The Windy City

I am not kidding when I say that Brian and I are barely going to be home for a month. We went to Grand Rapids for Valentine's Day, and this past weekend, we went to Chi-town for a visit with his BFF John and his wife Erica, and their gorgeous kids, Lia and Dominic.

The Fontana's moved to Wilmette, north of Chi-town, late last summer after John took a different job within his company. We've been wanting to visit them since they moved, and just now got a chance, due to many things that have happened with us, and things that have happened with them. Things are finally settling down, so we planned the weekend and went. We left at 10:30 am for the 4.5 hour drive so that we'd get there before the crazy insane rush hour traffic began. We were lucky, we did miss it for the most part, and made it there in 5 hours with a stop for gas and lunch. As we were driving through the neighborhood, I was struck by how narrow the streets are, even the main thoroughfares! I don't think I'd feel comfortable driving there, especially not Brian's truck. Maybe my car, but with as bad as my depth perception is, I'd probably be taking off other people's mirrors!

John and Erica's new house is nice, in an old neighborhood that looks like it's really great for kids. Lots of neighbors, and easy to ride bikes and push strollers through. The house itself is old, from the 1920s or so, so it has lots of character and details that our circa 2001 McMansion just doesn't have! (To frequent reader A--you would love this house totally and completely, it is right up your alley!) Their house is actually about 1 block from Northwestern University's football stadium, so I see more tailgates in my future. Tailgates right in John and Erica's driveway. We spent Friday night in Evanston, having dinner with the Fontana's and the Adams', other friends who live in Chi-town. We haven't seen Tom and Meridith in ages, and haven't seen their daughter Olivia since she was 6 months old, and now she's almost 3. Dinner was great, but chaotic with 3 little kids, and trying to wrestle around for parking spots. We played some Rock Band and MarioKart also, and had fun.

On Saturday, we just hung out, and ended up going on a drive up through the North Shore suburbs. Holy Crap. Some of those houses look like castles and have servants' quarters that are larger than John and Erica's house (which is not small, mind you). We got coffee in Winnetka, and came back to the house. The Adams' came over for dinner, and the kids played great by themselves for a long time, so we adults got to play games for almost 2 hours. We played some more MarioKart and went to bed! (As a side note, I think 3 year old Lia is better than many of the adults.)

Sunday coming home was fine, thank goodness, all the bad weather had passed. We came home down Lake Shore Drive, which is always pretty, and Brian pointed out to me his old neighborhood. We actually ended up stopping in Chesterton, Indiana for lunch, which is about 10 miles up the road from Valpo, off the same exit. That was weird, I obviously haven't been there in almost 5 years! We made it home in good time.

So, the next post here will probably be from Florida. We leave Saturday for MickeyMouse Land and then a visit with our friends Steve and Nancy. I'm so excited to go to warm weather, and we really need some time for ourselves to have fun together!

Grand Rapids Weekend

Brian and I went to Grand Rapids this weekend. He was seeing Motley Crue at Van Andel Arena Friday night, and I was going to hang out with April and finally meet baby Olivia. The drive to GR went great and we made great time. We were staying the weekend at the JW Marriott downtown, which is a gorgeous hotel and is hooked right to Van Andel by a catwalk. Saturday, for Valentine's Day, I had planned trips to the Meijer Gardens, the Van Andel Museum, a restaurant and a piano bar. Brian knew these things were planned, by the way, I'd like to add.

Friday night was great. I had a great time with April and her sister Anne, who is staying with her and JB for awhile. Baby Olivia is gorgeous and huge for her age! Since April is 5'10" and JB is 6'4", it's not really a surprise that Liv is big! We went to a great restaurant called Marie Catrib's, which is Middle Eastern/a little bit of everything (the owner immigrated from Lebanon). The food was great and Marie herself came out to fawn over Olivia! I left April's at about 10:30, wanting to get back to the hotel before the concert got out. I did, and was walking on the catwalk from the parking structure to the hotel, and the most random thing happened. I ran into Laura, who is a paralegal at B&T in Grand Rapids (I did a summer project for them a couple years ago in South Bend). She was in South Bend at the same time, working on the same project and we became friends. She had been at a bar across the street after work and was walking to her car, which was parked in the same structure I was in. We ended up going in the hotel bar and chatting until 12:30. It was so nice to see her too!

