I got a pamphlet in the mail from the AFA about their Fertility and Adoption Conference in New York City on April 29th. I really really want to go. I asked Den how far a drive that is, he said 4 hours (Google Maps says 3). He in NO WAY wants to go to New York City. And going alone makes me feel really nervous, especially since it’s in NYC (I’ve never been in NYC, btw). But damn…. I want to go!! It sounds so interesting, tons of information, I would love to attend.

I guess I just need to work on the logistics of driving all that way for a one-day conference. :/

Update: I’ve been researching all day. The train does seem to be cheap enough, but they don’t run early mornings, so I’d miss the entire morning of the conference… pretty stupid. But staying overnight at a hotel is just not in the cards. I’ve done more searching and found that I could stay at a youth hostel for about $35 for the night – but I’d have to share a room with others. Is that a big deal? I don’t know if hubby would want me doing that. But it’s not like I need more than a bed for a night. (Wireless internet would be a bonus, though.)

Den keeps saying to me, “Is there never going to be another conference anywhere else?” I don’t know. Maybe there will be one in Boston someday. I don’t know. But the point is I’m going through this now. And I don’t really know why I want to go to this conference so bad. It sounds like it’s right up my alley… I love conferences, I love learning, I love lectures. And this is a topic that’s very near and dear to my heart. New York is honestly so close (in the grand scheme of things) and it seems like a waste if I didn’t go because it was a hassle.

But I’m still looking at around $180 for the conference fee, the train, the hostel, and a couple of meals. And maybe I should put that money towards something else. :(

Update2: I think I found something! The Metro-North train line runs from/to Grand Central out to New Haven, CT. It would be an hour and a half drive down to New Haven for me, but then I’d catch a train that would cost me only $30 both ways, get into Grand Central Station just before 7am which is when registration starts. Then when the conference gets out I can hop right back on the train and go home! I wouldn’t get to see any of New York, unfortunately, but it’s not like I can’t go back someday… preferably with my husband. But it brings costs down to a level that I can do this. :D Yay!

Ooooo, my body likes to fuck with me, yes she does. This morning I have no spotting, no tinge of pink. Nothing. But my cervix is wide open. Gah.

Well, nothing yet. Which is not surprizing to me, as it seems that I notice spotting internally long before I actually start bleeding. And here I always thought my body doesn’t give me signals.

The other major signal my body is sending out is major bitchitis. All week I have been THE biggest bitch in the entire world. I’m generally okay at work, and I felt very good doing the grocery shopping this morning. But soon as I get home? I just turn into Ms. Crankipants Extrordinaire. A part of that may be because my kitchen is a literal disaster – we’re remodelling and the state of everything is driving me nuts. We seriously need to start cleaning up and putting things back when we’re done for the day… I have no room to work, there’s stuff all over the counter, I have to sweep the floor of crud about 10 times a day, and I can’t get to the kitty litter boxes to clean them. Gah.

But regardless of that… my temper is getting up at everything. Especially poor Den. I say poor Den because I fully realize that 99% of the time I’m totally overreacting and he doesn’t deserve it. (The other 1% he fully deserves to be smacked.) I tripped over the laundry basket yesterday just after fixing myself a pb&j sandwich. I dropped half the sandwich on the floor. I threw a fit. Not at anything in particular – though I did toss the laundry basket in a thunk to the other side of the room. I spent all this time fixing the perfect pb&j, cut in quarters – on the diagonal! – and I drop it on the damn floor.

And this is me before I start the medications. This is rediculous.

It’s unfortunate that I need to work this weekend (at my home office), because I’m totally craving an all-for-Natalie day. I might even…. shave. Yes I know, shocking. (Last time I shaved my legs was months and months ago. And it caused me to suffer incredible itching for two weeks. NOT my idea of fun. I bought a new shaver and shaving cream today, fingers crossed it helps or Den may never let me wear shorts again.) Too bad our bathtub doesn’t work for baths.

Today again I checked my internal status. My cervix was low and open, a good sign for AF showing up soon. And sure enough, I had pinky-red CM! Looks like I’ll be getting AF late tonight or tomorrow.

OMG, how exciting is this, my IVF cycle is nearly starting!

Well, there is not the slightest hint of spotting. I hope this doesn’t mean that AF is still days away.

