udpate

First and foremost, the most important update for today:

IT. IS. FREAKING. HOT.

It's forecasted to be 101 here, which would be no big deal for those of you in the Southwest, but up here in the Pacific Northwest, it is like entering the 9th circle of hell, given that almost no one has air conditioning. (Last night on the local news, a helpful policeman suggested that people go to air conditioned places, "like churches," he said, which made me laugh out loud because, DUDE, SERIOUSLY, churches are about the least likely places to be air conditioned in this here normally moderate climate. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT COSTS TO DO THAT? Can you guess that I work in a non-air-conditioned church?)

(One caveat: we do have a/c at home. Which we thought had gone defunct yesterday, until we realized that the filter was clogged. So hopefully it will be back up today.)

So. It is hot. But this pales in comparison to the fact that I spent the last few days in Baby Central, and (insert drum roll here) - had a fantastic time. After a family wedding on Saturday, we headed with my brother and his wife and The Cutest Niece in the World to a beach house for a few days. Where, unbeknownst to us, we also ended up staying with my cousin and his wife and their 10-month old son; my sister-in-law's cousin and his wife and their 4-week-old son; and my sister-in-law's sister, her 3-month-old, and her 2-year old daughters.

Let's tally that up, shall we?

1 infertile woman +
1 4-week old baby boy +
1 3-month old baby girl +
1 9-month old baby girl +
1 10-month old baby boy +
1 2-year old girl+
1 relatively small beach house
__________________
1 very bitter and pissed-off infertile woman

Under normal circumstances over the past six months, this would have been the equation. So I don't really know why that wasn't the case. Everybody slept pretty well, which helps enormously. And maybe the sea air cleared my head. Because, apart from a few frustrating moments here and there, we had a blast. We hung out with babies all day long; it was like being thrown into a language immersion class when you've been unsuccessful trying to learn the language for years, so you expect to be all irritated by the experience, but you end up having a fantastic time. Who knew?

So we're heading into the next phase of the Baby Quest in a better frame of mind, for which I am very grateful. I have an appointment with my doctor in a few weeks, and we'll see what happens from there. Probably more on this later, but the most amazing development of the past few weeks is that my parents would like to give us the money for the Shared Risk program (buy-2-IVF-cycles, get one free). So we're probably heading in that direction.

But for now, I think my fingers are about to swell right off, so perhaps I should stop typing. There haven't been many days like this, but as the thermometer soars today, I have to admit: I'm not terribly unhappy, right now, that I'm not pregnant. Don't get me wrong; I would suffer through gladly, but I'll take the silver lining of Summer Infertility and drink up another margarita while I lay on the bed in my underwear.

Because, in case you had forgotten, it. is. HOT.