Kathleen's Adventures

Still here. Still infertile.

2025-06-13T10:38:00.005-05:00

Sigh. Here we are again. We knew all along we would be able to start the process for baby #2 when Sloane was nine months old. I had said we did not necessarily want kids that close together, but knew just because we started then did not mean we would get pregnant then. If I had only known how true that is becoming. Silly us had started having visions of three kids. The only way we can have three kids is to have things go smoothly, not lose embryos, and not lose time. Well, so far we have lost an embryo and a lot of time in the quest for our next baby.

I breezed through prep for our transfer in early May. The stress load was so much less than before because I thought we had it figured out. We had Sloane as a great distraction. My lining was better than it has ever been before - by far. Then, the day after Mother's Day, I found out it did not work. And I was immediately thrown back into the depths of infertility hell. If anyone reading this wants to point out that I should be thankful I have Sloane at this point, I kindly ask you to stop reading and keep your opinions to yourself. Very very few of you reading this will ever fully understand what we have been through and what we are going through now.

We never wanted to know the sex of our six donor egg embryos, but the clinic somehow did not realize that and told us when they told us our PGT results. Four girls, two boys. While we did not want to know, we figured we could at least work with those numbers. We started with a girl, since we had more, and lost the first one. The second one is Sloane. Danny wants a boy for number two. I do not know the first thing about boys...well, except that they seem to love on their mamas for a lifetime. While I tend towards girls because I am from an allll girl family (one sister who had three girls), I admit a boy would probably be good for all of us. I then got it in my head that we will have our boy and then another girl. I want two of the same sex to be bffs (and let's face it - I have so many cute girl clothes that I REALLY want to be able to use again). If you are thinking "wow - she's really going out on a limb here with her wants and planning" you may be right - but this is what happens when you know the sex of your embryos. You cannot unknow the information. You have a harder time being thankful for x when you know y is a possibility. Again, this is a weird place few have ever found themselves in and you cannot possibly understand it unless you, too, have been here.

With two chances at a boy and a such a successful transfer with Sloane, I thought we had a pretty good chance of the first one working. I did not spend much time dwelling on what would happen if the first one did not work. Yet here we are. Stressed to the max. We have had a name picked out for years - and for the first time ever, I saw it on the wall at the nursery school at our church the week before our transfer. I felt certain that was a good sign. Now I cannot look at the wall when I walk down that hall.

We moved straight into another transfer cycle after the first failure - without much reason to think anything other than luck was the issue. It felt scary. Full of pressure to give Danny the boy he wants (and that I now want too). Only one chance left. I had an HSG in March as standard protocol post pregnancy to check for any changes in the uterus. The doctor doing the test asked if I had adenomyosis and I said not that I knew of. She asked if I had ever had any symptoms, and I said no. She said they would compare to my HSG from late 2020 and would let me know if they had any concerns. I never heard anything else about it and was not worried about it.

During the first transfer cycle, I had some pain after my trigger shot and felt similar to when I had had 25+ eggs ready for retrieval. It did not last long, but was a bit odd since I knew I only had one large follicle and a few smaller ones. Then, during our next transfer cycle, the pain was way more intense and lasted for a few days. As it always seems to, that cycle also nearly ruined our holiday weekend plans. I had to do bloodwork and an ultrasound the Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend - when we were supposed to be in Beaumont. So we did not leave until after that. And of course at that appointment, they said they needed to see me back Monday morning. In Austin. When I was supposed to be in Beaumont. So we left Beaumont at 5:30am Monday morning to get back. I saw a doctor who is not my regular doctor that Saturday and Monday due to it being a holiday weekend. Monday things looked like it was time to trigger, so we did that Monday night and scheduled the transfer for the following Monday. My lining was not as thick as the previous attempt, but still a little thicker than Sloane's cycle. The doctor said it was "7.x S." I did not know what the S was and did not think to ask. He was very quick in his measuring and only took one measurement where my normal doctor usually takes several measurements and different views. I shrugged it off at the time, but it festered a bit in my mind.

Triggering Monday night meant I ovulated Wednesday morning. The pain was enough for me to email my nurse to ask about it. My mind started wandering to the potential adenomyosis seen on my HSG. Ovulation pain is a symptom. The nurse said she talked to my doctor and he was not worried about it. He said he knows I am thorough, and he would be fine if we canceled the transfer and scheduled additional testing, but overall he did not think I had it and was not concerned. I talked to Danny (not wanting him to blame me if it failed and we did not get to have a boy) and he said he trusted the doctor and was fine moving forward. So that was our plan. Friday I got spooked again and emailed the nurse asking what the "S" meant in my lining measurement. She said it meant semi-trilaminar. A trilaminar pattern is the goal for the lining pre-transfer. While I have had issues with my lining being on the thin side, I have never had an issue with the pattern. It has always been perfectly trilaminar. She said the doctor again was not too worried about that. Another odd thing that happened is my estrogen level actually dropped from Saturday to Monday over Memorial Day - only a few points, but it should have been climbing. All this said, we understood we were still moving forward.

Sunday, the day before our scheduled transfer, I got a call from the office around noon. I did not answer it because Sloane was asleep. I assumed it was a nurse confirming transfer time. The voicemail was from my doctor asking if I had any questions. I shrugged it off because there is zero chance of calling back and actually getting the doctor on the phone. As far as I knew, per my nurse, he thought we were fine to transfer. Later, while we were driving home from our lake house, we got a call from him on his cell phone. He said if we want a boy and that is our last boy embryo, that we should not transfer and do some additional testing - he said we should treat it like our last embryo. I am so thankful he called when we were both able to be a part of the conversation - and grateful he called period because the translation from the nurse was not coming off with the same message we got when actually talking to him. So, 18 hours before our scheduled transfer, we canceled. I have not done the math on how much money we poured down the drain for that.

I stayed on my PIO injections while figuring out next steps and thankfully I was able to do a uterine biopsy that Wednesday and pelvic MRI on Thursday. Both have to be at a certain time in your cycle and thankfully we were in the window. The biopsy is called Receptiva DX that looks for a protein called BLC6. That is a marker of inflammation usually associated with endometriosis and adenomyosis. After the biopsy, Dr. Vaughn showed me my HSG and the area of concern and said he really did not think I had an issue, but that testing was still a good idea. The treatment if I was showing signs of adenomyosis is not a pretty one. I was beginning to really hope this was all a big to do about nothing and that we could confidently move into our next transfer.

I got the MRI results on Monday and they showed no signs of anything to worry about. I was beginning to think I was in the clear. I started doing the math of what an early July transfer meant - a March baby. (The cancelled transfer would have theoretically given me a birthday baby. The failed transfer would have given me a baby before I turned 45 - and the greatest chance at having the option to try for a third.) Wednesday my nurse called to say the Receptiva came back positive. Women with a positive Receptiva have less than an 11% chance of a live birth. So, here we are. The treatment plan calls for eight weeks of medically-induced menopause. Over the summer. Yea. They do this with lupron depot - one injection given, then four weeks later, another, then four weeks after that, transfer can theoretically resume.

We scheduled the first lupron depot injection to be given today (Friday). It has to be given in the very late luteal phase of your cycle, so I stayed on the PIO to stave off my period so we could do the injection ASAP. Otherwise, I would have to wait another month or go on birth control for a while before the shot - still a delay, but not a month. Lo and behold, my cycle started less than four hours before the appointment. So I spent time delaying my cycle with PIO injections for nothing. Had I not done the PIO, my cycle would have started earlier and I would have started birth control earlier, and would have been able to do the lupron depot some point early next week. I emailed my nurse this morning and of course the injection now has to be canceled. I have to start birth control Sunday, and she said next Friday is the earliest we can do the injection. One week delay does not sound terrible, but we will be out of town. Of course. So now the next Monday is the soonest we can do it.

I am glad we found an issue and are treating it. It just stinks that it is a several month delay and a treatment that comes with the potential for some really awful side effects. The other thing is once this treatment is done, we are basically looking at a big question mark. Most people come straight out of the lupron depot phase right into a fully medicated transfer protocol (where you do not ovulate and you just give allll the hormones). After four failed fully medicated transfers, we switched to a modified natural protocol that gave us Sloane. For a modified natural protocol, you take medicine to ensure you ovulate, and then your body makes a majority of the hormones needed to support the pregnancy. You just take low-dose progesterone and maybe a little estrogen. The lupron depot shuts everything down so there is a big unknown of how hard it may be to "wake everything up" afterward and get my body to ovulate. So this it not necessarily just a two-ish month delay. It could take several attempts on the back end to get my body going again. It feels so counterintuitive to have to shut everything down when the goal is to have it going. The lupron shutting everything down (ie no hormones) takes away the environment in which the endo/adeno can grow and eliminates the inflammation.

I have had several "you cannot make this stuff up" moments lately. It is not fun. The PTSD is real. I hate that we are here. Again. I do appreciate the precious little face that lights up when I see her. It does help take the sting away a bit. But in a way it makes the yearning that much stronger. I want to do it all again. These last 11 months have been amazing, and we want nothing more than to do it again, and to give Sloane a sibling (or two).

I’m probably not up for talking a lot about this with people who haven’t experienced similar situations. That may change, but is how I feel at the moment. Please do not ask me in September if I’m pregnant yet. Or ever. Trust we/I will talk when we/I feel like talking.

Into the Donor Egg World We Go

2023-02-22T10:09:00.005-06:00

As I sit down to write this, I'm shocked to see February 27, 2022 was the last post I've written about our IVF journey. In some ways, it seems like so much has happened over the last year, and on the other hand it seems like nothing has happened at all because we are back to square one.

I'll provide a quick summary of the last year, but please understand this won't even begin to describe the true roller coaster ride we have been on. I actually don't think it is even appropriate to call it a roller coaster because that indicates there are some ups. Our ride has been more like a train ride through hell.

After our failed transfer in February, we decided to take a break in March to let my body rest a bit before transferring our next embryo. During that time, a friend reached out and told me about her friend that hadn't had success here but did at CCRM in Colorado. At the time it almost felt like a divine intervention, but I now know better. We spent seven months and $15-20k on the CCRM leg of our train ride through hell and had nothing to show for it. Many have had success there, but our experience was not great. Their covid policy was so strict that I was more stressed out about their PCR test than the entire IVF cycle. We had to drive to/from Colorado instead of fly because we could not risk getting covid. I had to quarantine for a month before the cycle not once, but twice. My first retrieval was on July 4 and the week leading up to it was a total shit show because my nurse was out with covid (how ironic) and my doctor was out of town. I was a hot potato tossed around from nurse to nurse and I had to straight up dictate my care. Not what you would expect from the top IVF clinic in the nation. That round got us three embryos, but they turned out to all be abnormal. Our second round was in September. We found out they lifted their covid restrictions just before I left which was a huge relief - but too late to change our plans and just fly out there. My parents drove with me out there and Danny flew up later because he had school (he started the Executive MBA program at UT in August). That round we didn't even make any embryos to genetically test. Cool.

We went back to our Austin clinic after that to work on transferring our last two embryos. The November transfer failed. We found out the day before Thanksgiving. That was a lovely holiday. The December transfer resulted in a chemical pregnancy. We were supposed to get the call on Friday, December 30. We ended up going out on Lake Austin with one of Danny's friends. I was hesitant to go, knowing we were waiting on that call, but pepped myself up and told myself that it was a good thing. We would be right at the same area on the lake where Danny proposed over four years earlier when we got the call. I half figured I'd be going for a swim in that December water if the call happened to yield good news. Well, the call didn't come when we were on the lake. It came as we were putting the boat up and I just let it go to voicemail. We listened to it in the car on the way home and were surprised to hear that they did not have results yet (at 4:30pm) because of the holidays. Joy. I finally sucked up the nerves to just test at home and it was negative. I didn't even cry this time. I just said "let's go eat." As soon as we sat down at Lupe's (and just before I was going to order my first alcoholic beverage in weeks), they called back. The nurse said my HCG was a 7. Under 5 is negative, over 5 is technically positive, although my level should have been over 50 at that point. I had just listened to a podcast where a RE said she has had ONE patient go on to have a live birth after having a HCG level of 7. I was hoping for a nice clear break heading into the new year - either I'd not be pregnant and I could work on healing my body, or I'd be pregnant and we would have something to celebrate. Instead, I entered "beta hell" - where you watch your HCG levels across several days to see if it is increasing or decreasing. I had to stay on my meds (two intramuscular injections on odd days and one on even days) until I tested again the next Monday. That day my HCG was an 8. Whohoo. That number needed to be in the 30-40s by that point to have any hope. Thankfully they let me end my meds then and it was over. That was my last embryo. We had been unable to make any more. That was my last chance at genetic children.

I knew donor eggs was our next step, but had been beyond overwhelmed at the thought. Not because it meant the child would not be genetically related to me, but because of the huge mountain it felt like we had to climb to get there. The donor market is an unregulated for-profit industry that makes me sick. Literally I was physically stressed each time I thought about having to navigate it. Thankfully I took it on the way you'd eat an elephant...or do an ironman...one bite or step at a time...and it does not feel quite so bad anymore.

Danny and I began the process by meeting with a counselor (required by most clinics for third-party reproduction). When I first started telling Danny what I knew about using donor eggs, I realized I had been preparing for this possibility for over a year while he was pretty much in the dark about all of it. I was pretty adamant from day one that I had two stipulations: 1) I wanted a fresh cycle - where we match with a donor and we have a fresh fertilization of all eggs from that cycle and 2) that we had a known ID situation. I suppose I had a few additional stipulations, but they were kind of built into the regular donor selection process (I wanted young...but most programs won't take donors over 28 or 30, and I wanted educated, or on the way to being so). The alternate to a fresh cycle is to buy frozen eggs from an egg bank. They are generally sold in lots of 6-8. A lot is generally in the ballpark of $18k. The fees from my clinic to use those eggs for a transfer to me are in the ballpark of $18k. If you know anything about IVF thus far, you would know that 6-8 eggs is not a lot. You'd be lucky to get 1-2 genetically normal embryos from that. Chances of having one kid, not to mention two, from that are pretty low. Keep in mind we are 100% cash pay at this point. A fresh cycle at my clinic in Texas costs $35-40k and would generally yield 20-25 eggs. Do the math there. I feel like the frozen banks are just preying on desperate intended parents and advertise as the lower-cost option when in fact they are not always that. The second piece, known ID, or some form of that, means that the donor-conceived child has the option to reach out to the donor at age 18. A majority of egg (and sperm) donation in the US is still 100% anonymous and this infuriates me to no end. This market is out to protect the donors, not the children. Who am I to make the decision for my future child that they will never get to know/meet their donor? Closed adoption is a thing of the past, so I don't understand why we are still here with donor eggs and sperm. This is the part Danny wasn't sure of and it was actually his idea to meet with a counselor before we went any further - to better understand the implications of anonymity, etc. I was happy to oblige and think it is great we have a relationship established with a fertility counselor now.

Many will say "well with 23andMe and other DNA testing sites these days, no one is truly anonymous anymore." I would agree, however I would hate for my child to find their donor online and then the donor say they want absolutely nothing to do with the child, and that they had no intention of ever being found. My clinic in Austin, Texas Fertility Clinic, has a good in-house donor program. I have heard the donor pool isn't that large, but it would be very convenient as it is my home clinic. Unfortunately, they were out from day one as they are 100% anonymous. I spoke to the donor coordinator to ask if they would at least ask a donor if they were open - if we agreed to pay for a separate legal agreement - and I was told again "we are 100% anonymous." So, the next several weeks were spent researching clinics that would meet my two criteria. Facebook groups actually provided the best information. We ended up finding a clinic in Utah that has great reviews.

I told myself from early January that this could take a while...to prepare for at least four to six months of sitting idle...while growing older by the day. We had initial contact with UFC (Utah Fertility Center) in mid January. We got access to the donor database immediately, but could not reserve a donor until we had a consult. That wasn't scheduled until February 27. Nothing happens quickly when time is literally slipping through your hands. Thankfully, they had a cancellation and we got to move up to February 6. By that time, we had narrowed the pool down to two donors. The database has ~220 donors in it. We first narrowed it down to ~10 donors and requested additional info on each. The info we see in the database does not include whether or not the donor is open to contact, so the clinic had to provide that separately. Out of the 10 we chose, only two were open to contact. That narrowed things down very quickly. Donor 1 is a redhead that looks like she could be our daughter...she looks very much like my oldest niece (more on that one later). Donor 2 showed up in the database a bit later and is blonde, brown eyed, and runs marathons. I was instantly all for her. She was also adopted which made me more drawn to her for whatever reason. To be fair, she looked nothing like me, but sounded great. Donor 1 had done one previous retrieval of 23 eggs that went to a bank. Donor 2 had done three previous cycles. Cycle 1 and 3 made 8-9 normal embryos each which is amazing. Cycle 2, though, was only 7 eggs and only 1 normal embryo. Note each of those cycles cost the intended parents the same. Such a f'n crapshoot. The doctor told me Donor 2 sounded like a slam dunk and that they would research her 2nd cycle for me. During that research time, we found out she had two more cycles signed up - in March and April. So, we could have May. The limit for # of cycles there is six domestic and four international, and only three at a time without a several month break. So, we would be number six if we went with her. The advantage was that we could see how the March and April cycles went and if they had poor outcomes, we could change donors (and be back at square one with regard to timing). The risk was that she could decide at any point between now and then that she doesn't want to do it anymore, or wants to take a break, and we are SOL. That put us back on Donor 1, but then we found out the only info they could get from the bank on her 23 eggs is that they had so far resulted in three failed transfers. We have no idea how many embryos total they made; we have no idea if it is one family or three; we have no idea if the embryos were tested before transfer; we have no idea what the sperm quality was that fertilized those eggs; we have no idea if the intended mother(s) had uterine issues; and the list goes on and on. Danny told me he did not feel good about her anymore and I said "welcome to this process...did you think it was going to be easy?" We did find out Donor 1 did not have any cycles planned so we would be first in line with her. We were leaning towards her, but had not decided for sure. On my birthday, my niece Molly (whom Donor 1 looks like) brought me lunch and I went to show her the two options. Only, I couldn't find Donor 2. Her last cycle had been reserved and we lost out on reserving her. So, while at dinner for my birthday/Valentines, Danny and I decided to go with Donor 1 and sent in our request. We found out the next day that she is available to cycle in April. Once again, we just wait...and hope she does, in fact, cycle in April and hope that she makes tons of great eggs that make tons of great embryos for us.

I had hoped this period of waiting would be good for me emotionally and physically. I have gained over 30 lbs in the last two years - 10 of those pounds coming in just the last two months of treatment. I was hoping coming off the steroids and hormones would help me shed some weight and start to feel a bit more normal. Well, here I am over six weeks post any drugs, and I have not lost a pound...if anything I have continued to gain. My face is at least not twice its normal size anymore (steroids do that), but overall, I am still so uncomfortable. I have no clothes that fit. The clothes I have bought over the past year to be "fat clothes" no longer fit. I'm trying to run, but it is hard. I'm running 3-4 days a week and in the gym 3 days a week most weeks. The good news there is even though running is hard, I still do it. I am very thankful for my Gazelles running group - for a place to show up three days a week to not run alone. And the cool thing about the gym is even though I'm bigger than I have ever been, I can still lift quite a bit of weight - possibly more than ever before. I had to be careful to not get carried away on the steroids. Speaking of those stupid steroids, I broke out in full body hives after coming off them cold turkey after my failed November transfer, so I tapered after the December failure. I thought I was in the clear, but sure enough the hives crept up once I was completely off and I itched constantly for weeks. Thankfully, that seems to have finally resolved. I had a series of lymphatic drainage massages, I'm seeing a new acupuncturist, and followed up with my functional medicine doctor to see if they can provide any help. I know now that I have at least 2.5 months (possibly far more) before I start back on any sort of treatment. I pray my body can start to feel like itself at some point in that time.

A silver lining of our break in treatment is that we have more free time and flexibility on our hands. We have spent that free time splitting our time between Beaumont and Austin. My best friend's mother (who has basically been my second mom for 40 years) was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in early January. Kelly (bff) grew up across the street from me and our parents have now lived across the street from each other for 40 years. Kelly and her sweet little family have relocated from their home in Vancouver, WA to Beaumont for the foreseeable future. While I shed zero tears over our last failed transfer and have yet to fully grieve the loss of my own genetic children, the tears poured nonstop for the first several weeks after her diagnosis and still creep up here and there. Kelly's mom is truly an angel here on earth and her diagnosis is just another reminder (more like a slap in the face) that life isn't fair. Danny and I have become very good at living in complete limbo and being fully aware that life is not fair. This situation just continues to remind us of that. I will say though that our time in Beaumont has been really nice. My parents haven't complained about us being here making the dining room look like command central (our offices)...yet. Kelly and I have not spent more than a week or two together in any given year since college. Seeing her and her girls regularly is such a treat. Seeing my mom with them makes my heart swell. There is something about Beaumont, and people from Beaumont - seeing my friends swoop in and help her out however they can has been amazing. Running in Beaumont...not so amazing...but I am trying. I cannot even explain my awe over Danny in this situation. He swooped in immediately and said we can spend as much time in Beaumont as we need to. He then insisted on flying to Portland to drive from Washington state all the way to Texas with Kelly's husband and their two dogs. This is my best friend we are talking about here - not Danny's. He did not even meet them until four years ago and he is treating them like family. He has not complained once about spending our weekends driving back and forth, and is bending and flexing however he can to be here and help out. He lost his dad to cancer his first week of college so has an intimate understanding of what Kelly's family is going through. I have said recently that I hate the reason we are here, but am loving my time in Beaumont.

Switching gears from one tragic silver lining to another, my family has been affected by my infertility journey in a way we never expected. Late last July, my mom had been at my sister's house and they had been talking about me possibly needing donor eggs. My oldest nice, Molly, told her she was interested in donating. She told my mom she had done the research and wanted to help. My mom was excited to tell me, and I was cautiously thrilled to hear it. Having a child that was 25% my DNA vs 0% sounded amazing. I remember telling my mom at the end of that phone call "now Mom, I need you to not get too excited about this." She asked why and I reminded her that nothing works for us. Foreshadowing at its finest. A month later I got a frantic call from Molly (while I was at a funeral for a dear friend's dad of all places) and she was nearly inconsolable. We had gotten her AMH tested as a very first step in seeing if she could, in fact, be our donor, and her levels were almost off the charts low. My level was 2.84 and hers was 0.23. I told her that may have been a lab fluke and that we should get it tested again at a different lab. I also told her that if that is the case it does not automatically mean she cannot have kids of her own, but that she likely could not be a donor for us. AMH is an indicator of the # of eggs someone has. A low number indicates very few eggs would be available each month if trying to do IVF or egg freezing. Where I averaged about 20 eggs per IVF cycle, she could be as low as 2. Fast forward several months and Molly just had her second egg retrieval last Friday. She had her AMH re-tested twice and it finally landed at 0.17. She does have 15 eggs frozen now and we are all very thankful she had the success she has had. We know, due to my own dismal results, that 15 eggs is not any sort of guarantee, but that she at least has a much better shot than she possibly would have had she not known. Theoretically, her quality should be great because she is so young, but again, we know there are no guarantees. The tragedy is two-fold here: first and foremost, all three nieces have a diagnosis they never expected...one that could mean they could have a very hard time having their own genetic children. Second, it meant I no longer had a chance at having a related donor. My remaining female family members are all way over the age limit for egg donation. Note: my MIL offered Danny's sister's eggs when we initially told her about our IVF journey. I told her it was probably best if we did not have inbred children and she immediately agreed.

