Hi. Just wanted to put a picture on here that cheered me up. In my email it was moving its lips and chewing on something!

Thank God it's Friday! This was a long week. The kids and the teachers are ready for Spring Break. One more week to go...I hope we make it.

So we won't be going through Catholic Social Services, they're practically as expensive as other private agencies! So it things do go terribly wrong, we're probably going to have to go through the county services. But hey, the magic could happen this month!

I took my first dose today and it gave me a killer headache, but I don't have any sweating yet. And I did have a little emotional surge while in the car at lunch today. Otherwise, good to go so far. I think I'll talk Kendall into going out tonight...like it will really take much persuasion...haha!

Adoption

So the more I think about it, the more okay I am with adoption. I started looking into it today and I'm pretty sure we'll go through Catholic Social Services of the Miami Valley. I emailed them today to get more information.

I know I still have 4 tries at getting pregnant and that three of them are like super-loaded, but I just need to know that we're ready to move in the other direction if we need to. I talked to my mom about it last night and she actually seemed cool with it. I really wasn't expecting that.

I don't really have anything else to say today, just thought I'd let you all know where my mind is. I start my drugs on Friday....JOY! At least the weather is supposed to be nice.....

Last shot

So my progesterone levels were much lower this month than last month, but still high enough to make her happy. However, since this is our last try on our own, she wanted to make sure I had a powerhouse of hormones in there for Kendall's little guys, so she tripled my dose of Clomid. I'm a little nervous about that. On the small dose I had hotflashes, headaches, and the occassional word vomit. What will triple the dose do to me? Well I guess we'll find out in 4 days. I'm sure I'll share on here, much to your enjoyment.

We also discussed what the plan was going to be if I didn't get pregnant in April, and the major problem is that Kendall works so far away and his schedule is much less flexible than mine. He needs to be able to get to the doctor within an hour. My doctor is looking into it, including places near Wilmington, and Kendall is biting the bullet and asking too. He really is a good husband. He's willing to share with his colleagues our embarrassing woes and ask where we can have insemination done. I know that can't be good for his "manhood". He really has been great throughout this whole thing. I can't imagine what my life would be like without him. I know that even if we can't have kids of our own, he's going to make a wonderful dad, even if it is someone else's baby.

Nervous

I have to go see the doctor in an hour. I'm worried she's going to tell me something didn't go right this month, on top of my already-large-mound of disappointment. I'll let you know what she says. Hopefully she won't make me cry this time. I have to go by myself today because Kendall is at work and Jessica started her new job. I'm physically shaking. Ugh.

Try #14

Well, I'm pretty confident that try #14 was a failure. Took my temperature the last two days and it's way low. No sign of my dear "friend" yet, but she's on her way. I'm just so tired of doing this. I'm tired of getting my hopes up again and trying so hard and waiting anxiously and then just being disappointed all over again. It makes me hate people who can do this naturally when I can't even do it with extra help.

I think the worst part about this month is that it officially means that Dathan and Natalie were inadvertantly right...there will only be one grandchild next Christmas. And that's just killing me right now. Totally killing me.

When we started this whole idea last February, I never thought I'd be sitting here, 14 months later, hating my life and wishing we had never started this whole mess. Oh and did I mention that try #15 is our last chance at any remote "normalcy". Then my baby has to come from a turkey baster. Very nice.

If I've upset anyone, I can't honestly say I'm sorry, this is just how I feel. And please don't try to leave any words of encouragement, right about now they'd make me vomit.

So Ready for Spring Break

I'm so sick of the kids at school. Our Spring Break isn't until the week before Easter. That means two more weeks until I get a week a way from these little monsters. They're tired of being there too. They're getting worse. I had a kid paint a blue circle around his belly button today at the end of class. I wanted to kill him. Yesterday, a kid was licking his workbook cover in the middle of class instead of doing his work. No, I don't teach in the Special Ed classroom. These are just stupid 8th graders.

