Rawhide!

 

Writin' writin' writin'
Writin' writin' writin'
Writin' writin' writin'
Hon-ours!

Keep those words a'rollin'
Though the fingers' swollen
Keep those hands a'typin'
Hon-ours!

Through sun and shade and weather
hell bent for leather
Wishin' it was all over now
All the things I'm missin',
Good vittles, love, and kissin',
Are waiting for me to finish writin'


Write 'em on, fix 'em up
Write 'em up, fix 'em on
Move along, do 'em up
Hon-ours!


Count 'em out, write 'em in,
Write 'em in, count 'em out,
Count 'em out, write 'em in
Honours!


Keep movin', movin', movin'
Though there's nothin' provin'
Keep them fingers movin'
Hon-ours!


Don't try to understand 'em
Just write, count and stand 'em
Soon we'll be living high and wide.
My hearts calculatin'
My true love will be waitin',
Be waitin' at the end of my write.


Write 'em on, fix 'em up
Write 'em up, fix 'em on
Move along, do 'em up
Hon-ours!


Count 'em out, write 'em in,
Write 'em in, cut 'em out,
Count 'em out, write 'em in
Honours!


You get the picture?

Thanks for the feedback and the tips peeps...

• Mon, I've tried the grog, just gave me a hangover and a sore back. Double-awful. And a baby with JS's face - ewww. Please God that baby MurLem is as gorgeous as you!

• Allie - the toilet dream! I have that one too!!! And sometimes I've gone into a loo and thought the walls were solid only to look up and realise they're gone! And I'm on the toilet with people all around!!!! There aren't enough exclamation marks in the world for that feeling. Unfortunately a doona's not enough padding for Princess-and-the-Pea-me - BTDT.

• WiseGuy - we do take our own bedding, but can't fit a whole mattress in the car/roof-pod. I wish we could!

• lovecomesfirst and JB - I googled the cost of a high density foam single underlay - wowzers! Even on ebay I'm looking at at least more than one hundred bucks.

• babysmiling - Will investigate the eggshell stuff further, though I'd love a latex topper I can't justify spending the moola on one for a week a year (we stay there when skiing too), so maybe the eggcrate foam is cheaper.

• SIF - that is a crazy awful dream! Hope you don't have that one again.

• Eden - I love your Ms Dream Analyser self and your positive thoughts. Strangely, I dreamed he died again last night. The ALP were trying to kill him and I woke up crying in bed beside him. I think I'm very afraid of losing him. (And yes, ALP = Australian Labor Party, WTF is going on in my head???)

Dreams, Doozers and Beds

Every year the Big Guy's Mum organises all the family, close and extended to go up to their ski lodge and have a long weekend away. This year the family pickings were slim, what with SIL #2 having just delivered their baby, the reliable cousin busy organising her wedding, SIL #1 moving house and BIL off surfing. So the long weekend this year was just us five, MIL, FIL, SIL #3 and her two kids, FIL's brother and his daughter and grand-daughter. (What an acronym-rich post).

Last time we all went up it went like this. I must have wiped out the mattresses from my memory because OH MY GOD those things are rocks!!!!

So this time, we go up there and TBG promises me that they will all leave the lodge for activities during the daytime and I will be able to work - because, as you know, I have this looming deadline and I'm scrambling around trying to meet it.

Day 1 - fine-ish ... I'd slept like crap the night before and was sore and a bit hung-over, but they all left for about 4 hours during the day and I got quite a lot of work done. Yay.  Then we grown-ups sat around playing games 'til the wee hours and went to bed. Where I proceeded to have the weirdest and most devastating dream.

TBG and I had decided to kill ourselves by drinking raspberry-cordial-flavoured-unknown-poison we bought from some guy on the street. We were laying in a bed together having drunk the poison, waiting to slip into unconsciousness and die when I realised I could feel the baby girl I was 18 weeks pregnant with kicking me. (WTF?) And then I panicked. (Naturally). I started having second thoughts about our suicide pact and I wondered if I called an ambulance if they could identify the poison and fix us in time. TBG was unconscious beside me and so I shook him and shook him to rouse him and when he sleepily opened his eyes I told him about my second thoughts and asked him what he wanted me to do. He mumbled that he just wanted to be left alone to die.

