We have moved to more optimistic premises

I've decided that it's time to pull the shutters down on Lacking Expectations. There's something about that title that evokes doom and gloom, and the new Jane is all about the positive and the joy in life. So on that note, I have started a new blog called Back to Life . The address is www.theallnewadventuresofjaneandjohn.blogspot.com. I hope you'll come on over and keep us company.

Bleughhh

Got turned down for a job the other day. Days after the MD of the company told a family member of mine that I was the best candidate for the job, and that it was mine. Then they turn around and give the job to someone else. For fucks sake.

Then good old AF arrives after the worst bout of PMT for months.

Oh infertility, how I hate thee.
Oh unemployment, how I hate thee.

Sheikh, rattle and roll

A fitting title for my first blog post since our return from the middle east (geddit?). I haven't felt like blogging much of late, and I'm beginning to think of winding down the IF blogging for good. I just find that since I stopped focusing on trying to get pregnant, and started focusing on just getting myself fit and healthy, that I am a far happier person. When I think about IF blogging I just feel so down again. So hence I haven't been blogging much of late.

So what have I been doing? Well I have been losing weight. Since I started in early January, I have lost approximately 18 pounds. I have dropped one dress size, and am on the way to dropping another. This is the lowest my weight has been in over three years. So I am very happy with that. I'm hoping to lose another eight pounds or so, and then I would be very happy with myself.

And then there was the big trip to Dubai. Nine days of soaking up the sun, swanning around a city (what a treat for a bog dweller such as myself!), going to swanky restaurants, eating lovely food and drinking lovely wine, getting pampered to within an inch of my life by a team of Filipino beauticians whilst I quaffed champagne, cruising in an Arab dhou off the coast of Oman, going dune bashing in a 4x4, and generally living it up. Bliss!

Not much more to say for the moment, but here's a pic of us all dolled up and out on the town.

HSG done and dusted

I had the HSG yesterday morning. Well it wasn't as bad as I expected. The two neurofen extra that I popped an hour in advance undoubtedly helped, as did the quick whiff of rescue remedy I took as I changed into my hospital gown. The worst part was the waiting. The first nurse who came into the room was one of these very softly spoken "how are you lovey?" kind of women. To be honest she was making it a bit hard for me to switch off and relax, between the well intentioned sympathetic pats on the arm and glances. In the end I had to say that I was fine, just trying to relax. After about 15 minutes of faffing around the radiologist arrived, and said something about this not being the worst thing either of us had been through. I pointed out that he might find that easy to say, him being the one without the vagina. Luckily he had a sense of humour. I was given a injection of muscle relaxant and then we were ready for the off.

Another very nice nurse came in and let me squeeze the living daylights out of both her hands whilst the speculum went in. I remember having a "going anywhere nice on holidays?" conversation, to which I eagerly replied "Yes! We're off to Dubai in five weeks time". So through gritted teeth I had a conversation about how amazing Dubai is reputed to be, all the while a doctor I had never met before was shoving a plastic object up my lady business. The nice nurse had to go once the x-raying began, because of the radiation, so I was left to bite on the side of my gown while mumbling "ouch! fuck! stingy!" under my breadth. It was all over a lot quicker that I expected. It did sting a bit, but not too badly. The bad news is that my left tube is now blocked, due to the after effects of the ectopic pregnancy surgery. But the good news is that the right tube is still in good working order, so at least I am firing on one cylinder, so to speak.

So all in all, not the most pleasant experience I have ever been through, but nowhere near the most painful. Where we go from here with one blocked tube I do not know right now, but for the moment I am not going to dwell on it. When we get back from holidays we will start gearing up to get back on the ttc train.

HSG - info appreciated

Since the good surgeons of Limerick Regional managed to save my left tube after the ectopic pregnancy of two months ago, I'm now faced with the delightful prospect of a HSG to follow up on how the healing process is going. I'm currently around day 23 of this cycle, so when the crimson tide rises once more, I have to phone my consultant's secretary and schedule the appointment for as near to day 10 of my cycle as possible.

