I figured I should probably review what registered as significant for me this year since part of the reason I keep this blog is to record memories. I'd like to take a moment to do a monthly recap of 2005.
JANUARY: Met with my obgyn NP for a pre-conception appointment (after we'd already been trying for 6 months) where I was diagnosed as "pre-PCOS" and anovulatory. Also upped my thyroid medication after noticing a rash of hypothryoid symptoms returning. On the upside, we attended a fab wedding where we were treated to a live performance by these guys. Also, our nephew Nicholas burst into the world on the 25th.
FEBRUARY: Started taking progesterone which ended up just short circuiting my long cycles, doing nothing to help with the lack of ovulation. Mark turned 30! And for the life of me, I can't remember how we celebrated that. We attended the wedding shower for his sister Jennie and her fiance and met our new nephew in person for the first time.
MARCH: I think March was very rainy. See...this I why I have to write these things down.
APRIL: April started out with two Bay Area weddings on the first two weekends of the month. The first was for Mark's sister Jennie on Treasure Island. It was fantastic with family, friends, SF, and crazy weather. Next was our friends Jesse & Barbara. Their wedding was in San Jose and very mellow. We got to hang out with much of the bbs crew. On the way home we took Highway 1 and camped in Big Sur for a few nights. It was beautiful and we nearly had the campground all to ourselves. I also joined a gym to try to get in better shape.
MAY: Near the end of May, I started cheating on my Linux distro. I couldn't help it. I fell for Mac OS X. It ran so much better on my shiny not-quite-new G4 PowerBook! I named the PB "R2D2", as we had just seen Episode III and the Mac sleep mode reminded me of my favorite Jedi droid. On the reproductive front, I saw my obgyn who said the NP was totally off base with the progesterone and she prescribed metformin instead. It seems that I'd gotten to the point where my body was headed toward diabetes (not surprising really, it runs on my dad's side of the family) but not quite there yet. The metformin is supposed to help reverse the process... but at a price.
JUNE: Started with another great wedding, this time in our own neck of the woods. Mark even performed the ceremony! Alas, much of June was lost to the hazing ritual of metformin: nausea. All the time. I lost my normal appetite signals and got... more nausea! Yay! One of the most noteworthy events in June was the birth of Jayden Joshua Oksner on the 10th (his due date!). I can't believe he's already 6 months old.
JULY: Two words: BoHo Sympo. :) Kira got a chance to swim in the Russian river this year. We also had our usual 4th of July party. This year's menu included Bulgogi, pineapple fried rice, and Chinese chicken-less salad. The garden started producing zucchini, green beans, and sunflowers.
AUGUST: Stayed with the Slugs in Guerneville a second time for a wedding in Sonoma. I *looooove* visiting the Slugs. Also, our friend Ame had her twin girls, Alexis and Kaitlin, on August 25th. Unfortunately, August also included watching hurricane Katrina's aftermath in horror and sadness. It hit a little closer to home when I found out that a dear childhood friend had fled her home in Biloxi. Thankfully, she and her family made it safely to CA and are, like so many others, putting the pieces back together. The pumpkins I planted back in May were harvested. I ended up with 9 White Lumina pumpkins from the 4 vines. In the house, we installed a whole house fan. Best $300 spent EVER!
SEPTEMBER: Fell in love with another inanimate object. This time it was the Toyota Prius we rented the weekend of a friend's annual party in the Bay Area. We plopped down our $500 deposit and joined the waiting list. Met with obgyn again. She was encouraged that my cycles started to look more normal and said to keep up with the metformin and see her again in December. I whined about the nausea and then promptly was done with the adjustment period. I still get some random nausea occasionally but it is most likely to happen when I need to eat something. Another side effect is loss of appetite. I think by now I had lost 5-7lbs. Also, I had humongous mutant zucchini in my garden and determined that I planted the tomatoes way too close to the sunflowers and another tomato season went bust. Oh yeah, and I went to Kansas to attend my grandfather's 80th birthday party!
OCTOBER: We attended the final wedding of the year on October 1st, wrapping up a whirlwind of 8 weddings in 12.5 months (Mark was in 4 of them). Full-time counterpart at work gave notice. I took on half of his tasks in addition to my own in the interim. When hurricane Wilma hit Florida, I got all his tasks because the person I was splitting them with was without power for a full 2 weeks. I still believe I was on the lucky end of that stick. I impulse purchased way too many pumpkins, in addition to those I had grown. I speed-carved 3 pumpkins on Halloween just before nightfall. Keyhole saws rock!
NOVEMBER: Started the month working remotely from the Bay Area on psuedo-vacation (well, Mark was on vacation anyway) and got a nasty cold. On the plus side, we toured the Scharffenberger factory and ate at Zachary's pizza in Berkeley. Madison Shea Klein was born to our friends, Jason and Melinda on November 14th. Spent Thanksgiving in Hanford with my family.
DECEMBER: Went to Disneyland on December 3rd with Mark and my mom. The weeks of anal retentive planning paid off and we had ridden our mandatory rides by 9:30am and had a fantastic rest of the day. My birthday was nice and relaxing and then *wham*. The next day I got nailed by the flu for the first time in 8-10 years. That knocked me out for about 5 days. Saw the obgyn again. She is of the opinion that things are progressing nicely and I should wait another couple of months to have a hystosalpinogram (ink injection test to check for tubal blockages and uterine oddness). I talked her into giving me the lab slip anyway, and will probably bump the timeline up a month. I would really rather know sooner than later if there is a problem beyond the hormonal imbalances. I didn't really feel like doing the holidays this year for some reason. Maybe it was the freakin' heat that kept the temps into the 80s up to the beginning of the month. Or maybe the bittersweetness of seeing everyone's babies. I dunno. But from what I can tell, I'm not the only one who just wasn't into it this year.
So, um, this definitely took more than a moment. Especially since while I've been composing this post we had a 2.5 hour power outage and a phone update from our friends in Guerneville who are now cut off from the rest of the world and without power due to the storms and the mighty Russian river (They are OK. They saw this coming and prepared in advance so they'll just be sitting tight until the roads are cleared).
2005 was an interesting ride. Sometimes in the Chinese curse kinda way, sometimes not. I'm definitely ready to embark on the journey into a new year. See you there!