I swear to God if Spring Break doesn't hurry up and get here, I might kill myself. The only nice thing is that after Spring Break, we only have 6 weeks of school left. I just have to keep telling myself I can make it.

Two totally unrelated topics...

1. Bloodwork- I had my blood drawn for what feels like the millionth time today in my baby saga. I'm honestly so tired of doing this whole process that I just wonder if God is trying to send me a message...not sure what that message is yet, but I'm trying to figure it out. While I was waiting, there was another couple there and the girl was very excited about something. She was practically bouncing off her seat. When she came out of the room after her blood draw, she said to the nurse, "My husband just had the shock of his life today when we found out we were having twins!" I almost burst into tears. She's there for something exciting and I'm there for something crappy. It's just not fair. The one plus, this woman was so good with a needle that I didn't even realize she stuck me. It was incredible. Her exit pressure was a little shabby as I have a small bruise forming on my arm, but I was very impressed with her sticking skills.

2. A response to a friend's blog about religion...Kendall and I have been going though this since we were dating. He's a Christian mutt. I was raised Catholic. I have compromised over the years and attended various churches for him. We went to a Methodist church for a while but I just wasn't getting the vibe. It was a nice compromise between his comfort level and mine. Enough Catholic tradition, but not mass. I do wish that we had been married in the Catholic church, but everyone was just making it too difficult.

We're going to a Baptist Church right now where many of our friends go. I like it for the social aspect, but neither of us is willing to become Baptist and we aren't really sold on their service.

Since we've been trying to have a baby for over 14 months now, I've thought about this topic a lot. I've told Kendall on numerous occassions that we will raise our children Catholic. Two reasons why, neither of which is really that strong of a case, but my honest reasons.

1. I was raised Catholic, my whole family is Catholic, and I want my kids to be Catholic.

2. It's the hardest denomination of Christianity to become a member of. Most others require a baptism. Catholics require you to give up a year of your life to studying the catechism and then you have to be baptized, reconciled, communioned, and confirmed. It's honestly a little ridiculous.

I've actually asked Kendall to become Catholic too. I told him he doesn't have to make a decision right away, but I'd really like him to think about doing it. Since our children will be raised Catholic I want him to be able to participate and not feel left out. I think he'd be more inclined to go Methodist, but I have to say I feel pretty strongly on this one, and I never thought I would. I'm not quite sure what will happen with Kendall, but I do know that this is something I won't compromise on when it comes to how my children will be raised. It so strange how we start to feel different about things as we get older. How they become more of a priority.

Some sad news

Without getting into details, we got some sad news from the Kipps this morning when we opened our email. For those of you that went to UD, you should at least recall Ryan Kipp as Kendall's roommate his senior year. He was also a groomsman at our wedding. Kendall was a groomsman at his as well.

Laura Kipp is probably a little harder to place. I had the pleasure of getting to know her over the year that the four of us practically lived together at 446 Lowes St. She is most infamously known (and I hope you don't kill me Laura) as Commando Girl. Our old housemate Emily lived with her Freshman year and "claimed" that Laura said she went commando. Laura found the story hilarious when I finally shared it and assured me that she does in fact wear underwear.

We also enjoyed a week in Disney World with them this past June. They were incredibly generous and shared their Disney Vacation points with us so we didn't have to pay for a room. We stayed in a beautiful resort and enjoyed a well needed vacation together.

I just want Laura to know that we are thinking about them and praying that they are doing okay. I hope that they are able to draw strength from each other and from God and that they come to peace with this sad situation. We're here if you need anything. We want to come see you soon. We're trying to save money to come see you in June. We'll call you soon.

I put the picture up of Laura and I in the hopes that it at least gives her a small chuckle.

Another Boss Story

So he gets even more annoying yesterday. Asks me to stop down in his office so he can talk to me about my article in the school newsletter. Let me post it here and see if you can figure out what he wanted to gripe about BEFORE I tell you. Because I had NO CLUE when I went down....