People have said "wow, if not for you, she would have never known." I say "no, if not for her incredibly generous offer to donate eggs, she would have never known." She was 24 at the time of her initial testing. Her two younger sisters have since been tested and also have very low AMH levels. They aren't to Molly's levels yet, but we have no idea what Molly's levels would have looked like four years ago. All three nieces will ultimately freeze their eggs in hopes of preserving their fertility. I had not posted or shared any of this too publicly as this was not my story to share. Molly told me she was happy for me to share as she is all about creating awareness. We have no idea why all three have a diminished ovarian reserve. We just know it is likely genetic and they were just born with fewer eggs. We lamented to the doctor that we would have loved to have known my sister's levels at any given time when she was younger because she had no trouble with fertility. He said "well, knowing that wouldn't change where you are now" which was very true. This diagnosis has been tough to swallow for their entire family, but Molly has had an incredible attitude throughout. They are thankful they stumbled upon the information and have been able to act on it. My experience has definitely helped them through this situation and I have been so glad to help. I keep saying every time I am able to help someone in some small way with their infertility journey, it makes our own struggles seem to have a little purpose. A little purpose, a little hope, a little joy - just enough to keep us going.

Name Change in Texas - Summer/Fall 2022

2022-08-22T09:23:00.008-05:00

Step-by-Step Guide to Changing your Name Post-Marriage

Step 1 - Social Security

Print out and complete form SS-5 for a name change.

Take this form and an approved form of identification (my Texas drivers license was sufficient) and name change (marriage license) to your local social security office. Check if any are taking appointments. At this time, those in the Austin-area are not. I drove by the North location at 8:05am on a Friday. They open at 9am. There were ~55 people in line already. I just kept driving. A friend had been there the week before and it took her six hours. No thank you. A bit later in the morning, I tried the Oak Hill location and was relieved to see there were only nine people lined up outside. It took me 1:45 total there to get in and get out. An hour of that was inside. The outside wait at Oak Hill is on a shaded sidewalk - far better than the North location that provided little to no shade. My visit to the SSA was Friday, August 12, and my new card came in the mail Monday, August 22.

One friend said she mailed her documents (sent passport instead of drivers license) to the San Marcos SSA office and received everything back and updated in 2-3 weeks. So, this is always an option. I do not fully trust our mail these days and wanted to reduce the number of times I put important documents in the mail. Turns out too that had I done it this way, I would have had to wait longer to do my drivers license as I would have been without my marriage license until they sent it back.

TL;DR: Items needed: drivers license, marriage license, form SS-5. Take to any social security office to initiate name change. New card will arrive by mail in 1-2 weeks.

Step 2 - Texas Drivers License

I was originally under the impression that I needed my new social security card in hand to change the name on my drivers license. Then I stumbled on a tidbit of info that I really just needed to wait ~48 business hours or so for my information to be updated in the SSA database after visiting the social security office. You can check if your information is updated by logging into your my Social Security account.

Getting an appointment at a DPS office may be a bit difficult. Had I known what I know now, I would have scheduled one several weeks ahead of time and let that be my deadline for getting to the social security office. You sign up for an appointment here, and can go to any location in Texas. When going through the online appointment sign up, it will make you think you can make your change online and not have to schedule an appointment, but this isn't true. Just say "yes I want to come in person anyway" when it asks you something along those lines.

I originally scheduled an appointment at the N. Lamar location for late September - that was the earliest available when I looked on August 12. I dug a bit more and was able to get an appointment in Marble Falls for August 26. Online, it says that you can go to a location first thing in the morning and see if you can grab an earlier (i.e. same or next day appointment). I had a friend who was able to do this, so I thought I could too. Thursday, August 18 I went to the N. Lamar location around 8:30am (they open at 8:00am) and was told to look on the check-in computer to see if I could get an earlier appointment. Soonest offered was late September. So, that was another wasted hour (add it to the hour I spent doing the SSA office drive-by).

As my passport was really my biggest factor in my process, I was motivated to get the drivers license taken care of ASAP. I needed my marriage license for the drivers license, but also needed to mail it in for a new passport. So, drivers license obviously had to come first. After my failed attempt at the N. Lamar location, I hunted a fair bit in the area for sooner appointments. I was able to find one in Lockhart that afternoon. It was a 45 minute drive and would have been a ten minute appointment had I known I needed to have a form filled out to get helped. All in all, my trip was less than two hours and totally worth it.

They cut the corner of my current license and returned it to me while also giving me a paper temporary paper license. My new license arrived the following Friday (eight days later). NOTE: They take a new picture. I had just renewed my license in the last year or two so was hoping that wasn't the case. Alas, my new picture is lovely.

TL;DR: Items needed: marriage license, form DL-14A, current license. Take to any DPS location to get new license. Appointment likely needed, depending on location.

Step 3 - Passport

My passport was set to expire in March 2023. This has been my "deadline" all along on getting my name changed. I basically waited to the last minute considering we got married in May 2020. Covid was my excuse for a long time on not taking are of everything, but my time has come. Many countries won't allow you in if your passport expires in fewer than six months. So I cannot really expect to travel past September on my current passport.

I renewed my passport via mail. Information about various ways to renew is available here.

To start, use the online form filler to complete form DS82. Get new passport photos taken. I went to Walgreen's. It took ten minutes and cost $16.99 (a bit ridiculous if you ask me). Take your printed form (including picture), marriage license, current passport, and check to the post office and mail it to the address provided on form DS82. You can select regular or expedited service - each has its own unique address. Currently, expedited service is 5-7 weeks and regular is 8-11 weeks. My documents will be returned to me at some point during this process as well - possibly with the passport, or possibly as a separate mailing.

I mailed my documents using on Friday, August 19 using USPS Priority Mail at the recommendation of the mail clerk. The tracking was going well with a predicted delivery date of August 22. It arrived at some hub in Philadelphia on August 21 and by August 22, there was no longer an anticipated delivery date. The hub was a different zip code than the address to which I sent the documents so I didn't feel too great about that. By the 24th I started to worry when there had been no movement in three days. On the 25th, I remembered there may be a way to check the status online. Thankfully I came to this website and was able to see that my application was received on August 24. Upon checking my bank account, I noticed they also cashed my check that day. Funny they will take your money immediately, but make no promises on when you shall receive any goods.

My passport arrived Thursday, September 8. Much quicker than the advised 5-7 weeks. My passport card (that I accidently paid for, thus received) arrived Monday, September 12. My original documents (old passport and marriage license) were the last to arrive. They came on Tuesday, September 27. So the entire process took 5.5 weeks, but I had a usable passport in hand much sooner than that.

TL;DR: Mail form, passport, marriage license, check to address provided on form.

Step 4 - Everything Else

Each of these vary by provider so I don't have detailed information, but just make sure you keep a running list of what you need to change. None of these required heavy lifting - at most I had to send a copy of my marriage license.

Booked travel (I did not have any active travel that I had to change - this is more to keep in mind when booking ahead - do you book under your new name or old? Essentially you need to book under whatever name will be on the ID you use to travel that day....for a while I would have needed to travel domestically under my married name and internationally under my maiden name as my drivers license had changed but not my passport)
Banks
Credit Card Companies
Employer (and possibly linked health insurance and other benefits)
Church
Doctors' Offices (will not change until insurance has been updated)
Frequent flier accounts (travel under new name will not get you credit until you specifically update your frequent flier profile)

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS

Travel

If you currently have booked plane tickets, you will need to do a little research. If you have a ticket with your old name on it, you just need ID to match that ticket. So, if your drivers license has your new name on it, that will not work. But, if you wait a while to update your passport, you can use that to travel (even in the US).
Airlines used to be notorious for charging stupid fees to change your name. I have experience with Southwest and United as noted below, but am unsure what other airline policies are. Assume they are not going to be in your favor, and that they are hard to find.
Global Entry - I have TSA Precheck via Global Entry. The Precheck is very important to me. After a good bit of digging, this turned out to be the easiest step in this whole process. To change your name on your Global Entry, simply go to any Global Entry office (The office at ABIA is open M-F 8am-2pm) and present your new passport. I did also show my old (expired) Global Entry card, but I do not believe that was required. The kind man said I only needed a new card if I regularly drove across the border. Which I do not. If I wanted a new one with my new name, I could order from my online account for $25. Note your KTN does not change 1) when you have to renew your Global Entry and/or 2)) when you change your name. Pro-tip: When I went, I was able to park in the Red Garage (closest to the walkway with the art structures along it) for super cheap and run in. I was parked less than 20 minutes.
Southwest Airlines - I have two tickets currently booked under my old name. I navigated to Personal info under Profile Details to begin the process. I had to go to the Help center linked in the name section. There it guided me to submit my marriage license and/or old and new identification documents to request a name change. There was an optional place to include an upcoming flight, so I included a flight I have booked for November.
United Airlines - The process was very similar to Southwest, except that it was noted quite prominently that tickets already issued cannot be changed. Of course, I cannot find anywhere on United's site whether or not this can be done with a fee, or if you literally have to forfeit the entire cost of the ticket and start over. Several third party sites are suggesting a $200 fee for each way of travel, but I cannot verify this anywhere on united.com. Two angry thoughts here: 1) Thanks United for burying this information or making it completely unavailable, and 2) If men regularly changed their name, the info would be easy to find and changes would be free.

Where is God In All of This?

2022-02-27T07:46:00.006-06:00

My mind has been racing since yesterday afternoon (well, let's get real - it has been racing for almost two years when it comes to building our family) when I watched a video an old childhood friend sent me. It was of him sharing his and his wife's story of trying to build their family with his church congregation several months ago. He said he had been following our story and hesitated to send the video but finally felt that he should share. He just said "fast forward to 1:28 in the video." I had no idea what I was about to watch - I did not expect it to be him speaking, and certainly did not expect it to be sharing their story of a years-long struggle for a baby. Tears streamed down my face (common theme these days) as I listened. It is funny, I think his is the first story I have heard in a while of a friend going through this. I have plenty of internet and new friends I have met in the "worst club with the best members" and I want nothing more for each and every one of them to have success, but this one hit differently. I think it gave me a little hint, or reminder of what those around us are feeling now. When I think of him, and I now know they are struggling, my heart and eyes are momentarily taken away from our own struggles and placed on theirs. I deeply want this for him and his wife. I have prayed and prayed and prayed for so many babies that now exist here on earth. There has not been one family I prayed for who was not ultimately able to create their family. I find comfort there, yet I would take away all the pain it took to get there if I ever could - especially now that I know how terrible it can be.

I have loosely held several thoughts about how God fits into all of this over the past year. I have read several others' opinions and sided with them. I will share two here now, and then touch back on what my friend had to say about their story. The first I read was a girl (on instagram - that is where the underground infertility world exists, in case anyone was wondering) who said "do not tell me this is God's plan. This is not a God thing, this is a medical condition." She went on to say she does not believe God thinks they are not ready to be parents yet so is making them wait. Just think on that one for a bit...how many people get pregnant wwwwwaaaaaayyyyyyy before they are ready and then how many wait and wait and wait to have their day. I, too, believe God is not doing this to us. I do not believe God thinks we need to wait for whatever reason. I do not believe God has chosen to inflict this suffering on us. If I believed that, I would also believe God decided Danny's dad needed to die during Danny's first week at college, leaving Danny, his mom, and two younger sisters behind. On the flip side, I would also believe God has chosen others to have a family before us because they are more #blessed than we are. #inserteyerollhere.

A few years ago, our bible study read Adam Hamilton's "Half Truths." It is an excellent look at many of the things we may "think" we know to be true, yet are half true at best. The book covers the following:

Everything happens for a reason
God helps those who help themselves
God won't give you more than you can handle
God said it, I believe it, that settles it
Love the sinner, hate the sin

In the Everything Happens for a Reason chapter, he shares a quotation shared to him by a congregation member. Unfortunately, it does not have a source, or I would certainly share:

Suffering is not God's desire for us, but it occurs in the process of life. Suffering is not given to teach us something, but through it we may learn. Suffering is not given to punish us, but sometimes it is the consequence of our sin or poor judgement. Suffering does not occur because our faith is weak, but through it our faith may be strengthened. God does not depend on human suffering to achieve his purposes, but sometimes through suffering his purposes are achieved, Suffering can either destroy us, or it can add meaning to our life.

I will touch on this more in a bit - as it fits very well with what the friend had to say as he shared his story. Adam Hamilton summarizes his chapter by saying:

Between the micromaniging God who causes everything to happen and the absentee landlord God who is not involved in our lives is a picture of God who grants human beings freedom and allows them to take risks. It is a picture of God who does not cause tragedy but uses it, of God who can directly and supernaturally intervene but usually works indirectly through people. It is a picture of God who, through the power of Jesus' resurrection, gives us assurance that in the end "death has been swallowed up by a victory" (1 Corinthians 15:54).

Thankfully, few have said directly me "well, God has a plan" or "everything happens in God's time" regarding our struggle. If you have not said that yet, please don't ever do it. To me, or possibly anyone else. It can be comforting to the deliverer, but not necessarily to the recipient. If you are short on words of comfort, a simple "I'm praying for you" can go so far.

Hamilton's chapter on God not giving us more than we can handle can be summarized (at least to me), far more succinctly than the first chapter. God never promised us he we would not suffer, but he did promise to always be there. I am certain our faith is the only reason Danny and I are still on this journey. If left to our own devices, well, I do not want to even think where we would be at this point. Each time we have received bad news, we bounce back pretty darn fast. I am either going to spontaneously combust out of the blue one day, or we will continue, calm and steady, down this path, knowing we are not alone.

The next idea that I have noodled on (also read on instagram) is the notion of whether or not we will consider our future baby(ies) (a)miracle(s). One girl, Alex, became spontaneously pregnant after five miscarriages. Clearly she had been able to get pregnant in the past, but it had been quite a while since it had happened. She had had failed IVF rounds during that time, and had one embryo. They had decided to use a surrogate for that one embryo. She was eight weeks along when it was time to transfer the embryo the surrogate. They went ahead with the transfer as she had no reason to think her own pregnancy would last since the previous five had failed. Turns out, at this point, she is now 30 weeks pregnant with her surrogate eight weeks behind. Both healthy pregnancies. Alex said one day that she does not believe either baby is a miracle. She said she is choosing to not call them that. She said we, as in everyone else, are absolutely allowed to consider them a miracle, but she will not. She said, and I 100% agree, that anyone who gets pregnant without help should consider it a huge freakin' miracle. In her case, she feels it is not a miracle because they have worked so hard, for so long to get these healthy pregnancies. When she became pregnant this last time, she was with a doctor who was willing to do everything possible to support and maintain the pregnancy. She was on all sorts of medicine from day one to keep it going. She believes (and I do too) that that is why she is pregnant - not because a miracle has occurred. It was a refreshing, thought-provoking view. I really appreciate her saying "y'all can call it a miracle, I have no problem at all with that" while she chose otherwise. I told Danny after I heard her say all of this that I may feel that way too. No one can say we will not have worked tirelessly for whatever our family ultimately comes to be. Calling it a miracle could possibly overlook the struggle, hard work, and even prayer that went into it.

Yet, just yesterday I had another spin on this. Childhood friend, let's call him "John" (I'm not sure if he would want this shared or not, but John is a safe alias), told his congregation that God had given him a vision at some point during their journey, that one day he would be standing exactly where he was that day, introducing their miracle to the congregation. He even knew what he would be wearing (which he is saving for the day he gets to come back and have that celebration). I heard that and thought "yeah - miracle, of course." Then I thought back to the thought above. I do not know where I will fully land if, when we ever to have a child in our arms, on whether or not I would consider him or her a miracle. But I do know, at least, that I would consider it a miracle that we made it to where we did. That we did not give up. John said he and his wife have learned to worship in the wait. Learned to appreciate the wait as it is a time of building, of preparation, of testing, and strengthening. I hear this. I feel this. I feel what John is saying strongly ties to the passage on suffering above and choose to believe meaning has been added to our lives - even if it isn’t 100% clear what that meaning is

John ended his story by sharing Isiah 40:31 "but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." I am not sure there are many better verses to describe walking through infertility with God. Somehow, we wake up most mornings and are not weary. Yes, I complain about being tired as shit, but I am not weary. We are not done. Our heads are up and we are marching onward.

Our First FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer) - February 17, 2022

2022-02-25T11:48:00.002-06:00

Written February 18 - Day 1 Post Transfer

We have kept this under wraps as best as we could. We wanted to be able to still have some element of surprise of a pregnancy announcement for our family and close friends. When you share a transfer date, you are also sharing that pregnancy test results can be expected in ~9 days.

It is a hard balance for me to maintain. Sharing our journey has been so incredibly cathartic. I also firmly believe in sharing to lessen the stigma, or the silence that surrounds infertility. I want to encourage those new to the journey. I want to educate those who are new or those who will never have to face this themselves. I have said it before and I will say it again. Navigating infertility sucks. Really bad. Also, when there is grief involved, I have a very hard time going about my life acting as if nothing is wrong. If you were diagnosed with cancer or lost a dear loved one, you would not be expected to grieve alone in silence. Anyone who knows me knows I proudly wear my heart on my sleeve - these days though that heart is sometimes missing a piece or two.

Admittedly, at this point, I have a hard time empathizing with those who only needed a round or two of fertility treatment. Those for whom everything "worked" the way it was supposed to. Those who only needed one egg retrieval and got all the good embryos they needed from that one retrieval. Those who did not have to fight tooth and nail for every single embryo they made. Those who were far younger than I at the start, and had time on their side. Yet, I remind myself regularly that they, too, had a battle. They, too, would 100% say that infertility sucks. They experienced sleepless nights, tears upon tears upon tears, shots, scans, blood draws, the fear of the unknown. We are just extra special in that we get to do all of that to the nth degree. Over and over again.

In my last blog post, we were in the middle of stims for our sixth retrieval. I hesitate to say "last" because God only knows what the road ahead looks like for us. That cycle started off a little more "chill" but ended up bringing just as big of a roller coaster as the previous cycle. My estradiol levels ended up over 8500 which is insane. We retrieved 28 eggs. We were immediately upset as our 27 eggs from the round before yielded us nothing. Of those 28, 24 fertilized. Two of those made it to blastocyst stage (embryo), and one of those was genetically normal. So, across our last two rounds, we had 55 eggs retrieved, 45 of which fertilized. That gave us one embryo. One. Our July round with 12 eggs retrieved gave us two embryos. Crap. Shoot.

We finally made it to that magical four though. The magical number that means nothing in this world, except it was a number we decided we wanted. Four embryos. Four chances at making our family. Due to our extreme difficulty in making those embryos, we did not want to take any chances when it came to transfers. We elected to do a mock transfer cycle with a uterine biopsy instead of moving straight to a transfer. The mock cycle is usually not done until someone has had two failed transfers, but we do not have the luxury of "trying things out" with two of our embryos. The biopsy was supposed to be December 23 but did not happen until January 19. Why? Because once again, we were on the wrong side of the statistics. Nothing comes easy for us. The estradiol pills I was on for four weeks apparently didn't register with my body. It took four weeks to realize that. We switched to estrogen patches and intramuscular injections and that did the trick of getting my endometrial lining to grow the way it needed to. A good lining is needed to provide a good home for a transferred embryo.

The mock cycle consists of taking all the drugs and same schedule you would for a real transfer, but instead you take a biopsy of the uterine/endometrial lining on the day you would have transferred. We ended up taking three biopsies to do three kinds of testing. I feared the biopsy day due to horror stories of others. You get to take advil one hour before. Whohoo. And you are completely awake while they go in and take three chunks of the inside of your uterus. It is insane to me the procedures women are subjected to without pain medicine/anesthesia. Thankfully, for me, the process was not that painful.

More painful for me are the PIO (progesterone in oil) shots that you begin roughly five days before transfer. These are also intramuscular and given in the hip. Every day. My estradiol injections are 0.3ml every other day with a 23g 1.5" needle (that is a huge needle by the way). The estradiol ended up not being that bad at all. The PIO is a whole other story. I have to use 1 or 2ml of the drug, depending on the formula. Mine is mixed in ethyl oleate to be thinner since the dose is so high. The "regular" formula is sesame oil which is thicker, but usually okay for people in a lower dose. Three days into the PIO injections, I could barely walk. I was in so much pain that I got nauseated every time I moved around. My niece, Kate, is premed and working at a pediatricians office. Every time she sees me draw up 2ml, she just stares in amazement and says "that is SO much." For the mock cycle, I only had to do five days of PIO. It only took a day or two for the pain to subside after I stopped, thankfully. I told everyone I had COVID ass. If anyone had COVID arm after their vaccine, just imagine that in your hips, every day. I will say I seem to be special here in that others generally do not seem to have quite as much pain as I do with these. One more time we are on the "special" side of the stats.

As we agonized over the time lost as we were spinning our wheels trying to get my lining to grow, I kept hoping that somehow or another, we would know it was time well spent. Thankfully, we found out via the testing that I would need one more day of progesterone for my transfer to best support implantation. The rest of the testing came back clear which is good because had any of it showed any issues, we would have lost more time.

After the mock transfer, we were heading into our real transfer cycle. I was slightly excited and completely terrified. This time, my lining grew in the two weeks in which it was supposed to grow. I'm still on the thin side, but the new combo of drugs is definitely what I needed. I had my last lining check on February 10 and Dr. Vaughn said we were good to with my transfer. I could not stop crying once that happened. I could not believe it - and a good part of me was afraid to believe it. The time was coming - a culmination of everything we had been through for the past 14 months. It is odd to want something so bad and be so terrified of it at the same time. I had to get bloodwork done that afternoon and the girl who drew my blood told me she and her twin sister were IVF babies. I found sweet comfort in that.

Based on the embryo selected and the results from our mock transfer, we knew I would be on PIO for 7 days before the transfer. We have decided to not find out the sex of our embryos thus far, but did send specific instructions to the embryologist on which embryo to pick. If there are two of each, they were to pick the best quality. If there were three/one, then pick the best of the three. And obviously if they were all the same sex, just pick the best quality. I put in bold letters in the email "do not tell us which scenario exists" because we did not want to have any insight into what was what.

Fast forward to yesterday. Transfer day. Or, rather, let's go to Wednesday, February 16. I felt terrible. I have generally felt pretty bad through the last few months. Everything hurts, especially my butt. I yelp when I walk up the 12 stairs to get out of our house. Sitting and standing are awful. I was at least somewhat reassured on my Fertility Rally (support group) call Wednesday night. I told them I should be excited but I was so tired and felt so bad I was having a hard time feeling much of anything. Several girls chimed in that the progesterone and estrogen make them feel awful as well. Yea?