I am really feeling bad right now. All I want to do is go home and climb into bed with this here laptop and look up cloth diapers and make blinkies. But I’m at work and can’t leave for a little bit. :( I think I might just get stuff finished though so I can up and leave whenever I want. I just feel like hiding away from the world for a while.

How can one simple thing (getting your period before starting IVF) be something so exciting yet so sad and upsetting all at once? I just hope this doesn’t drag out. Please, let my body have ovulated normally this month.

Oh plus, I think I’m PMSing. I’ve been feeling totally out of whack the last couple of days… anxiety attack all Monday that made it hard to function, not wanting to sleep at night (or not being able to, I’m all wired and twitchy), and today when Den jumped into the room and shouted to “startle” me I nearly fell out of bed and yelled at him REALLY pissed off for like 15 minutes. I just keep double-checking to make sure I’ve taken my meds. I know I deal with wierdness now and then, but this is getting annoying.

I know it’s rediculous, but sometimes the last day or two I’ve caught myself thinking, Maybe I’m pregnant right now? I guess that hope never quite goes away, even at this stage.

I am feeling a little nervous about the IVF…. a little fear. Both fear of what I’m going to have to go through, and the fear of failure. I’ve gotten the trigger shots before and I know it’s not that big a deal really, but yet it is a big deal. And the thought of going through it and ending up with nothing just has me crying already. I have to focus on the cloth diapers and the baby gear and all the stuff that I will be using shortly… I have to believe that this is going to work.

Yes, I’m still on that silly cloth diapering kick. Lots of research. I love research. I should have been a scientist or analyst or something. ;)

There are a lot of opinions and a lot of ways to do things. A lot of my friends on the forums who do cloth diapering didn’t start until after the baby was 3 months old. That was my initial feeling too. But I’m SO gung ho on this I just don’t want to do disposables at all. But investing in a huge stash of pocket/all-in-one diapers for a newborn that they’ll outgrow in 3-6 months isn’t very financially doable. So here’s my current plan for a newborn:

36 prefolds at $1.00 each (Depending on the size/type. Right now I’m thinking Indian prefolds, some in preemie, some in infant size) = $40
A variety of different diaper covers, including Bummis Super Whisper Wraps, Whisper Pants, Proraps, and Stacinator Fleece. Estimate say around $80
4 Snappi fasteners for the prefolds = $10
6 doublers, 6 hemp inserts, 3 dozen cloth wipes = $80
Wahmies wet bags – 2 size small for the diaper bag, 1 wipes bag = $40
2 Swaddlebees pail liners (I think I like the elasticord better than the Wahmies elastic) = $40
Oh, plus I’m going to buy one or two of a couple different pocket dipers (Fuzzi Bunz, BumGenius, Swaddlebees) to keep on-hand for when Den will be in charge or when we go out and I want to show off the cool stuff. ;) I’m saying around $70 to experiment on size smalls.

So that grand total of all the stuff I will need to diaper my child until he/she grows out of the small size (3-6 months): $360. However a lot of this stuff can be used for far longer. The wet bags and pail liners are good for the entire time. The doublers/inserts and wipes will continue to be good for a long time, I just might want to add some more as we go. Snappis are good for the entire period. The diaper covers and the pocket diapers can be sold used for a pretty good price when they’re outgrown (or if I don’t like them) to recoup a lot of the cost (especially if I buy them used to start with). And the preemie/infant prefolds can be used as inserts in larger pocket diapers! To me that looks like a pretty decent investment.

Now I’m just hoping the prefolds are going to be as good as I’ve heard. A little more work than the pocket diapers, but certainly nothing mind-bending. (One option is folding them in thirds, placing them in the wrap, and velcroing/snapping it on. Even Den can do that!) And as long as the baby is being breastfed you can just dump the entire diaper in the wash, from what I’ve heard. (You have to wash the poop off into the toilet once they add other food to their diets, as it gets much nastier.)

Oh and did I mention? I went to Home Depot for some other project supplies and I of course went to look longingly at the front-loader washer and dryers. Turns out they have a special on, 10% off your first purchase over $279 using your Home Depot credit card, and 0 payments, 0% interest for 6 months. So Den decided we’re going to get them now!! (NOT what I was expecting!) The 0 payments for 6 months is most important, because we will have a bunch of cash coming in in August (a business trip Den’s going on) to pay it off…. we could wait until then to purchase them (what I was planning), but with 0% financing we can get them now and use them in the meantime. This makes me SO HAPPY. I will cry tears of joy when we chuck out our 20-year-old washer-dryer set we have. It SUCKS and it makes doing laundry very unpleasant.