"Students in Mrs. Erdahl’s classroom spent the third quarter reading Science Fiction and Horror stories. The class encountered ghosts, madmen, mystery, and even a few murders! The focus of the unit was on mood, tone, and foreshadowing. We also practiced writing short answer and extended response questions for the 8th grade Reading Achievement Test. We are now beginning a novel about the Underground Railroad entitled The House of Dies Drear. Students will be reading this book through March and the begin-ing of April in prepara-tion for a field trip to the Freedom Center in Cincinnati. "

Any idea yet? Okay, it was over the word "Horror". He was worried that parents would be upset that the kids are reading these stories. He would have preferred I just said "Science Fiction". I told him that they were two totally separate genres and that horror was a recognized genre. He basically said he would prefer I lie (he didn't say lie but that's what he meant). I told him that I got the word from our textbook. The book that was BOARD APPROVED. He said, "Well I'll need to see it. Make sure you show me where it says that in the textbook."

The whole time we were having this conversation my mouth was practically hanging open and I couldn't stop thinking, "Are you kidding me???????" It's become quite the joke with my team. While I'm slightly paranoid that it will get back to him that I am joking about the situation, a HUGE portion of my could care less if he hears it, because that's exactly what it is- a HUGE joke.

This man needs to retire, and soon. Oh, and I DID prove it to him. I photocopied the page in our book where it named Edgar Allen Poe as the father of the horror story.

Good girl!

So this isn't the most exciting of blogs, but I just felt I needed to share that Maggie is successfully not peeing in the house anymore.

For the longest time she has been peeing in her cage when we are away at work. She doesn't do it at any other time. So I told Kendall we needed to start gating her into the kitchen. She knows she's not allowed to pee in the house.

So I tried it early last week and she had an accident that day. But it was okay, because I don't mind yelling at her there. My worry was that she would be afraid of her cage if I started yelling at her for peeing in there, which wouldn't be good. Because my in-laws watch the dogs sometimes and put them in their cages when they leave the house. (At our house they just get gated into our bedroom.) So I yelled at her for going in the house and she was very contrite.

Since that day, no accidents! Every day I get really excited when there's nothing there and she hops around the kitchen and barks at me. It's all very exciting. It's my equivalent of potty training your kid. It's just so nice to not have to do laundry every day because she peed on her blanket!

Snaps to Maggie Erdahl!

High Class

May I also note the "classy" man next to him grabbing his own crotch? I have no idea who that is, but I wouldn't be shocked to hear it was a relative of his or someone else I went to high school with.

Memory Lane

Now

In 1997

I want you to look very carefully at both of the pictures. The man in the black shirt in the upper photo is supposedly the same boy that I dated my freshman year of high school. This was my FIRST EVER boyfriend. A mutual friend from high school who I've been talking with recently on MySpace sent me this photo.

I still can't believe it's the same person. I mean, the whole giving the camera the finger thing, very high school. But I just can't believe that this is the same person! In high school this kid was like 6'3", and I wouldn't say he was a stick, he played hockey and all, but he was definitly not the brick wall he is in this photo.

I am SO looking forward to my 10 year high school reunion....so somebody better organize one. And I should probably lose about 30 pounds....*smile*

Is this 1956 or 2006?

So I had quite the interesting meeting with my boss today over my evaluation. I basically told him he totally caught be off guard with a portion of my evaluation and that I'd like to know where it came from. Had I done something or said something that made him grade me that way? He said it was all based off of an isolated 2-3 weeks a couple weeks back. He said my emotions were getting involved in my job and he was concerned that my personal life was affecting my job.

It's true, my personal life is affecting my job, I won't lie, but what shocked me was that he was basing my entire school year off of a 2-3 week time period! I said to him, "Let's be frank...I was on hormone therapy. Of course I was emotional, that's a side effect of the drug." I also told him that I was offended that he would evaluate me in that way. I then further addressed the issue by reminding him of another teacher who had had a bad year last year...and coincidentally had the same kids I did. I told him I didn't think it was fair to grade me so lowly when it was such an isolated period of time.