Yesterday morning I woke up feeling better. I was excited for the day. I bought a used Old Navy pineapple shirt online (yup) to wear, told Danny to wear his best pineapple shirt, and even curled my hair (pineapples are a symbol of good luck in the fertility world). We were supposed to arrive at the surgery center at 11:15 for a 12:15 transfer. Boy is the later morning mood around there completely different than what we were used to with our 5am arrival for our egg retrievals. The waiting room was full, people were chatty, and there was a general air of happiness. The best part is I was able to eat the candy in the awesome candy bowl! (When I'm there for egg retrieval surgery, I obviously can't eat it before and always grab some on the way out, but it isn't nearly as exciting when you feel like poo post op.) I generally knew what to expect once we were called back. My biggest worry was how awful it was going to be to keep the full bladder I was required to have during the transfer. I drink a ton of water, and pee all the time. I still drank my ton of water and wasn't allowed to use the restroom until after the transfer.

My other, real, biggest worry was an unspoken one. One that I knew could happen, but only happens 5-10% of the time. That worry was that an embryo would not survive a thaw. If that happens, it is just gone. Just like that, one of our four precious chances would be gone. I even had a dream something along those lines happened a few night earlier this week. I do not recall the exact details, but it ended with Dr. Vaughn taking me all over some hospital trying to help me. Danny and I were taken to our room and given paperwork to fill out. I was still happy and excited...but had to pee. I was pretty mad the nurse would not even let me pee a little if I promised to drink my whole water bottle afterward. The embryologist came in next with the picture of our embryo. What was supposed to be incredibly emotional for happy reasons was indeed incredibly emotional - but for all the wrong reasons. She let us know they had to thaw two embryos because the first one did not make it. I immediately burst into tears. How? Why us? Is this really happening? I rarely ask these questions as I know there are no answers, but man I sure wish I knew. My heart ripped apart and the day immediately turned into living one of my biggest fears. Danny was great and wanted to focus on the embryo we were transferring. He kept reminding me we have a great chance with that one. But all I could think about is that if this transfer doesn't work, we are down to two chances left. Two. We want more than one kid and each chance we have is so, so precious. If the transfer failed, that also means we were relying on trying to get something from our two lowest quality embryos. It can happen, and does all the time, but it is so discouraging.

I cried through most of the rest of the process. I did not say a word once we were walked back to the operating room where they do the transfer. I just laid there as they got everything setup and quietly watched the embryo on the big TV. The whole thing probably took ten minutes or less. When it was time to get up and walk back to our room, Dr. Vaughn literally held me as we walked all the way back. I was devastated and he knew it. When we got back to the room, he just hugged me as I cried and cried and cried. Then he hugged me again. I did not think about it much until later, but it is crazy that my dream ended with him helping me in some sort of hopeful way, and our visit ended with him being a literal shoulder to cry on.

I went to acupuncture afterward and did all I could to relay what had happened while holding in the tears. Once she left the room, the tears flowed once again and I eventually feel asleep for a few minutes. We headed to McDonald's after that because eating McDonald's french fries after a transfer is also supposed to be good luck. Too bad I was too upset to really enjoy them. I was supposed to take it easy the rest of the day but was not able to sleep. My hips/lower back hurt too bad from the PIO to be able to get comfortable. Kelly (my bff) called at some point later in the day as we had not yet talked for my birthday. I could not answer because I knew I could not talk to her without crying. She, of course, had no idea we had transferred. I decided to at least text her what had happened and told her not to tell anyone. The downside of not telling anyone is that you do not have anyone to grieve with or to provide comfort when shit hits the fan. At some point later in the afternoon, I went to find the two pictures Danny had dutifully brought home for safe-keeping. One was our embryo, and the other was the ultrasound when they transferred the embryo. I grabbed a small pink flamingo photo album we received as a wedding gift but had yet to fill, and put the pictures in the first two slots. I put the album under my pillow and slept with it there. I guess I will leave it there at least until we get our results...hopefully longer.

Now we set off on what is known as the "TWW" or the two week wait. For IVF though, it is really nine days. And for us, it will be eight. Next Friday, I will do my first "beta." Beta is the name for the level of HCG in your blood. The first beta generally needs to be 50 or higher. I'm unsure about ours since we are testing a day early due to the weekend, and perhaps due to our embryo being already hatched when it was transferred (it was transferred a day later than most unhatched embryos). You continue to test your HCG to ensure your levels are appropriately rising. I believe you generally test again two days after your first, at which time the number needs to have at least doubled. Since we are testing first on a Friday, I do not know if our second will be on a Sunday or Monday. And, of course, if the HCG level is 0 (below 5 actually), we are not pregnant and there will be no further testing.

We have a busy few days coming up which is nice. I am not allowed to exercise during this wait. I thought that would bother me, but I feel so bad and my hips hurt so bad, I am so far welcoming the time off. I am able to walk, stretch, and do light yoga. I am hoping to get a good bit of vitamin D while taking the dogs on lots of walks next week. Today, we are heading to Fredericksburg to spend the night with our good friends. They do not know we transferred and so far I am not planning to tell them, but we will see how that goes.

Written February 24 - Day 7 Post Transfer

I really thought I would write every day during this wait. I thought I would take the dogs on long walks and thought I would play the piano a bit. Not much of that happened. I do not know where time went. I pretty much decided in the last few days that today would be the day I tested at home. Danny and I both agreed we would test at home before the blood test as we did not want someone else telling us if we were pregnant or not via a phone call. Regardless of the result of the home pregnancy test(s), I still have to do the blood test on Friday, Day 8 as HCG levels could possibly be too low for a home test to detect, but that is unlikely.

I found out yesterday that one of the girls in my fertility support group who transferred a few days before me tested on Day 7 and had a positive test and the had a positive blood test on Day 9. Several of us transferred right around the same time, and of course I hope we all had great news.

Danny woke up at 5 this morning to run and told me "Russia invaded Ukraine" on his way out the door. Hmmm - that was not quite the positive vibe I was looking for heading into this first test. I waited until he got home from his run to test. I wrapped the test in toilet paper and put a timer on for three minutes to make sure we had the final result, and that we would get to see it together for the first time. I set my phone to video what would hopefully be one of the best (if not the best) moments in our life. I told Danny I was scared to look and he uncovered the test. I immediately saw that it was negative. I cannot say I was absolutely devastated because I think we both expected failure. Nothing comes easy for us in this journey - why would this be any different?

It is only 9:15am right now so I am still processing. And in all honesty, still holding out some shred of hope that I am one of the really rare cases where my HCG just is not high enough to register on a home test right now, but could show up on tomorrow's blood test. I wish that hope was not there at this point as I do not feel that it is going to do me any good. It is just delaying any certainty for 24 hours.

I do not know what is next. I do know that we have a ski trip planned in March that is probably going to mess up the possibility of going straight into the next transfer. I did not expect anything less when we planned this trip a few months ago. I hoped at best I was too sick from being pregnant to ski. Well, I guess I get to ski now. Yea. I would much rather be puking on the couch because I am pregnant than trying to ski while I feel like total crap from the hormones. If I happen to be on PIO at that point, I am not sure I will be able to ski anyway because the pain in my hips might be too great to do any of the bending/squatting skiing requires. Yea.

Written February 25 - Day 8 Post Transfer - "Beta Day"

I woke up pretty early this morning, unable to go back to sleep. My plan was to get to the lab before 7 to get the bloodwork taken care of and get the results ASAP to get on with my life. The limbo of not being 100% sure sucks. I took one more at home test to make sure nothing showed up - out of that one last shred of hope. Of course it was as negative as yesterday's was. Do not ask me how many times I went back to look at yesterday's test to make sure I could not see the faintest of a positive line.

I told the lady drawing my blood that I have squirrelly veins and that they usually do better with a smaller needle. I love when they somehow think they know better. I have lost count of the number of blood draws I have had - six retrieval and two transfer rounds of IVF come with a lot of that. Anyway, I don't know what she did but it was incredibly painful and produced no blood. She said we would move to the other arm. I was about to crack. It is insulting enough to have to get bloodwork to confirm what we already know to be the truth, but then to have it be painful and more than one try was almost too much for me this morning. I held back tears as she got the other side to work and I got out of there. I cried a good part of the way home. I decided I was going back to bed instead of to work. I'm so incredibly tired. I need rest - a kind of rest I fear will never come.

I finally got the phone call at 11am confirming our blood results. I know it pained my nurse to have to make that call - I do not envy that job. She is checking with Dr. Vaughn re: next steps. We have shared the news with our families. It is honestly much easier to share this way with our network vs individual phone calls or texts as those generally come with questions. I rarely have any answers, especially right now.

Eggcellent Insurance: A Follow-Up

2021-11-03T23:16:00.009-05:00

Many of you knew I froze two rounds of eggs ~4.5 years ago. A lot has happened since then. First, a few parts not directly related to those eggs:

I met Danny in late July 2018
We got married in May (and September!) 2020
I refused to consider trying to get pregnant until about two weeks before our September wedding...that damn dress had to fit
I turned 40...during covid...on Valentines...during an epic winter storm in which everyone was stuck at home for over a week
We had two failed IUIs and one failed medicated cycle - the first IUI being on the first snow day in January. I was certain that was good luck as we slid out of our driveway to get to the dr office.

Now, about those eggs:

While we were off snow skiing in March, my first batch of eggs was fertilized. If you recall, I froze two rounds - the first was 16 eggs and the second was 19 eggs. Initially, it sounded a bit overkill to even fertilize the whole first batch, but I felt like it was the way to go. Danny kept saying "we're going to have 16 kids!" In my dream world, we would have never needed to use those eggs. In my next dream world, that first batch would have given us at least ~4-6 embryos and all the kids we would want. I would donate my second batch of eggs to a dear friend who is a cancer survivor. In all honestly, it felt a bit premature even to be fertilizing the eggs. Like we had not tried long enough otherwise. However, we would quickly learn dreams die hard in the fertility world of Kathleen and Danny and we could not have started soon enough.

When eggs are fertilized, you get a call on days 5, 6, and 7 from the embryologist to let you know if any have turned into a "blast" (blastocyst) or an embryo. We got our first call on the way to the airport to fly home from our ski trip. Day 5. Nothing had gotten to blast yet, but we had 13 still growing. I thought that a bit weird, but was still hopeful. I received the day 6 call right at noon as I pulled into the gym parking lot. Day 6 had nothing to blast yet, and maybe two at best still growing. I turned around and drove home. On day 7 I got the call in the middle of my workout, and somehow, while the news that day was awful, it was almost expected. Zero blasts/embryos. We did not even have any embryos to biopsy for PGS testing (we are testing all embryos for genetic viability). Danny was out of town so I had to begin to process that news alone. It was my sister's birthday. I could not talk to her, or anyone else in my family. They were going to have questions to which I had no answers. That evening, I found myself screaming the most visceral scream that has ever come out of my body as I piled on the heap of sheets I was trying to put on our bed. I wondered how in the world my 40 year-old body would ever make a baby when my 35 year-old eggs could not figure it out in the most sophisticated of settings. This, fortunately, so far, has been my rock bottom. The next day I spoke with an embryologist who told me she did not think our other 19 eggs would give us the two kids we are hoping for, and that I would likely have to start over with IVF to get embryos. She also told me that at my age, any embryo has a 10% chance of being genetically viable. Yea.

Here is a little summary of what has to happen to actually get a baby:

It took a few days to get over the shock of our plan going in such a different direction than we expected, but we did not want to waste time getting on with it. A "fresh" IVF cycle was planned for April - i.e. starting over with getting new eggs. Due to costs, it was decided we would not fertilize my second batch of frozen eggs until we had a fresh batch to fertilize at the same time. I did not like going into a full new cycle without knowing the results from my 2nd round, but I do not like a lot of this. Danny was able to get his first covid vaccine in early March and I was able to snag a J&J vaccine on March 20. That was such a relief - I did not want to risk getting a cycle canceled after spending thousands on meds and then testing positive or getting exposed. Seven days after my vaccine, I realized what I was having were likely NOT side effects. I got tested (Danny made fun of me), and sure enough, I was positive. Danny got tested and was positive as well. Leave it to us to get covid in about the last two weeks we could possibly get it. I had one day, then, to decide if we were going to go forward with IVF in April, or take a month to recover from covid. As hard as it was, I knew waiting was the right answer.

During that lovely month of April, I found out my division at work was being acquired. I was the only person from the finance department going to the new company. It makes sense as I was the only finance person solely dedicated to that business unit, but it was still really, really devastating. The benefits at my current company were great - one of the big reasons I stayed so long. Most important at this point was the fertility benefit. That was in total jeopardy and it took a long time to find out anything about the new company. Once I did start hearing things, nothing was good. I kept saying "I'm just waiting for the good news."

Round 2 Fertilization and 3 Retrieval

We started round 3 (counting my two egg-freezing rounds as 1 and 2) in early May. The stim days were relatively uneventful and honestly a bit hard to remember by this point. My work situation was more and more stressful as I realized what all I was going to be losing in the deal. I had nothing to gain which was really sad. Minimizing stress is one of the key goals during IVF and I was far from that. We had our egg retrieval on Tuesday, May 25. I do not love that day because a dear friend's mother passed away on that day in 2003. The protocol we used this time included a dual trigger - lupron and a "little bit" of HCG. The HCG hit me like a truck. I woke up from surgery sick and could not stop throwing up. Poor Danny was digging in my purse for a hair band but could not figure out how to get my hair up (I braided it for future retrievals so he did not have to figure it out again). I had about everyone in the surgery center just looking at me and shaking their head because they could not give me any more meds to stop my throwing up. That was fun. Our anniversary was two days later and I did not get out of bed until five that day. Danny had decorated the whole living room in pink paper with places we had been - it was really sweet, and all we did to "celebrate." We went to the lakehouse the next day and four hours in the car was a mistake. I spent Memorial Day weekend at the lake, but did not get off the couch. I had overstimulation issues similar to my first round of egg freezing. It was a week before I ate a full meal and close to two weeks before I ate three meals in a day. I felt amazing for one day and that night I had to go back on birth control to get ready for the next cycle, and sure enough I woke up feeling awful again. My gag reflex had even been affected - swallowing my 20+ pills a day was really, really difficult.

We went through the day 5, 6, and 7 calls and did not have overwhelming good news. We did, at least, get two embryos to test from the frozen round. Ultimately, we found out one of those embryos was genetically viable. Our first embryo! However, note these numbers are far from normal. We have a decent fertilization rate. Most people would have made far more embryos than we are/were able to. We have been on the wrong side of the statistics at most points.

Round 4

We moved into round four as quick as we could, trying to beat a possible "deadline" of losing my fertility benefit from work. Let me tell you how fun that is. Mid June, I made the decision to not go forward with my offer from the new company. I did not have a home at the old company either, so that meant I would be unemployed for the first time in 17 years. But it also meant I could go on COBRA and keep my fertility benefits. I am a little bitter that I had to even end up in this place and make this decision, but I am thankful it was an option.

The day I declined my offer letter was the first time I feel asleep in acupuncture, and the first time the acupuncturist said my pulse felt good (i.e. low stress). That was all signs of good things to come. Our next retrieval was July 6, four days after my last day of work. Our number retrieved felt low at first, but overall we had our best result yet. We did a lupron-only trigger this time and I was vacuuming by the morning after surgery...and there was no puke!

The genetic testing results came very quick after round 3, but seemed to take forever for round 4. I kept imagining getting the call, and kept imagining my reaction to being told both were good (I was going to be in the gym and was going to completely lose my mind and be a crying, snotty, happy mess with everyone wondering what in the world was going on). I finally called the clinic the Friday before we left for Costa Rica to see if they had the results. Turns out they may have forgotten to call me. I did imagine a good bit of the reaction correctly, except Danny was with me and we were in his office when we found out the news. The embryologist said "I have good news" and I melted. When she said they were both good, months of tears and snot came out. I am not sure I had cried about any of this since March 17.

Round 5

While we were now up to three embryos, I knew we were heading into at least one more retrieval. There is no set number of embryos needed for 2+ kids, but it feels like we need more than three. We are "embryo banking" due to my age. If we transfer an embryo now and do have the Hail Mary occurrence of getting pregnant, then it will be 1.5-2 years from now before we would begin to think about trying again. By then, I'd be over 42 and my chances of making any embryos would be significantly lower than they are now...and remember they already blow. I have had four in my head from the very beginning as the lowest number of embryos I would feel comfortable with. Lately, I have seen a few doctors recommend three per live birth - so we would need at least six. That may be truly impossible for us.

We took a full "natural" month between rounds 4 and 5 to give my body a break. By that, I mean I had a full cycle without birth control. Of course, this natural cycle decided to be late. I'm never late. This was late enough for me to come up with a reason to go to the grocery store while I was visiting Kelly in Washington to secretly buy a pregnancy test. Spoiler Alert: I was not pregnant. Just waiting daily for my period to come so I could finally get the next round started. The passing of time can be one of the cruelest parts of this journey. It either does not move fast enough, or moves way too fast while you are on the sideline waiting for something you have zero control over to happen.

This round started in late August and went off with a bang. For round 4, we added the drug Omnitrope - or human growth hormone. It is known to help with egg quality and seemed to help us. For round 5, we also added dexamethasone, a steroid. This is also supposed to help with quality. By the end of the cycle, I was on four injectable drugs a day (two hormones to stimulate ovarian growth to make lots of eggs, one drug added mid-cycle to prevent ovulation, and the Omnitrope), and then took the steroids orally at night. This is in addition to the countless vitamins and supplements I take daily. Back to the bang - to monitor the progress of cycle, your estradiol (blood estrogen level, essentially) is checked via blood draw, and the size of your follicles are measured via ultrasound. Generally, each follicle will have one egg. So the bang this time was my estradiol level. At my first monitoring appointment, it was three times what it had ever been before at that point in the cycle. It continued on this trend and I grew very wary of potential overstimulation on the back end. High estrogen can contribute to a miserable recovery. My previous cycles had all topped out between 2,000 and 4,000 - 4,000 being the very first one, and the rest being under 3,000. This time I was over 5,000. My ultrasound was also showing a higher number of follicles than in the past. I was cautiously, or not-so-cautiously optimistic.

This retrieval was on Monday, September 13. This is the anniversary of the death of my cousin's infant baby boy. It is also Danny's parents' anniversary. I tried to not let the date get to me and told myself it could be a great story to share with my cousin that something great happened on that day - and tried to focus more on the "good" of a wedding anniversary than anything else. I woke up the morning of retrieval in more pain than any of the previous cycles. I was barely able to walk. It is not really a surprise, because they ended up getting 27 eggs. I was in total shock and relieved. I felt for sure this was going to be it and that we could be talking about having a transfer in October. I could actually, possibly, maybe be pregnant by Halloween. It took two rounds of fentanyl to get my post-op pain under control, but after that I was good to go. Rounds 4 and 5 both afforded me an easy recovery which I'm so thankful for.

We took off on a two week road trip the day after that surgery. We got our Day 5 call on Saturday while walking in downtown Nashville. They told us they we had one embryo, but seven were potentially still growing. My expectations immediately shifted and I did not feel good about any of it. Danny was still optimistic, but I just was not feeling it. Day 6 call gave us one more embryo, but four were still growing. The day 7 call was just more bad news, that we are getting used to. None of the remaining four made it. So, out of 27 eggs, we at most had two embryos. Statistically speaking, at least 50% of embryos are not genetically viable (hence high miscarriage rates). After three days of not great embryo news, the next day I found out I did not get a job that I had been really excited about. Four days of bad news in a row. Yea. We went on the trip to try to live a bit, but could not outrun the bad news.

The genetic results came quickly as well - we were still on the trip when I got a call from the lab. I was not expecting it to be results yet, so I was caught a bit off guard. We found out neither embryo was viable. We were on our way to Chattanooga that day. We got to the hotel and I said I just wanted to sleep - my way of grieving. Friends was on the TV and it was making Danny laugh his head off. Hearing him made me happy. We went to dinner and I stuffed my face with a fried brownie...basically a brownie stuffed inside a funnel cake or donut, and covered in ice cream. That did a good bit for the soul.

By the next day, I had picked up my bootstraps and was plotting our next course of action. We had talked to one of the nurses that basically said we had three options. I already knew we had those three options, but was hoping they would give us a bit of guidance, but it was basically left up to us. Our options were:

1. Proceed with our first transfer, knowing we had fewer embryos than we wanted, and see what happened

2. Do a mock transfer cycle, called an ERA, where you pretend you are going to transfer, but do a biopsy of the uterine lining instead to give a better view into "getting it right" when we do transfer

3. Do another retrieval

I had pretty much decided we would do the ERA/mock cycle. Some people do not do that until they have had two unsuccessful transfers, but those are people who have more embryos to spare. Then, on a Sunday morning, in the middle of nowhere Louisiana, Dr. Vaughn called us. I was surprised the office was calling, and even more surprised it was him. I am so, so thankful for that call. We both got to talk to him about our options and left with a plan to do another retrieval, and then to do a mock cycle for sure the month before we transfer, whenever that may be. Danny felt way better after being able to be a part of that conversation as well, and I had so much more hope (funny how all I need at times is a plan...).

Here is a summary of where we are heading out of round 5. Note these numbers are fairly terrible - and incredibly frustrating when neither of us have a diagnosis. "Unexplained infertility" is likely the top diagnosis in fertility. We have both had extensive testing and nothing has come up. I make a great amount of eggs for my age - they just may be crappy eggs. The only way to know is to mix my eggs with "proven" sperm and to mix Danny's sperm with "proven" eggs. Way easier said than done, and not something we are very interested in doing at this point. Let that 91 number sink in. If we tried for 91 months, we would have had three possible opportunities to get pregnant. That's for all those people who have suggested I "just relax."

Round 6

I told Danny at some point that I have never been physically fast at anything. I would like to think I am there mentally, but speed has never been the name of my physical game. Slow and steady, calculated, planned, and measured is what brought me success in my endurance sport days. I told him "well, I've done six ironmans, why not do six rounds of IVF?" He did not have much of a response to this, other than that he is stuck with me.

To add some nice insult to injury though, for the first time ever, my ovaries would not shrink back to their normal size after round five. I went in for my baseline appointment to start the next round and was told to come back in 10 days and try again. Then again. The waiting is truly one of, if not the worst part of this. I finally got the green light on October 18 to get going. I started the stim drugs on October 22 and am looking at a retrieval this weekend. My estrogen started off more normal this time which felt like a bit of a relief (based on what? God only knows). But, as of Tuesday, it is looking like my follicle/egg count and estrogen could be off my charts again. We are not excited about high numbers this time. It is a 100% crap shoot/total mind fuck. There has been no rhyme or reason for our good results vs our bad results. So we will just head into this retrieval and subsequent day 5-7 calls with low expectations. We know not to get excited this time. If we are able to even get 1-2 more normal embryos, I think we will feel confident moving to that fifth hurdle. To be honest, I am scared to death of that though. I have no idea how my body will handle a transfer. Is it equipped to take it and go and we never look back? Or will be facing loss after loss? I have often told myself "I won't know if I don't try" - generally in relation to something athletic. But here I am/we are - trying with all of my/our might.

Do I regret freezing my eggs? Absolutely not. Do I recommend others consider it, even knowing it did not have a desired outcome for me? Yes. I will not be left with any question that we/I did everything we could do to have biological children. I was able to enjoy my late 30s and the beginning of my relationship with Danny knowing I had done everything I could. Do I wish maybe 30 year-old Kathleen had done this instead of 35 year-old Kathleen? Maybe. But I certainly do not dwell on that. Thirty year-old Kathleen also could not have begun to afford it, so it is really a moot point. Having the existing relationship with my fertility doctor was another huge plus to having frozen my eggs. We had a fast track to where we are now - which feels quite ironic to say considering what a journey it has already been and will continue to be.

