED TV
A Bose® home theater system
AND a Sony® Blu-ray player (ARV $4,779.00 USD)

Yah, seriously, it's awesome, and YES I entered too (so maybe you really don't want to and then I can have a better chance myself ;)

Del Monte has some great ideas for football recipes and entertaining that you can check out over on Pinterest (the best place to gather party planning ideas of course!). I tried out the new varieties of tomato flavors with Chipotle Chiles and Green Chiles. One of my favorite easy dips for parties is a queso with a can of some type of flavored tomatoes and cheese, both of these flavors were perfect for this. I also tried them with our fish tacos one evening, again perfect addition with extra lime!

The important parts- first off enter the giveaway right here for some Del Monte goodies that will amp up your football festivities by following the rules below and THEN head over and create your Pinterest board so that you can be entered for the super rad mega schwag above (if you must).


TO ENTER:
Check out Mr. Rafflecopter below and he will show you the ways to enter. Contest is only open until Feb 15th. You can see the official rules of the mega contest here.


After you enter the giveaway here follow the directions below to get your entry into the mega prize sweepstakes

• Follow the Del Monte Brand on Pinterest
• Create a Pinterest board named “Del Monte Southwestern Tomato Kick-Off”
• Pin at least two (2) Del Monte Tomato Recipes from the “Del Monte Southwestern Tomato Kick-Off” Pinterest board and at least two (2) football entertaining ideas
• Register your Pinterest board to the Del Monte page from January 21^st through February 15^th to be entered into the Del Monte® Southwestern Tomato Kick-Off Sweepstakes program
• Get ready for a chance to win one of the many prizes available, including an ultimate entertainment package with a Sony® 55” LED TV, Bose® home theater system and Sony® Blu-ray player (ARV $4,779.00 USD).

Got it? Questions just shoot me an email on the contact page, good luck!

The Del Monte products, information and two gift packs have been provided by Del Monte.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Reader Questions: How I barely survived a baby led schedule, and why I won't do it again!

I am always happy to answer questions from ya'll because I don't always have the time to write all of the posts and follow-ups that I'd like to. Especially when it comes to comparing baby #1 to baby #2. If you have questions feel free to shoot me an email from the contact page or on Facebook!

This is a response to some reader questions about how to incorporate a parent-led schedule versus a baby-led schedule. My initial post on our parent-led choice can be found here.

"I am going to be a first time mom and am interested in a doing a more parent-led approach then a baby driven one. I completely agree with you when you say that the child should fit in to your life instead of the other way around. I do have a few questions though that I was hoping you could please answer. "

• when do you start implementing a schedule? Right when they are born or a week or two after?

• a lot of articles I've read, both for and against parent-led schedules, say that it needs to be constantly consistent. So if I set the schedule so I want the baby to wake up at 8, but i know he could sleep past 8, do I wake him up or just adjust the schedule to start when he wakes up?

• with feedings, do you BF within a range or 2.5 - 3 hours or have you set it so every 3 hours they eat, no matter what? And what if they act hungry after only an hour and a half or so after you fed them, do you wait until the 2.5 hour mark?
• I read that vacations and such can really be hard on babies of parent-led schedules since they have a hard time adjusting, have you found this to be true?

Hi there,
First off, let me tell you that when I had my second we ended up in a more baby led approach, not really on purpose but mostly because we were exhausted with the demands of a newborn and then 18 month old and so we didn't have the will power to stick it out with the parent led approach. Now that my littlest one is about 18 months himself I can assure you this was such a BIG mistake! I will preface everything with the idea that each child is going to be different, some may be easier than others, etc. BUT #2 has been a pain in the butt especially when it comes to sleeping and I think this is hugely due to the fact that we didn't push as hard to get him into a great routine from the beginning.

