6 year anniversary of TTC is looming

So the IUI was a bust. Unfortunately as AF was 4 days late my hopes had grown super high. I didn’t POAS because I really wanted that hope to last for a little bit longer. I started bleeding the afternoon before my bloods were done. I let the nurse know and said I was confused because I was extremely regular and I it was very weird for me to be more than one day off. Only to be told that Pregnyl can make AF late. *SIGH* I really wish they would tell you this stuff when they give you the medications. So I thought I would share it with you all so you may avoid being caught unawares…

So far I have learned that Pregnyl and progesterone (anything) can/will delay AF. Obviously everyone’s body is different, we may not all react the same… yadda, yadda, yadda 🙂

As we come up to the 6 year anniversary of TTC in a couple of months I find myself questioning everything. Currently I have been TTC for 70 months, 70 failed cycles. That’s such a burden you guys. One of the most natural things my body should be doing and it won’t. I’ve never even had a BFP. I know people who have had 3 children in the time I have been trying to fall pregnant once!

Here are some of the things I am questioning:

Should I be looking at a different job which is less hours and stress so I can focus more on a health journey? Could I do a secondment at work or ask to go part time in my role for 6 months or longer? But all my pay goes towards an IVF fund which keeps us moving foward and I don’t really know if I could afford a pay cut.

I know in myself I could do amazingly well in this industry. I have been the library industry version of head hunted quite a few times and I am a hard worker who isn’t afraid of change or leaping outside the box. But any amount of success in this industry would not mean much to me if it meant foregoing the opportunity to be a Mum.

 

Recently I have asked myself a very important question…

Would I be willing to basically blow up my life if it meant we could have children?

The answer is yes.

 

Is this something I need to do? I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know.

 

What could this look like?

• I have had doctors talk to me before about weight reduction surgery. I have never really considered it because it just didn’t feel right and I have met quite a few people for whom this wasn’t really a long term solution and they have had to have it redone down the track. During this cycle a nurse who has had it done at the FS office chatted to me about it. I asked her about the fact that we would not be able to do IVF during this time and she said we would still be able to make embryos and bank them, but that generally they will not allow us to transfer them for a year post surgery. I am very much in two minds about this, but will raise it with my FS on Thursday when we see her.
• Leave my job or ask for reduced hours to concentrate on a health journey. This is something I have thought about quite seriously. It makes me really sad because I really love a lot of the people I work with. I would really rather not leave, but I don’t know that my job could be done in less hours. Part of me feels that something drastic like this has to happen though. I have a very sedentary life in this job and there are not a lot of ways to fix that.
  If I get the surgery discussed above I will likely have to have quite some time off anyway so who knows.
• Completely retrain for another industry. This is something I have also thought about quite seriously. In particular I have thought about going back to uni and becoming a nutritionist that specialises in PCOS, IR and Diabetes. I have looked and have found it very hard to find specialists anywhere near me. I have also thought about going back to uni and becoming an specialist in the area of Autism. My nephew has Autism and I know a few other children who are on the spectrum too and there is a lot of talk by specialists of all the restrictions children on the spectrum will have. I would love to be a specialist who works closely with children with Autism to help them work through their own individual difficulties and overcome obstacles as well as develop techniques to help them navigate everyday life. Every single person is different, having Autism doesn’t change that, everyone is a snowflake and you need to treat them as such.
  Both of these options would include more work, stress and sedentary behaviour whilst I become qualified and established so I don’t know how realistic these choices are.

 

Has anyone out there blown up their life for this? Would love to hear your stories. Advise is also COMPLETELY welcome! I would love some!!!

 

 

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Back in January I talked about my goals to reduce our household waste. So I thought I would do a little recap and see where we are at.

We have been doing okay with this in general, though there are some areas we could improve in:

• We have not been as good on plastic bags as I would like, but we are recycling them instead of throwing them out as we used to do. It’s mostly an issue because I ensure I go for a walk at lunchtimes and often do some household shopping then and I don’t always remember to go to my car to get the eco bag first. Definitely something I need to work on habit wise.
  
• Meal planning has also gone out the window for us for the most part just due to different crazy life things going on. I try to do it in my head a bit, obviously this is nowhere near as good as if I were doing it properly though so I really need to make an effort with this. Not only is it better for reducing waste, but it is also kinder on our wallets and better for our health because when I plan we end up with healthy well rounded meals.