I need to get pregnant so I can buy some diapers. I don’t think this obsession is going to go away until I get to play with them and stock up. I picture myself with my stash all clean and folded ready for baby and it makes me so happy.

I did not chart this month. I did not do OPKs. And since last month I was on BCPs it’s not guaranteed that I will have ovulated right on time this month. So I just sit and wonder – will my period arrive on Friday right on time? Will it be late? I hate not knowing.

I’ve decided my cycle ticker is a little bit useless now that I’m starting IVF. For my sig on various forums I created a blinkie that states my current stage in my IVF cycle – I created a blinkie for each “stage”. It makes me feel good to focus on the IVF.

Right now I’m just counting down. I really, really hope she’s on time.

So yesterday was Easter with Den’s family. I got them caught up on our IVF progress – or rather the fact that we’re going to start. They all basically knew that’s what we were going to do, so it wasn’t a long conversation or anything this time. They’re very excited to hear how it goes. (Yes, I’m still one of those “very Out” people!)

We talked about house improvements and kitchens and wallpaper and washers and dryers. I mentioned the frontloaders I want, and added that I want to do cloth diapers, so a new washer is a must. So we talked a little bit about the cloth diapers.

I get the feeling that in general people (at least relatives) don’t really take me serious with these things. (The cloth, the natural birth, etc – the crunchy things.) They think I’ll get to actual parenting and give it up for the “easy” way. And that’s frustrating. I know Den sometimes has doubts about me doing all that I want to do, but he knows I’m stubborn enough to pull it off if I set my mind to it.

The most interesting thing to me is that people don’t really understand what the crunchy things are. I’m far crunchier than anyone else in either of our families, so I’m kind of looked at like a little bit crazy – like someone who hasn’t come down to reality. I say “medication-free childbirth” and they picture me laying in the bed on my back screaming and crying and begging for medication. That’s not what I picture at all. And with cloth, well, I mention cloth diapers and of course their mind goes straight to flat cotton diapers with no cover that leak all over and are a pain in the butt to pin on. And of course that’s not how it is anymore. So I really do get excited at the prospect of showing up at family gatherings with my baby diapered in cloth to show it off. I really think people will be amazed and interested. It’ll be great to show off a different way of doing things.

The coolest thing that happened was that during the diaper debate Den waded in – to talk up cloth! He was telling his brother that the new designs are just like disposables, they snap or velcro on really easy, it’s all-in-one. And he mentioned how much cheaper it is in the long run. Of course he phrased it like this, “Supposedly, from what Nat’s read, it’s a lot cheaper in the long run…” but hey, I’m pretty impressed. Den’s pretty cool in that way… sometimes he’ll be reticent and appear like he’s not listening when I talk about stuff, but then he’ll go and tell other people what I said and honestly seem like he’s behind it. I think he will be a cloth convert once we get started. When he sees how easy they are, how well they work… I’m pretty sure he’ll be sold on the idea. He’d never take the initiative himself – like if something happened to be, light forbid, there’s not much chance that he’d continue cloth diapering and washing poopy diapers. He likes to vote for convenience. But with me doing the washing? Yeah, he’ll be fine. :)

Speaking of wraps, Kel just got a new sling that looks totally fabulous. She said it works really well. I mentioned it to Den and his first thing is, it’s too foofy for me. I rolled my eyes and told him he can use the backpack carrier, I’ll be using wraps and slings. He doesn’t seem to understand why people use them. His comment this morning, verbatim, was, “That’s what strollers are for.” I tried explaining that strollers are good to a point, but there are a lot of places strollers just aren’t ideal or practical. I don’t know if he’ll ever understand it honestly – though HE was the one who suggested getting a carrier in the first place (the structured, manly type, of course). So he must understand the use for it in some part of his brain. Either way I don’t expect him to be tying a wrap on – no way he’ll do that. Too much work, and too girly in his opinion. But I am certainly going to enjoy carrying my baby around all tucked in and happy!