And then I woke up. I was emotionally crushed for a second and very very sad and then I realised it had been a dream and I rolled over to find my beloved, sleeping, alive husband to wake him up and get cuddled. I didn't sleep much more that night. Got up grumpy, still affected by the dream and then it rained and all the outdoor activities were cancelled.

Arrrggghhhh.

FIL's brother's daughter offered to drop me home as she was leaving that day and so after lunch we drove the 3.5 hours home. We spoke of my conception dramas and she felt the need to tell me that "some things are just not meant to be". Well, that sent me right off. I politely but firmly told her that the "meant to be" line was crap and surely she didn't think that toddler Gurshan Singh was "meant to die" and so if not, then what was happening to me was not "meant to be" but just really bad luck. She agreed. Possibly, now I recount that, I wasn't so polite. But whatever.

When I got home I spoke lovingly to my own darling gentle bed, finished off writing up the results 
section of my report, emailed it to my supervisor (who will be surprised to get mail from me at 2:30am) and now here I am.

Randomly rambling.


Why on earth was pregnant-me wanting to commit suicide. I wasn't aware of the pregnancy until I drank the poison and laid down, what a freaky thing to dream.

But not as freaky as the time I dreamed I was all dressed in white in a pseudo-churchy place in amongst an audience of similarly-white-clothed young women. Then this handsome, goateed man up front pointed at me and said, "Her."
And right then I knew that the devil had just chosen me to be his bride.

I really dream some doozies.

Speaking of doozies, did any of you ever watch Fraggle Rock - I completely loved the Doozers. They were so totally cute!


So questions for the peanut gallery ... I'd really love some answers!

1. What's the weirdest dream you can remember?
2. Did you like the Fraggles?
3. What are your recommendations for making hard horrid beds comfortable (because, come next March I'll be going up that mountain again to sleep on that cruddy mattress)?

Outliers

I'm struggling through the data analysis for my project at present.  It's due in on March 31st, I'm yet to successfully run the stats and you can blame the outliers and the lack of 'normality' for that.

And that got me thinking.  I'm an outlier, I'm the not-normal in the dataset of women.

"An outlier is an observation that lies an abnormal distance from other values 

in a random sample from a population".

I'm 37 and I don't make many eggs when stimulated. Outlier.
I've done 4 IVF stim cycles without a pregnancy. Outlier.
I have a very low AMH level and a very low inhibin-B level ... for 37. Outlier.

If I was in my dataset, I'd want to transform me or delete me. I'd ruin the analysis if I left me in.

I wish I could transform myself. I'd turn myself into Super-Egg-Making-Lady and square-root my weirdo hormone levels right into the normal range. Just like that!

But no. It only works in statistical packages, where my lovely depressed/not-depressed old people are now just represented by the numbers I've made of them.

I'm more than those numbers.

Pundelin-ology

Rules: YOU! Yes, you, reading this. You're tagged. Now that you know more about me than you ever wanted to know, play the game, it's fun! Let others know a little more about yourself, repost this as your name followed by "ology."

FOODOLOGY:
What is your salad dressing of choice?
The amazing splendiferous dressing I posted about a while back.

What is your favourite sit-down restaurant?
The European - such yummy food and I know one of the waiters and he gives us great tips.

What is your favourite fast food restaurant?
Ali Baba Kebabs. I lerv falafel.

What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of?
Thai food.

What are your pizza toppings of choice?
Cheese, capsicum, pineapple, salami, ham, mushroom and olives.

How many televisions are in your house?
1

What color cell phone do you have?
Black

BIOLOGY:

Are you right-handed or left-handed?
Right.

Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
A baby - does that count?

What is the last heavy item you lifted?
I rarely lift terribly heavy items due to my back, but I helped lift our new barbeque a couple of weeks ago - boy was it weighty.

Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
Nope.

Have you ever fainted?
Nope.

BULLCRAPOLOGY:

If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
That's hard, I think I would, just so I could make sure to do some special things before the Day.

If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
Celeste.I like the starry connotations.

How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
None, I hate wearing shoes that poke between my toes.

Last person you talked to?
The Big (now 40 year old) Guy.

FAVOURITOLOGY:

Season?
Summer if I'm near a beach. Winter if I can get to the snow.

Holiday?
Christmas.

Day of the week?
Friday.

Month?
January.