Things we have done include:

• I have done research into some of the things we buy and try to only buy items that have recyclable packaging (harder than you might think – though the redcycle program at Coles has helped a lot).
• When it comes to items like egg cartons which are recyclable I will also look for opportunities for reuse. For instance our library storytime sometimes uses egg cartons for craft. In fact I found a flower craft recently for Mother’s Day that I sent through as a suggestion that uses egg cartons. This will mean that all staff’s egg cartons will be donated for the next few weeks to be used to create Mother’s Day gifts rather than being thrown out or recycled.
  
  There are so many fun crafts you can do with egg cartons that I am actually going to save that for another post I think 🙂
• Though we do not want junk mail it seems to keep magically appearing so I use the elastic bands from them on my frozen veggie bags once open to reduce the chance of freezer burn and recycle the junk mail. It’s only a little thing I know, but I also feel that that thought and little effort if magnified by many certainly counts.
  I also found out that my girlfriend who lives 30 minutes further bush than me doesn’t get junk mail at all so I now keep them for her and she recycles them after use.
• When we next needed rice I bought a 5kg bag. Every one that sees it thinks I am crazy and it does take up a lot of room, but I used to buy the 500gram packet so I am literally saving 10 plastic packages and it saved me a BUNCH of money!
  We may not have sugar in our house, but if you need a cup of rice I am definitely your girl
  
• At work I have noticed that I have naturally become a lot more conscious of recycling and providing opportunities for people to learn more sustainable habits. No matter how small the scraps are now (from cutting out or whatever) I will put them in the paper recycling bin. I have also gotten into the habit of checking the staff paper recycling next to the internal printer for scrap paper as this is always in high demand at the library.
  Our Council has business card sized laminated signs with a cute cartoon of a light bulb reminding people to turn off switches. I have ordered some of these to place above the switches in our study areas as people often leave these on. I have also convinced Council to add recycling bins into all the libraries and centres (gyms and pools) which is amazing!!!
  I also had a chat with the guy from Council who runs eco programs like creating sustainable gardens, building terrariums and composting at home. It started with me offering to promote his programs in the library particularly on our social media sites. He was super excited about this and we are now talking about him possibly running some programs at the libraries which is amazing because we get a whole new slew of programs whilst our resource output would be minimal and we would be collaborating and networking with a whole new area of Council so I am pretty excited about this possibility 🙂

It was great for me to discover that I was able to make a difference at work as well as at home.

What changes have you made or do you suggest I make?

Free Comic Book Day

So there is this annual event called Free Comic Book Day. Never heard of it? Check out the information here http://www.freecomicbookday.com/ We have an amazing time with it at our library service with kid and family friendly activities that run all day. We have actually had people tell us they are visiting us rather than the big comic book stores which is amazing! I have taken my nephew to it for all of his 5 years he has been around.

I have been asked to participate this year as a character. Huge excitement!!!!! I get to choose who I want to be and source the costume which hopefully means I can find something that fits okay.

So here’s the thing… have you ever looked for plus sized costumes? Pretty much all of them have the word “sexy” in front whilst men get these awesome looking things like the below with options for fat or skinny people.

Where are all the awesome costume options for shapely ladies?!!

At this stage I am pretty much assuming I am going to have to put one together myself so I have started thinking about who I might like to be. One of the other librarians is going as supergirl. I found some interesting costume (DIY) options for wonder woman which I think could work well. Another one I am pretty interested in currently is Claire Redfield from the Resident Evil comics/world… at least then everything is not as clingy and bodysuity… plus I really like the character.

Here is the current list I am considering:

• Claire Redfield – Resident Evil
• Alice – Resident Evil
• Wonder Woman – Wonder Woman
• Lady Mechanika – Lady Mechanika – would be awesome, but huge amounts of prep.
• Poison Ivy – Batman – would be a GREAT costume, but worried about doing a villain and having the kids be afraid of me when I am trying to get them involved with stuff 🙂 Also sometimes kids might “fight” villains.