With #2 we were in a crazy world of non-stop eating, still to this day the kid eats like a champ (which was not the case with #1 since he was 4 weeks early). So this kid was eating 4 oz. every 2 hours from the DAY we brought him home from the hospital! This started the challenge because I figured we'd slowly start pushing him longer and longer until he was on a 4 hour schedule but again the exhaustion of it all won us over and we just gave in and kept feeding him on demand (mistake #1). Getting up to breastfeed and make bottles (because my poor boobs surely could not keep up with his hunger!) every 2 hours for MONTHS on end was absolutely exhausting, no other way to put it. And the constant eating led to the co-sleeping because the thought of getting up and even walking across the room to the pack n play was exhausting ha! It got so bad, I kid you not, that we had the most ridiculous routine just trying to survive because there is no napping with the baby when you have a toddler to run around after and business to run and school work to do. Our routine with #2 was to fill one bottle with just 4 oz of water, fill another with 2 scoops of formula and put the wee one on a co-sleeping pillow right in between my husband and I's pillows.... all 3 of us cozied up the bed night after night.... then when he'd wake up crying to eat I'd roll over, pour the water into the formula bottle, shake and plop it in his mouth barely staying awake long enough for him to finish. There were plenty of nights that he'd spit the bottle out and spill everything all over the bed requiring sheet changes in the middle of the night. And with him eating this much there was no diaper that would hold up so we had many nights of clothing changes and sheet changes as well.

Here's the best part... this went on for EIGHT months. I wish I was joking, the kid continued to eat every 3 hours in our bed for 8 months. A nightmare doesn't even come close to describing this. I finally put my foot down at 8 months and put the kid into his own crib in his room for the FIRST NIGHT ever. I still shake my head thinking about this. I can't even describe the feeling of having my bed back!! This decision made things more challenging because it was more work to feed him but at that point I was done, done, and done with this outrageous set-up we had going that I didn't care. And I DEMANDED that hubbs jump in to help as he had truly slacked in this department due to his demanding work schedule over the previous eight months. I told him I didn't care and there were some nights that he did everything 100% and I actually got to sleep.... ah sleep... kind of.  It's amazing how your body can survive with such little sleep. I had grown so accustomed to doing this that after he finally would sleep through the night I was still wide awake half the night, like a little internal alarm clock that would go off. Craziness I tell you.


Luckily, he finally started weaning himself off of so much food shortly after we booted him to his own room. There were more and more nights that he'd go 5 or more hours without eating and less nights that he was up every 3, but my goodness he was about 9-10 months old by this point! Even today he is not nearly as good of a sleeper as baby #1, whether this is due to the schedule or not... who knows but I can't help but wonder if it would've helped even a little bit! As he is now over a year and a half old I'm still trying to get that sleep back, and there are still MANY MANY nights that the kid ends up in our bed to sleep. Obviously he grew very accustomed to this and it's still a challenge we deal with. I'm all for co-sleeping, but not to this extent, unless you're ok with sharing your bed indefinitely with your kid... it's not a good set up for us. And it all goes back to giving into the whole 'baby led approach', I applaud parents that can do it this way, we are not those parents!

All of that being said, I kick myself knowing that we could've avoided it, at least in some ways, if we had stuck to our guns and got him on a schedule. It would've been a bigger challenge than baby #1 because this kid refused to stop eating! But there were plenty of things we could've tried. We could've started pushing him at least a half an hour and continued to do this until he was on a more bearable eating schedule. I could've been less obsessed with the breastfeeding but after baby #1 I was determined to make it work with #2 so I fought a lot more than I needed to. I could've started rice cereal earlier rather than being paranoid about it and waiting until 6 months. I could've demanded help from hubbs earlier on rather than resulting to short cuts to save my own sanity from lack of sleep. I can assure you that baby #3 will be on a schedule if it kills me!! My husband and I both agree.

And finally to answer your questions specifically-
I do agree that you need to be pretty consistent with your schedule but I'm not crazy rigid. I wasn't a freak about it, there will be days that are off, there will be days that your time table is skewed by an hour or two and that's ok, the main point is that the general schedule is consistent throughout. Holidays and changes to your general routine will mess things up (like we experienced with Thanksgiving and things like that). I would say the first month you're getting used to the whole idea of a baby in general, this time is kind of chaotic. You're getting to know baby's personality, figuring out how much they eat, and this is the time to develop your schedule with what will work best for you AND baby, which may mean adjusting some things in your life to accommodate. For example if you have a yoga class or work phone calls or whatever always set at 9:00 am but this seems to be a good time to start your daily routine you may need to adjust your schedule and bump these things back to 10:00 am. I would take the first month to figure out what's going to work for you all and establish the schedule framework as soon as you can. You can always adjust it, just a little more work and a little less sleep. And I would stick to this schedule as closely as possible for at least the next month. By the end of month 2 you should definitely be seeing a pattern, the schedule should be relatively consistent.

