So ...

I'll start with clarifications, since I forgot not everyone uses the same acronyms and since I've only been sporadically blogging it's probably pretty easy to miss things. Also, I think I tend to forget that I haven't blogged stuff. I often "write" whole posts while out running, but then never get around to posting them since I've already thought about it and it bores me to think it out again.

TTC = trying to conceive. This is one of the few acronyms that I use for this "process," although there are many other acronyms that women use. I don't recommend reading it, but the TTC thread at Runners World is full of them. I don't often read that thread partly because of smiley-abuse, but mainly because a lot of the acronyms gross me out (BD = baby dancing) or are just dumb (AF = Aunt Flo aka period).

Anyway, I went off birth control pills in September, hoping to get pregnant after Chicago. Instead of the fairly regular cycles I had back before I went on the pill, my first cycle was 38 days and then they started going to 50+ days. Since that's not very conducive to getting pregnant, I called and made an appointment with a Reproductive Endocrinologist (the RE at the fertility clinic). Normally you're supposed to wait a year, but I didn't see the point of waiting when I already knew my body wasn't working. My RE agreed that we didn't need to wait the year and said it was good we came in when we did.

After a really long, pointless cycle, we had our followup to discuss treatment - Clomid. We have some other options, but they are more invasive than I am interested in right now (or maybe ever - I am very against IVF for myself).

This whole process has had a couple of side effects. A big one has been on my running. Basically, in my opinion, most of 2007 has sucked for running. There've been a few bright spots here and there ... but overall, terrible. The first few months, I thought it was just because it was so cold. But then spring came, and I was still having trouble with being really tired while running. It's like my endurance, even while still doing 16 mile long runs, was zilch. I tried cutting back after March in the hopes it would help my cycle lengths, but it didn't and now I'm just even more out of shape. Last month, after starting the Clomid I did have a few good runs and I thought maybe things were looking up. But that was unfortunately short-lived, and things got pretty bad after that.

The other thing I tried was gaining weight after Chicago. I gained a few right after Chicago, and then added a few more over the winter. I've been at basically the same weight since February - obviously that didn't help either. But it won't go away, probably because I've been too tired to run enough where it would. But whatever. It's only 10 pounds, which isn't a lot and I know doesn't make me actually fat ... but it is 2 pants sizes so barely anything I own fits. And what does fit looks absolutely terrible. This is about my college weight, but the fat has distributed in a way that I know it didn't back then because I don't remember thinking I looked this shitty in clothes back then. I'm sure a part of it is my normal body image issues, but while shopping for dresses for the brother-in-law's (BIL) wedding the Engineer agreed that stuff is fitting weird on me right now.

Finding a dress was an exercise in frustration. I almost cried after going to JC Penney and seeing myself in the fitting room mirror. We don't really have full length mirrors, so it's been awhile. But the kicker was just how awful everything clung around the stomach area, making me look chubbier than I am there. We were going to have to go up to the Minneapolis-St Paul area (I shorthand that whole area to MSP) because our mall sucks, but the Engineer agreed to come with me to our crap mall just to make sure there wasn't anything before we drove over an hour. I got the brilliant idea to try separates, which solved a lot of the issue I have with dresses (namely, my top size hasn't changed but my bottom is 2 sizes larger - and considering I had issues with dresses because of size differences between the top and bottom while at my normal weight ... ). The things I found at the mall, while more flattering, were kind of matronly, though. So I went to David's Bridal on my own and picked out a few things to have the Engineer come back to look at. Most things were too "bridesmaid-like" but we thought we found something that was okay. Then on a whim, I went to look at the clearance dresses. Score!

Despite needing a safety pin to hold the straps up, I found a dress that was fairly flattering. (And only $60!!) My mother-in-law (MIL) took me with her to get our hair done the morning of the wedding, and the end result was that for the first time in months I felt not bad about myself.

One of the guys at work has decided that I'm pregnant, which let me tell you I really am enjoying. Let's call him Joker. Joker came in on Monday and told me that he noticed I'd been glowing for the last month. He then got called away before saying anything else. Wednesday, he caught me in my lab and started in again about the glowing and asked if I was pregnant. I smarted back "are you calling me fat?" in an attempt to distract him, and he again said I'd been glowing and that he knew when women were pregnant - citing his wife, sister, brother's wife and the pregnant lady in the upstairs office (before she admitted it to people, he says). I said I wasn't pregnant several times, but he didn't believe me - pointing at the acne on my forehead, saying something about how he hadn't seen that in the 3 years I've been there ... and all of a sudden breakouts that had to mean I was pregnant. (And you know, having a painful zit on your forehead is bad enough without someone pointing it out!!). I think I told him to stop it, and he left. I found out Friday that he apparently talked to Triathlete about his suspicion. Triathlete said he didn't think so, citing a bunch of lab stuff I've done lately that he's sure I wouldn't do if I were pregnant. Joker still didn't believe it, so he decided to make a bet with Triathlete (a can of soda). I heard about the bet from J (the only one at work that actually knows we're trying and having issues). So I sent an e-mail to Joker telling him he owed Triathlete a soda - and that I didn't appreciate his speculation and to stop it. UGH!

Basic rule: unless you are a medical professional, don't ask a woman if she's pregnant! Or maybe if she's wearing a What's Kicking?, Knocked Up or Yes, I'm Pregnant shirt, then you can ask. But otherwise, nope!

Not a whole lot else. We've been trying to train Molly to sit at the entrance to the laundry room and wait until we get upstairs before she gets to leave her room. It's not going so well. She was doing it for awhile, but lately she bolts as soon I get to the stairs. It's taking about 5 minutes to let her out of her room now, since we have to go back and start over when she gets up early.

She got scared of the swinging doors at my in-laws, which came after she got scared of the floor at BIL's last month:

My dog is a wuss. You'd think she'd have grown out of some of this stuff - she'll be 2 on Tuesday. I still call her my puppy.

I've also been playing Sims 2 a lot lately. I just got the University expansion pack and it's a lot of fun. One of the new items that can with that is a treadmill. So I've made all my Sims either buy one or go to the gym and use one. When they first start out, they fall off the treadmill a lot, which is funny to watch. I've got a couple Sims that have reached a high enough level that they actually run at a steep incline (without falling off).