This post is just beginning to scrape the surface of what the last ten months have been like. I could write a book on the roller coaster ride neither of us signed up for. I hope to share more, but we will see where that goes. Getting it out in the world is cathartic for me, and I hope sharing my story can possibly help others. I have no shame in the fact that we are seeking treatment. I wish there was not such a stigma around it and that insurance coverage was more widely available. I talk openly about it when appropriate (or not) with hopes that one day it will be normalized.

Lenten Service Sermon

2018-03-07T14:06:00.002-06:00

I was recently asked to be a speaker at one of my church's Wednesday Lenten services. Below is the sermon I gave.

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A few years ago, Margot Perez-Greene asked if I would speak about my faith journey at one of these Lenten services. I told her at the time that I had not gotten there yet – as in I was still on the journey (or perhaps I hadn’t even really started). She said that was exactly the point but I still felt I just did not have that much to share.

Here I am few years later still very much at what feels like the beginning of this journey of faith, yet wanting to acknowledge a notable leg of this lifelong voyage. It’s funny – I had a feeling a second ask to speak at a Lenten service was coming, and I couldn’t say “no” this time.

I grew up at First United Methodist Church in Beaumont and have fond memories of my time there. When I moved here for college, my church-going days came to an end, except for Christmas with the family. I always assumed I would go back to church, and fully intended to raise my future family in the church.

Nearly 15 years after leaving for college, that future family of mine still did not exist and I was still not at church. Upon visiting my cousin who was expecting triplets, and hearing of their Sunday School class’s plans to bring meals and help, I got to thinking. The fact that I was single and without kids did not preclude me from the possibility of needing a casserole one day too.

I joined Tarrytown not long after and began the Disciple 1 class. The Foundations class began in the fall of 2013 and that is when my church home truly started to form. We treaded lightly for the first several months as we all tried to figure out how we as individuals fit into the class, and how we as a class fit into the church community.

In the spring of 2015, I accepted an expat assignment to move to Helsinki, Finland. Foundations was one of the most grounding parts of that nearly two-year experience. I am afraid, however, the class has heard more about Finland than they ever wanted to hear. I was fortunate to be able to come home every 4-5 months and slipped right back into class as if no time had passed. When I found myself in Paris on Friday the 13^th of November, 2015, surrounded by ISIS attacks, I found great comfort in the prayer I sought from Foundations and the church.

I moved back to Austin at the end of 2016 – just in time for jello shots at the Foundations Christmas party. I was thrilled to be back home making up for missed time with family and friends. By last summer, I was getting a bit antsy and knew I needed to get back into a better volunteer routine. I was set to start Junior League in the fall and had also signed up to be a reading buddy at Blackshear Elementary. Little did I know just how much volunteer work would be coming my way in the very near future.

Hurricane Harvey hit in late August and has changed my life for the better. Not wanting to make fortune out of others’ loss, I want to note it is the resilience and gratitude seen and learned in that loss that has shaped me over the last six months.

My parents’ house was thankfully spared by the storm, but I had family that was not as fortunate. I headed to Beaumont as soon as I could to help out at my Aunt and cousin’s houses that had taken on several feet of water. My cousin Mary had been managing the cleanup of her parents’ house alone for two days before I arrived. I could not believe the amount of work she had done but also could not help but feel incredibly defeated by the amount of work still to do, and the amount of sheer devastation.

Over the course of the three dirtiest days of my life, I came to see resilience and gratitude I have never known. I also learned a little bit about hope. It took me a long while to figure out why my cousin Mary would not stop singing my praises for coming to help. “I’m just one person,” I thought. “I worked for three days but you will have to work for months to get your parents’ house back together,” I thought. Then, one Saturday a few months later, on a roof in Victoria, TX, I figured it out. I had given Mary, and the rest of her family, hope.

That Saturday was on my fourth or fifth ERT trip with the church post hurricane Harvey. Upon completing the ERT training, I went on one day trip to Columbus thinking that would be all I did. I then ended up on a multi-day trip to Victoria, then another, then another. The work became addicting – the need was still astronomical, and I was able-bodied and willing to help. Granted, I warned many that you get what you pay for when you let a left-handed blonde CPA loose on your roof with a pink hammer.

When we arrived at Nora’s house that Saturday morning, she was nearly inconsolable. She was too embarrassed to let us inside her house. The smell of animal urine creeping out from the windows and doors was almost unbearable. I gave her a brief hug and quickly walked away to get to work – I did not want her to see my own tears. Once on the roof, a fellow ERT volunteer told me “you know, sometimes they just need a little hope to get themselves going again.”

Within an hour or so, Nora began to help us where she could. She found a few old buckets and told us to string them up to help lift extra nails and water bottles up to the roof when we needed them. By the end of the morning, she was grinning ear to ear. When we were leaving, she presented each of us with gifts to take and asked that we not forget her. I have the angel she gave me proudly displayed in my dining room and a picture of the two of us on my fridge.

I have “Harvey-ed” (it’s a verb now) 9 or 10 weekends since the storm. I took Friday after Friday off work to head south to weekend on someone’s roof, or covered in their moldy sheetrock. I saw poverty I have never seen before. Many times I thought I had seen the worst, only to find worse. On my last trip, we worked for a man who had small colored Christmas lights strung up through his house. We called him on our way to his house on the second day and I asked if it would help if I picked up some light bulbs for him. He said “immensely!” This is the same guy who was excited to get the old nails I was hoping to throw away out of my tool belt from a previous job. They were all bent and useless to me, however he made no bones about straightening them out so he could use them later. Seven dollars of light bulbs, a few treats for his dog, and old bent nails became his new treasure.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” These experiences have become my treasure.

As I was writing my story over the last few weeks, I had made it this far without too much trouble, but was unable to wrap it up with a pretty pink bow. I knew I would be able to stand up here and say I truly understand the meaning of “blessed to be a blessing,” but still felt something was missing.

Then, just this last Sunday in Foundations, our lesson culminated in a discussion about love being the ultimate basis of Christianity. When I do nice things, I generally explain that they are not coming from the goodness of my own heart, as I can be rather lazy and selfish, but rather that it is God working through me. While I still think that is the case, I now know the best way to personify this phenomenon is to simply call it love.

And there you have it. On my journey of faith, I have learned not only about hope, but the greatest of all, love.

Aunt Patricia and Uncle Ron's house just outside of Beaumont

Picked up my now-favorite Maui hat from Uncle Ron's stash. I looked somewhat clean but don't be fooled...

Aunt Patricia in the middle. Cousin Mary on the right. Another blonde in pink...we are definitely related.

Safety first!

Americorps group in Victoria. I helped to teach them how to tarp a roof.

Nora and the angel she gave me

Check out Nora's smile

Jim got the good job on this day - holding me by my tool belt so I wouldn't slide down the roof while screwing in the last of our furring strips.

Carl re-enacting his nearly catastrophic fall

Light bulbs made his day

Baked Oatmeal Recipe

2017-07-18T08:23:00.002-05:00

I have been making baked oatmeal for quite a few years now. It started as one oatmeal banana pancake made in a skillet in the morning and morphed into muffins and finally into the gloriousness that it is today. Six* days (...or should I say "servings" for those of you cooking for more than one) of breakfast made in one fell swoop. A breakfast that I still get way too excited about each and every day.

I have never liked oatmeal in its "native" form - runny, weird, sticky, and never seeming to stay uniformly warm. I am also not one to cook on a daily basis - especially not breakfast! So while the oatmeal banana "pancake" recommended to me by a nutritionist years ago was a good start towards the non-runny way I'd like to be eating oatmeal, it still required more work than I was willing to do in the kitchen each morning. Shocker. The recipe I ultimately came up with is way more like bread (or any sort of baked oatmeal goody) and seems really nothing like your traditional breakfast oatmeal.

Ingredients

3 cups old fashioned oatmeal (I'm fairly certain any kind will do)
2 cups applesauce (I use HEB brand unsweetened)
4-6 eggs
3 tsp baking powder
salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla to taste

Optional Ingredients**

1/2 - 3/4 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt
3 scoops Isopure natural unflavored protein powder (Much more than this may dry it out, but you can play around with the amount and flavor. You can add vanilla powder if you want more flavor, however I do not love the fake flavor in a lot of the powders.)
Mashed ripe bananas to substitute for all or part of the applesauce
Mashed pumpkin to taste - who doesn't need Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal during Pumpkin everything season?
Nuts of any type
Berries of any type
Chocolate Chips
Honey, maple syrup, brown sugar, or other sweetener of choice

Directions

Mix together all dry ingredients in one large bowl, wet in another smaller bowl. Add wet to dry and mix well. Pour into a well-greased 9x13 Pyrex. Bake at 350-375 for 20-30 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. A toothpick inserted in the middle should come up fairly clean.

Once cooled, slice in half length-wise and into thirds across. This will leave you with six servings, each about the size of a slice of sandwich bread. Store in Ziploc bags or small Tupperware (I'm using the sandwich size Gladware these days to store two slices at a time). Will keep at room temperature for a day or two but I generally keep mine in the fridge and freezer, pulling 1-2 servings out at a time.

Reheat in the toaster and top with your choice of nut butter. My favorites are any of the Justin's flavored Almond Butter. For an extra treat, slice a banana on top of the nut butter, or toss a few berries on top.

* Or, if you are like me, you get the ultimate baked oatmeal pan while living in Finland and are able to make NINE days of breakfast at once. So, so satisfying. Thanks Finland.

** These days, my recipe usually has 4 eggs, 3/4 c nonfat Greek yogurt, and protein powder. That ends up being right at 300 calories with 37g carbs, 25g protein, and 6g fat. Add a tablespoon of Justin's Vanilla Almond Butter and you are up to a hearty breakfast of ~ 390 cal with 42g carbs, 27g protein, and 13g fat.

You can play around with the ingredients until you get it just the way you want it. If it is too cake-like (falls apart in the toaster), consider backing down on the baking powder a bit. I've used up to 6 eggs with 3/4c of yogurt and it has still come out just fine - with lots of protein.

(totally stole this pic - my kitchen photo skills are lacking compared to my baking skills)

Eggcellent Insurance, round 2

2017-03-28T14:41:00.005-05:00

In my last post, I discussed in detail my first round of egg freezing, or oocyte cryopreservation. When I wrote that post, I was on the fence about whether or not to do a second round. I ended up meeting with my doctor the next week and decided to go ahead and plan for a second round. I was very at peace with the decision as soon as I walked out of the office, and I'm thankful for that. Per my doctor, an average round produces 10 eggs and that gives you roughly a 40% chance of having one child. I have 16 eggs frozen so we could possibly call that a 60-70% chance at one child. I do not like those odds. I am risk-adverse by profession, and heavily insured (yet have no problem jumping out of planes or climbing tall things...but that is a different story). I feel I will be able to rest much easier knowing I have 25-30 eggs sitting there waiting for me vs the 16. Granted round two is not necessarily guaranteed to go as well as round one, but I will be hoping for the best. The only real emotion I have felt about going into round two is excitement. The huge unknown about the whole process is no longer there. I am doing a different protocol this time around so there is a very slight apprehension about changing things up, but we are doing it differently to hopefully prevent the six days I spent on the couch the last time so that is good news.

Protocols

The first round, I did what is called a Lupron protocol. I started daily Lupron injections 10 days before I began Gonal-F (stimulation hormone injections). I then stayed on the Lupron throughout the 13 days that I was on Gonal-F. I did the Lupron injections in the same 30 minute window each morning, and did the Gonal-F each evening, with a little wider window. I used Ovidrel (HCG hormone) for the ovulation trigger 36 hours before the retrieval surgery. Ovidrel is what made me so sick last time (nice foreshadowing to the amazing morning sickness I will most certainly have when I am pregnant).

This time we are switching things up a bit to avoid the Ovidrel trigger. I am doing what is called an Antagonist protocol. On this protocol, I will use the drug Cetrotide to prevent ovulation. One of the nice things about doing it this way is that I do not start the Cetrotide until several days into the stimulation process - in other words, way less "involved" days and way less days of injections dictating my schedule. This time I will use Lupron as my trigger - yes, the same drug used previously to prevent ovulation. Apparently before it shuts down your hormones, it first creates a huge surge, and that is what will hopefully cause ovulation this time, just prior to retrieval. I do not know yet the exact timing/details for the Lupron trigger but know it is a bit different than the Ovidrel. I think there are two specifically timed injections instead of one, and I will have a blood test some time between triggering and the surgery to ensure the trigger worked as planned. I will most likely still be on Dostinex this time to prevent OHSS. OHSS is far less likely with the Lupron trigger, however in the event the Lupron does not work as planned, I will use Ovidrel instead and can plan to spend another six plus days on the couch. I am, of course, hoping for plan A, however I am okay with plan B if that is what we need to do to ensure the best outcome.

March 27 - Day 4 Check In

I started round two of stimulation last Friday, March 24. I started at a higher dose than last time (300 IU day one, 225 IU days two and three vs 225 IU day one and 150 IU days two and three) and it definitely jump started the process. Per Dr. Vaughn, I got a good report card yesterday :-) He was able to see 16 follicles, all measuring between 4mm and 8mm. On day three of my first round, there were only seven visible and they were all between 3mm and 5mm. Below are my "report cards" from day three of each round. Round one is on the left, two on the right. The 62 and 288 are my blood estrogen levels and the 3-8's are the measurement of each follicle on the right and left ovary. He said there were probably more on the left this time, he just could not see them all.

So I am excited to see my body responding well to the drugs - so far, so good. The only potential issue is if I respond well enough, my cycle may be way shorter than last time around and my typically good planning skills may not work so well. Quarter close at work (i.e. the ~five busiest work days of the quarter) begins this Thursday for me and ends next Wednesday. It is possible my surgery may be Wednesday morning (or even earlier), in which case I may be working at 4am beforehand to get done what I need to get done. Oh well, if that is the case I at least know I will get a good nap afterward.

So far I feel pretty normal as well. I had a headache on the Lupron last time but that was supposed to get better when I added in the Gonal-F, and it did. I have a bit of one now and am a bit tired, but I do not know how much of that has to do with hormones and how much has to do with the awesome weekend trip to San Diego I just got back from. I am doing a few acupuncture sessions during and after this cycle to try to reduce some of the stress on my body in hopes of getting back to normal ASAP afterward. This time around I am also going to try to take careful note of my caloric intake and weight throughout. I am extra fluffy right now and hate it, but I do not know how much of it is related to all of this and how much is just my awesome stubborn body. I do not have the intention of "dieting" through this round as avoiding stress is the number one piece of advice given, however I just want to keep a watchful eye everything to see what happens. It will have been over six months of messing with my hormones when this is all said and done so I am hopeful a return to "normal" will help.

My next appointment is Thursday - I will post an update on this post sometime after that.

March 30 - Day 7 Check In

Nothing too exciting to report back with today.

Fifteen follicles showed up today, ranging from 4-12mm. My Gonal-F for the last three days was at 225IU. Tonight I will do 100IU and tomorrow 150IU. I go back Saturday morning for more blood work and another sonogram. I am a little disappointed as there was so much progress from day zero to day three and day six just seems a bit boring, but that is okay. The patience/trust part kicks in now and I just have to go along for the ride. The goal is to get as many follicles to 18-20mm at the same time as possible. As you can already see, they grow at different rates. If they are bigger than that, they may be over-mature and will not produce a quality egg, and same for them being any smaller than 18-20mm - the egg would not be mature enough at the time of harvest to freeze.

I start Cetrotide Saturday morning. It is a fairly involved process of mixing saline and powder, switching needles, etc. The Gonal-F is super easy because it comes in a redi-ject pen that you just dial up to the desired dose and put a new needle on. I have to take the Cetrotide at the same time each morning, never going more than 25 hours between doses (less than 24 hours is okay, but if I do it early one day, I cannot do it any later than 25 hours after the next day).

Above is the load of drugs I received early last week. Kind of looks like Christmas...but not really. I am still feeling pretty okay and think I will remain uncrazy through this round of hormones (thank goodness!). I did feel like a stuffed sausage Tuesday evening when I went to put my workout clothes on. My weight has stayed stable but gees I felt like I was busting at the seams. I want to wear the biggest workout clothes I have, and unfortunately I do not seem to have many that fit that bill. I am also not sleeping well which does suck royally. An impressive storm two nights ago was responsible for that night, but in general I have not slept as consistently over the last two to three months. When I first got home from Finland, I was sleeping like a champ. I think the timing is about right to when all of this started. But that is good news because there is hope I will go back to champion sleeping before too long.

Saturday, April 1 - Day 9 Check In

My next appointment after last Thursday was on Saturday. I was out until one or so Friday night so my 6:40am alarm to get blood work was not well-received. I had my sonogram appointment at 10:45 so got a bit of a nap in between the two. I started the Cetrotide Saturday morning. I do not know if I was just having a bad morning or what, but the 27 gauge needle was having nothing to do with my stomach - it took four times to get it in. Note I'm learning which needles I like and which I do not like - 29/30 are great. 27 is getting a bit rough. Thankfully though I have not had issues since Saturday morning with that one - it was just odd. The Cetrotide does itch and burn for about an hour afterward which is a bit of a nuisance, but not terrible. They had not received my blood work results by the time I had my sonogram, so they said they would call me later Saturday to tell me the amounts of Gonal-F to take that night and Sunday night. They called later on and started by telling me to take 75 units of Menopur and I told the nurse I did not have any and did not have a prescription for it. She said she would need to go talk to Dr. Vaughn and call me back. Thirty minutes later I was just settling in for an awesome nap and she called back and asked if I could come back up to the office to get Menopur because they do want me on it. Thankfully it was Saturday and Mopac traffic was not awful. The office was able to lend me three days' worth and would call in the rx for me on Monday.

My numbers Saturday were not anything special again - not great, not terrible. I think my estrogen level was 14xx but I do not remember for sure.

I now take the Menopur in the evening with the Gonal-F. Apparently the Cetrotide, which I take to prevent ovulation, also takes down one of the hormones I need, so Menopur puts it back.

Monday, April 3 - Day 11 Check In

Sunday morning I was almost out the door to church, rushing to beat a huge storm that was coming, and realized I had forgotten to take the Cetrotide. I ran back in and did it, and sure enough the bottom fell out of the sky a block from church. Oooh well. I did get to wear my cute Helly Hanson raincoat so that is a plus :-)

Sunday evening I went to take my Menopur and Gonal-F and after a few minutes I realized one was burning at the injection site. I thought that was a bit weird and then I realized I had taken Cetrotide instead of Menopur. Facepalm, followed by loud groan. I knew this was not nearly as fatal as forgetting to take my trigger, or going over 25 hours in between Cetrotide doses, but still a pain. I called the on-call nurse and she called Dr. Vaughn and they said just to take my next dose at noon on Monday vs in the morning.

Monday's blood work was a bit of a pain (in the arm). The lady had a bit of a rough time getting into my vein and now I cannot straighten my arm. I would not be quite as upset about it but those veins have to be accessed again tomorrow and then possibly again in the days after that. I do not enjoy when someone has to try to get blood out of an already pissed off vein. The sonogram was a bit interesting this time though. Tons of follicles showed up, but there are a lot of small ones that may not mature to retrieval. That is a very sad thought. My estrogen level is 1235 which seems super low. At this point last time (three days prior to retrieval), my level was over 4000. Dr. Google seems to say over 1000 is just fine but I wonder how much my Cetrotide mishap has to do with this. I'm all the way back up to 375IU of Gonal-F tonight, so they are getting one last huge push.

Above, the numbers on the left are from this round, and the one on the right is from the first round. Assuming I have my retrieval on Thursday, these are both from my appointment three days out. They look quite a bit different. I wonder how much is due to different rx protocol this time around and how much is just normal, unexplainable, fluctuation. As a reminder, 18 follicles is the most they ever saw on the sonogram during my first round, and 18 eggs were retrieved. Fifteen "good" and one "questionable" were able to be frozen. Dr Vaughn said the ones that are currently 12 or lower may not make it to maturity by retrieval this time around. It is looking like I could have anywhere from 8 to 25 eggs retrieved based on this, with those that are bigger right now having a much better chance of maturing and being successfully frozen.

Right now, we are looking at a Thursday morning retrieval. I go back tomorrow morning for more blood work and a sonogram. Those will tell if we trigger Tuesday night for sure for a Thursday AM retrieval, or if we decide to stimulate one more day. Either day is fine with me, and it is good to be clearing Wednesday since I need to do actual work that day.

I'm still not feeling too much in the way of specific side effects, however I am not sleeping well. The world seems to go pretty wrong pretty fast when I do not get enough sleep so I am currently feeling a bit worthless and sorry for myself. I am having a hard time using my brain at work - just dreaming of my bed. I had acupuncture again today - hopefully that will help with the sleep tonight. I feel random twinges of slight pain here and there in my stomach, but nothing remotely major which is good. I plan to workout through Wednesday unless my bed gets the better of me sometime between now and then. Prayers for sleep and for those immature little follicles to grow would be much appreciated!

Wednesday, April 5 - Day 13 Check In

I had my last sonogram yesterday and the numbers were a bit all over the place again. My estrogen was 1756, so still way lower than the 4900 it climbed to during round one. I asked Dr. Vaughn if that is good or bad and why there is a difference and he said he does not really think anything of it - did say he noticed the difference, but did not seem concerned past that. I asked if that meant my chances of OHSS would be lower and he said they will already be way lower with the Lupron trigger and did not say much more.

Above are Tuesday's numbers. The ones above the line are looking good and the 14's are questionable. I do not love the look of that but there is not much I can really do about it at this point. Of course I wonder if this protocol was the right way to go and will probably always wonder if the outcome is not as good as around one. The realty is though there may never be answers and I could have done the exact same protocol and still had a vastly different outcome. Such is the way this stuff goes.

The nurse called Tuesday afternoon to give me instructions for my trigger shots and surgery morning. I'm scheduled for surgery at 6:15 Thursday which means I get to be there at 5:15. Whohoo! And whohoo for the poor soul who is also waking up to get me there! I took the first of my two trigger shots at 6:30 last night and then the other at 6:30 this morning. I had to go then do one last round of blood work to ensure the Lupron trigger did work. Apparently it fails in 2% of women. That is a 2% I do not want to be a part of. The good news there was that my lady was able to get blood without much issue this morning. I am lucky because I have had it drawn four times in the last five days and my veins have thankfully stayed calm enough to allow for it all.

I took this picture this morning of what will hopefully be my last self-given injection for a long long time. It was supposed to be celebratory of sorts. Of course what I did not notice is I bent the needle when I recapped the syringe (which you are not supposed to do pretty much for that exact reason) and then proceeded to stab myself in the thumb with it. Thankfully they provided extra syringes/needles for people just like me.

In my first cycle, I was taking ten units of Lupron daily for the first ten days and then went down to five units for the next fourteen. These two trigger shots called for 80 units of Lupron each. Safe to say they were a bit irritating (my stomach pictured below about 15 minutes after the injection). The Cetrotide looked similar each morning, but I only had to take it for three mornings (plus my mishap evening).