Along those lines, if you want baby to be up and eating at 8 but they are asleep, I would wake them up. This is the best of the 2 scenarios you can end up with (either you're waking to feed them early, or you're having to distract them and keep them happy because they're hungry early and it isn't time to eat yet), so yes, if it were me I'd wake them up! I also set our schedule by the time on the clock rather than the time elapsed, meaning our every 4 hour eating schedule was probably more like every 3.5 since it would take him about a half an hour to actually eat the food. I found it easier to use the time on the clock so that I wasn't constantly having to count how many hours it had been since his last feeding, I'd just look at the clock and say oh it's 2:30 he's going to be eating in a half an hour. I didn't have a range of times really for feeding (unless that particular day was off for whatever reason) so eating was at 8 am, when the clock hit 8 I'd have the bottle or boob ready to go. If there were times that they weren't acting hungry I'd still try to sway them to eat something, even if it wasn't their usual intake, this gets their brain in the habit of waking and being hungry at certain times.

Now they will inevitably end up hungry prior to eating time on occasion and this is the harder to fix and deal with because they aren't exactly the happiest. This is where you have to be able to deal with crying, and it will prepare you for sleep training down the road (which is MUCH easier if you already have them on a schedule!). Luckily the crying part is short lived in both cases. I pushed the boys as long as I could to get them to the scheduled eating time. This can be done by distracting them, playing, giving a pacifier, anything you can do to stretch the time. I also used this method when getting him to go from a 3 hour to a 4 hour schedule after a month or so. I'd start out pushing him 15 minutes, then a half an hour, etc. It's hard at first but they adjust pretty quickly, and their internal clock catches on.

I didn't find vacations hard at all with a schedule because I just kept up the schedule as close as I could. If we were off by an hour or two, fine, I'd start it back on track the next morning. Even if you're in the car or an airplane you should be able to continue to feed them at the right times. And if you end up in a different time zone I would just adjust the schedule to compromise between what we were used to versus where we were. For example if your schedule starts at 8 am but you are in a time zone where 8 am is really like 5 am to what you're used to I would split the difference and adjust the schedule to start at 6:30 or 7:00am while I was there and then do the same thing coming back. You'll find that you can adjust things more and more each day too if you have to, so if you did 6:30 am day 1 of your trip you could probably do 7:30 on day 2 and then be right back to normal for the duration of your trip. Then you just work backwards when you get home (if you need to, sometimes you don't and they fall right back into things).

Ok so that's my extremely long winded response. If there is one concise thing to take away it would be DO A SCHEDULE, don't end up with your baby in your bed for 8 months and die of complete sleep deprivation ha! Start it out early, the earlier the better, and you can adjust along the way. Good luck and thanks for giving me a chance to do a follow up here.


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Holiday Giveaway Time: Febreze gift pack with $15 Visa gift card!

So it's been a while since we did a giveaway over here! I figure this is a great time to win some swag after everyone has broken their bank accounts with Christmas. Santa tends to be a big spender at our house! I had the chance to review one of my favorite things for the house over the past few weeks, smelly good things :)

Febreeze's Holiday Collection of room sprays, candles, and noticeables plug ins. I tested out the Cozy Vanilla Sugar specifically and it has been a nice change from our usual lavender scents we typically have going. Especially for this time of year, puts you in the cookie baking mood!

I used to buy smelly things for the house BC (before children) simply because I have an obsession with candles and scents and loved the idea of walking into a house that had that special house smell that is unique to that particular house. In addition to that, we now have a house full of the not as pleasant smells... with dogs, big dogs, that stink especially when they come inside after running around in our Colorado snow. And kids, well we know the issue with kids, and diaper pails, and little boys who have poor aim in the toilet. And husbands with dirty socks that seem to miraculously escape the hamper day in and day out.