He said he was willing to change the grade. But then....this is where I get realllllly riled up and pump my feminist fist in the air.....he said something to me that almost made me quit my job on the spot. As I was sitting there he said, "Maybe you need to consider substitute teaching next year. Nowadays we put so much stress on women in the workplace and ask them to be so productive that I think it prevents women from getting pregnant. I've told my own daughter the same thing. Maybe you need to take a year off if you really want to be a mom. Or maybe in August you need to decide that you're going to stop trying and make being a teacher your focus. Now I'm not trying to tell you what to do with your life. I think you're a good teacher and I don't have an hesitations about rehiring you, but this is something you should think about."

My mouth almost dropped. That's practically sexual discrimination! Telling me to either quit my job or quit trying to have a baby. I almost quit then and there. But I held my tongue. I think I'm just going to plan on taking a VERY long maternity leave next year if I have a baby.

Oh Babies!

So I went to church today with the intention of sitting through the service. As the Jessicas and I sat down and started chatting before service began, another girl from our Sunday School class came up to us and said that the nursery needed at least 6 more people because no one had showed up to relieve people from the first service. So as the music was starting and the lights were coming up, we all get up out of the row and head to the nursery...which was a little embarrassing...the people around us were staring because it looked like we were all just leaving church!

So we show up to the 12-24 months room and Jessica G asks, "Who in here was covering for first service?" And all of the ladies stand up! So one lady says, "I'm going to had you this baby and run!" and proceeds to hand me a crying baby. They ditched as fast as they could. As the 4 of us looked around the room (Rob came too) we saw 14 babies, at least 5 of them crying. So we started picking them up and comforting them. The boy I was holding, a little guy named Grant, just wouldn't stop crying. He proceeded to droll all over my shirt. Finally we realized he was "fake" crying. So I put him down and we let him just fake it for a while. Eventually he gave up.

There were some super cute babies in there and we all agreed that we wanted children just like them. By the time service was over a hour and 20 minutes later, we were all sweaty, sticky, covered in drool, and utterly exhausted! I am planning on signing up to cover nursery with the Jessicas from now on, but after today, maybe I should rethink that! No, honestly, I loved it. It totally reinforced that my baby obsession is totally valid. I loved being in the room with them and can't wait to have my own drooly, crying little monster.

GINORMOUS Pile of Laundry

No really, it's got to be as big as a baby hippopotamus. I'm going to take a picture of it at some point and post it on here. I'm so embarassed. And I'm shocked at the sheer volume of clothes that I own. OMG....what have we done?!!?!!? Why or why did we let the clean laundry pile so high?????

Life before People Magazine

I really don't know how I lived before I started subscribing to this bible of American culture. I look forward to People magazine day every week. I've even blogged about People Magazine Day before. And another one has rolled around.

Here's how truely obsessed I am with it. My house is a shit hole right now. Am I cleaning it? Am I folding the Mt. Vesuvius of laundry piled up in the office behind me? Have I washed the dishes from last night's tacos? Of course not, I'm going to sit here and read People!

It's a Special Double Issue! How could I resist! And I should note, this isn't the current cover, but I needed a visual for you all to appreciate!

Stupid Boss and Stupid Evaluation

So my boss gave me my culminating evaluation for the year...which is total crap to begin with because he doesn't really understand the model he grades me under. The last time, he had given me a "Basic" (which means needs some basic improvement) in a category that made no sense based on the comments he also wrote. So I told him he was wrong and if he was going to nail me for anything it fit under a different category. So he said "My bad" and fixed it. He didn't even attempt to hide that he was wrong! This concerned me considering this evaluation goes in my permanent file at the board office and other people can read it.

So when I looked over my final eval, which should just be a summary of the whole school year and my previous three evaluations, he has marked something as Basic that he's never marked that way before. He then proceeds to make a comment based on it. So I go back to my three evals and two of them are marked as Proficient (which means that I'm doing fine) and one of them is marked as Distinguished (which means I'm going above and beyond)! So I'm like, "What the hell is this all about?" I think he's just grasping at straws looking for something to put as a suggestion. The problem is, the one he marked would indicate that I don't care enough about the kids and that I'm not fair with them. Now that's what makes me really angry. I totally think I'm fair, and why would I be a teacher if I didn't care about kids? There are so many other jobs I could be doing that would pay MUCH better money.