So now I wait. First, for the phone call that my blood work shows that the trigger did work. And then second, for the report from the embryologist after my retrieval tomorrow morning. I am fairly nervous about it all but am also so exhausted I do not have much energy to really worry about it. I did a decent job of avoid true stress again this time around but not sleeping just creates a whole world of stress on its own which is not cool.

Thursday, April 6 - Retrieval

I got a call Wednesday afternoon letting me know everything looked good with the blood work and to confirm my 5:15am arrival at the surgery center. I worked out Wednesday evening, still not having any real issues. I did alter a few of the exercises that had quite a bit of bending or twisting in them, but otherwise felt fine. After that I headed to bible study (aka "group therapy") and of the six girls there, three were Dr. Vaughn patients. We joked about how after each sonogram he will tell you what your next steps are (ie if you need to meet with your nurse, schedule another appointment, etc). He always starts though with "well, first, get dressed..." We all agreed that was the obvious first step, but assume there is a reason he needs to reiterate that step but as of yet no one has asked for a backstory. Again, I need to reiterate my extreme appreciation for my friends going through their own fertility journeys while I am going through mine. People who are not in the middle of it only want to talk so much about my ovaries...although several friends not in the middle of it did lend amazing open ears, prayers, and cheers for growing eggs throughout this process.

Thursday morning my friend Graham came to get me just after five (after a false start Wednesday morning that ended with a text to me at 4:47am that said "f*** your surgery is Thursday.") I just told him it was good practice for the real day and promised extra walks for his dog. Prep was uneventful other than that the nurse looked like she was considering calling the whole thing off when I told her I had had two sips of water that morning. I walked into the OR right at 6:15 and was back in my room waking up shortly after. I was still more asleep than awake when the embryologist stuck her head in to say they got 20 eggs. I was shocked and hoped they were able to freeze most of them. I was in a good bit of pain but wanted to avoid the puke fest of last time, if at all possible. The recovery nurse became my best friend when she gave me dilaudid through my IV and told me to go back to sleep...and repeated that process two more times. The goal was to avoid taking anything by mouth in hopes I would not get sick (last time it may have been the percocet I took by mouth that caused the unpleasantness that followed). I also took a Zofran to be safe. The dilaudid did its job soon enough and Vickie arrived to take me home. It was not long before she said I looked sooo much better than last time. Apparently I was pretty green then. The embryologist stuck her head back in before we left and reported that they froze 19 eggs. Holy cow! They had 17 mature and 2 less mature. That was amazing. I just had not felt confident in everything after the last few sonograms so this was such a surprise. That leaves me with 32 mature and 3 less mature eggs hanging out in their comfy little freezer waiting for Mr. Right.

Post Op and Recovery Days

I made it home uneventfully this time - no puke! I thought I was going to get sick when I walked in my house, but laid down and that was all I needed to be okay. I slept off and on the rest of the morning and afternoon, never feeling that bad. I would describe myself as wobbly feeling but that is it. A friend came over in the evening to check on me and I felt well enough for us to walk to dinner nearby. I was not exactly presentable, but that is not necessarily anything new. Friday morning I went into work for a few meetings and then back to my couch. That afternoon my niece joined me for some vitamin D recovery at the pool - it was quite nice. I was up five pounds Friday morning which was all fluid in my stomach so I did not feel amazing, but not terrible. Saturday I was still a bit tired and a tiny bit sore but still not sick so that was great. It was the second afternoon last time that I really started to get uncomfortable so I was happy to clear that hurdle. Saturday I was down one pound from the day before, and the rest steadily dropped off over the three to four days after. I did chose to forego my friends' trampoline birthday party Saturday afternoon which was soooo sad since I have not been on a trampoline in years and was looking forward to it. However, I do not think my ovaries were quite ready for that.

By Sunday, I felt about 90% me and if anything was getting a bit antsy from spending too much time with Netflix on the couch and in my bed. I had planned to workout Monday evening and had been wondering a bit during the day how that would go. I was worried if the impact of running and jumping would be a bit uncomfortable. I was a good five minutes into the warm-up before I remembered I had been worried about that, so clearly it was not an issue. This was such a change from last time - four days after last time I was still puking and did not know if there was an end in sight. This time around I was back to normal. The Ovidrel I used to trigger the first time apparently stays in your system up to 10 days while the Lupron trigger I used this time gets out of your system pretty quick. I would say this was definitely the case for me and again I am so thankful for that. My weight was back to what it was before I started by Tuesday morning. I claim victory there on not gaining weight this time - I worked pretty hard to stay even and am glad the hormones did not wreak any further havoc on my waistline. I am still at least six pounds higher than when I got home from Finland and still feel like I am wearing a fat suit and/or look five months pregnant. I am hopeful though that with a return to "normal," I'll be able to start chipping away at that before too long. The only lingering issue I have currently is I am still not sleeping well. This is somewhat tragic, but I am hoping it gets better before too long. I have taken Ambien a few nights but do not want to take that too often. I am happy the hormones have exited my system so quickly this time around but wonder if such big swings in hormone levels do not come with their own set of woes.

There was an instant wave of relief Thursday morning when they told me they froze 19 eggs. That has been followed by several smaller waves of relief as it has taken a bit of time to settle in that this is over and ended with what I would consider a huge win. I chose to look at this as an opportunity to do something I wanted to do instead of something terrible or a negative experience. I am so glad I decided to go with the second round. I feel way more confident and at peace with 35 eggs frozen vs the 16 from the first round alone. I still have no idea what the future will bring but this made it perhaps seem a little less scary. In an ideal world, I will meet Mr. Right and we will have no trouble making our own babies the old-fashioned way. However, having a little insurance in place for plan B (whatever in the world that may be) does not hurt.

Eggcellent Insurance?

2017-02-02T17:42:00.002-06:00

It is no secret that there have not been many men in my life - especially not any that seemed like the right person to procreate with. I bought a Chevy Tahoe when I was 23 and was certain I would have kids in it before I was done driving it. I drove that car seven years and the next SUV for four...then moved to Finland...and still no kids. Perhaps I should have purchased the two-door sports car at some point if I wanted this to go a different way. Anyway, that is all to say life certainly has not taken me where I expected it to at this point - turning 36 in less than two weeks. For the most part, I am okay with that. I have had a pretty awesome life and have gone on some pretty amazing adventures. I live a life I am proud of and one that I am happy with. My family is amazing, work is not too bad, and as of recently, I am a homeowner. Living the American dream, right? Mostly. I do not spend much time focusing on what I do not have because what I do have is pretty darn fulfilling. Alternatively though, I fear I have become REALLY good at being single and am pretty much just a flaming bachelor now (but wait, do bachelors go out all the time? If so, I fail).

I wish I could remember when, but one day when we were eating at Matt's El Rancho with good friends of my sister and her husband (who have also become good friends of mine), Vickie spoke up and said "I'm only asking this because I've had two margaritas - but would you ever freeze your eggs?" At that time, my answer was a very confident "no." I assume I was around 31 or 32. The wheels turned a tiny bit after that but I was still squarely in the "no" camp. I had decided that if I got to the age where my eggs were too old that I would probably feel too old to have a kid anyway. Not that that was what I wanted, but for whatever reason, I just did not think I would want to be 42 using my 32 yr old eggs to have a kid.

Minds Change

Fast forward a few years to the Fall of 2014 and my mind began to change. I had a brief (as in less than a few hours) scare upon receiving results to some blood work that made me think perhaps I would not be able to have children as easily as I would like, or perhaps not at all. I do not think I would call that a turning point but it was the first time I was faced with the thought of infertility and it did not sit well. By early 2015, my mind had definitely begun to change and I was getting my head around the idea of doing it. The fact that I had been on all of three dates in the five years since moving to Austin may have pushed me towards a change of heart as well. Then, of course, my boss asked me to move to Finland and in some ways part of my life was put on hold for a good two years. By early Spring I decided I definitely wanted to freeze my eggs but did not have enough time before moving abroad. I think that one of the biggest lessons I learned about myself through the process is that my mind can change, and that it is okay if it does. But also that I do not need to assume that just because I feel a certain way today I will always feel that way.

The Before

Once my move-home date from Finland was settled, freezing my eggs was at the top of my list of priorities for things to do when I made it back. I started to do my research over last summer and asked around my group of Austin friends for doctor recommendations. I ended up having a consultation with Dr. Vaughn at Texas Fertility on a trip home in August. A friend was currently seeing him for IVF and the whole practice was widely recommended. After my consultation with him, I did not think I needed a second opinion. TFC's pricing was actually on the lower end of what I was thinking this may cost and I liked Dr. Vaughn. I had an AMH blood test while in town and they let me know the results of that looked promising for egg freezing. I was to get back in touch when I was home for good.

The During

I arrived home from Finland on December 1 and was supposed to call the office on day 1 of my next cycle. They had to do a bit of calculating to make sure the timing of my egg cycle would steer clear of the lab closure for the holidays. They decided I'd start taking birth control on December 11 and take it for 3 weeks. On December 27, I went in for a baseline sonogram and started my first injections. That drug was Lupron. I started at a dose of 10 units to be injected within the same 30 minute window every morning. Lupron basically shuts down your hormones and is used to prevent ovulation. I moved down to 5 units daily starting on January 6. Lupron was surprisingly covered by my insurance. Otherwise it would have been a little over $500 for the entire course.

I went back on January 5 for another ultrasound and to get dosage instructions for the next drug - Gonal-F. Gonal-F is the important one - the one that makes the eggs. Generally, you release one egg month. The goal here is to get as many growing and released as possible. No one will really tell you what a "good" number is as there are so many factors that go into it, however I had 15-20 set in my head. I did not want to do another cycle as a second cycle would likely be more expensive than the first due to needing more drugs (assuming cycle 1 did not go well). Gonal-F is pretty much liquid gold. I spent roughly $2500 on that drug alone. I started Gonal-F at night on Jan 6. Fortunately neither of these two injectable drugs hurt very much. I'd given myself allergy shots before and was not too worried about this. You inject in your stomach. This was the first time I've ever been thankful for my gosh-awful stomach roll(s). At times I felt like I was running out of fat and I have no idea what those darn skinny girls do! One evening I had to give myself two shots of Gonal-F and for whatever reason, that one bruised really bad. I'm very thankful none of the others bruised or I would have really run out of space.

January 9 was my first estrogen blood check and sonogram "on stims." Each "check in" consists of blood work (estrogen) before 8am and then a sonogram at some point during the day - just based on normal appointment availability. They then use the estrogen levels and the measured size of your follicles from the sonogram to decide what level of Gonal-F you will take over the next days before your next check in. At that first appointment, they measured 7 follicles. I wasn't thrilled with that number but did not have much to really go on. Dr. Vaughn didn't seem worried. Note normal levels of estrogen are below 100 (depending on where you are in your cycle) and mine would climb to over 4900 before this was over.

I went back the next Thursday (Jan 12), Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. At the Jan 12 appointment, it was decided my follicles were a little lazy and/or slow growing. The number of follicles had gone up to 17 which was great, but the size was still a bit small. They upped my Gonal-F and we re-checked on Saturday. By then there were 18 but still a bit small. Over the next week some grew well and others lagged a bit. It becomes quite a balancing act to get the smaller ones to grow without over stimulating. Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) is a potential side effect that the Dr works to avoid at all costs, while still pushing the number and size of follicles to their max. That Wednesday, Dr. Vaughn decided to stim one more day while also putting me on a drug called Dostinex that can help prevent OHSS.

I "stimmed" (took stimulation drugs) for 13 days. Originally my nurse said she thought I'd be in the 8-10 day camp so the last few days begun to drag on a bit. But I wanted the best possible outcome so I just went with the flow. By the Monday, Jan 16 appointment, Dr. Vaughn said we were probably looking at a weekend retrieval. I was quite bummed as I'd been so looking forward to a sick day. Who wants a sick day on a weekend? Again...needing my follicles to grow as much as possible, I just had to go along with it. I had my last appointment Thursday and was then called and given a time to take my HCG "trigger shot" Thursday evening. The HCG shot is a huge dose of pregnancy hormones that causes the ovaries to release their eggs approximately 36 hours after injection. Surgery was then scheduled for Saturday morning, 36 hours after the trigger shot.

I had had relatively few issues or side effects thus far in the process. The Lupron gave me a headache after a while, but it went away when the dose was lowered and the Gonal-F began. The second week I was a bit bloated here and there but still nothing debilitating. I had friends say they felt like they could not really move the last few days and I was able to work out up until the day before my surgery. I was told to avoid repetitive bending at the waist and any twisting. My ovaries were growing to an abnormally large size and would be at greater risk for ovarian torsion. So I was a little cautious during the second week of working out, but wouldn't say I slowed down much. I was also pleased that the hormones did not seem to affect me, especially after one friend said she cried almost nonstop and another said she was verifiably bat shit crazy. All my good fortune was coming to an end though. I woke up in the middle of the night Thursday after the trigger shot and threw up. I felt okay again Friday but was uneasy again by the evening. I took some Zofran and was okay though.

Retrieval

My surgery was 8:30 Saturday morning. The Austin Fertility Surgery Center is just two buildings over from the Texas Fertility office which was convenient. Ovation Fertility is also located in the surgery center building...makes sense as this way they are not carting your eggs/embryos all over the place. Vickie had volunteered to take me to the surgery back in August when I let her know I was finally doing it. Everyone that morning was very nice and the process was easy. I asked about getting sick from the HCG shot and the nurse said "yeah....you are probably going to have pretty bad morning sickness when you have kids." Whohoo! We arrived an hour early to do paperwork and get all set and I walked into the OR right at 8:30. They did not tell me they had hooked up the good stuff and all of a sudden my eyes started doing crazy things. I asked if they had started the drugs and they said they had...I do not think I got three words out in response.

I was back in recovery and waking up just after 9 so it is a really quick procedure. I was in a good bit of pain when I got back so they gave me two rounds of dilaudid through my IV and then I took a percocet at some point after that. I had said ahead of time I was already a bit nauseous from the HCG and that pain medicine makes me very sick too. They said they had pumped a lot of anti-nausea meds into my IV and that I should be good. Well, I was good for a bit and then I was not. I got sick and then felt better for about 20 minutes. They brought me a Zofran and as soon as I put it under my tongue, I puked again. We made a run for it after that thinking I might have another ~20 minute window before I got sick again. Critical mistake. I made good use of the fancy new puke bags they gave us in Vickie's car on the way home. Conveniently enough, traffic was horrible on Mopac because it was the women's march day. I felt terrible that I was puking in Vickie's car but kept telling myself "she has kids...she's dealt with this before." I got sick one more time as soon as I got home and then planted myself on the couch and did not move for several hours. I was in and out of it but afraid to move. My niece Molly was in and out through the day and helped me out. My friend Bonnie came by in the afternoon as well, after going on a city-wide search for good Jell-O and Chewy Lemonheads and Friends (not just any Lemonheads would do). By the evening I finally braved some pain medicine (Tylenol with codeine). It did not make a noticeable difference in my pain, but fortunately, my pain was not really bad at all by then - just a little crampy. The other good news is that I did not puke from the medicine...in fact, I ordered Mr Gatti's. Watch out. That ended up being the only pain pill I took. I took regular Tylenol a few times after that, but mostly for headaches. I was to avoid NSAIDS at first to prevent bleeding and then started on baby aspirin starting two days after to prevent blood clotting.

Recovery

I slept fine Saturday night and woke up Sunday ready to move on with life. I had expected to spend most of surgery day on the couch and then to be pretty much normal the next day. I knew I would be bloated and possibly uncomfortable, but was not expecting anything more than that (based on all but one of my friends' experiences - and even she was okay until later in the week after). I went to church and was moving a bit slow and awkward but nothing terrible. Molly came over after church and we watched Netflix on the couch all afternoon. I'm not sure at what point it was, but I realized I just didn't feel great. I had weird pain/pressure between my belly button and diaphragm. It made me a bit queasy. I was told to monitor my weight daily and if it went up more than 4-5 lbs in a day for two or more days, I needed to call the dr. I had forgotten to weigh myself the morning of the surgery, but on Sunday morning I was ~5 lbs heavier than I had been the Tuesday before. That was definitely all fluid in my stomach. Monday morning I was the same but by Monday afternoon it had started to go down. The problem was when I woke up Monday and had originally planned to really be back at life (ie work), I realized the only place I was going was my couch. I spent the day there fairly nauseous and uncomfortable. By then food was sounding pretty terrible and I was sick of Gatorade. I called the Dr office and they said it was normal as long as my weight was not going crazy and my urine output remained normal. They also said symptoms usually peak days five through seven. What?? I was not expecting that and on day 2/3 did not think that was going to be me. I was not having any of it.

Tuesday morning I went in to the office for about three hours and felt okay. I planned to take the afternoon easy and possibly head to San Antonio that night to surprise my niece for her 10th birthday the next morning. I made dinner for a Sunday School friend who had just had her 3rd baby and while dropping it off she told me all three of hers were "Dr. Vaughn babies." I had no idea! The number of families in my Sunday School class alone who have gone to Texas Fertility is staggering. I think it is wonderful such help is out there, but also a bit sad at times too that infertility still is not talked about very openly.

Speaking of open, a fair number of people were aware I was going through this. I never intended to overshare, but did not necessarily feel the need to hide it either. Turns out the same week I had my retrieval, I had one friend going through IUI with Dr. Vaughn and another having a hysterectomy after having twins from Texas Fertility. Being able to talk openly with these girls was great. I was also open about it at Sunday School the day after my procedure - someone asked why I was sick or something and I figured it was easiest to just flat out say what I had had done the day before instead of talking about some vague topic. One of the guys in my class paid me a compliment after that saying "way to put that out there." His first baby was a Texas Fertility Center IVF baby as well.

Some of the conversations about freezing my eggs were a bit more awkward than others...I am sure I made more than one person uncomfortable along the way and feel bad for doing that (namely those with a y chromosome). There just was not really a better way to say why I might be out of the gym for a while, or why I was at home sick for a while, or why I cannot bend at the waist or twist but can do everything else just fine. For the most part, the reception is very positive - ranging from purely inquisitive about how the process works to "should I be doing this?" To that I tell people to talk to their obgyn and have their blood levels tested and to just take the conversation from there.

Back to Tuesday evening. By the time I left my friend's house, I was feeling pretty lousy and did not think driving to San Antonio was a good idea. I was fairly sad but felt too bad to try to go. I ended up puking again around 9:30 and then woke up in the middle of the night dry heaving. I had not had any true pain until then - at that point I was worried my huge ovaries were going to explode. Thankfully I was not sick again but I am not sure I slept the rest of the night. I was in a good bit of pain and just had to lie very still. Wednesday morning I knew there was no chance of going to work. I did have an acupuncture appointment scheduled for noon for my hamstring and was on the fence about that. I did not want to cancel but did not want to puke my brains out on the table either. I ended up making it there and the hamstring took a backseat to trying to fix my nausea. I felt amazing for the 30 minutes or so I was lying there and would have been thrilled if I could have just spent the rest of the afternoon there. Sadly that was not an option. By the time I got to my car I already felt like poo again. I think the hormonal shit storm that was in my stomach was too much for those little acupuncture needles. I left there and went to pick up a prescription for phenergan Dr. Vaughn had called in for me after my beloved Zofran was not putting a dent in my issues. Back to bed with the phenergan, wondering if day seven was, in fact, going to be the worst as the nurse said it could be. The problem with that plan is one of my dearest friends was getting married in Houston on Friday, day seven.

Thursday was more of the same - nauseous and zero energy. It was also closing in on the longest amount of sick time I have ever taken from work. No big deal - it was only year-end (we file our 10k on Feb 1), and January month-end. I tried to drink more on Thursday and realized I was just not right because I normally love water and had trouble even getting that down. By this point I decided my body was so confused I was not sure if it would ever get sorted out. I think my electrolytes were off from the beginning after I puked so much Saturday morning, and then again throughout the week. I had been off and on four drugs that all had constipation as a side effect...fun. I had been told to stay on top of that and probably went way too far on that early in the week and then was behind the tide again later in the week. And on top of that, my stomach was full of huge ovaries pressing on things and putting things in weird places, and I had huge amounts of estrogen just floating around in my stomach (when they remove the eggs, fluid fills in the follicles where the eggs once were, and it is that fluid that can cause all sorts of issues). I was told to eat high fiber and high salt - neither was the least bit appetizing. By Thursday night, I assumed I was not going to make it to Houston the next day. I was also left solidly wondering where in the world a baby goes in a women's body when she is pregnant. My ovaries were the size of softballs perhaps and that was enough to wreak total havoc...what about a 7 lb child? I just don't get it!

Friday morning I woke up and before I even moved, I thought things seemed noticeably better. I had an Airrosti appointment at 9 that morning and that was going to be my first test. The doctor commented on my "high spirits" in extreme sarcasm, but I was at least there. I took a short nap after the appointment and did not feel like death after. That was all I needed to get in the car and head to Houston. Halfway through the trip I would have described my condition as a functional hangover - ie feel pretty bad but able to go about my business. By the time I got to Houston I was feeling that much better. At the ceremony I noticed I had not stopped eating after about an hour and that is when I declared myself miraculously healed. I had not thought I would make it to dinner originally, but I did and I think I ate everything in sight. I could not believe how much better I felt by Friday night, even compared to Friday morning.

By Saturday I was pretty much back to normal - weak and tired, but certainly back to the land of the living. I started working out again on Monday. I took it pretty easy and could still feel a bit of weirdness in my stomach - it was hard to distinguish though what I was feeling...ovaries, stomach muscles, intestines, or what. I still avoided twisting and bending for a few more days but by Thursday I am feeling pretty much back to normal. I was told it would take one to two weeks for my ovaries to get back down to a normal size and I think I'm close to there.

My Little Frozen Eggs...and What's Next?

Before I left the surgery center Saturday morning, the embryologist came in and let me know they retrieved 18 eggs. I was probably the most nervous I had been about the whole thing for the three seconds between her walking in and her telling me the number retrieved. Eighteen is a great number and was really the most I could have expected based on my sonograms. Eighteen was the highest number of follicles they ever saw at one time. The next step was for them to see how many were freezable - they said I'd hear from them by the next day at the latest on that. I was happy with 18 but was hoping the number did not drop off much.

I had said going into this that I was only financially and emotionally equipped to do this one time. I was not prepared to face the possibility of only getting a few eggs and needing to go through it again. As soon as they told me I got 18 eggs though, the possibility of round two was in my head. The embryologist said I probably had a pretty safe number for one kid but that if I wanted "like three," that I should probably do another round. I do not have to have three but I want more than one. The thought had not entirely occurred to me that I could have what is considered a very successful outcome with round one and still consider a round two.

A few hours after I got home, they called and let me know they were able to freeze 15 mature and 1 questionable egg. That is still very good - and a low drop off rate. Thoughts of round two became greater and greater. I had pretty much decided that I did not want money to be the reason I did not do it. At that time (Saturday), money would have really been the only thing stopping me at the same time. I really have no business shelling out another $9000 any time soon on anything that does not involve a home loan, but I do not want to be 40 looking back thinking "wow...had I just spent the money then..." Adoption or multiple rounds of IVF or who knows what else I could be looking at down the road would all certainly cost much more than $9000.