Color?
Red

Drink?
Ginger beer.

Alcoholic?
Kahlua and Coke.

CURRENTOLOGY:

Missing someone?
Yes, my Gramps.

What are you listening to?
Nothing right now, I like silence. But recently I've been listening to Lisa Mitchell and to Josh Rouse.

What are you watching?
Watched Bones and Castle tonight. I love me a good crime show.

Worrying about?
Finishing my lit review. (Oopsie, not doing it right now!)

What's the last movie you saw?
Up in the Air. Oh George *swoon*

Do you smile often?
Not enough.

If you could change your eye color what would it be?
I'd like blue eyes. The kind of blue that's really pale with dark rims.

What's on your wish list for your birthday?
I find it hard to come up with present ideas. I'm middle-class and relatively well-off so I have no burning desires. Not like when I was 20 and poor. There was a ton of stuff I wanted then.

Can you do a chin-up?
Hahaha, I love gag questions!

Does the future make you more nervous or excited?
Excited. I only really get nervous about things when I know what they are and they're impending.

Have you been in a car wreck?
Yep. Ouch.

Have you caused a car wreck?
No.

Do you have an accent?
I'm Australian and I sincerely hope I don't sound it.

Last time you cried?
A couple of weeks ago. That I can't bear it post was preceded and followed by tears.

Plans tonight?
No more writing, going to bed.

Have you ever felt like you hit rock bottom?
Oh yeah. Apparently I like the bottom cause I've been there a few times.

Name three things you bought yesterday?
45 bread rolls. 3 kg of potato salad and a cheesecake to feed 20 people. It was the Big Guy's 40th birthday party and it went great.

Have you met someone who changed your life?
Yes, my ex-husband, my current husband, my darling friends Beezus and Big A.

For the better or worse?
Mostly better. Alright, better completely, even the ex, he made me grow up so much.

How did you bring in the New Year?
Soggily in the city under a meagre bit of shelter watching the early fireworks.

Would you go back in time if you were given the chance?
I would but I wonder how far the question means? Back way way far - I'd go and see medieval France, back in my lifetime - I'd go back and tell my Dad not to hang himself. That really fucked me up and I don't think he thought it would.

What songs do you sing in the shower?
I don't usually, but if I do it's whatever has gotten stuck in my head recently.

Have you held hands with someone today?
Yep!

Who was the last person you took a picture of?
I think it was of R when he was being loving to the cat at the party last night - evidence!

Are most of the friends in your life new or old?
Both. But I don't have a wide circle of friends.

Do you like pulpy orange juice?
Yes.

Last time you ate peanut butter and jelly?
Never, I live in Australia, what is 'jelly' anyway, I'm pretty sure it's not the same as our jelly (which I think Americans call Jello).

What were you doing at 12 a.m. last night?
Sleeping off the spins.

What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up?
OMG did I leave the camera outside overnight! (No I didn't thankfully.)

This lovely little meme brought to you via Rain & lowfatlady & Mrs Gamgee!

Where I've been

Adele over at Delinquent Eggs graced me with this Beautiful Blogger award, which was oh-so-kind of her. The rules are the standard Thank, Copy, Link, Tell 7 things, Nominate 7 people. And so I will.

WiseGuy asked me "What's up?" and I'm going to use my first couple for that.

1. I have been writing and data analysing frantically. My dataset is finally finalised and the stats have been run and now comes the process of discussing what I did not find anything significant. That's a bitch with psych reports, one has to discuss both findings and non-findings.  I have to come up with a rationale for my non-findings without completely dissing the methodology of my project, despite the fact that it's most likely the fault of the methodology that it went pear-shaped. I am also writing the second draft of the literature review and to date I have 203 references for this 5000 word paper. That seems a little overboard to me and I am swimming in all the information (oh I wish I had a watery metaphor that made actual sense).

2. I have been planning the Big Guy's 40th birthday. He deliberated for a while as to what kind of occasion he would like and he settled on a BBQ with all his friends and family. That sounded easy enough, but now I am wading through the details of feeding and entertaining the 30+ people who have said they are able to come. Somehow, by next Saturday I have to have amassed a large quantity of food and beverages and have it all ready to roll by 1pm. Salads, marinades, cheesecakes ... here I come.