I'm so irritated that I wanted to walk down to his office and be like, "What the crap?" But I've been trying to maintain a calm and detached air to the situation. I can't go in and tell him he's a moron, but I do plan on going in and asking him to clarify why he would suddenly drop my "grade" without warning.

This also led me to start thinking in the car, that maybe I should be in law school, because I certainly love to argue and to prove people wrong. And fight injustices. Grrrr.....

Things that annoy me

1. People who don't use their blinkers.

2. Very closely followed by people who don't check their blind spots.

3. People who do not apolgize with "the wave" when they don't use their blinker, or check their blind spot and then slowly start to drift into your lane. And then you end up honking your horn at them and they erratically swerve back into the other lane, only to speed up and then cut you off!!!!

Can you tell what my drive home was like?

Being a Teacher

1. Not related to teaching- Sarah Ford, you need to update your blog. I'm bored and your blog is NOT entertaining me.

2. I'm starting to think that I have several kids who made a bet to see who could piss me off the most in a day. I have this one kid who gives me these evil little grins when he does stuff that pisses me off. I want to grab him by his throat when he does it. Another kid makes me so made sometimes that I envisioned smacking him in the back of the head with a pencil the other day.

3. Some kids are annoying but I still like them...and I have n0 idea why! Maybe it's because their annoyance is something I would have done at their age and so I find it acceptable. I did tell one of them though that I was imagining myself kicking him. That made the kid, and me, laugh. I then told the same kid to get out of my room before I failed him for the quarter out of sheer spite. He laughed and ran out. While I recognize that I was annoyed, I still like the kid and look forward to seeing him every day so he can annoy me some more. Maybe I'm just pretending annoyance?

4. I have testing again tomorrow and I'm planning on torturing the kids with silent reading during 8th period. They were total monsters on Monday, so this is my revenge....that and I moved a kid over to the "window seat" which means his back is to the whole class and he has to look out the window the whole day. He was pissed, so of course I was supremely happy! I guess I can get back at them even if it's just in little ways.

5. I'm tired of the kids telling me that the kids that have the other language arts teacher have better grades than my kids do. My kids complain that because of homework their grades are suffering. The other teacher gives little to no homework every night and the kids sit there for most of the period listening to her lecture. While I would like to tell my kids this, and that they would be bored out of their gourds, I have to be diplomatic and polite and say that Mrs. So-and-so and I have different teaching styles and that my kids wouldn't be failing if they did the homework! That's secretly what they're mad about...homework. Maybe I should start giving them MORE....*evil laugh* BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Dreary Day

So I'm having a down kind of day. The weather is icky. We had to sit through 3 periods of state testing today. The kids were totally wound up afterwards and were total monsters the last period of the day. On top of all of that I'm feeling very poor. We have to save up a ton of money for our taxes, which we weren't expecting to pay. We used all of our savings on this stupid infertility already. On top of that we're going to have to start saving for more infertility if I don't get pregnant in the next 2 months. I only get two more tries on Clomid and then we have to move on to something more expensive.

Then....I forgot that Karen was going on a trip to Florida this week and so I opened her blog to read about Disney World. It got me thinking about our vacation there this past summer with the Kipps and how much fun we had even when we were hot and tired. And it made me start thinking about how we can't afford to go on any vacations this year (as in the entire calendar year of 2006 and maybe 2007) because we're paying for this infertility. And it just made me sad, because it's not fair that we can't have a baby for free like thousands of other people.

Oh yeah, AND I'm still on my Clomid...last day thank God....and there's no good TV on tonight. *Pouting*

Randomness

So based off the overhwelming repsonse I got to the Adam issue, I'm probably not going to contact him. I figure I'll just wait for our ten year class reunion. I did have a strange dream that he was in last night, but for the first time EVER in a dream that he was involved in, he looked like he does now. Not like my high school Adam. Very strange.

