Keeping Busy and New Hair

Today was super busy and delicious. I prepped one of my favorite crock pot recipes before heading off to work, and the house was full of the delicious aroma of pot roast when I got home. I use a modified version of this recipe and I can't recommend it highly enough. I've made it with all sorts of different meat cuts and it comes out consistently delicious every time. I usually serve it with garlic mashed potatoes, hot buttered noodles, or I add in quartered red potatoes an hour or so before it's done. It's yummy no matter how you do it and basically impossible to screw up. 

Slow Cooker Pot Roast

Ingredients: 

• 1 (5 pound) bone-in beef pot roast - I used two boneless round roasts, one 2lbs and one 2.65lbs
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, or as
• needed
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 8 ounces sliced mushrooms - I used 16oz, I love mushrooms
• 1 medium onion, chopped - I used a large onion, yum
• 2 cloves garlic, minced - I used about 6 cloves, are you seeing a trend here?
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 1/2 cups chicken broth - one can of beef broth, one can of chicken broth
• 3 medium carrots, cut into chunks - I used little carrots, so maybe 3-4 big ones?
• 2 stalks celery, cut into chunks - I used 4 stalks
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary - I used 5 sprigs
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• Red wine, I eyeball it and use it to deglaze the mushrooms and onions 

Directions:

1.	Generously season both sides of roast with salt and pepper. Sprinkle flour over the top until well coated, and pat it into the meat. Shake off any excess. One of the roasts floured, right before I shook it off
2.	Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Sear the roast on both sides for 5-6 minutes each, until well browned. Remove from the skillet and set aside . I brown it until it's almost black, the darker it is the deeper the flavor
3.	Reduce the heat to medium and stir in mushrooms and butter; cook for 3-4 minutes.
4.	Stir in onion; cook for 5 minutes, until onions are translucent and begin to brown. Add garlic, stir for about a minute.
5.	Stir in 1 1/2 tablespoons flour; cook and stir for about 1 minute. Add tomato paste, and cook for another minute.
6.	Deglaze the pan with red wine. Slowly add chicken stock and beef stock, stir to combine, and return to a simmer. Remove skillet from the heat.
7.	Place carrots and celery in the slow cooker. Place roast over the vegetables and pour in any accumulated juices. Add rosemary and thyme. One of the roasts in the pan. I cut the other so half fit into the open space, and I put the fattier half on top so the fat would drip down.
8.	Pour onion and mushroom mixture over the top of the roast. Cover slow cooker, turn to high and cook the roast for 5-6 hours (I did about 5 hours high, 2-3 hours low), until the meat is fork tender. All in here!
9.	Skim off any fat from the surface and remove the bones. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

I forgot to take a photo of it after it was done because we promptly began shoveling it into our faces. I'll have to put in a stock photo, but we ate ours over hot buttered egg noodles.

Pretty stock photo!

After I switched the crock pot to low, I headed off to the salon to get a hair cut. I haven't had a hair cut in ages, basically since I cut it all off after my wedding. My hair is pretty slow growing but I should probably get it cut more often than every three years.  I pointed out my salon's new, cool wall mounted blow dryers and my stylist politely informed me that they were installed over two years ago. Whoops.

I'm not particular about the length of my hair but E tends to prefer it shorter rather than longer. I usually leave it up to my stylist and end up with it cut pretty short, somewhere around my shoulders. It gets curlier and curlier the older I get so no two cuts look the same. 

Apologies for the crummy photos, I should have E take some but these selfies will have to do for now. As I was sitting in the salon chair I also noticed some definite cramps and it looks like my period is finally on the way! I'm only spotting a tiny bit and the clinic says I can't come in until it's a legit flow, but I'll take any progress I can get. If it turns into a real period over night, I'll be able to go in on Saturday for my baseline and possibly get this next cycle kicked off.

Best ice cream evvvvver!

We decided to celebrate with a banana split made with Tillamook Udderly Chocolate ice cream, possibly the best ice cream ever, and the perfect conclusion to what has turned out to be a supremely delicious day. If you haven't had it yet you need to get your hands on some straight away, all of their flavors are worth going out of your way for!