So, my lovely internet friends.....those of you who have had this done, any advice or info I should know about? My GP told me I would probably be sedated, but from what I have read, I don't think this will be the case. I will ask the secretary when I phone her. So if there is no sedation involved, would it be a good idea to self medicate in advance, like pop a couple of strong neurofen or solpadeine? Did it really hurt like a motherf***er? Any helpful advice would really be appreciated.

Losing the gut

I told you a couple of weeks ago that I had signed up for a twenty week weight loss programme with Motivation Weight Management Clinics. Well I'm now getting to the end of week 3, and when I weighed myself this morning, I had lost a total of seven and a half pounds to date. I'm delighted with that result, and hoping to have the next seven pounds down within the next month.

I'm finding the programme fairly easy to follow. I have upped my protein intake, cut back drastically on carbs, but not cut them out totally, started drinking approx 2 litres of water daily, and given up the chocolate, cakes, biscuits, crisps and general crap that I had been stuffing my face with all Christmas. I've also given up alcohol for the moment. This was the bit I thought I would find most difficult. Not that I'm a raging dipso or anything, but alcohol and socialising usually go hand in hand for me. That is whenever I do get out, which is not all that often these days since we live in a one horse town where even the horse has fucked off to find livelier pastures.

So last Saturday night presented me with my first opportunity for partying since I started this programme (don't want to use the word diet, it just sounds too much like punishment). One of my old Uni buddies was having her fortieth birthday party in a hotel in Galway, the city we went to college in. Now there's always been this association with Galway and getting tanked to the lugs, but this party was going to be different for me, with sparkling water my chosen tipple for the night. When we got there, a waitress was pouring wine for everyone as they arrived. John grabbed a glass, and straight away I was tempted to have just the one. But as I was driving, I wouldn't have felt comfortable even having one drink, so fizzy water it was for me.

Then the buffet was rolled out. The usual party food, sandwiches, cocktail sausages, vol au vents, that kind of thing. I had the foresight to suggest we went out for dinner beforehand so that we would be full up with healthy option type food before we hit the party, so I wasn't in the least bit tempted by the nibbles. The one treat I allowed myself was a slice of the most orgastric chocolate birthday cake I have ever tasted. Divine.....mmm.... Then the DJ started up and we were all dragged out on the floor to get the dancing started. Now dancing in stillettos has never been a talent of mine, but dancing sober in stillettos was even more like hard work. But the DJ was brilliant and really got the craic going. After a while I got John to run out to the car and fetch me a pair of flat shoes I had brought as backup. Much better. I danced and danced for at least two hours solid. I hadn't danced that much in years! So I definitely got my exercise in for the day, if not the weekend.

The great thing was the next morning I woke up with a clear head, rearing to head to the leisure centre. I swam for twenty minutes, and then we relaxed in the outdoor hot tub for a while. Bloody freezing when you step outside in January in your swimming togs, but so warm when you get into the tub. So all in all a really enjoyable and healthy weekend. And I proved to myself that I can party my socks off without touching a drop of alcohol, so I now I don't feel like I will have to live like a hermit until I finish this programme. My next weigh in is tomorrow morning. I will report back here regularly on my progress.

Water is back!

Oh joy. I was lying awake at around 3.40am Friday night/Saturday morning, when I heard a sound which was like sweet music to my ears. The sound of water filling up the tank in the attic. I elbowed John awake.

"Did you hear that?"

"Wha what what?"

"The tank, it's filling up with WATER!!"

"Really? Great"

"Shall we have a shag to celebrate?"

"Go back to sleep, Jane"

*small voice* "Oh, okay"

The big freeze, New Year's Resolutions and a New Kitteh on the block

You know that saying careful what you wish for? Well we got a prime example of it in the last few days. As I'm sure most of you know, Ireland regressed to the Ice Age over Christmas, and it's only in the last couple of days that we're beginning to thaw. Temperatures went down as far as -8C, which for us is bloody cold. Strangely enough, our little town didn't get the snow until Saturday, and we were beginning to feel a bit left out, watching the rest of the country on the news under several inches of the stuff. The inner children in us were longing for a good old snowball fight.