On a totaly different topic, why is it that when Maggie has puke breath, meaning she's puked somewhere and I haven't found it yet, that she wants constant attention? Like right now she's putting her pukey face near my arm and wagging her tail. The fact that I am not allowing her in my lap because of her stinky breath makes her want to be in my lap even more.

It's People Magazine Day! (Think Billy Madison's voice.) I'm going to page through the wonderful glossiness and then I'll be sad because I read it too fast and will have to wait for next Friday to get another one. And yet, I do it the same way every week. Weird....

I'm on the second day of my Clomid...again...and this time the headaches and hotflashes came on right away. Today I was so warm that I had to open a window and the kids were screaming about how cold it was. Okay, they weren't screaming because I'd kill them if they did....but they were definitely whining.

Kendall and I are going to his parent's house tomorrow to celebrate his dad's birthday. I'm sure that I'll have a story to tell after this visit. Between the inflamatory things my mother-in-law will probably say and the Clomid, I'm sure I'll have something to share....

I just had to post this picture. It's been cracking me up ever since I found it in my DC pictures.

I had the assistant principal take this picture while we were in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum...which I kept emphazing we need to go to cause the kids would love it....and they DID!

There were some kids watching while she took the picture and it just cracked us all up. This is one of those moments that I caputured where I truely enjoy being a teacher.

One last thing...

My biggest myspace dilemna is whether or not to try to get in contact with Adam. He is occassionally on instant messaging and recently he's created a myspace page. There is just this part of me that really wishes we could have been friends in the end. I totally take a large portion of the blame for being a psycho after he dumped me, but when you're 18 and think you're in love and there's no one else, you just can't help some of the crazy things you do. He was such a significant part of my life and there's still this aching need to make things right between us. He probably doesn't even care. What do you all think? Should I try to get in contact? We probably have nothing in common anymore. Is it worth it?

Myspace.com Junkie

So not only am I now addicited to this damn blogging thing, I also have an additional craving...myspace.com

It's like an overglorified version of classmates.com in my opinion. But it's free!!!! And you can post pictures, and have a friend network, and email, and music, and....OMG! There's just too much! Are you laughing yet?

The best part is that you can search for members of your graduating classes, be that elementary school, high school, college, etc. I've found so many of my old "friends" from high school! It's become a bit of a problem because I want to get on there every day and see if anyone new has shown up. I guess this MySpace thing is becoming a HUGE craze. The problem is, now every day I get home from work (Stupid school blocks these sites) and end up spending at least on hour on the computer between blogging, reading blogs, and myspace. I should be at the gym working out. I should be making dinner. But I'm not...*grin*

Dr. Meanie

If you don't want to read about girl/baby stuff, don't read any further!

I went to see the OB/GYN today. Heard my blood results...I had like a ridiculously high level of progesterone in my body last month...which is very good news. It must have been a case of just not making contact between my one egg and Kendall's 17 million sperm. How stupid is that? 17 million and not one of them could find it's way to the egg? I totally imagine the Simpson's episode where they show the making of Lisa. The Homer sperm are bouncing off the walls going, "Doh!" That's what I imagine happened last month. It makes it easier to think about.

So Dr. Meanie had a plan. I'm going to try the Clomid for two more cycles. If we don't get pregnant within that time, Kendall has to go get tested again...which will only be funny because of his last experience in the office...poor Kendall.....

If his levels come back "low" then we have to do something involving a "wash" and a "turkey baster". LOL! Just kidding. But it is kinda like that. Everybody better pray we don't get to that point, because I really don't know how to tell my kid we had to baste him/her...my future children should not be treated like Thanksgiving dinner!

I'm tempted to do the whole "appeasing God" thing by going to get ashes on my forehead today...but I don't think God bargains....hmmm...maybe I'll go, just in case....