Side note: I would totally love to do Abby from the new Ghostbusters, but that character isn’t from the comics 😦

What are your thoughts? There are other comic book characters I love, but I need it to be fat friendly, movable to some degree so I can interact with kids and hopefully more than one piece for ease of pee breaks 🙂 I would LOVE some suggestions from you all!

Annnnnndddddd…….. GO!!!

 

2016 in review

Well the new year is here. I had high hopes for 2016. In truth many wonderful things happened and were achieved in 2016.I feel that the good things are often overshadowed by the fact that I failed to get the thing I wanted the most, a baby. 2 failed transfers, much heartache and being filled with hormones which rival a sorority house whose cycles have synced on the day before AF hits left me a little jaded. I have decided to remind myself of some of the good things that happened in 2016 to get some perspective.

• Hubby and I finally achieved our goal of our own home, whilst getting there was a long road (3 years since purchasing the land long and 9 years of saving long) it is totally worth it because we are both totally in LOVE with our home (I’ll post more on the house another day with pics).
• My youngest nephew Coda was born.
• Hubby and I have gotten even better with our communication. It’s the kind of open and honest relationship I have always dreamed of having. Whilst he is generally the suffer in silence type, he is opening up a lot more now which I love.
• I celebrated 1 year in my role as Reference & Information Services Librarian in January (it will be 2 years tomorrow). Honestly I can’t believe I have only been here that long. It feels like forever and I have done so much in this role.
• I was asked to act up in the Branch & Customer Services Coordinator role for the last quarter of the year. It was so challenging and I loved it. I really enjoyed all the work with the programming and promotions. If they ever develop a role for that here I will totally apply 🙂
• I have developed a close group of friends at work. I am not someone who makes close friends easily and I decided last year to put myself out there more and got great results. The result is a group of friends I can count on, sound off ideas on, have lunch and sometimes dinner with, go for walks after work and to the gym with, go to the movies with, we even went bowling. This awesome group of people has made a huge difference to my work and home life and I have such a great time with them!
  I feel very fortunate to have met people like this in my workplace.
• Hubby and I have learned a lot about DIY (seriously LOVE YouTube!!!). We have done basically all of our landscaping ourselves (Hubby much more than me), we have installed our own washing line and even learned how to lay bricks and built our own brick mailbox. The mailbox isn’t the most professional job, but it is the mailbox that love built and was a great bonding experience and we did much better than Homer did with that BBQ.
  
• I quit smoking! Something I have been wanting to do for the longest time. February  15, 2017 will mark one year since I have quit. Sometimes (rarely now) in times of stress or emotional upset (like 2 failed IVF transfers) I kind of want to reach for a smoke, but I have been so good. VERY proud of this accomplishment. I did put on weight after quitting because instead of smoking I would eat. To be honest I let myself do this because I truly feel that was the right choice for me. Now that I have been successful in quitting smoking I have turned my attention back to my food. I have yet to conquer emotional eating, I am SO bad for this!

 

So there is a lot of really good things that happened this year. Often it is hard to think about them when something that is so all consuming is constantly at the forefront of your mind. I could choose to give in to it, or I could combat it another way. Yes IVF transfers failed for us twice one of which was a PGS tested perfect lil man embryo, Yes I REALLY got my hopes up on the lil man transfer, Yes my FS doesn’t seem to be the most open and communicative. So Hubby and I have done a tonne of research over the past couple of months and put some things into action which I will talk about in another post coming soon 🙂

Privacy exposed

So last month with different things to do with the house and landscaping Hubby was calling me often at work asking me to move money here and there across different accounts so we could pay for things. Apparently whilst doing this one day I must have accidentally clicked the print icon and printed the screen I was on. Because I did not realise I had done this I didn’t go looking for the piece of paper.

Normally if someone finds printing on the printer that does not belong to them they put it to the side or if they know the owner they deliver it to them. But no…

Someone found this statement which had my name in bold letters at the top of the page, a list of all 5 of my accounts and their names (meaning mine and Hubby’s) (including our mortgage account) and instead of handing it to me or leaving it to the side of the printer they took it and put it on the notice board in the staffroom. Front and center for all to see my financials. Including recent transactions which showed my pay coming in too, so now everyone knows that. Let me be clear in stating that there is no way any team member would have thought this was the place to put lost print outs. It is 3 rooms away from the printer.

