February 8th, 2009

We had been in Chicago for the weekend, celebrating our friend’s birthday. We were traveling with our friends Sarah and Norah, and we were staying in the Swiss Hotel. That hotel was super nice. We knew that it was around the time when I was going to be ovulating, so I secretly snuck some ovulation tests in my bathroom bag. On Sunday morning I tested positive (after a light positive test on Saturday). I made Carolyn go into the bathroom after me so that she could see it, and then we knew that we had to call the on-call doctor and set up an insemination time. We packed up that morning to leave the hotel, and we drove to meet our friends for brunch. All the while I was waiting for a time that I could make the phone call without being in front of everyone. Luckily there were some issues with parallel parking, so I was able to step aside and call Teresa, who we had built a relationship with over the past few months since we seemed to always have the insemination happen over the weekend. We set up a time for late in the afternoon (giving us plenty of time to get back from Chicago). As we were driving over, Carolyn had a suggestion for dinner afterwards. She told me that it started with an “s” and ended with a “c”. I was racking my brain trying to think of restaurants that began and ended with these letters, and I was having a really hard time. So I thought it would be easier if I just started saying random words that might have those sounds. Little did I know I was actually saying the word, which was why Carolyn was laughing SO hard at me. Once I figured it out, we were both laughing so hard that we were crying. We did the procedure at the Dean West Clinic, and had to go up the back stairs since the main doors of the clinic were closed. The procedure went ok, and it was over in a matter of minutes. When we left the room, we got a bit turned around (those doctor’s office areas are a maze!) but finally found our way out. To celebrate, we went out to dinner at the newly opened Sonic restaurant. It was tasty, and a great way to end the day. When we got home that evening, we decided to make a “baby” poster, to help channel good thoughts our way (per the suggestion of our friend Laura). We found a posterboard in the basement, and started cutting out babies and words from magazines. We drew a large egg and sperm on the board, and then started gluing everything down. We put it in our bedroom to look at each day.