TWW: Disgusted With Our Courts

As I'm sure everyone has heard by now, our highest court system recently ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby and it's religious right to decide whether female employees should have employer funded access to certain contraceptives.  It is now legal for "religious", closely held, corporations to jeopardize the health of women they employ by denying them access to basic reproductive health benefits if their religious beliefs conflict with a woman's right to contraception as guaranteed by law. As we all know, those dangerous IUDs are likely to climb right out of those women's uteri, kill some babies and attack the executives in their beds. They have to be stopped! All in the name of corporate personhood and Christianity. Disgusting.

I am equally appalled that this ruling was handed down by 5 men, whose decision implies that discriminating against women is not discrimination as long as you do it for religious reasons. And oh yeah, their vasectomies are still covered, so no harm, no foul. The 3 women and 1 man in the dissenting minority filed a dissent outlining not only the violation of women's rights, but the danger that this ruling could be applied to other religious objections:

Justice Ginsburg’s Dissent

"Would the exemption the Court holds RFRA demands for employers with religiously grounded objections to the use of certain contraceptives extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations (Christian Scientists, among others)?"

(Source)

Although the ruling in it's current form specifies that it applies only to contraceptives right now, how is the court system supposed to decide which religious objections should be accommodated and which shouldn't? It's a dangerous, slippery slope.

Nancy Pelosi, the house minority leader and my representative here in California called the ruling an “outrageous step against the rights of America's women." Although only those employed by Hobby Lobby are most immediately effected, it's impossible to know the long lasting consequences. Since The Affordable Care Act in 2010 (ObamaCare) mandated that insurance companies provide a basic health care package including contraceptives, over 70 lawsuits were filed and there are still 48 pending in the courts right now. An estimated 90% of corporations in America are closely-held corporations and together they account for 52% of our workforce. What is to stop them all from filing religious exemption suits to deny their female employees coverage?

I am truly disgusted with our court system right now. How could they do this to women? As someone who already has little control over their reproductive health, it's staggering to me that the courts feel my employers have a right to interfere with my medical decisions.  What about those people who chose contraceptive devices like IUDs for medical reasons? Why should their right to proper health care be superseded by their boss' view on contraceptives? The discrimination is staggering. According to courts and health care system right now, infertility is not a disease for which you should receive coverage and your boss can decide what kind of contraception your insurance should offer. Disgusting.

TWW: Delicious Distractions

Today's two week wait distraction comes in the unexpected form of absolutely delicious, deep dish, chocolate chip cookies. It all started at about 10:30pm when, still full from a dinner of lasagna, salad and rather good red wine from BevMo's sale, E turned to me and asked if there was any way I could make him cookies. Home made, deep dish, chocolate chip cookies, to be precise. Was there any way I might have the supplies to make them now?

I've never been one to turn down and opportunity to bake and as I told E, I've never had a kitchen that didn't have the most basic baking ingredients in stock. Chocolate chip cookies, I told him, definitely fall under the basic ingredients category and I happened to have another muffin top pan sitting conveniently nearby in the shopping bag I hadn't yet unpacked. Muffin top pans are some of to favorite kinds of pans and I've developed the habit of buying one every time I see them. This new one was number 4 in my collection. 

It took me a few minutes to gather the supplies and start mixing everything up, but by 11:30, three trays of deep dish chocolate chip cookies were wafting their chocolatey aroma throughout the house. This time, I used the traditional Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe and made 18 cookies using a muffin top pan with 6 cookie spots. Each depression got a very generous tablespoon of cookie dough and it ended up being the perfect amount. 

They were absolutely delicious. Crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, with warm melty chocolate chips throughout. E had inhaled two before I got the second tray out of the oven. They're definitely an easy crowd pleaser and were an excellent distraction for this evening. 

