FET Update #1 (finally!) and holiday events

Okaaaay, I just did the awesome thing where I type the whole post almost, then hit the wrong button and it's deleted. Argh! Okay, I will try a bulleted post to capture main points...

Significant and thrilling developments towards my FET cycle:

• Started my period last Saturday!
• With my period starting, I was able to resume my supplements, including pre-natals and Pentoxifylline (blood flow related). Yay for pills!
• Began taking birth control pills on Monday.
• Received my FET schedule yesterday... baseline ultrasound on the calendar for next week, likely after Christmas, and my embryo transfer scheduled for January 24th!!! Woo hoo!

Check in about my birthday:

• I'm 50 now and would never have guessed when I was young that I would be trying to have a baby now. Life is surely unpredictable.
• RC planned awesome activities for Saturday starting with brunch and moving into a scavenger hunt/amazing race type activity in our new hometown downtown area. Even having grown up here, I learned some things (i.e. Senator Morse! Cool guy!). 
• Then we went to a UO basketball game that evening, and he had arranged a super sweet message to appear on the reader board at halftime. ❤️
  
• Sunday evening with family was okay. Mostly the same chaotic, everyone talking, loud family dynamic that often happens when we all get together. Not so fun for an introvert. But I received some great presents, including double-date night dinner/concert tickets with my brother and sis-in-law to see Big Head Todd and the Monsters, a band popular in Colorado when I went to school there. Awesome! Then we just opened Xmas presents from/for my sister and her family, since they're going out of town, and ended the evening eating some cake. 
• No karaoke. :( But I did practice the Molly Shannon monologue from SNL, "I'm 50!" and shared it with people several times. You're welcome, family. "...And I can KICK, streeeeetch, and KICK!" lol

Monday was a downer after all the intensity, but I feel good now and am moving into what feels like "Christmas-time Phase 2." We took my older niece and nephew out to sing carols, drink hot chocolate, and look at Christmas lights last night, and this afternoon, my brother will bring my little nieces over to make Christmas cookies. Oh, and I got my first career counseling client in Eugene, y'all! First session tomorrow, and he paid already!

Having the dates to look forward to on the calendar for this cycle definitely adds to my holiday cheer. We are having conversations about one embryo or two again, after the discovery of my clotting mutation (heterozygous for prothrombin), but since I'll be on lovenox, I hope it's a minimal risk. More on that later.

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

p.s. RC and I have had some productive conversations, since I wrote the post on feeling challenged with some of his moods/behaviors. We solved our financial crunch for now, and have moved forward with ring design/selection. :) We are also reading a great book together about how to handle emotions/anger in ways that align with your values and goals. It's about the ACT process. Very helpful and hopeful.