3. I have been eating and trying not to. In the middle of 2007 I found my wedding dress, it was off the rack, gorgeous and alterable. Which was great because I was a scrawny, bony thing back then. The dressmaker assured me that she would be able to take the dress in, but my mother screeched "arrgghhh, the bones, the bones, you can't get married with a chest like that" and I proceeded to put on weight. Not very healthily. Instead of buffing up and eating protein and getting some meat on me like that, I ate full-fat butter, and cheese and bread and pasta and all the things I did not naturally like to eat. I made my serving sizes larger and larger and made myself eat three times a day and I snacked ... a lot. And by the time it came to my wedding 7 months later, I had gained 5kg (11lbs) and the chesty ribby hippy bones were gone. But alas, did I stop gaining weight? No. Did I return to my sensible eating habits? No. I just kept packing it on. Over the course of the past two and a half years I have gained a total of 25% of my own 2007 body-weight. Horrific. I have love handles and I have a roll of belly fat. Did the IVF help - not one bit! So anyway, I have been eating and trying not to.

4. I have a penchant for crafting, cooking, sewing and baking and all good housewifely activities (except cleaning). I indulge these desires when I can and for the past 8 years I have felt guilty whenever I have been doing something other than studying (with the exception of mid-term holiday guilt-free times). I started this Honours project a year ago and I have had no breaks from it longer than a week (Fiji, how I remember you with love). As such all my indulgent creativity (except cooking which I have to do) has been either stifled or fulfilled with a large dose of guilt. I am really, really looking forward to finishing studying. I shall have my evenings to myself and I shall do whatever I like!!!

5. My husband is the absolute best. I'm not quite sure why he loves me so or why he is so wonderful to me. Suffice it to say that he does and I find myself quite overwhelmed by gratefulness for his affection and kindness. I dated a lot of losers, I even married one of them, and to find this man is a blessing beyond my hopes. That he loved me back enough to risk marrying me is truly amazing.

6. I like to talk to strangers. Mostly old ladies. They're happy to chat and I always imagine myself, old and alone with few people to talk to having a conversation with someone at the grocery store, finding a wee bit of sympatico in a passing stranger. And so I take those opportunities to gab a bit. Whether it be about the beauty of those kittens we're ogling in the pet store window (which leads to a conversation about her cats and how gorgeous the big Tom was) or about the indecisiveness of the Little Guy as he deliberates on which Treaty Tuesday lolly he will have (which leads to a conversation about how few and far between treats were in the old days and what a good idea it is to limit them).

7. My New Years resolution was to seek out social occasions and attend them. To catch up with friends and to be sociable. As part of this I found an old friend on facebook the other day and after she friended me I stalked through her photos. Surprise, she had twins 4 months ago.
In a flurry, a dreadful, terrible flurry I thought a few things.
1 - she probably had PCOS, she was always a big girl.
2 - she undoubtedly had some kind of assisted conception.
3 - it probably worked first time.
4 - she has tiny babies now and I don't.
That left me feeling bereft and jealous and sad and hurting. All those suppositions.
However - - - I went to visit my lovely old friend and her cute Little Boo and Big Boo and found out I was wrong. So wrong. In fact, those babies were an accident. She wasn't ready for kids, wasn't trying and didn't do anything at all to get them. She and her husband bought a house, and two nights later those babies were conceived. At 8 weeks she said she'd felt she was popping out a bit and thought maybe she had her LMP date wrong and so they went for a scan to see when the baby would be due. She said they both nearly died when the sonographer asked whose family twins ran in. I was so wrong. And somehow, strangely, I felt better. I definitely don't begrudge her her accidental twins, but the other way - my imagined way -  I did. How fucked up is that. I did have a nice day talking to my friend who has not changed, and cuddling and feeding her babies and I will return soon to do it again.

So there you are.