We constantly have one of the plug ins going and the refills are always on our grocery shopping list. When we have people over I usually run around with the room sprays which are nice and not terribly overwhelming, and the candles are perfect for the bathroom.

So if you're like us and have a love of pretty scented things you'll want a piece of this giveaway.

A $10 Febreze Coupon booklet AND a $15 Visa giftcard so you can test it all out!

Choose between 6 scents-
◦Apple Spice & Delight: The warming scent of fresh-baked apples coated with sweet cinnamon (available only online)
◦Cozy Vanilla Sugar: Sweet as notes of vanilla that comfort you like a cocoon of blankets ◦Cranberries and Frost: Rich as ripe cranberries and frost on a white winter’s day
◦Glistening Alpine: As soothing as a tree-lined mountainside glistening with the scent of pine
◦Winter Magic & Glow: Crisp as sunshine-lit icicles in fresh, frosty air
◦Holiday Bloom & Cheer: As cheerful as a chorus of holiday aromas blended with winter blossoms

Have you tried out these holiday scents before, if so which is your favorite? If not, which one sounds most appealing to you? I must admit I will be checking out the Holiday Bloom and Cheer, especially for our upcoming anual New Years seafood feast get together.

TO ENTER: Head over here to see the collection and tell me which scent is your #1 pick, plus get some decorating tips and ways to make your home more inviting for the holidays with videos from design expert Candice Olson.

BONUS ENTRIES:
Follow @Febreze_Fresh on Twitter (1 entry)
Tweet your pick including @Febreze_Fresh (1 entry per day)
Follow Febreze on FB (2 entries)


Use the little Rafflecopter gadget below. Be sure to enter by Jan 2!

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/e051bb0/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway




Please see disclosure page for full details. The Febreze product, information, and two gift packs have been provided by Febreze. Febreze® does not represent or warrant the accuracy of any statements or product claims made here, nor does it endorse any opinions expressed within this blogsite. Read more!

Making a Baby: Part I- Trying To Conceive And Everything Inbetween

I'm just now realizing that I have never done a post about my inside take on the whole trying to conceive game after our struggles with getting pregnant the first time around.

To make a long story short, we tried for 9 months to get pregnant with baby #1. This was an awful experience full of tears, pelvic exams, bloodwork, ovulation kits, pregnancy tests, and newlywed strife. I am happy to say, obviously, that the end result was a wee little babe who has rocked my world for 3 years now and so I offer the following advice and insight for fellow trying-to-be-mommies and daddies on what we learned.

First off, the classic standard is to try for a year without success prior to seeking help, let me be the first to say DON'T wait that long. Now I wouldn't be rushing into the fertility clinic after hitting the sheets for 2 months with no baby but this is what I will say: if you've been trying, the right way, using ovulation kits, and have no 'risk factors' (ie. age, PCOS, etc), for SIX months call your OB.

This is my personal advice. A lot of doctors will laugh at you and tell you to keep trying and call back after a year. If you find one of these docs, fire them, and get a new one that will actually listen to your concerns and at least draw a progesterone level for you. In our case, we were both young with no health issues and no family history of infertility so I started seriously looking into fertility clinicians after 6 months without success. I finally went in for a consultation with my OB after 8 months.

I will break down the rest into 2 parts: First, the trying to conceive game and everything we learned here. Second, the infertility battle and the details of that process and treatment options.

TRYING TO CONCEIVE:

I was privileged to work for a phenomenal doctor who had struggled with infertility herself and shared some great wisdom with me. We started out with the basics, I call this "Prime Time"- once you're ready to try for a baby the goal is to have sex on days 10-14 of your cycle, every other day to allow the sperm to regenerate inbetween. Many people think that if you want to get pregnant you just start going to town 100x a day and you end up with a baby, this is not how the body operates and will actually decrease your chances of getting pregnant. The goal is NOT quantity, it's timing.

For the real newbies, your cycle starts out as Day 1- the first day of your period and for most women goes for 28 days. (I happen to have a 30-32 day cycle which affected our "prime time" slightly, and these subtle differences can mean everything).