We hadn't got over to visit my in laws, who live a 40 minute drive away all Christmas, because the roads were just too icy. John had been talking to them every day, and it had got to a stage that their water had gone on the blink. So last Saturday we decided icy roads or not, we'd get in the car and drive over, even if we had to go 20mph all the way. Halfway there, it started snowing. Shortly after we arrived at the house, parents in law arrived back from a trip to town to bring home one of the cats from the vet. They have what I could only describe as a tribe of black cats in their yard, mostly feral, who would make great extras for a Hitchcock type movie. Anyway one of them came out the wrong side of a fight a few months back with what we guess must have been a dog or a fox, and she lost more than half her tail as a result. It got infected, and the poor thing was in pain, so mother in law got some sort of trap from the vet to catch her and bring her in for treatment.

She was released from the vet with instructions to keep her indoors. Now I knew there was no way in hell that my parents in law were going to do that. As far as they are concerned humans live indoors, dogs and cats live outdoors, end of. She was very distressed from being in a cage and travelling in the car when they got her home. I opened the lid of her cage to pet her and calm her down, and within minutes she was purring and nuzzling my hand. So I took pity on the poor little thing and after working on John for a couple of minutes, declared that we would take her home to care for her. So we loaded her cage into the back seat of the car, and off we went into the snowy night. Driving on a windy crappy road in the snow at night can be a stressful enough experience, but when you have an extremely traumatised injured cat providing the soundtrack, it's pretty headwrecking. We stopped off at the supermarket en route to buy her a bed and some extra food, and by the time we got home it was 7pm.

Once in the house, I went to fill the kettle. No water. We checked with our neighbours, and their water was fine. Ours had frozen over because we were out of the house all day. D'oh. That was Saturday, it's now the Friday, and it still hasn't come back. So we've been showering in the gym and filling our water tank in the attic via a hose from our next door neighbours. On top of that, we both came down with colds this week. I am still smothered with it. Yuck.

We made a little safe haven for the new cat in the sun room, and managed to smuggle her in without our own two cats noticing there was a new resident under our roof. Little by little I started to gain her trust, to the point I got her to sit on my knee. When she does this she purrs like an engine, then she claws me to ribbons in happiness, and drools profusely. Nice. Yesterday I spoke to her vet who told me that what's left of her tail needs to be bathed three times a day. Ever since I have been having great fun and games trying to get at her tail, and every time I get near to clean it, she tucks it in under herself. Our cats have begun to cop on that there is a house guest in residence. So far there hasn't been too much hostility which I'm surprised at really, they are normally extremely territorial when it comes to their home turf. So I don't know yet if we'll keep her or try and re-home her. Whichever way, I'm not sending her back to her original home as she will only get booted out the door again, which is a pity because she has great potential to be a really affectionate lap cat. But I'm afraid that I am on the slippery slope to becoming one of those witchy old cat women if I keep her and then have three of them.

Anyway, enough pussy talk (fnarr fnarr). I gained quite a few pounds weight in the last month or so, between Christmas and a post ectopic pregnancy comfort eating binge, so I decided to do something about it for once and for all. I signed up and paid up for a 20 week weight loss programme with Motivation Weight Management Clinic. Two of my brothers did their programme and had great success with it, one of them lost three and a half stone last year (49 lbs) so I decided to give it a go. I want to lose around two stone (28 lbs). So far on the first week I was down 4 lbs. My sister in law has very generously booked us flights to visit her and her husband in Dubai in March, so my aim is to be down at least 14 lbs by then. I was doing well on the exercise front until this cold hit me, and now all I want to do is curl up in bed with a hot water bottle. But hopefully I will shake it off before too long and will be back up on the treadmill soon.

So there's my New Year's Resolution. To be back in size 12-14 by Summer time. And hopefully I will then go and undo all my good work by getting pregnant and actually carrying it to full term.
I'd better go now, I have to play Florence Nightingale to the furry amputee. Here kitty, kitty.....