Happy Birthday to me

Today is my 35th birthday. I am extremely fortunate to have a great husband and a loving family. My mom flew into town last week to spend time with me. She has been cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, folding, etc. ever since. Today mom and I are going out for a nice lunch in honor of my birthday. I also have many good friends, who have stopped by, called or emailed with well wishes. And of course, I have you, my cybersisters, who have sent warm wishes and words of love, encouragement and wisdom. I appreciate you all so much.

On the less than positive side, I have a work situation that, with two pretty high profile resignations, has seemed to become more tenuous over the course of the past few weeks. This may be one of those situations that ultimately leads to a positive result, by causing me to aggressively seek a more stable (and, actually, more fulfilling and enjoyable) employment arrangement, rather than remaining at my current job, which has gotten tedious and boring.

And, of course, there is the very significant fertility situation. With the severity of my endo (and, not to mention, my age), we obviously have a limited window to begin the IVF process. We will have to decide whether to stick with my current RE (Dr. L) or to change to another RE (Dr. Fabulous) in the same practice. I have met a few women through the Resolve Bulletin Board and a Resolve Peer Group potluck, who speak very highly of Dr. Fabulous. So I am interested in making a change. But I am not sure of the politics of making such a move at this point. Dr. NHB has offered to call an RE at Ginormous Fertility Clinic (presumably, Dr. L) and inform them of his assessment from the laparoscopy, but who will he call if we change REs now? Maybe we should visit Dr. Fabulous and then have Dr. NHB give him a call. Is a change within a practice (even a large one) awkward? In addition, we will require insurance approval, IVF injection training/orientation, etc. So, I am not sure how long it will take for us to get started.

Also, David and I have scheduled a much needed Labor Day trip to New Orleans. I am extremely excited to have a nice break from everything but I am concerned that this will postpone our treatment cycle by a month. This is not great. I am not sure what the lab cleaning schedule is at Ginormous and I don't know if a one month postponement may cause us to lose two months or more. I hope that we can get started soon and allow ourselves the possibility of, at least, two IVF cycles before another lap would be necessary.

So here we are - moving ahead . . . making a wish and blowing out a ton of the candles.