Now in order to find this "prime time" more precisely you can turn to ovulation kits which will tell you exactly when to try. A little science background here: "prime time" is based on your LH surge which is simply when your body tells itself to ovulate. If you catch the surge and time your relations appropriately the sperm should reach the egg at the perfect time. It is a simple concept but it's anything but simple when things aren't working like you thought they would.

The basics of ovulation kits: once the test is positive your opportune time to conceive is within 24-36 hours.

I tried every ovulation kit known to man and this is what I found. Most ovulation kits come with 7 days of tests, for these kits you are expected to already have an idea of when you ovulate and just confirm this with a week's worth of testing. Problem is that some people have no clue when they ovulate, they may have 2 LH surges during the month instead of 1, they may have it earlier or later than most women and therefore a week's worth of testing may not be enough to really see what's going on. I decided to test every single day because I wanted to get a full picture of my entire cycle rather than a concentrated look at 7 days. With this comes a price. If you've browsed ov kits before you know they are EXPENSIVE! Especially when you're doing this for months and months at a time. So due to cost I decided to go with some strips to test for the whole 30 days because they were cheaper than the wands and digitals.

First Option: Strips. This is a picture of the strips (not mine but you get the idea, thank you to whoever posted all of these images, they are a perfect representation of what you can expect), as you can see they look like pregnancy tests with 1 to 2 lines. The problem with the strips is that they can be really hard to read because the second line can be faint or dark and kind of come and go which makes it hard to say whether it's positive for the surge or not. What I did was keep every single day and compare them next to one another, by doing this you are much better able to see a trend in the lines and accurately detect the TRUE surge. I recommend writing the date on them to keep track. This picture shows someone using them twice a day, which is also a good thing because you could be missing your window by 12+ hours if you are only testing once a day, keep that in mind.

Next option: Wands. These are what you normally find at the store, they look exactly like a pregnancy test in fact if you aren't reading carefully you can mix the two up easily. I kept using the strips daily but would also use the wands on occasion to see if I would get a better picture of the LH surge. The wands are pricier than the strips and they really don't give you a better impression of what's going on, as you can see from this picture. If anything they seem to be less sensitive at detecting things, in my opinion and after a month or two of these I stopped using them. My advice, skip the wands.

Lastly: DIGITALS. After a couple of months I had an idea when my surge was, in general, so I decided to REALLY confirm things by adding the digital tests to the mix. I would still test with the strips daily but during the week I was expecting the surge I would also take the digital tests. It was the most foolproof method I could think of and we were starting to get very frustrated, anxious, and desperate. The digital tests are even more expensive, which is why I don't recommend using them as a daily option, unless you want to and then you'd have no guessing. Even among the digitals I tried I decided my favorite were the SMILEY FACE ones and I swear by these to this day. They are a wand but show a digital picture of either a smiley face or a plain circle with no face. There is no mistaking these, no interpreting a faint line, just like pregnancy tests the digital are as clear as it gets. When you pull out the stick you can see the same 2 lines that the strips and wands have but these tests take the guesswork out of it for you. And outside of the clarity the little smiley face that pops up is a reminder to be happy about this, instead of looking at things as a science experiment which is how it feels. Can't hurt right?

Ovulation kits are a great way to start getting to know your cycle and taking charge of your fertility but they aren't the end all, be all. The next easiest thing to do is a daily temperature reading. Your Basal Body Temperature is the fancy name. Basically you take your temp every single day immediately after you wake up and record it. Ideally, you will see 2 main changes in temperature throughout your entire cycle, lower at the beginning and jumping up later on. This jump occurs AFTER your body has ovulated. You will see a 3rd jump if you end up pregnant and implantation has occured.  These jumps are subtle, we're talking 2/10's of a degree to 1 degree in most cases. This is the simple version and I recommend keeping it simple, it is an additional tool to use in your efforts and gives you a better picture of how your body is operating. There is a catch however, these temps must be PRECISE, which means you need to take your temperature at the SAME time every single day. There are measures to adjust the reading with calculations and I will tell you this clouds things, the best way is to get a routine set up, wake up at the same time every day, take your temp immediately after you wake up and keep it simple. You need to record the temp to the 1/10th degree, so a digital thermometer is the way to go. Also keep in mind that a falsely high reading can skew everything so be careful in what you record: 97.52 should be recorded as 97.5 and 97.68 should be recorded as 97.6.