After spending the better part of six days knocked out on my couch though, the decision for round two is much less clear. I'm not sure if anything could be done differently next time to not be out so long after. The before was really not a big deal for me. Yes I had to be in Austin and available for many early morning blood draws and mid-afternoon sonograms, but I'm fortunately enough to have the flexibility in my job for that to be okay. And somehow the traffic gods were in my favor through the whole process until surgery day! I have to think about missing work and unfortunately cannot really plan around low times because this is all based on my body's timing...nothing else really. I can have control obviously on what month I do it, but not much else.

I held my chin high through this whole process and was not really down about the fact that my life had led me here and did not do much feeling sorry for myself. I am relieved about that. But it is funny that now I am struggling a bit with it all - whether or not to do it again. I do not have to make a decision any time soon and will definitely continue to pray about it. I feel fairly confident I will come up with a decision I am at peace with before too long, but I do not do undecided well :-) Only now am I starting to feel a bit of the cruelty of the situation...if I want to call it that. But the flip side is I have 15/16 eggs hanging out there waiting for me that could one day make me a mother - and some people in my position will never be able to even say that.

So I have an insurance plan of sorts in place now. The difference between IVF and egg freezing is egg freezing ends with a big question mark. I will not know the quality of my eggs until they are fertilized and God only knows when that will be. It could turn out that I have amazing eggs and they meet some amazing sperm some day and provide all the kids I could ever want. Or it could be that those eggs do not even produce one viable embryo. Only time will tell there. I still have zero regrets about it and have at least made that question mark much smaller than it would have been without this eggcellent insurance plan. And if I can help even one person navigate this process then I'll be even happier about going through it and being open about it. I am eternally grateful to my friends who were there for me as I went through.

A few have asked if I plan to use a sperm donor either now or down the line. My nieces begged me to have a kid now - convinced it would be the cutest. While I was flattered they think I would make cute offspring, I told them there was currently no trust fund in place to take care of said cute kid, unless they wanted to take care of it. Currently, I have zero plans to ever enter parenthood alone. I cannot imagine doing so. I know many end up single parents and are rocking life at doing it, but few ever plan to be single parents from the beginning. However, as I said above, I reserve the right to change my mind at some point. I really hope that is not what God's plan is for me, but we will just have to wait and see.

Edited to Add:

Wow - in the three hours since I've posted this the response I've received has been amazing. More and more thoughts keep popping in my head and I want to get them out there. Forgive me if they are all over the place but here we go.

Timing. Some people were shocked I did this as quickly as I did after coming home. Some, especially, because it was during year-end at work. I have a few reasons for the rush:

I had been waiting for over two years to do this - I had put work over everything else for a very long time. It was time to put me first for a bit. Fortunately I have a female boss and she was very supportive in December when I told her the timing. Her only response was "okay, well, if you are crying, please don't come into work. Just email me "HOH" as in "high on hormones" and I'll know what is going on." That was pretty funny.
I was pretty set on having 35 yr old eggs vs 36 yr old eggs. Yes we are talking about the difference of a few weeks, but it mattered to me.

My employer offers a wonderful infertility benefit. However, you have to be deemed infertile to use it. The definition of infertile is trying unsuccessfully to have a child for 12 months under 35 and for 6 months over 35. I asked if exclusively swiping left on Tinder counts as trying but apparently it does not. In some ways it stinks I cannot use the benefit, but on the plus side if I'm still there when it is time to use my eggs and I have tried unsuccessfully for six months (for real) to get pregnant, the fertilization and transfer of the embryos should be paid for. Granted that is the cheaper "half" of the process, but oh well. I will be glad to have whatever help I can get.

One more work point/story. One of my Norwegian co-workers walked into a conversation that I gave him the opportunity to get out of but he did not flinch. I ended up telling him what I was doing and he continued to not flinch. Then I remembered our Nordic counterparts do not freak out at things like Americans do. He said it best - "we're not freaked out by bodies or anything like that, but we are really freaked out by guns." It was pretty funny. His closing comment on the ordeal was that he was going to call me a hen because I was laying my eggs. I couldn't help but laugh at that one.

At some point pretty early on in the stimming process, Dr. Vaughn told me "now, you CANNOT have sex right now. That would be a very bad thing." As in I could have turned into Octomom. My response: "No sex? That is why we are here." He did not laugh and said "I'm trying to scare you." I appreciate he thought there was even a chance. I told him I'd put it in sky writing if I go on a date so he can be warned.

When I was at Airrosti at some point getting my hamstring worked on, the Dr said "okay, flip over and let's work on your psoas (hip flexor)." He put his hands on my hip bone and was about to go to town and I said "ummm....I have to tell you something." Which began another of the fun conversations, but this one not nearly as awkward as it could have been. Turns out he and his wife used Dr. Vaughn too!

I did not make too many lifestyle changes during the process but did make a few. I had my last alcohol on Christmas Day. Not drinking isn't really the end of the world for me so this was not a big sacrifice. Also I did not have any big social events going on during the time so did not ever end up in a situation where I felt like I was really missing out. I also began taking the following in August and took them through retrieval: women's multi vitamin (prenatals did not work for me - the iron made me nauseous), Folic Acid, Co-enzyme Q10, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, and the other stuff I take regularly (Zyrtec, Flonase, DHEA, melatonin - all were okay for me to continue taking). I'd like to say I ate better during the stimulation process but it certainly wasn't perfect, but probably close to as good as it gets for me. Everything you read about IVF says to avoid stress at all costs. There isn't much to read out there about egg retrieval alone. I think some of the IVF part is related to the subsequent embryo transfer, but I may not be entirely right there. Anyway, I did not avoid all stress for sure, but did manage to keep a pretty even head about life in general during that time. I made sure I got good sleep and did not go crazy working out. My bum hamstring conveniently helped keep that in check.

UPDATE: I did decide to go for a second round, and that post is here.

Numbers

2016-12-01T04:21:00.000-06:00

January 30, 2015 - the day my boss took me to lunch and asked if I wanted to move to Finland...aka "the day my life turned upside down." Note: upside down isn't necessarily a bad thing...it is just entirely different.

In the ~22 months since that date:

114 - number of flights taken

22 - countries visited (21 of those new) - Finland, Norway, Estonia, France, Singapore, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, UK, Peru, Panama, Hungary, Indonesia, Iceland, Sweden, Portugal, Ireland, Czech Republic, Spain, Scotland, Russia, Thailand.

15 - number of times I crossed "the pond" (I went the other way once)

6 - number of trips to Amsterdam to see Caitlin (and most recent two trips to see her adorable baby, my Godson, Theo. And Peter, let's not forget Peter - my Amsterdam running buddy.)

5 - number of trips to France and Norway, including a tour of the American D-Day beaches that for me can only be described as indescrible.

4 - number of trips to the UK

4 - number of friends who came to visit in Finland

4 - number of times I saw someone I knew while out and about in Helsinki. Think on that one for a while...it was 9 months before the first encounter.

4 - number of strangers Caitlin, Laura, and I invited into our Paris hotel room for the night during the ISIS attacks. They were stranded and could not get home. One was a Swiss guy who brought the fire extinguisher from the hallway into our room to protect us. #interestingweekend

3 - number of pairs of winter running shoes needed. Pair 1: Saucony Kinvara with weather sheild - water resistant lightweight trainers for running in rain/colder temps, but on clear/nonfrozen pavement/paths. Pair 2: Solomon Speedcross 3 - water-resistant trail running shoes that are insanely warm and great for running on/in snow. Pair 3: Icebugs - water-resistant, carbide-studded trainers for use on ice. If I coudln't run in one of those three pairs, I didn't need to be running. Often times though, I wished for all three pairs in a single run!

2 - number of times my sister's family and my parents came to Europe

2 - number of trips to Stockholm, Singapore, Budapest

2 - trips to San Diego, including

1 - Garth Brooks concert,

1 - Lyle Lovett concert, and

1 - best friend's wedding.

0 - regrets

Counting Down

2016-11-29T13:08:00.001-06:00

I've written a million blog posts in my head over the last year plus, but none of them have made it out of my head. This one is finally going to make it to print though! I've been writing over several weeks, adding to it when I think of something. Hopefully down the road it will help me look back on my time here with fondness, and also to remember to appreciate the conveniences and comfort of home.

Things I'll miss about Finland:

Instant hot water from the faucet, and reasonably cold (tasty and refreshing) water after a short wait
The sauna in my apartment
Riding my pink piece of shit Jopo bicycle around town. I realized approximately 2 seconds after handing a guy way too much cash that the bike was mostly likely stolen and in way worse shape than advertised. I wrote it off as an insurance policy - as in if it looks like a POS, hopefully no one will steal it. So far, so good. It also still works just fine after being outside all winter - covered in snow and all.

Being able to walk to the grocery store in about 5 minutes.
Public transportation...not that there are too many places to go, but I haven't really missed a car here.
The white walls and parquet wood floors in my 1912 apartment. Oh, and my pink couch.

Sleeping with my bedroom window open about half the year (except when someone smokes on the balcony next to my window...luckily that seemed to stop after a few months).
Being "close" to my friend Caitlin and her husband Peter in Amsterdam. They had baby Theo in June and getting to spend time with him has been great. He will become my Godson in December.
Korvapuusti - a Finnish cinnamon roll of sorts. It is more bread than sweet and doesn't have icing on it, but is topped sugar that looks like the salt on soft pretzels.

The two weeks of awesome winter we had. Real snow and a few blue sunshiny days. I loved running in the snow, especially in the woods.

Travel, especially with good friends and family that came to Europe to travel with me.
Flying to Singapore (12 hours overnight) from Finland seems downright easy compared to flying there from Austin.
My cute bathtub. I spent more time there than I did in the sauna.
The dish draining racks most places have hidden in a kitchen cabinet above the sink - very smart!

My desk/work area. I called it "The Austin Late Night Call Center." It is in a bay window that hangs out over the sidewalk. I did a lot of people watching from that perch. Kelly spent hours perched there in my desk chair reading during her visit.

Things I have missed about home:

FAMILY
FRIENDS
CHURCH
Garbage disposals
Target
Ice cubes
Smiles
Friendly people
Sunshine - the kind you can feel on your skin, that warms you to the core.
Being able to open a door with one or possibly even no hands. The door to my apartment building (and many other doors around here) requires two hands and a good deal of body weight to open. It is beyond frustrating - I spilled a cup of tea all over me one day trying to get out; getting my bike out is a workout in itself; if I want to carry anything out, I have to set it on the ground on the nearest stair, use both hands to open the super heavy door, stick my foot out and hope it stays open, reach around and pick up whatever I had, and scooch out as fast as I can.
Being able to read signs, directions, instructions, food labels, etc. The grocery store in Finland is still a rough experience 18 months later.
Kind strangers, or the "permission" to be kind to strangers.
Being able to go to the grocery store once a week, or even less if I want. Driving my car there and filling the whole back with groceries.
Being about to go about my day without inhaling stupid amounts of second hand smoke and seeing cigarette butts littering the ground everywhere. Seriously...Finns are notorious rule followers and will stare disapprovingly if you dare cross a street without a green light (even if there isn't a car in sight), but then will throw their cigarette butt anywhere they choose. The smell lingers everywhere - elevators, offices, the train, etc.
Water fountains. They just aren't really a thing here...anywhere...same with free, easily-found restrooms.
Being able to say "the weather is terrible" from the comfort of my car and not actually being out in it. I walk ~15 minutes outside each way to/from work no matter what the weather is.
Having a house/apartment door that doesn't automatically lock behind you. I only made the mistake of leaving my keys inside once, but it was on a Sunday so the fee was extra high for "after hours" and I had to wait outside in the cold for 45 minutes for someone to come unlock it.

Things that fall in the "noteworthy" column - but not necessarily to be missed about here or there:

My huge down parka. When I die, I may consider coming back as a Finnish baby in the winter. They sleep outside all bundled up in their down sleeping bags in their prams. They look so cozy. When I sit down on the train in my huge coat, it feels a bit like a sleeping bag and I just want to fall asleep. This is good for a few minutes, but not great for overall productivity as riding on the train or on a bus makes me sleepy as it is, and when it is so dark here it makes me really just want to crawl in bed more than anything else.
Overall, I think Helsinki is much safer than Austin. There are things I've done here that I wouldn't be as quick to do in Austin. Yet at the same time, there is still enough unfamiliarity with Helsinki and the Finnish language that I don't feel entirely comfortable in all situations - in other words I'm probably on higher alert than I need to be, but I just don't fully understand what is going on around me.

Summer Update

2015-09-24T05:42:00.003-05:00

(written on August 27 - just now posting)

Tuesday marked three months since I moved away from Austin. I wouldn’t really say I’ve been in Helsinki three months since my schedule has been so crazy, but I’ve definitely been somewhere other than home for that time. The thing that happens each time I think three months is another number automatically pops in my head – 21. Probably not great if I’m already counting down the months – if not consciously, subconsciously. I’m on the plane from London to Austin with several hours on my hands and am hoping I finally post an update or two (or draft them – no wifi which is highly unfortunate).

Overall, I’d say the last three months have been fairly high or fairly low – not much of an in-between. The highs are when I’ve traveled with family or co-workers or when they have been visiting me. The lows are when I’m in a new place alone or in Helsinki without much to do. The unfortunate thing about the highs is that they are probably contributing to the lows – as in I haven’t had much time to set any foundation in Helsinki. My schedule plus the near impossibility of gaining Finnish friends plus my shorter-term stay does not necessarily equal the extroverted, on-the-go life I’m used to. I’m enjoying the highs so I’m not sure I’d want it any other way. At the same time, this is completely uncharted territory for me (and almost everyone else I know), so it is hard to have too many expectations one way or the other. More on the deep thinking later – but for now, here is a bit about what I’ve been up to.

Mom and Dad’s Visit

I think I posted last just before they arrived. We had the summer party for the Finland office on Wednesday before the midsummer holiday. It was on a boat. Ship? Sailboat? I’m not sure what the proper term is….it was built in 1947 whatever it was. The weather was pretty looking (ie not raining) but pretty darn cold. We toasted on the deck and took pictures and then went down below for dinner. No one made it back up to the deck the rest of the night because of the crisp “summer breeze.” It was a neat time though and a little different from the dinner cruise you might take in Austin. We went out after and I somehow got conned into singing a Willie Nelson song on karaoke with our CEO. I apologize for all who had to hear that.

Mom and Dad came the next day and arrived to the beautifulness of June – mid 50s and rain. They had spent one day there in late June on a cruise a few years back and kept swearing to me how nice the weather in Helsinki is…based on their one day. I think their opinion changed over their visit. We had a bit of a hard time finding things to do on Friday as it was midsummer. I had no idea midsummer is the equivalent of Christmas when it comes to stores closing. And there are no Wal-marts or Waffle Houses in Finland. Saturday we took a boat (cruise ship-like) to Tallinn, Estonia. It is about a 2 hour ride. It rained the whole way there but cleared up a bit when we were there. We went to Old Town and just couldn’t really figure much out…parts were pretty but we weren’t sure what all the hype was about. We took an earlier boat back and checked that country off our list. We were scheduled for the 8pm boat and took the 4pm. That one was so bad we can’t imagine what the 8pm would have looked like. Everyone in Finland takes the boat to Estonia to buy cheap(er) alcohol. By the case. And they apparently start drinking it by the case before getting back on the boat. By now the sun was out but the only open deck on the boat was on the back – where the air doesn’t move. Guess who was out there? Approximately 100 smokers. So we went back inside…where the only seats were in a bar where terrible, loud karaoke was going on. We were happy to be off that boat once we made it back.

The next week I worked while they worked on the rest of my Ikea. We bought one more piece and I could say my apartment was officially put together by the time they were gone. It seemed like forever then but of course now it already seems quick and I’m mostly over that trauma. It was nice having them around and having someone use my guest room! I worked from home that Friday and we went to lunch in a little town nearby called Porvoo. It had way more charm than Tallinn. It reminded me a bit of Hill Country towns that people get away to for the weekend.

The second weekend they were in town we headed to Oslo Saturday morning. We had nice weather Saturday and froze Sunday. We went to a few popular museums there and spent most of the time walking around just checking things out. The Oslo Gay Pride parade/celebration was Saturday and I marched Mom and Dad right through the middle of it looking for dinner J

France

Monday morning in Oslo Mom and Dad left to go back home and I met a co-worker from the Oslo office to head to our Rennes, France office. Rennes is about 3 hours from Paris by train. It was a full day of travel to get there but when I did, I found summer. I had frozen for almost 6 weeks and was thrilled to find temps around 90. I was less thrilled when I realized they aren’t so into AC. My Rennes co-workers took us to a nice dinner there one of the nights and I enjoyed getting to know them. After Rennes, I went to Paris to meet our local accountants. It was 102 degrees when I got there. I felt partially responsible J I met the partner for lunch and melted through that and then went back to their office to meet the rest of the time and was horrified to find they didn’t have AC either. Sweat was literally dripping from my forehead onto my notes. Caitlin joined me for the weekend (July 4^th) and we had a great time. It was both of our first time in Paris. We felt extra special as we took French together in high school. We regularly baked quiche for extra credit. Note: we learned very little French then and know even less now! But, we acted like we knew something at least.

Elizabeth and the Girls’ Visit

After I got home from France, I had Q2 close to keep me occupied at work, and occupy it did. It was pretty rough and there may have been a tear or two shed after many late night phone calls back to Austin, but I did live through it. The awesome thing about that week is I knew once it was over I was off on my next adventure. I went to Copenhagen on Saturday afternoon and my sister and her three girls were meeting me there Sunday. I thought I’d be bold and adventurous by going a day early and staying/exploring by myself. I’m still not any better at it. I guess maybe I wouldn’t say I regret going but at the same time I just don’t enjoy doing this stuff alone. I ate dinner out by myself and got asked to move tables because I was told to sit anywhere and then after an awkward 10 minutes of no one waiting on me, someone came to talk and I was ready to order and they just told me to move to a 2 person table since I was alone. I wanted to disappear. I did end up talking to an American family briefly after dinner from Sunnyvale (where we have an office) and turns out the mom used to work for AMD in Austin.

Sunday I went back to the airport to meet the girls and it was so exciting. I couldn’t wait for them to come through the doors – of course their baggage was delayed and they walked through about an hour later than expected, but oh well. We took the train back into the town and it was so neat to watch. All FOUR of them acted out the first scene of Harry Potter for half of the ride (confession – I haven’t seen it and had no idea what they were doing….perhaps when I have nothing else to do this winter I will read and watch all things Harry Potter). Bennett exclaimed “I LOVE Europe!!” on the train and then again in our hostel hotel room. Yup – we “roughed it” at an “upscale” hostel – it was perfect with 3 sets of bunkbeds and a private bathroom. We didn’t spend any time there anyway. It was unfortunately next to a strip club so one of us had to distract Bennett each time we walked by, but I think we were successful…perhaps not entirely subtle, but successful.

We spent the evening at Tivoli Gardens and had a great time. The girls all loved it and the rides were really fun. They said it certainly was no Fiesta Texas. The next day we took a canal boat tour which was rather boring and then went shopping and poking around the main shopping area. The girls perked up a bit for that. We headed to Helsinki for 2 nights after that. The first place we went was the Rock Church which is very close to my apartment. It is a Lutheran church literally built into a big rock. Helsinki is mainly flat but has these random rock formations all over town. We walked in and I assumed the girls wouldn’t be that interested but they charged straight down a pew and sat down. Quietly. Bennett whispered it was her happy place and Kate said she liked it there. Eventually we realized a prayer service was going to happen at noon and I assumed again the girls would want to leave, but Molly said we should stay. It was such a poignant moment to me. While they have grown up in the church and I shouldn’t have really expected anything else, I think what struck me was this was her making the call, not being told to do it by her parents. She went through confirmation last year and has gotten really involved in Young Life and her church’s youth group.

We got lucky with a beautiful day the second day there and went to Suomenlina and had a picnic on the island. That evening we flew to Oslo and spent the next day there. One gem from the week is Molly and Kate had Bennett “whip” all over Helsinki and Oslo. Molly has 2 videos of it that I’ll hopefully post one of these days. I had no idea what whipping was until they sang the same 2 lines from the song for 4 straight days…and then I saw someone post something about JJ Watt being taught to whip and nai nai on Facebook. I’m sure I spelled that wrong… In Oslo, we went up a little North of town to the big ski jump and ziplined down it. It was a little lower key than we expected, but Bennett got to do it so that was fun after she had to sit out of some of the Tivoli Gardens rides for being too short. They left Friday morning and I headed to work. Three countries in 4.5 days – definitely not enough time, but way better than them not coming at all. When they left is when the aforementioned Camp Hangover set in.

The next Friday I went to an Internations (expat organization) happy hour after work and met some people to go on a hike with the next day. It was good because I discovered some new trails to run and bike to work on that were very pretty and close. Sunday I went to church for the first time since the weekend I moved (I think that was only the 2^nd Sunday I’d been in town alone). I don’t know what to think about church. When I first went in April I was thrilled to find English-speakers and a somewhat familiar service. Now it just seems depressing. There are some hymns I might recognize, but they are slowed way down for some reason and all sound like funeral dirges. There are not many people there and it is a sung mass. The few I have met are very nice but my Austin Sunday School class has more people than the entire church service here. I’ve expressed this sentiment to a few others and apparently I’m not alone in feeling that way. They say “church is depressing in Europe and no one goes.” Hmmm – well that isn’t great news.

I had one more work week after that weekend before more fun. My co-worker Erin who I’m pretty close to and another guy from her department came in for work and arrived Saturday morning. I met them around 11 Saturday morning and think I got back home after 9. Sunday I met them at 8am and we were on the go until 9 or so again. Wiped me out but was great showing people around. Also by this time I was starting to believe summer might actually happen. Was finally able to go out a bit without a jacket and rain boots. Around that time too people also started saying this was the worst summer in 50 or so years in Finland (cold and rainy). I’m not sure if I’m comforted knowing it isn’t always that way or skeptical not trusting it won’t be that way again next year.

Anyways, it was another close week for me but being non-quarter-end, and hopefully me getting a hang of things, it wasn’t quite as bad. I also did a lot more work the days before close week this time that hopefully alleviated some of the close stress. We went to some nice dinners with other co-workers and I generally just enjoyed having the company. Wednesday night Erin and I decided we needed to try Long Drink – something very popular in Finland. I had decided it was basically a wine cooler in a can that made it manly enough for guys to drink it. Gin is the alcohol in it and they sell 2 versions. The wussy version at the grocery store and the real version at Alko (Alko is the place you have to buy all alcohol over a certain% - I think 5% or so). We were skeptical from the beginning but went to Alko and picked out a few cans. Open container laws were sketchily described to us, but generally if we were picnicking, it should be okay. So we went down to the shoreline and had ice cream and then long drink. We split one can in 2 plastic cups and I think I poured ¾ of my half out. Erin wasn’t much more successful than I was. It was very sweet – probably not great after ice cream. Oh well, it was fun to sit on the rocks on the shoreline and just have girl time.