Ummm, as I said above, Brian and I had all sorts of fun things planned on Saturday. The day did not go as planned. All I want to say is that it was a very bad Valentine's Day for us, and it'll take Brian a long time to make it up to me. By later in the day, things were somewhat better, and we attempted to go to San Chez, a tapas restaurant. When I called them earlier in the week, I was told they don't take reservations and that I should get there before 6 to somewhat beat the rush. We arrived at 5:30 to find that half the restaurant was taken over by a wedding reception, and the wait was already over an hour long. I wasn't told about the reception earlier in the week or I probably would have picked another restaurant! Well, we were both starving, so we decided not to wait, and went to a steak place that was a couple blocks away. It was great, but we were a little underdressed, so we tried not to draw attention to ourselves! Anyway, we left at 7, and went to Mojo's, a dueling piano bar. It was tons of fun and I would definitely go back.

I'd like to go back to Grand Rapids and go back to Meijer Garden in the summer time and get to go to San Chez this time. Hopefully, we will again and will have a smoother weekend next time.

But I'm Not Dead Yet

The title of this blog refers to my favorite bit from the always awesome movie, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." It's the scene in which people are supposed to "bring out your dead" (people who died in the plague), but they end up throwing someone on the funeral cart who's not dead yet. That makes me laugh every single time when the guy pops his head up and says "But I'm not Dead Yet," only to be whacked over the head and killed. Well, it was also an awesome scene in the awesome musical based on the movie. Yes, last night, Brian and I saw the absolutely hysterical "Spamalot" (along with our fantastic friends Danielle and Grady).

Okay, so if you've seen the "Holy Grail," you pretty much know how "Spamalot" is going to go, but I have to say, I think the musical is even funnier than the movie. It starts with the Finnish "Fisch Slapping Song" and goes on from there. They do all the best bits--the sentries arguing over the velocity of an African Swallow vs a European Swallow, whether coconuts migrate, the French Taunters, and my favorite, the Not Dead Yet Scene. There is also an awesome song called, "His Name is Lancelot," in which the scenery was so colorful Brian thought his head was going to explode. I was pretty much laughing out loud for 2 hours. The best part though, was in the Knights Who Say Ni scene, where they updated the play and did a shout out to Kwame. They broke out into a little bit of of "All My Exes Live in Texas," which became "All My Ex-Mayors Live in Texas," and then they said that he'll come back from Texas when he realizes that the strippers there shoot back. I thought the entire audience was going to fall out of their seats laughing. I enjoyed myself so much, I just may download the soundtrack album onto my iPod for $11.99 off iTunes.

Anyway, after the show, we went to MGM Grand Casino downtown (the play was at the Fisher Theater) and had dinner. We had dinner at a restaurant called Bourbon Steak, which was fantastic, but about twice as expensive as I thought it would be. And that's my fault--I obviously didn't scrutinize the prices very closely before I made the reservation. Stupid me! Oh well, we were helping the economy (that's what Brian and I tell each other lately--as in, "can't have a baby, help the economy!"). I did apologize to Danielle several times. I felt so bad. I would recommend it for dinner, but for two people, you will easily drop $150 if not more (and that's if you don't buy the Kobe beef--$150 for ONE STEAK.) Only for special occasions! We also gambled a bit, and Brian had no mojo at all. Luck HAS NOT been his lady lately, unfortunately.

Lots of good posts will be upcoming, because we have SO many things going on in the next few months, it's ridiculous. So keep reading!

I am a Mutant--But I'm not Cool like Wolverine

You probably think the title of this blog is some kind of clever joke--but it's not. I'll explain in a moment.

Brian and I had our first visit to the Reproductive Endocrinologist (aka special baby making doctor) on Friday morning. It was all the way in Troy, so we had quite a hike from here. We are going all the way to Troy because that is the only clinic on this side of the state that our insurance will cover. And since we are VERY fortunate to have coverage for this at all, obviously most people don't, we felt we couldn't discount that coverage merely to go someplace closer to home. The reason that our insurance will only cover this place is because it is considered the best of the best when it comes to this stuff. So that's good! If I have to go someplace, it's nice going to the best.