Two team members noticed it yesterday morning and ripped it down for me.

What an awful, malicious thing to do. What a dick!!! Management is furious, but completely impotent in this matter because we don’t know who did it, we’ll never find out unless they decide to continue whatever this BS is against me and escalate things.

I don’t get it though. I am not mean to anyone. Even when I stand up for myself or someone else I am not mean about it. This is awful. How dare someone expose such private information about me. Plus, why??? What could they possibly get out of it? There was nothing in the accounts. Are you trying to shame me because I am poor? I don’t understand! So weird!!!

There are only one or two women at work that are malicious enough to do something like this so I am pretty sure I know who it is. She won’t make eye contact with me and twice today I have walked towards her and when she has seen me she has changed direction. Then we went out for a staff luncheon and I made sure I sat next to her. She put her bag inbetween us and moved away angling herself away from me and did everything she could to avoid conversation with me without appearing rude. She has been fine with everyone else so I am pretty sure she was the one who did it.

Do you guys think this is the beginning of something and I need to look out for myself or just a one of heinous act?

 

Funny bone tickled

Things have been a bit maudlin around here lately (not that there’s anything wrong with that), so I wanted to share with you two things tonight. Something that is so creepy/scary that I had to laugh whilst simultaneously trying to work out how many nights of nightmares I was in for… I give you what I like to call:

Upcycling… you’re doing it wrong!!!

I mean seriously, how creeptastic is that??!!!

The second is a picture of a display at Elyria Public Library that I just think is great. I have even sent it to our displays person as a suggestion 🙂

Too clever! I love clever displays 🙂 By the look of those books they get used as often as ours do hahaha!

Star Wars display

We had been pushing for a Star Wars display at work, one of the ladies husbands is a huge fan and she populated 3 cases with items from the past movies. Unfortunately we do not seem to have many Star Wars fans at my work because the ladies that do social media were like, ‘oh I never thought of promoting that’. I was kind of shocked, firstly because we should be promoting absolutely everything we do. Secondly we are the only people in the region doing any kind of Star Wars display… the people need to know!

I think it is a great display. I kind of wish we could have done even more, but space is an issue 🙂

Here are some pics of our Star Wars display:

Have you guys seen any great Star Wars displays leading up to the release of “The Force Awakens”?

Christmas Book Critters

You might remember the Halloween Book Critters I created back in October. Well, due to popular demand I was asked to create some Christmas Book Critters for our Christmas display. Woohoo! I was so excited and got straight to it and I am very happy with the results (although I think my Elf needs a hat, I will have to find some time to work on that or take some stuff home and work on it lol).

Introducing our Christmas Book Critters.

Santa:

Elf:

I really do think this guy needs a hat. Will have to work on it 🙂

Rudolph:

And last, but certainly not least… Olaf 🙂 :

Unfortunately you cannot see his arms and hair too well in this photo, but I swear he has them 🙂

Halloween Book Critters

So I found a picture similar to the critters we made somewhere a while ago. I can’t remember when I saw it, but the idea stuck with me and so I convinced my Youth Librarian friend that we totally had to make some Halloween Book Critters (payback for all the YA books I have read this year hahaha kidding).

So we were going to make 5 initially, but decided to go with four because of the space we had to put them in and honestly creating them took longer than we thought. I’m sure initially people thought we were silly spending so much time on a couple of decorations, but we were proud. Here they are…

This is Franky

Our witch

Our spooky ghost

and little Master Jack

Here they are on display

Remember how I said people probably thought it was a waste of time? Well the public love them and have been taking photos. A staff member uploaded them to our Instagram page and we got 200 likes overnight and a bunch of libraries are now doing the same and tagging our library as the inspiration. How cool is that?!!!

A little fun can be great promotion 🙂

Happy Halloween everybody!

The results… what do libraries mean to you (Part II)

Yesterday I asked you all to contribute some words that you felt described what libraries meant to you, or even words that came to you when you thought about libraries. I want to thank all of the people who provided me with some amazing words!

With the help of tagul I created the below word cloud. The bigger words mean more than one person chose that word. So with no further delay I give you…

What libraries mean to us 🙂

Yes I made a heart 🙂

Love it! 🙂

Thanks again to everyone who put in submissions 🙂