Thursday morning I stayed in town before their flight to guide them around for last-minute purchases. Mostly chocolate. We stopped by the Rock Church because they tried to go Saturday and there was a wedding. We said goodbye across the street from my apartment and they headed back to the hotel. I had an instant Camp Hangover again. Not as bad, but it was there. I walked across the street to my apartment and saw what is becoming a familiar sight in my ‘hood – people with a map looking confused. I heard them speaking English so I asked if I could help them and they, like everyone else on my street, were looking for the Rock Church. We got to talking and it was a couple from Colorado and one from San Diego on a cruise. They were probably in their late 50s/early 60s and very entertaining. We probably talked 15 minutes. They were impressed with me doing what I’m doing. When we parted ways, both ladies asked if they could give me a hug. It was really sweet. The Camp Hangover was gone as quick as it came. No doubt someone above was telling me I’m going to be okay. I went inside to get ready to bike to work and kept hoping I’d see them on my way out – totally random, and I don’t know why, but I wanted to. Sure enough when I came out on my bike, they were walking back down the street. They didn’t recognize me, but I yelled something along the lines of “tell America I said hello” or something. We stopped and talked again for a minute and one of the ladies asked if she could take my picture on my bike – how cute and sporty I looked. I had to giggle but rode off to work thinking I will be one of those people they might come home and tell their kids about, or their friends, or someone. For whatever reason, that left me feeling a bit better.

I had two more encounters that day that were feelings of “it’s going to be okay.” I took the train to the area where our new office is going to be (it has a mall) to run some errands and heard American girls behind me on the train. When we got off, I said hi and found out they were Mormons here from Utah and Nevada on their mission. We only spoke for a short while but their friendly American demeanor was not lost on me. I then walked down from the train platform and heard music playing assuming it was being played over a speaker somewhere. I was stunned when I came to a string quartet playing in the tunnel area. It was four well-dressed, clean cut guys I’d expect to see playing anywhere other than for coins at the train station. There were tears streaming down my face as I stood listening. I’m not entirely sure why, but again I felt like God was telling me I’m not alone.

Amsterdam

That weekend I went to see Caitlin in Amsterdam. I really really enjoyed it. While it is definitely cooler (NOT temperature J) than Helsinki, I realize that wasn’t entirely the reason I liked it. Caitlin is a good bit of the reason I liked it. She has been there long enough too that she has a bit of a routine down and spends a good chunk of time where the tourists aren’t. We did go into the City Center a bit as well but it was nice seeing both sides. We rode bikes everywhere and I equated it to driving in NYC. I’m a great driver in Texas, but would be scared to death to do it in NYC. I’m a great (decent? not reckless at least…) biker in Texas and even Helsinki – but Amsterdam is another world! It actually probably wasn’t nearly as bad as driving in NYC would be but unlike anything I’d done before. I rode Peter’s bike when I was there too and it was a bit too tall. So I felt like I was 7 trying to ride Elizabeth’s 10 speed. Saturday morning we went to Amsterdam Bos Park so I could get a long run in and it was so beautiful. I kept saying it felt like Camp Olympia – huge wide open grassy areas bordered by forest. At one point out of the corner of my eye I noticed people in the trees and realized they have a huge challenge course. Caitlin and I must do that soon.

We ventured to the red light district to check it out and were there early enough it didn’t seem really seedy or scary. Mostly a bunch of tourists doing the same thing we were. Around 10:30 people started to get a little more drunk and the best I could describe it was similar to New Orleans. That’s when we decided we should probably head home. Sunday was more playing. WE didn’t get up early enough to go to the Anne Frank house but just added that the list of things to do when the weather sucks. That list also includes inside things in Paris and anywhere else. We didn’t go into any of the museums when we were in Paris because the lines were long and with it being 100 degrees, inside may have felt worse than out. Hopefully Peter doesn’t mind sharing Caitlin once he’s in Amsterdam for good (he has had to travel like crazy hence me getting to steal Caitlin a lot). I plan to be their Dupree.

The weekend after Amsterdam I ran my first race in Helsinki. It was a 17km race to go along with their marathon. The marathon started at 3 and this race at 3:45. It was the first time my race prep has included lounging on the beach beforehand. I had told myself all along 17k was 10ish miles. I trained less for this race than anything else in the past. I obviously wasn’t going to “race” – just planned to finish it. I figured I might end up walking the last however many miles and was okay with that. The race turned out to be long – and was a solid 11 miles. 11 miles is a very long way when your previous weekly long runs leading up to the race had been 2, 3, 6, and 8. I actually ran pretty well for my unconditioned state though and was glad I did it.

Munich and London

Saturday night at 9 I had not yet started packing for my trip the next day to Munich and London. My flight left at 7am Sunday morning. Almost daily, I shake my head thinking how different my life is now. In my “previous life” I would have been packed way way earlier and had at least two lists for that packing.

My co-worker Crystal was in Munich for work as well and I met her over there. She brought a friend along for the trip and made it work and vacation. Munich weather was unfortunately reminiscent of July in Helsinki – 60 and raining. We still got to see a lot and again it was so nice to be with friends. Crystal is awesome and provides an amazing dose of perspective when around without remotely trying to. Monday night a few guys from our Munich office took us to dinner and we had a great time. They were total characters. Tuesday afternoon I flew to London and met with the accountants there Wednesday. London is huge. That is about the only conclusion I made on that trip. I wasn’t there long enough to see much but did treat myself to a night at the theater and went to see Billy Elliot. I went alone and have never gone to something like that alone. Caitlin had encouraged me to do it and I’m glad I did. It was way less awkward than eating alone! I left my hotel at 9:15am Thursday morning and didn’t get back to my apartment until after 6pm that evening. So while yes, I’m in Europe, I’m still far enough away (and Heathrow is enough of a pain) that it can take most of a day to get somewhere. Helsinki is also 2 hours later than London so that is where some of that time went.

Last Friday night was another Internations event (they have one big one monthly) and I was happy to recognize a few faces this time. We had a picnic Saturday with a women’s group of Internations and that was great too – we went to a beach/area at the far east end of the Metro line and it was really nice. I was pleased to see summer had stuck around a bit longer. The water was freezing but the air was pleasant. Sunday I joined a different expat group for a hike in Espoo that started at the Finland Nature center. We hiked 11.5 miles and there were 21 people there. I was shocked that many people showed up to hike that far but I guess Europeans are used to a little more time on their feet than Americans! After that I began my frantic packing for almost 4 weeks away including 10 days in Peru and Panama. Again for my last big trip like that (Kilimanjaro), I had literally begun the packing process 9 months before the trip. This one started days before. Granted Kilimanjaro requires more stuff, but I’m amazed at my total lack of preparation. It is becoming my new status quo though and so far I haven’t done anything too terribly stupid…that I know of.

Oh my gosh. This is six pages in word. And I still have FIVE HOURS LEFT ON THIS PLANE!!!!

I have way too many pictures to post here, so there are in an album here. Enjoy!

Good Things

2015-07-29T14:15:00.000-05:00

I've had three days out of the last four that somewhat resemble what I would have expected for "summer" in Finland - maybe a bit cooler than I expected, but still nice and worth spending many hours outside. I have come to recognize and appreciate a few things here recently and feel that they are worth noting - if nothing more, to remind myself come about November or so when I wonder why the hell I moved here.

1. Public transportation is great. Granted it isn't quick sometimes (getting home takes ~50 minutes usually), but I can mentally check out while on the bus - I'm not stressed in traffic.

2. Amazing running routes. My only regret right now is that I have about zero endurance so I can't make as much use of the trails as I'd like. I am exploring some by bike which is nice too.

Combination of 1 and 2: Taking public transportation to run. I can hop a tram or bus and go however far away and run home.

3. While it is a bit of a pain and completely different to have to carry every single thing I procure at least several hundred meters to get it to my house, it really is convenient to have so many procurement places nearby!

4. NO TIME WARNER CABLE!! Rejoice! Internet is cheap here - around 30 euros a month and so far I don't have cable. Granted my amazon video purchases may quickly fill the $ gap, but it is just so nice to not get abused on a monthly basis by TWC.

5. Rye chips. I discovered these at a recent picnic, along with some sort of cheese dip - Voila brand. The sour cream rye chips with the cheese dip is amazing. They taste great and are actually not full of super processed crap.

6. My bathtub. It is pretty nice.

7. When the weather is nice, it is pretty darn nice. Still a little chillier than I'd like, but about perfect running weather.

Camp Hangover

2015-07-18T13:47:00.000-05:00

I will never forget the feeling of driving away from Camp Olympia in the backseat of my parents' car year after year. The pit in my stomach presented itself the second we drove out of the gates and hung around for a while. The realization that it was going to be a full year before I was there again and the realization that I had to go home without my amazing camp friends were sometimes almost too much to bear for my adolescent self. I would walk around almost like a zombie the first few days back home, numb, just not sure what to do with myself. Sure enough though it was never long before regular life got going again - the longing in my heart to be back there would go from insatiable to a more manageable presence that never fully went away.

My nieces have all experienced something similar, even after their first year at age eight. Kate's hangover started before closing day lunch was even over her first year and I had to take her on a walk (she was little enough that I still carried her on that walk) where we both cried. I 100% understood how she was feeling. This year, six years later, I talked to her on the phone when they were on the road home and she again was in full on hangover mode - no tears this time, but just said she was sad. Again, I completely understood and knew not to pry any more.

Why am I saying all of this? Because I have my first camp hangover in years right now and it doesn't seem to hurt any less now than it did then. I put my sister and nieces on a train at Oslo central station yesterday morning where they went to the airport to fly on to a beach vacation in Florida. I walked back to my hotel room, went to a work meeting later in the day and then fly home to Helsinki. We had a crazy whirlwind five days that were over way too fast. When I walked away from the train I tried to not think about what was happening and did a fairly good job of distracting myself. When I walked into my empty apartment I had a work call to make and some unpacking to do so again somewhat distracted myself. This morning, though, there were no more distractions. Just a weekend with no one to spend it with.

I'm eagerly awaiting the end of this hangover as well but am keenly aware it might not go away as quickly as the previous ones. Realizing it will be a year before they come back over here sucks. That guest room I insisted on having and worked so hard to make right doesn't have any planned occupants for months. The reality of being across the world is setting in. The good thing is I have about six uninterrupted weeks to finally start to establish my life here. A friend/co-worker is coming for a work trip in two weeks and I am really looking forward to that. Then at the end of August I go home and to Peru. So really - it isn't that long and it will be okay. After I come back it will only be 2.5-3 months before it is time to come home for Christmas - and I would hope to God I have a friend or two by then!

Weeks 2 and 3

2015-06-16T14:46:00.001-05:00

My amount of "busy" has certainly not lessened however it is thankfully somewhat moving away from the frustrations of the first several days here. I've been here three weeks and one day now - in some ways it seems like I've been here way longer and in others, I'm surprised time has gone by this fast.

I had my residence permit appointment on Monday, June 1. I asked them how the timing of my 90 days allowed in the country worked and they (immigration) said they didn't really know, that they had heard different things, and that I should call border patrol during one of the three hours they are answer phones a week. Seriously. The attorney checked in after my application and seemed to think it was taking around 2 months to process specialist applications (what I applied for), but that they couldn't guarantee anything with summer holiday coming up. Awesome. Looking like I would probably get kicked out (run out of my 90 days) before the permit comes. In addition to that, I got several stories again on whether or not I can actually get a Finnish ID card without the permit - the card which is required for online banking. I was able to register with a temporary address at least at the magistrate office so I could then get the metro pass at a regular rate vs the super jacked up foreigner rate. The good news on the permit is that I can track it online (to a certain point) and shockingly, a decision was made on June 5. Now I'm in the last period tracked online, the "notification period." Unfortunately this means I just sit and wait for them to notify me of the decision..presumably by mail. And then have to hope that decision is a permit not that they didn't get one of the required ten documents or something like that. It has been a week and a half since the notification period began - hoping it isn't much longer but have no way of knowing.

So until then I will continue to be banking blind. I have to go to an ATM with my debit card (finally got a pin at least!) and guess what the screen is saying in Finnish to stumble on a balance printout to find out how much money I have. My internet bill is due Thursday. So I have to go to the bank tomorrow before work...the bank which doesn't open until 10am to pay that bill. Entirely productive. Not.

My second week here was my first monthly close at work "alone" - ie the first was when I was in Singapore for training and the second was in Austin sitting in the middle of everyone who knows how to do everything. This one was flying solo...or more like on the phone until midnight with Austin one night and several hours across a few other evenings. I managed to survive close - the job is still very, very overwhelming. It should get better with time but new insane job in new continent is a lot. Plain and simple. The treat at the end of close week was that my stuff was finally delivered - only 12 days late. Someone at my office in Finland finally called (not their job at all) and was able to get a delivery date/time set immediately. Frustrating the people who had been working on it for a week from the US couldn't get it straightened out, but glad I finally got it. The even more fun delivery was Caitlin on Friday afternoon.

Caitlin and I grew up in Beaumont together and were inseparable at many points before college. It is amazing she and Peter ended up in Amsterdam when I ended up here. We have several trips we want to do. I had my first "pinch me" moment yesterday when we were trying to plan a trip to Paris just like it is a trip to Houston or something. Having her come visit was just what I needed. She got to Amsterdam in early April so is out of the initial shock of moving overseas and was there to lend a helping hand when I was still fully in my initial shock. She helped build a lot of furniture, we went to Ikea, cleaned up the sauna and tested it out a few times, and just hung out. Saturday two of my co-workers took us to Suomenlinna, a sea island fortress just off the coast of Helsinki. We had a good time exploring despite the dismal (50s and drizzle) weather.

This past Thursday three co-workers came over to help me with my Ikea stuff. I am so grateful for their help. We got 2 more pieces built and sadly realized the last piece was delivered incorrectly - only after destroying the 2 boxes it came in. Realized Ikea delivered two box #2s and no box #1's. They should rectify that situation this Thursday morning. Until then, I have a pile of dresser parts on my living room floor. That was slightly frustrating but I guess good in a way too because it meant we didn't stay up forever building - seeing that I had to leave for the airport at 6am the next morning. I went to Oslo Friday and Saturday. I had some work meetings Friday and then the office summer party Friday night. It was super fun. They are such a fun group of people. I got back to the hotel at 3:30am. The Norwegian office has their own company band and they made up a few songs that were quite entertaining. Our CEO was there and brought gifts to a few who are leaving the company. Those gifts were Stetson cowboy hats and Luchesse ostrich skin boots. Not unlike the Luchesse ostrich skin boots I bought myself the day before I moved here. All of a sudden my boots were that much more popular :-) Hours after the gift presentation an intern asked me on the dance floor whose boots I took. I told her they were mine and she didn't believe me at first - just assumed I swiped a pair that was given. I told her I was from Texas and she said "oooooohhhhh that's awesome." Pretty funny.

Saturday morning hurt. Despite our amazing headaches and lack of sleep, my Norway co-worker Nari took me around town in Oslo. It was awesome. To me, it is soooo different from Helsinki and I cannot wait to see other European cities to compare/contrast. Their waterfront area was awesome. There was a diving competition going on and then a random little beach with kids running around swimming. And boats everywhere! Funny the weather in Oslo was amazing - 70+ degrees and sunny Friday while it was in the 50s in Helsinki. This is my second trip to Oslo from Helsinki and both times, the weather was significantly better in Oslo. Not cool.

We have the Finland summer party Wednesday and work holidays Thursday and Friday. My job isn't such that I can take off entirely, especially now, but I'll still enjoy working from home and relaxing a bit. My parents get here Thursday afternoon. Saturday is the national midsummer holiday here. I knew nothing about it - just kept hearing the city would turn into a ghost town. I wasn't that concerned. Then the more I heard about it, I realized it is like Christmas when it comes to what is open and what is closed and they don't have Waffle House here. No idea what I was supposed to do with my parents Friday and Saturday. Turns out Estonia also celebrates a midsummer holiday, but a day or two later. So we're going to take the high-speed ferry to Tallinn for the day Saturday and then hopefully everything will be open here again in Helsinki on Sunday.

All in all, I have to say I'm doing alright. That, and that my apartment is pretty darn cool. Now that it is getting more settled and that some of the quirks are getting fixed or figured out, I really like it. It is feeling like my home which is great. Now I just need lots of visitors (and not just in the summer...I have a sauna to get us through the 11 months of non-summer).

Finally got the 2nd twin bed built

Caitlin!

Living room before

Living room during

Glad one of us is flexible

After. I quite like it!

I bought the pink vacuum cleaner. This should come as a surprise to no one. And to be fair it was actually the cheapest at the store.

Suomenlinna with co-workers and Caitlin

Caitlin's mom thought it was a typo when we sent it to her

Sauna is up and working!

Sad sad sad about the 50 degree windy rainy weather. Happy happy happy to break out my duck boots v2.

Postcards sent to Camp O

Caitlin and I found a Mexican food place - it wasn't terrible

Caitlin and I played in my attic with my new boots. Random shotgun shell finding.

Taking matters into my own hands

I'm official! My metro card...and pink was one of the four options for card covers. Guess which color I picked?

My new desk at home.

Human Lars carrying Cardboard Lars. The Norwegian band wrote a whole song about "is Lars human or is he cardboard?" that I cannot get out of my head now.

In front of the palace in Oslo

Harbor in Oslo

HUGE ski jump

There's a zipline from the top. Think I'll be doing that soon.

Finnish book properly portraying a typical Finnish look.

Weekend Fun

2015-05-31T23:15:00.000-05:00

Posting from my phone on the bus to work Monday morning. This weekend went by way too fast. I slept until almost noon Saturday because I kept assuming it was early each time I woke up. I guess I needed it, but it seriously ate into my day.

I went on a short run after I woke up and saw some pretty sights. I meant to take my credit card because I wanted to stop in Finlayson and see if I saw any bedding/sheets there I liked. I didn't go back for my card because I figured I could still look and would go back another time if there was anything I liked. Well of course there was something I liked, duvet covers that were 25% off for my guest room. Sale ended Saturday. Store closed at 4. I had kayak plans at 3 that I had to leave home at 2:40 for. It was 1:48. So I sprinted back home, got my card, sprinted back, bought the covers (in their famous elephant print) while dripping sweat in the store, and then hightailed it back home. Got home at 2:30 and left at 2:40 to walk to the kayak place. This wouldn't have been nearly as big of a deal if I had run more than once in the last month. But I got my 25% off and my guests will be sleeping in style (assuming their beds are put together).

When I got to Regatta Cafe, I saw they had paddle boards and I much prefer that to kayaking so I decided to take one instead. I had on shorts and a long sleeve Columbia fishing shirt and wasn't cold, but the weather/water was still way colder than my normal SUP conditions. I just hoped I didn't make a fool of myself and fall in. After all, everyone at the cafe on the shoreline was bundled up in coats. The activity was an expat Meetup and it was just the organizer and myself that showed up but that was no big deal. He was from Greece and very nice. On our way out I noticed the wind was at our backs and knew it could be challenging on the way back. Well, the wind picked up even more and I wasn't sure I would make it back. He was just fine in his kayak but I was dying on the board (standing up turns you into a human sail). I couldn't stop paddling because each time I did, I blew backwards. The water was choppy and I kept seeing myself falling right in. Somehow I made it back but it was 30 minutes or so of way, way more work than I had bargained for. When we got back I told them I was going to paddle in circles in the calm, wind-protected marina next time. All in all it was good to get out and do something fun but I may suck it up and rent the freakin kayak next time :-/

Sunday was church and IKEA building. I hired a guy to assemble at $45/hr having no idea just how long it would take. He was here 5.5 hours and built 2 pieces. I built one twin bed in 3.5 hours. There is another twin bed to build along with 5 other big pieces. Not sure how that is going to happen. The guy did manage to help me with the washing machine though and it is in! Granted I don't think the cabinet door will go back on but at this point I don't care.

Baby ducks on my run!

Park near my apartment

Esplanade on Saturday - it was an entirely different picture a month ago - brown and a fraction of the people.

From Regatta Cafe - the Sibelius monument is right in the middle - hard to see here.

Smiling because I made it back without having to be towed by my friend in the kayak.

Almost cried because I found microwave pizza and couldn't figure out how to use the microwave. The pictures on the buttons are so informative. Not. I found a manual online....for $40.

IKEA hell

The after

Random biker gang congregating outside my window

I have some bedroom furniture (...and trashy American reality TV) now! Still have another dresser and wardrobe to build though.

Friday

2015-05-29T15:21:00.001-05:00

Update in pictures.

Holy cow. My 50 euros worth of kitchen stuff. 6x two sizes plates, 6 bowls, 6 coffee cups, 6 classes, 6 wine glasses, 6 silverware place settings, 3 pots, 1 saucepan, 2 mixing bowls, 1 serving bowl, 1 cutting board, and I don't remember what else. All thrown in my Ikea bags I've already grown to hate. I carried these a few blocks to the tram, rode the tram 2 stops, and then carried them a few more blocks. Without breaking anything, including myself. But, I can have cereal and tea in the morning!

My fine living room furniture at the moment.

At first, I wasn't sure what I'd do with such a big entry hall. It didn't take long...this is the cleanest it has been and I doubt it will stay that way for long.

My lovely washer/dryer setup

Not the first color of plates I'd choose from Ikea, but I suppose they are burnt orange and were close enough to free.

My bathroom is really pretty. It is not, however, remotely functional. Notice the way the cabinets open? Super helpful when you are at the sink with the large (non-existent) counter. I get the bathroom drenched when I "shower" in the tub. No way I'm letting my nieces near it. The heated floors are a nice touch though and soon enough I'll probably use the shower off the kitchen more than this tub. Sadly, I don't think I'll use this actual bathroom for much - there isn't really even a place to put the hair dryer down when I'm using it. Safe to say I've been spoiled :-) I'm getting a taller dresser in my bedroom and will just use that as a vanity as well.

My bedroom setup. Another classy decorating scheme brought to you by me.

The elevator at my apartment. I have to crawl on top of the suitcase to fit.

Thursday

2015-05-28T05:05:00.003-05:00

I got up this morning to be ready for my 8-10am window for the internet people to come figure out why I don't have internet. I was excited to have some tea in my new pink teapot and a bowl of cereal. I was proud of myself for actually buying tea, cereal, and milk yesterday as well. The milk is somewhat scary though because they have 18 kinds of milk and yogurt here and I can't read any of it. Apparently one kind is "old milk." I don't want old milk. I also don't want buttermilk. It is possible I ended up with both though. I didn't get to try it though because after I got my tea bag out, I remembered I don't have any cups to put the tea in! And then I don't have any bowls to put the cereal in! I have plastic silverware and paper plates, but neither of those are going to help with tea and cereal. Moving to Finland fail #87.

The internet guy did come fix my problem which is good but the bad news is he said he has no idea what they did and doubts my cable TV will work and I have to contact the apartment owner to figure that out. Sounds simple enough but will be anything but.

The Ikea people came as well. I have furniture now! I may just stack the boxes in a furniture-like fashion because actually building the stuff isn't happening any time soon. There are 3 services that do it and it is anywhere from days to months before anyone can come. Awesome. I haven't worked out in a while - I guess over a week now. I'm getting one hell of a workout carrying whatever I buy to my apartment, walking everywhere, and now moving 50-80 lb boxes around my apartment.

The best part of this all is that work is busy right now - it is monthly close. Next time I move continents, I'm not going to do it anywhere near close (...if that happens to be possible).