Today was a long, hot day. E was off work, a rare Saturday off day that also happens to be his only off day in a 20 day stretch. Milou had agility class, which was somewhat less fun than usual given the miserable heat, and E and I spent most of the day attempting to stay cool and nursing giant Jamba Juice smoothies. I know the acupuncture diet says no cold food, but I couldn't even look at a hot meal until the evening. 

I also found out that one of the women on an infertility board I frequent just got her BFP. She also had 6-7 eggs this month so I'm taking it as a good sign that 7 eggs is this cycles lucky number. Only 6 more days until I can start testing and I really, really hope this is it. I've been crampy and bloated and of course my boobs are sore but I don't want to read too much into it because it's probably all from the progesterone in the Endometrin. Thanks Endometrin! You know how I love you.

TWW: IUI Protocol

Now that I'm in the TWW (two week wait), I'm looking for all sorts of ways to distract myself. J and C's wedding was a happy and time consuming distraction but now that it's over, my mind is free to wander. I'm also under strict orders from my acupuncturist to take it easy for the next week, so no gym, no stress, basically no diverting energy from my uterus where there's hopefully a healthy little embryo getting comfortable.

Although I'm a little unsure about the upcoming acupuncture dates since I'm only 4DPIUI, I think this is the jist of my IUI protocol for this cycle. I'm feeling really good about this cycle so I'm telling myself we won't need to do this again until we want another healthy baby, but if we do my RE wants us to go balls to the wall. This cycle I had a bunch of little follies that didn't grow in time to be ovulated with my dominant follicle. If we need to do this again, the RE wants us to do IVF, starting with birth control (to even the starting line for all the follicles) and then 8 vials of Menopur a day to generate as many as possible. Dr. K doesn't think it's worth harvesting less than 3 eggs which I'm mixed about but see the merit in.

Here's the protocol we followed for this cycle, that will hopefully result in a healthy BFP:

CD 1 - Base ultrasound, 300 IU Menopur
CD 2 - 300 IU Menopur
CD 3 - 300 IU Menopur
CD 4 - 300 IU Menopur
CD 5 - E2 Labs & Ultrasound, 2 good follies one ~11mm, one ~8mm, 1 little cyst ~12mm, 4 tiny follies, Estrogen 68, 375 IU Menopur, Acupuncture
CD 6 - 375 IU Menopur
CD 7 - 375 IU Menopur
CD 8 - E2 labs & Ultrasound,1 good follie 15mm, 1 little cyst ~12mm, Estrogen 186, 375 IU Menopur, Acupuncture
CD 9 - E2 labs & Ultrasound, Ovidrel Trigger, 1 good follie 20mm, one small follie 13mm, 1 little cyst ~12mm, Estrogen 286
CD 10 - Positive thoughts
CD 11 - IUI! Go little swimmers, go!
1   DPIUI - Acupuncture
2   DPIUI - Positive thoughts
3   DPIUI - Endometrin twice daily
4   DPIUI - Endometrin twice daily, Acupuncture
5   DPIUI - Endometrin twice daily
6   DPIUI - Endometrin twice daily
7   DPIUI - Endometrin twice daily, Acupuncture
8   DPIUI - Endometrin twice daily
9   DPIUI - Endometrin twice daily
10 DPIUI - Endometrin twice daily
11 DPIUI - Endometrin twice daily
12 DPIUI - Endometrin twice daily
13 DPIUI - Endometrin twice daily, TEST!!

I'm on my second day of Endometrin now and it's an unfortunately messy medication. They come as these little white pills that you insert like a tampon to help support the pregnancy. The downside of course is that pills dissolve, so it looks like I'm stuck wearing a panty liner for (hopefully!) the next 10 weeks. It's a bit of a mood killer, but anything that helps keep a baby safe and healthy, until we can find out of they're healthy around 14-15 weeks, is okay in our book.

Over the next two weeks I also need to decide if I should test at home before my Beta blood test. On one hand, I don't want to see another negative test, but I also feel like I need to go into the blood test with some idea of what to expect. Some people get negative HPTs right up until their blood test but others get positives pretty quickly. I've never had a positive test before so I don't know how my body will react but hopefully I'll know soon.