So, we get there, and all the paperwork is done, insurance card was scanned in, etc. The front office ladies seemed very impressed with our coverage. On a side note--obviously many of you have never looked at prices for IVF, etc (I'm very glad you haven't had to). Did you know that a first round of IVF costs $10,000? And subsequent rounds, if you already have embryos stored, still cost $4,000? We will not be needing IVF (and we wouldn't do it anyway--that is where we draw a personal line), but if we did, wow. I now fully understand why many people have to mortgage their homes to have children. (Although, I wish they would just take that money and adopt and help a kid that's already here. That is our personal feeling on it.)

Anyway, we meet with our doctor, Dr. Miller. He's probably in his early to mid 40's, pretty normal looking white guy with a female resident with him who was sitting in on our consult. So, we start going over my medical history and the history of all the losses. The first thing that I notice about this doctor is that he's REALLY intense. Like, he would NOT break eye contact with me. It was so much, I had to look away at times, you know what I mean? But at least I felt I had his whole attention, which is nice. Brian agreed. We went over all those tests Dr. Thai ran on me over the summer, and he told me that she was really quite thorough in her testing. And this is where the mutant part comes in. Well, Dr. Thai never discussed this with me (she just told me everything was fine and I didn't see it in the records until a few days ago--long story), but it turns out I do have a gene mutation called MTHFR.

MTHFR is the name of a blood enzyme that is screwed up when you have this particular mutation. I have 1 bad copy each of 2 different genes affecting this. Now, you can have 2 bad copies of these 2 different genes--that's really bad. My scenario is borderline. Dr. Miller said that Dr. Thai probably didn't say anything because its not proven to be a cause of anything. If I had the two bad copies of those genes, that's a different story. Anyway, this can cause blood clotting, and what it definitely causes is bad uptake of Folic Acid. So, she had put me on baby aspirin and progesterone, which he seemed to feel were perfectly appropriate. He is also going to put me on mega high doses of Folic Acid, which may help the situation and would definitely protect my baby from neural tube defects if we do have a viable pregnancy. When I say mega high, I mean 4 times the normal amount a pregnant women should take, so I'm going to be swallowing a ton of pills. I am fine with that given the alternative! If I had those 2 bad copies of the gene and had the definite issue, I would need to give myself shots of blood thinner every day when I'm pregnant. I wasn't looking forward to that, but I'll do what I have to do, obviously. But, he stated its not indicated with me (although I know from my research some RE's will prescribe it anyway), and actually, a ton of people have this gene mutation and never have a problem. (So you may be mutants too and not even realize it!)

Anyway, he seemed pretty optimistic about the situation. He stated that he feels my prognosis is good to have a baby. He is going to do some more testing on me. On Cycle Day 3 next time, I have to go in for blood testing and a basic ultrasound to check out my ovaries. (See how the follicles look, etc.) The blood testing will check my LH, FSH, prolactin, estrogen and progesterone at that point in my cycle. Those are all hormones that affect ovulation and pregnancy, and they will tell a lot. He even said depending on how those levels come back, the possibility exists that I could be put on Clomid. I'm not EXACTLY clear why I would need that when I have no trouble conceiving, but it has something to do with inducing a stronger, better ovulation, and helping the hormonal and chemical conditions be ideal in the womb BEFORE you ovulate, rather than just treating it after. And then, a few days after that, I need to get another ultrasound, but with this one, they're going to shoot saline water up my hoo-ha and check out the structure of my uterus itself. There could be some uterine malformation going on that could be causing this and inhibiting growth. Some that are fixable and some are not. I've been told this is "uncomfortable," which may mean "horribly painful," so, we'll see. We hope to have this testing done before we go to Florida the first week of March (a post on that is upcoming). So I'm really hoping my cycle is regular so that can happen.

Before I go, I wanted to thank everyone for the support and well wishes. We really do appreciate how kind everyone has been through this mess. I will keep you somewhat up to date, although I hope you all do understand that if we do try again and get pregnant, we keep that to ourselves until we're ready to tell, for obvious reasons. Bye!