The take away: "A dip in temperature followed by a rise (at least 2/10's of a degree) higher than all temps the previous six days and staying at or beyond this level for at least 3 consecutive days shows that ovulation has occurred"

However, these temps show you when you have already ovulated, meaning you should've already hit the sheets. After a few months you can hopefully see a pattern and time things appropriately but there are other indicators of the cycle. Cervical mucus, I'm not going to lie, I hate talking about this because let's be honest it's not a great visual to say the least mmmkay. So I'll leave it to the experts with this short explanation, "Directly prior to ovulation, cervical mucus should be abundant. Fertile cervical mucus is characterized by a transparent appearance - and it may look and feel like raw egg white and stretch between your fingers without breaking (see fig 1). This stretchiness is called Spinnbarkeit and indicates that ovulation is likely imminent. Fertile CM will be thin, slippery (like lubricant), stretchy and translucent. Typically, fertile-quality cervical fluids will appear a few days prior to and during ovulation. Following ovulation, the quality of CM will change again due to sudden decrease in estrogen and increase of progesterone."


Bottom line you should be paying attention to it to add that much more knowledge to the picture. Which brings me to the last point of trying to conceive tools. Cycle charting helps you keep track of all of these changes. Fertility Friend, your key to the crazy world of cycle charting! It's a website that you input all of this information into and it keeps track of everything for you. You can input temps, body changes, mucus changes, you name it. And with all of this data you finally start to see the exact picture of your body's cycle which gives you a basis for the best odds of conceiving. Not only does this help you in your efforts it is also a HUGE resource for your OB and/or fertility docs if you continue to be unsuccessful, it gives them a wealth of knowledge to help you. A great great great tool!




Stay Tuned for Part II which delves into the options and testing available for those who are unsuccessful after ALL of this.






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To My First Born, on Your 3rd Birthday

I'm still in disbelief that it has been 3 years already. As you sit here with your head on my shoulder I remember the days that I held your tiny little body in my arms and rocked you to sleep. These days you are a wild and happy little [big] guy and I don't get too many snuggly moments so I stop everything I'm doing when you scoot close and say "Mommy I want to lay on your shoulders" in your cute little toddler voice that is slowly disappearing into a grown up voice...

My little dude... you are growing (despite your revolt against vegetables) and excelling in every single part of your toddler world. You are smart, so so smart, too smart really which I love because I see myself in your eyes and I see the potential that your future holds every time that you pick up a new skill, or talk to me like a 30 year old while you try to convince me to give you more candy.

I love hearing the wonder in your voice when we learn about new things in school and listening to you reason about things that just don't make sense in your 3 year old brain. I love watching you lie passed out on the floor during nap time after piliging your closet and putting on every article of clothing you could find. Or observing your ingenuity and creativity when you stack up a variety of toys and use a broom stick to get an extra banana off of the counter.

Most importantly I love having the chance to see the world in a different way thanks to you. You keep me grounded and remind me constantly of the important things in life, like stopping to stare at a rolly polly while laughing that belly laugh at how silly it is when it turns into a ball. It's the little things in life that matter... and you are an excellent reminder for me.

I continue to smile and laugh on a daily basis at how awesome you are as a big brother, you have exceeded my expectations in so many ways. You are a great teacher and protector for baby D (who is nearly your size now) outside of the brotherly "love taps" and "body slams". Watching you two together makes my heart happy.

How is it possible that I have a 3 year old, big brother, amazing, funny, energetic, smart, helping, loving son...

I cannot believe that you are 3 years old, I just really can't believe it. This year has gone by in the blink of an eye, I feel like I just turned around and you are a little man now. I want to bottle you up just as you are and force you to stay this age forever. It's a complete mix of emotions, I'm sad to watch you grow yet at the same time I can't wait to watch you evolve into a wonderful young man.

Little Dude you are amazing and I love you so much that it hurts. I wish you the happiest of birthdays and promise not to cry (too much) as you make a wish and blow out the candles on yet another cake. Read more!