Caitlin is coming weekend after next which is great. For those of you who don't know, she was one of my best friends growing up and she and her husband just moved to Amsterdam for an expat assignment. Thrilled to know someone on the continent!

Thursday Night Update

I just need to come to accept that nothing is going to be easy about this. And then will have to recite the "A League of Their Own" quote about things being hard over and over again.

I started rummaging through my Ikea haul and sure enough I ordered one piece incorrectly. How do I go about getting it back? Best I know so far is to haul the box (thankfully only 25 lbs) to the bus and take it that way. Then haul the heavier, correct one home the same way. I refuse to pay 59 euros delivery for a 159 euros piece of furniture. Now, the 119 euros total for delivery of everything I got today was totally worth it - just not for one piece. I could take a cab back but that will be close to $50 so not necessarily much better.

This afternoon was my second Finnish class and I'm realizing I have zero talent for learning this language. I am not picking up a thing. I think it is quite possible my brain is already full and not able to take on much more at the moment. I know I'm not stupid, but this just isn't working right now. And for whatever reason, all the foreign language stuff is just making me want to re-learn (or learn...) French. Funny how much more confidence I have there since I at least have a small clue about that language. The class is 4 weeks long and I think offered 2 more times this summer - maybe I'll take it again and second time will be a charm. We will see.

I sent my air shipment (clothes, few kitchen items, bedding, plug adapters, etc) 2 weeks before I left specifically so I would have it within a day or two of arrival. There is no word now on when I will get it. I'm running out of clothes and have to move a plug adapter between rooms each time I want to do something (hair dryer, roku, apple TV, laptop, 2 iphones, ipad). The straw that may have broken my back today was my washing machine delivery. Thankfully they delivered it after my class, but what do you know that it wouldn't fit in the cabinet that is supposedly built to fit a washing machine. The random wiring is looking what is in the way - if that is moved it is still questionable as to whether the machine will fit entirely in. So now I have it halfway out in the middle of the kitchen with the cabinet door taken off. I am excited to finally be able to wash the clothes I do have here but I don't have any detergent - it is with the rest of my stuff somewhere in Finland. Yes, I can buy some. Hopefully I'll remember to do that. I'm just a little frustrated about the number of things I'm having to buy while waiting for my stuff to get here.

I'm supposed to buy kitchen things (plates, silverware, pots/pans, etc) off an expat who is moving tomorrow afternoon. If that goes well, I'll be very happy - I'll have cups and bowls...and at a great price!

Exhausted

2015-05-27T14:00:00.000-05:00

In the 48 hours since arriving, I've been to:

- IKEA twice

- the Internet store four times (and I still don't have Internet)

- work twice (once did about 30 minutes and the other about 6 hours)

- the grocery store twice (but I don't seem to have any food)

- Gigantti once - TVs and washer/dryer

- bank once (to pay deposit for Internet since I don't have online banking....bank hours are 10-4:30 - entirely convenient)

- one of ten Finnish classes

- R Kioski to try to pay Internet deposit (unsuccessfully) and then to get bus pass for the week (same price for a week for a foreigner as for a month for a local - will go down once I get my permit)

- Stockmann's once

And I forget what else.

The great news is someone got the memo I was worried I'd never see the sun again and put it out. Temps have been upper 50s and it feels great! Also everything is alive and green- huge difference to a month ago!

Pics may look weird since I'm posting from my phone, but here are a few.

View from new office - no Town Lake, but so nice to see green (and blue).

My dinner at IKEA tonight. Not okay. I don't eat hotdogs

I will soon be the proud new owner of a pink couch - watch out.

Yesterday's classwork

Joke for blinds - this is before 4:30 this morning.

A bit better - this is 9pm or so.

My stylish and trendy nightstand. Who needs real furniture?

Then "default" background on my new Finnish phone...cruel joke?

Home Sweet Home?

2015-05-05T22:23:00.000-05:00

It feels really good to be home. I've been back almost two weeks now. On my way back it is amazing how "home" I felt at Heathrow - somewhere that just a few weeks earlier would have felt incredibly foreign. People speaking English all around me and signs in English everywhere felt good - and I worry it felt too good. That is the same with going/being home - I was looking forward to it but cautious to remind myself it was just temporary this time around. I'm wondering how it is going to feel over the next two years when I don't really have a home in the US - I know I'll feel at home at my sister's house in San Antonio (where I expect to spend a great deal of my time), but it will be weird in Austin for sure not having a home or a car of my own here.

The second half of my trip to Helsinki was good, despite that during that time I lost two more apartments (in addition to one I saw the first time I visited). My coworker Brian and his wife Les came my second week there and it was so nice having familiar faces (and voices) nearby. We had a great time walking miles and miles through the city and I finally got out to a few restaurants with them. I found a Finnish language class at a local university to sign up for when I arrive for good at the end of May. I got more familiar with the area and somewhat proficient at taking the bus to/from the office in Espoo. The weather remained pretty dismal - on Saturday when we were out and about (away from the hotel for several hours), the temps dropped significantly and I was dying before we got back. Les and I ended up buying hand-knit hats at the market by the harbor. I didn't bring any hats with me on the trip - I guess I thought I could will the weather to be warm enough to not need a hat - I was wrong.

I went to the Anglican Church of Helsinki the second Sunday I was there and it was great. I felt very at home with the service - much of it brought back memories of 11 years of chapel five days a week at Episcopal school. There were maybe 40 or so people there. I spotted a girl in cowboy boots and a dress I thought I recognized as being from Target. Afterward they had snacks and tea/coffee and sure enough it was a Target dress and the cowboy boots were straight out of Austin (from a recent road trip on their 6 month paternity leave). She is from Phoenix and her husband is Finnish and they have lived there 11 years - unfortunately they are moving back to the US this summer. But she was able to connect me with the American Women's Club which I didn't know existed and is connecting me with others in the church. It was such a welcome relief to meet her and other members of the church!

My time back has been good. Everything is so green and lush in Austin right now. Everything in Helsinki was still brown and dead so I think I am that much more appreciative of the "life" in Austin right now. Granted come July or August Helsinki will be beautiful and Austin will probably be its own lovely shade of brown. I finally found out yesterday I did get one of the apartments I had seen while I was there - I assumed I was going to lose that one too by the way things had been going. This is a huge relief as I don't have to go into temporary housing. This has allowed me to start to finalize some plans. I have lost count of how many lists I have -what to pack in my air shipment, what to pack in suitcases, what to permanently store, what to leave at my sister's house, what to con my parents into bring with them on their first visit, doctors to see, things to buy, things to get rid of...the list of lists goes on and on and on. And yes, there is a big part of me that loves it. There is another part that is part terrified, stressed out, and in total denial. It is funny - for the most part I'm really enjoying my last weeks here and trying soak it all in - the worrier in me though is afraid to enjoy it too much knowing it will be gone all too soon. Not to worry though, the positive voice then comes back in and reminds me that it isn't like I'm going to some black hole for 2 years - I'm embarking on an adventure few get to ever experience.

I had my first of a few going away celebrations last night - this was a work happy hour. My coworkers each wrote me a note in a little moleskin notebook - it was such a sweet, thoughtful token. We also celebrated my intern's last week at the office and he told me I was "seriously the best boss he'd ever had." Made my night (never mind he isn't even of legal drinking age so it is possible I'm one of the only bosses he's ever had :-)). I truly enjoy the people I work with and while I will still be "working with" them virtually, I am going to really really miss the day-to-day in person interaction with each of them.

My entertainment on the bus

View from my favorite apartment - the one I didn't get. Still makes me a little sad, but it is what it is.

Some girls handed me this when I got off the bus one afternoon - I had to show it to Anna-Liisa and ask if it was cheese or something far from it. Sure enough...cheese.

These birds are what the company used for awards for those who worked on the acquisition - we had no idea how unique/Finland-centered the awards are.

Mid-April - the "feels like" and length of day are both notable here

Lighting options at Ikea - apparently in Finland, you have to even provide your own freaking lighting in rented apartments. As if furniture, washer/dryer, and wardrobes aren't enough!

Les and me freezing in Kamppi

I will be spending lots of time here - it is all CHOCOLATE

Precious Marimekko dress - saw it and had to have it for my niece Bennett. It was her non-conventional first communion gift from me.

I'm obsessed - Marimekko even wraps their gifts super cute.

Amazingly green scenery on the trail in Austin right now

Bennett's first communion - it was a huge treat to spend the day/night in San Antonio just a few days after I got back.

Love

Savoring my office view while it lasts

Sweet card and notebook from work

An Introvert's Dream

2015-04-14T00:35:00.003-05:00

I'm almost halfway through my two-week trip to Helsinki - my last trip before moving here. I've decided I'm living an introvert's dream and possibly an extrovert's worse nightmare. Not knowing the language is beyond alienating - in so many ways. People have continually said to me "oh, but they speak English, right?" Yes...most of them do, after being spoken to in English. However, the conversations that go on around me, signs, directions, menus, everything printed is in Finnish (and in some cases Sweedish). I keep finding myself wishing that either I had someone here with me or that I was doing this in England, or Ireland, or any other English-speaking country. So after feeling sorry for myself for a while (and still doing that a bit), I'm realizing I will have to make a very very concerted effort to learn the language. I don't expect to be able to have real conversations - just want to have some clue as to what is going on around me and not feel entirely deaf. I would also like to be able to help myself at least a little bit when ordering in a restaurant or trying to find something in a grocery store. The reality though is trying to take a language course and learning one of the hardest languages to learn while learning a brand new job is going to be tough. Really tough. But, both should have great rewards and will be worth it. I'm also hoping I could possibly meet a few others in my position at whatever language course I take.

I've spent a little time in the office and a lot of time running around not feeling entirely productive. The apartments I've been seeing are getting a little better - I have a little hope there. Banking is another story. Each of the three banks we've talked to here all have a requirement that I am currently unable to satisfy. One requires residence - which I won't have for a good 3-4 months after moving here. Another requires me to be paid Finnish wages. That isn't happening as I'm getting paid in the US. The third only requires a Finnish ID # from the magistrate. But our visit to the magistrate says I need a residency permit to get the ID #. So yeah...clear as mud as to how I'm supposed to actually do anything here. I'm thinking about living in one of the cool cardboard forts I saw built around a fallen tree in the woods on my run Sunday. Then I can buy groceries on credit card and it will all be good.

Meeting people will be huge and entirely necessary to me enjoying it here (I suppose that is obvious). But figuring out how to meet them has been quite interesting and so far I haven't entirely figured that out. I did go to the English-speaking service at a local Methodist church on Sunday. It was so nice to hear English! The service though, unfortunately, left a little to be desired. I guess it just wasn't Tarrytown UMC. Which I'm sure you are saying "no $hit." There were 15 of us in the service and I had about the most boring background. The pianist/singer was named Hilda. She was fair-complected and had a fairly American sounding accent. I asked where she was from and she said Mexico. Not what I expected. She grew up a German Mennonite in Mexico holding Mexican and Canadian citizenship currently studying in Finland. Got all that? The remainder of the group at church was from Ghana - I forget there is such a huge Methodist presence there. It was pretty neat to have this one common thing bringing us together from literally all over the world. That being said, I may try out the Anglican church soon too - as much as I'm looking for church, I'm also looking for a community and feel like I need to explore all options. Also, sadly, the service was 1.5 hours because the sermon was given in Finnish and translated line by line - so that took a while and it was hard to keep my attention. But when/if I make any progress learning the language, that may be a good learning tool.

After my run in the above-mentioned woods, I saw three girls waiting at the tram stop. One had on a letter jacket with a UIL patch. I heard one speak though and while it was English, it definitely wasn't American. We ended up on the same tram and I finally asked the letter jacket girl where she was from and she was not only American, but TEXAN. Poor girl probably feared I wasn't going to leave her alone. But she actually laughed and told her friends (one from Germany and the other from Switzerland) "See!! I told you we all talk to each other when we hear similar accents." Her name was Blossom and she is a junior from a town near the TX/OK border. She will have 16 kids in her graduating class back home. Wow. She has spent her junior year, along with these 2 other girls, studying abroad in Finland. Her classes are in Finnish. Wow. I was so impressed. And thinking to myself I need to tell Elizabeth I think her girls need to study abroad at some point. How awesome that these kids are getting over at 16/17 yrs old what I'm not sure I can get over at this point. Granted they have families and school friends to help the transition, but they are half my age. Another person I was super impressed with is the housekeeper at my hotel. She came in while I was there the other day to change my duvet and her English was so good I asked where she was from. Kenya. Not what I was expecting. She knows five languages and is here studying business. She had an aunt that lived here so that is what made her come here as well. She knows five and I'm grieving over the fact that my one isn't cutting it.

Another huge plus is I think I figured out how to watch American TV over here - or at least get access to Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. You have to get an American VPN which seems beyond shady and I half expect everything to blow up or the FBI to show up at my door but I just watched Nashville (at 7am) and am now starting to watch yesterday morning's GMA. I'm normally a Today Show fan, but I'll take whatever is available at this point...even if it is a day late. The 12' HDMI cable I bought a few years ago and the $50 HDMI/lightning connector I bought in Singapore have been clutch for the combination of awful hotel TV and foreign TV.

I bought new pink running gloves the other day - to be fair I actually kind of needed them. The one pair I brought were cheapo cotton - what I wear regularly at home when it is cold enough to need gloves but not crazy cold (usually in the 30s-40s). But I realized the other day they don't have the smartphone fingers. Usually that isn't a problem in Austin - because I know where I'm going. But here, I'm possibly lost more than I'm found. For someone with a decent sense of direction it has been humbling. So the beautiful thin gloves with smartfingers were entirely necessary. And perfect on my run yesterday. Along those lines - it is still cold here. The days are already longer than in the US which is kind of neat, but the temps are in the 30s and 40s. And it is windy and sometimes rainy. My boss asked me from day 1 how I am with cold weather and I said I thought it would be okay. I spoke without thinking too much (shocker - I never do that!) - what I should have realized is that I don't mind the cold spells that come through Austin. I don't mind the cold when we go snow skiing (or at least I don't mind when inside by a fire....or just walking from inside place to inside place - sometimes the outside for hours part is miserable). Cold for 9 months a year? A spell of 2-3 months where it may not get over 32 degrees? I'm not so sure about that. My fear all along has been the 4 hours of sunlight we get in winter. I need to add to that the 3-4 months of Colorado mountain winter and then the 4-5 months of Austin winter (which usually lasts 2-3 weeks in Austin). Maybe it will be okay. I do love coats and boots and layers and spiffy tech gear. We will see how much I love it two years from now :-)

So glad to know I can now have that pink toaster I've always wanted.

...and the pink vacuum. By the way, the Finnish word for pink has FIFTEEN letters. REALLY??? Try this: vaaleanpunainen

Local Finnish pastry - don't ask me to say, spell, or remember the name. I've had too much of it and too much hot chocolate.

Run scenery - about a mile or so south of my hotel

My fancypants. The shirt I wore with these was the color of my shoes. I went around 8 Saturday morning. At one point a lady got out of her car and started talking to me. Of course I had no idea what she said and told her that. She said "oh I was just saying how bright and cheery you are in your colors." So that made my morning. Fancypants will have to come out often.

Singapore

2015-04-10T21:42:00.000-05:00

In April, I traveled around the world. It is funny I seem to be checking off bucket list items that I didn't necessarily have on my bucket list. My trip started with a week in Singapore for training. It was over Easter and the local office had Good Friday off. I worked from my hotel on Friday. I ended up going three days without seeing a single person I know. That is rare - there are some people that rarely even go one day. I decided two should be about my max. I went to a local Methodist church for Easter - it sure wasn't home, but was definitely better than nothing. That being said, I definitely enjoyed Singapore more this time around than the last time I went. Upgrading to business class on my flight over might have something to do with that - I didn't realize just how bad I felt last time. I knew the area a little better and the weather was pretty darn nice this time around. I think I had to sizzle there a little to make me appreciate the frigid Finland weather I had coming up next.

I don't have too much to say about the trip - but some fun pics. I started off at the Carlton Hotel but decided I hated it. I stayed at Swissotel the time before and thought I'd check out the Carlton since many of my coworkers stay there but moved to the Swissotel as soon as I could. Each room has a balcony and I had another amazing view this time. The 12 hour overnight flight from Singapore to Helsinki was convenient, I suppose, but not what I'd call pleasant. I'm hoping I don't have to take that one again anytime soon.

View from my hotel

View of my hotel from the pool.

Entertaining scene at a beach on Sentosa Island

Beach on Sentosa Island - was a nice little retreat

Lone pink flower in Gardens by the Bay - awesome morning run scenery

I read somewhere the Strait of Singapore is one of the most heavily-traveled bodies of water in the world.

Came by this on a run one morning and at first couldn't figure out what in the world it was - so run down and ugly looking. Then I realized that come September, it is a hotbed of money - F1 money.

Mad skills flying from Singapore to Helsinki - weight limit is 23kg

First Visit

2015-03-21T22:10:00.000-05:00

My week-long trip began with a two day offsite team building kickoff with the new Helsinki crew (around 30 people or so) as well as a handful from the Austin office. The itinerary I received the week before included an ice sculpting competition, sauna time (bathing suit optional), and pigeon on the dinner menu. Needless to say, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

The ice sculpting ended up being pretty fun - my team made a boat with a Finnish flag on the back. Granted towards the end it ended up looking more like a toilet bowl than a boat, but I didn't have the heart to tell my team of new Finnish acquaintances this. Sauna time ended up being split - the men went to the "sauna by the sea" and the ladies stayed back at the one inside the hotel - ie completely uneventful...and not naked. Dinner was seven courses and I bailed for bed after #5 - it was 11:15pm. One of those I did stay awake for was the pigeon. I was proud of myself for eating it but think I'm suffering some post-traumatic stress from it. Perhaps I won't eat it again.

After getting back to Helsinki from the offsite, a Norwegian co-worker took me into the City Center to show me some of the ropes. It was ~35f and raining but that doesn't seem to slow anyone down over there. We walked around a bit and ate a nice Italian Restaurant. I'm glad she showed me how to take the tram from our hotel into town - something I'm not sure I would have been quite as bold to figure out on my own and that became very useful over the remainder of my stay.

Wednesday and Thursday morning were spent at the office which is just west of Helsinki in a town called Espoo. I recognized several names of company offices that also have locations in Austin and/or around the US. Thursday afternoon I met with my relocation assistant - Anna-Liisa and looked at apartments in different parts of the City Center. I looked at five apartments that day - one was completely awesome, three were terrible and one was okay. One was in the Seventh-Day Adventists church building and offered one washing machine in another building for all the tenants. It also had a pink plastic toilet seat and a bathtub I wouldn't put my big toe in. Thanks but no thanks. A recurring theme I noticed is a toilet basically in the shower. You have one tiny room with a sink on one wall, toilet on another, and a shower head on the other - with a drain in the middle. No shower curtain, no separation, nothing. Another no thanks. While it may bring new meaning to "shit, shower, and shave" and be a dude's dream, it is absolutely not how I want to go about things. I also realize how high the risk is of me coming off like a rich, pretentious American B. Hopefully I'm able to relax and soak in and appreciate some of the European culture, but I'm just not sure about showering with my toilet.

Friday I took a quick day trip to our Oslo office. It was awesome! I know maybe 8-10 of the folks from that office so it was nice seeing a few familiar faces. Friday in Oslo it was sunny and the temps were in the upper 40s. It was downright delightful after the mid 30s with rain in Finland. Saturday in Finland didn't prove to be any different than it had been, unfortunately. To be fair, the weather forecast included "abundant sunshine" the week after I left. I snatched a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses in the Oslo airport on my way home. I never thought I'd be one of "those" people buying things at airports but now I may be one all the time - the NOK is trading fairly weak against the USD and I used that in my favor. I was frantically pulling up my currency calculator and the Nordstrom website on my phone to see how good of a deal I was getting - $170+tax in the US and I paid ~$130 in Oslo. Funny how quickly I have gone from not much care in the world about exchange rates to installing an app on my phone to check daily.

Saturday I went for a short run from my hotel before meeting Anna-Liisa in town to look at a few more apartments. Those weren't too promising, but the extra looking around was helpful in me figuring out what neighborhood I think I'd like to live in. Kamppi is on the west side of the City Center and is a huge hub of public transportation and is where I think I want to be (as of now...who knows how many times that will change). There is some new construction there along with plenty of old (ie toilets in the shower). My fingers are crossed now that another awesome option comes up there (the one I liked went long before we could get our hands on it).

After we looked around, I did a bit more exploring on my own. I went to Stockmann's - the nine story department store that has everything you could need, but then found myself just wanting something familiar. I googled Starbucks and sure enough there was one across the street from where I was. I think I will be there often. My last stop was at Marimekko. I will no doubt be in trouble there before my stint in Finland is over. I already went a little crazy buying gifts for friends and family there but it was way too fun! Sunday brought a long day of traveling but I was quite happy to be home when it was over. I worried myself a bit - being so happy to be home, knowing before too long that home will no longer be there.

Awesome wood mug given to the Americans at the offsite by our new Finnish co-workers

Tuesday evening with Norwegian co-worker

Evening scenes from Helsinki City Center

While I do enjoy pink, I don't particularly need it in the form of a plastic toilet seat in a scary bathroom

Not sure I'm ready for this amazing wallpaper

By the sea - my first glimpse of blue skies in a long time

The Methodist Church in Helsinki City Center

Try pronouncing that... (I'll stick with "Methodist")

First time all week I saw real sun - coming into Oslo

One US co-worker described running from the hotel as looking like the 5th moon of Jupiter...

More scenes from my run

Marimekko - I may own way too much of this before I come home

How I ended up on my way to Helsinki

2015-03-21T20:37:00.003-05:00

In early January, my boss held a typical meeting of his direct-reports and mentioned the possibility of putting someone in Europe over the accounting for our subs (which is currently going through Singapore). He asked what a few of us thought about it and I thought it was a great idea. A bit later he said "who knows - it could be someone in this room." I looked around the room and realized (for the umpteenth time in these meetings) that one of these is not like the others. As in the others all have 10-20 years more experience than I do. My position in Internal Audit is unique in that it reports to the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors and "administratively" to the CFO to maintain independence. Anyways, I looked around the room and quickly wrote off the possibility of me taking a position like that due to lack of experience compared to the others. But then a small part of me also realized I was the only one without a family with kids in middle/high school. Hmmm....

After the meeting one of the attendees encouraged me to raise my hand - I thought she was crazy but I didn't immediately dismiss the idea. I went to bible study later that night and my mind was racing a mile a minute. I couldn't tell you for a second what we talked about - I was too busy wondering if my boss could have possibly been talking about me and if I could possibly fathom the idea of moving to Europe. Soon enough though work got very busy and the idea of moving to Europe (namely Finland, where our most recent acquisition took place) faded away. Until January 30 - the day my boss took me to lunch and dropped what I call "the bomb" on me. But I guess I shouldn't call it a bomb because I've never heard of a good bomb and this one was good - crazy, scary, but good. We left it at that I'd take the weekend to think on it, talk it over with my family, and meet with him again Monday. He wanted me to go check things out in the next week or two after that. My initial thought: who goes to Europe on a few days notice? I guess me. Turns out though there were a few roadblocks preventing me from going over that quickly, but I did make it over the first week of March. All of February was spent in limbo - not entirely my favorite place to be.