Robbery!! (Don't Worry--Not our House)

As I said in the title, yes, there was a robbery, but don't worry, it wasn't at our house, or anything directly belonging to us really. As many of you know, my mom owns a gas station/convenience store up in the thumb, in Otter Lake, which is sort of near Davidson. So, I was talking to my mom last night after Brian left, and she casually says, "Yeah, we got a phone call from Randy (one of her workers) this morning at 7 am." Then, she stops. So, I have to prompt her and say, "Oh yeah, about what?" To which she replied, "Oh, the station was robbed last night." Lovely.

Her worker Randy got to work on Sunday morning to find the side door of the station completely broken out. It's a full glass panel door with a handle all the way across on the inside, as many of you are probably familiar with. Some of my readers are intimately familiar with it, given that you've worked for my Mom! Anyway, come to find out they weren't the only target; the same person tried to break into the other little store in town without success, due to window positioning and crazy homemade locking systems, made by Ed, who owns the Superette in question. Anyway, my mom has cameras in the store, and whoever did this must be local, because he knew exactly where they were, and kept his face hidden the whole time, and dodged through the aisles at exactly the right places. The police think they know who this person is, because earlier that night at the Superette, he had tried to steal beer, and they kicked him out. So, the theory is, he then came back to the Superette and tried to break in, failed, and then came to my mom's place. This is the funny part--the only thing he took was 2 30 packs of Bud Light. She would have been out more money if he'd taken 2 cartons of cigarettes. Also, he broke that window, went to the cooler (leaving the big back door open, which my mom was pretty peeved about), took 60 beers, and left in 31 seconds flat. My mom reviewed her tapes, and told me that. It killed me--so fast, 31 seconds, shows a total disregard for conscience. Wow. Also, despite the door being completely busted, the only other creature that came in the station all night was the black cat that lives around the area and feeds in the dumpster. Apparently, the poor little scrawny thing came in out of the cold several times. As my mom put it, "Well, I'm out an insurance claim, and 30 bucks in beer. If you're going to get robbed, I guess this is the way you want it to go."

And I was just thinking about this--my parents have owned the station for 13 and a half years, and this is only the second time they've been robbed. That's not too bad, actually, particularly considering the area it's in (poor and rural--I would almost expect robberies from people looking for drug money or something). I mean, don't get me wrong, other things have happened--one of their clerks was assaulted, they've had numerous gas drive offs obviously, and even a naked gas pumper of all things. Also, my mom fell outside on the ice one year and broke her leg (as she put it--at least it was her that was hurt and not a customer), and one particularly hot summer when the air was broken, a completely disgusting redneck guy asked my frequent reader A if he could lick the sweat off her. But, all in all, its been a fairly uneventful place to be. So, if you're ever in Otter Lake, Michigan, stop at the Marathon station, ask for Marie, and tell her you know me.

Movie Reviews

So, I thought I'd spend a few minutes sharing my opinion about a few movies I've seen recently. You may have been thinking of seeing these movies, so I wanted to give my fair and unbiased take on these flicks. Don't worry, I'll not give away the ending of either movie!

Gran Torino
Brian and I went to the movies on Friday night to finally see Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino. Good ol' Clint is both director and star of this movie, the same as he was in the absolutely brilliant Million Dollar Baby (which could make me cry again right now just thinking about it). Mr. Eastwood has stated that this may be his last movie as an actor, and that he will focus on directing only, as he is in his late 70's, after all. Well Clint, if this is your last movie ever on screen, or even as a director, you have a tremendous amount to be proud of. Gran Torino was pretty much a masterpiece, I think particularly to those of us who live in the Detroit Metro area and understand the history and dynamics of how the area has changed in the last 50 years. It is the story of Frank Kowalski, a Korean War vet whose wife has just passed away and is now all alone in his home in Hazel Park. He's distant from his sons, and hates the fact that his neighborhood, that used to be all white, is now predominately filled with Hmong immigrants. Hmong people are an Asian culture who immigrated here after the Vietnam War (this is explained in more detail in the movie). He hates these people and calls them every racial name in the book. You really want to hate Frank, but you don't. Then, he unwillingly gets to know the two Hmong teenagers next door, Sue and Thao, and begins to change. Obviously, Frank's beautiful 1972 Ford Gran Torino factors predominantly in the story. As I said, I will not give away too much of the plot or the ending, but all I have to say is WOW. Go see this movie immediately.