I hereby nominate these 7 people for the Beautiful Blogger award: I love their writing, their honesty, their inspiration, their humour.
Marianne at Zen and the Art of Peacekeeping
Jen at Of Cabbages and Kings
Kelle at Enjoying the Small Things
S at Woman Anyone?
Mad Hatter at Late for a Very Important Pregnancy
Frank at Memorie Di Angelina
Eden at Edenland


Oh and Adele, you are so right. I got asked about the predictive value of AMH level for pregnancy and the research I found suggests that while the AMH test is great at telling you how low your ovarian reserve is, it's not so great at specifying which people will become pregnant and which will not (especially if AMH is over 7.8)

A number of authors have tried to identify cut-off levels for AMH that are able to distinguish between pregnancy and non-pregnancy (Hazout et al., 2004; Eldar-Geva et al., 2005a; Kwee et al., 2007; Elgindy et al., 2008). However, the majority of them indicated that AMH measurement is not useful for predicting this end-point (Van Rooij et al., 2002; Fanchin et al., 2003b; Penarrubia et al., 2005; Ebner et al., 2006; Ficicioglu et al., 2006; Kwee et al., 2007; Smeenk et al., 2007). Up to the present, only one study has been published relating serum AMH levels to the live birth rate following IVF (Nelson et al., 2009). In this  prospective study of 340 patients it was demonstrated that the live birth rate dramatically increases with  increasing basal AMH value. However, as concluded by the same author, this finding may at least in part be explained by the very good correlation existing between basal AMH and the number of retrieved oocytes (Nelson et al., 2009), indicating that circulating AMH may definitely be considered a better marker for quantitative than for qualitative aspects of ART.

Anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH): what do we still need to know?
A. La Marca, F.J. Broekmans, A. Volpe, B.C. Fauser, N.S. Macklon, on behalf of the ESHRE Special Interest Group for Reproductive Endocrinology – AMH Round Table Human Reproduction 2009 24(9):2264-2275; doi:10.1093/humrep/dep210

Analysis of live birth rate relative to AMH and FSH quintiles (Fig. 1) demonstrated that although there was a significant relationship between increasing AMH and escalating live birth rate, above an AMH concentration of 7.8 pmol/l there was no discrimination in live birth rates.

If AMH was less than 4.9 then the live birth rate was 15%.
AMH of 4.9 to 7.8 then the LBR was 22%.
AMH of 7.8 then the LBR was 35%+ (normal live birth rate for >35yr old IVFers)

Serum anti-Mullerian hormone and FSH: prediction of live birth and extremes of response in stimulated cycles—implications for individualization of therapy. Scott M. Nelson, Robin W. Yates and Richard Fleming, Human Reproduction, doi:10.1093/humrep/dem204


Maybe there's hope for me yet. Maybe.

I saw that Mel had put me into the Lost and Found for my last sad post, hundreds of people read it, and yet I feel like it's a lie.  Not the sad post but the words "is heartbroken over test results which are putting an end to her dreams of having another baby". I got those test results, I am heartbroken about them but my dreams aren't ending. Maybe I'm delusional.

I can't bear it

It's too much for me.

I'm sad and I don't know how to stop wanting a baby.


Before those test results I thought that maybe my last effort plan would work and now, now that I see my inhibin level is close to post-menopausal, now that my AMH level is practically negligible (it's 0.39 on the other scale), now I'm adrift and I want to know how to stop wanting this.

I'm truly happy for all the people I know who are pregnant here in blogland, or in forums or in real life, but I'm so so sad for me.

Now it hurts to read about betas and scans and dates and nurseries and measurements and plans and pains and joys. Before, I thought I really had a chance to be part of that club.

Now I'm just envious and heartbroken.



For interested parties AMH looks to be the most reliable marker of ovarian function (FSH the least reliable as it is affected by estradiol).

"The FSH, estradiol and inhibin secretion are mutually connected by negative feedback. Therefore, their circulating levels are only an indirect reflection of the number of antral follicles. The E2 levels are less a reflection of the number of antral follicles, but rather of their growth activity during the follicular phase. On this basis, the highest biological plausibility as marker of ovarian reserve is to be attributed to AMH, followed by inhibin B, FSH and E2."


from La Marca, A., Broekmans, F.J., Volpe, A., Fauser, B.C. & Macklon, N.S. (2009). Anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH): what do we still need to know? Human Reproduction, 24(9), 2264–2275. doi:10.1093/humrep/dep210

Meeces have all the luck

Stem cells help grow new eggs in mice?

OMG I want this technology and I want it now.

A friend in this same IF boat said to me yesterday that she thinks we're 10 years too early. She thinks that in 10 years, they'll have us old ladies sorted out and they'll have figured out implantation and poor response ... and now I think we'll be growing new eggs!