The Love Guru
As for the other movie I'm going to review--I have a message for Mike Myers: Unless you get your funny back, QUIT MAKING MOVIES. Brian and I watched The Love Guru last night, and it was a complete and utter waste of about an hour and a half of my life. About 10 minutes into it, Brian and I looked to each other, and went "Do you think this is funny?" Neither of us really did, but we wanted to give it a chance. I have liked Mike Myers so much in the past (I still headbang every time I hear Bohemian Rhapsody), I didn't want to think he could put out such a piece of crap, but alas, it is possible. The Love Guru is about Guru Pitka, a white guy who was raised in India who wants to become the next Deepak Chopra. He's hired by the owner of the Toronto Maple Leaves (played by Jessica Alba--yeah right) to fix the love life of her star player so they can win the Stanley Cup. In this movie, Myers tells all the same jokes as he ever has, and now they are VERY OLD. This stuff hasn't been funny since Austin Powers (the first one, not the two substandard ones that followed). Plus, the weird fakey Indian voice he talks in through the movie was weird and off putting. The ONLY slightly funny part of this movie was seeing Justin Timberlake play a rival goalie, a French Canadian guy named Jacque "le Coq" Grande, who worships Celine Dion and has an enormous schlong. When the movie was done, I was pissed I wasted my Netflix subscription on it. DO NOT see it.

Bye until next time!

Baby Trial Run

So, Brian's brother Ryan and his girlfriend Jen had a daycare emergency this week (their daycare lady had to have emergency surgery Monday) and they needed somebody to watch baby Kelsey this week. My mother in law Dena is watching her tomorrow and Thursday, but they were stuck yesterday and today. Brian and I were both home and not busy, and our house is actually not that far out of the way for Ryan to go to work. So, we were nannies to a 10 month old for the last couple days.

The days started early, at 6:30. Of course, she refused to go back to sleep after Ryan dropped her off and left, so I was up and about early. Both days we had to go upstairs to get Brian out of bed an hour later. She liked crawling in the bed with him and trying to get the cat. (He was actually relatively good with her--no hissing and he actually touched her finger with his nose once, and then ran away. For him, that's fantastic. Ask Holly.) Then came morning bottles and cereal. Lunch time and afternoon bottles also went well. She's a pretty good eater, so mealtimes went pretty well. The hardest part of the whole deal was nap times. She did not sleep very well at all--the first day, she slept an hour in the morning (good), 30 minutes after lunch (terrible) and then 20 minutes later in the afternoon that she shouldn't have needed had she slept better earlier. Today, she slept 25 minutes in the morning (terrible), an hour tops after lunch (15 minutes of that was me trying to get her BACK to sleep when she woke up after half an hour) and then 15 minutes on the floor of Brian's office after her late bottle, which, again, she shouldn't even have needed. In my mind, not enough for a baby her age, but I did the best I could. Also, Kelsey is teething, so today especially she was crabby. If one of us wasn't holding her, she was screaming, especially this afternoon. I did oragel this morning, and when it wore off, boy could we tell. Overall, a fine couple of days, but I have to admit, I'm looking forward to sleeping a bit later tomorrow and not having a 20 pound creature clinging to me constantly. Brian said to me, "What will we do when we have our own kids?" My reply was, "It's different when they're you're own, plus, we'll have some time to adjust."

Brian was a ton of help. Yesterday, I got my exercise while she was sleeping, and he watched her while I showered. Then, he watched her while I got groceries for an hour. Today, he watched her for an hour and a half while I went to yoga, and held her at various times so I could do stuff. He changed his first diaper ever today while I was gone, and it was even a poopy one. Good job honey! I knew you could do it! It's funny, though. I can already tell that when we do have kids, there will clearly be a good cop, bad cop vibe in our house, and I will be the bad cop. Our kids will hate me and love dad. Oh well.

Back to work tomorrow finally!!