I froze on Thursday

Thursday was so cold! I mean, seriously, it was absolutely frigid. They said it was "feels like 11" and it absolutely felt like it. On top of that, the wind gusts were something fierce. They blew my hood off numerous times.

It was also sad to see that as of yesterday, all the pretty Mayo plants went wilted over as far as you could go. I mean, seriously, they are just gone. Froze to death. In one night. It's also sad to see so many green leaves on the ground. I am assuming this was because the frost came so early and the wind was blowing so hard. Will we get any more of fall? I did hear we are supposed to get some 50's later next week. Sweet relief.

Joanna, my friend from Hannah's Prayer, made a good point in one of her comments. I know that my fellow Floridians miss not having seasons. And I am with you on that. I think the seasons are wonderful. I know you all hate the fact that it is basically the same for twelve months with a variation of about twenty degrees. I feel the same way. It is basically the same here for twelve months with a variation of about twenty degrees. It's either zero or twenty below. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but you Minnesotans (and forced-to-be-Minnesotans) are with me here. Winter is way too long. It could be May before I run outside again. T-O-O L-O-N-G!

My friend Ebby, who thinks cold is cool and snow rocks the world, called and left a message just to rub it in my face that the white stuff was flying. Ebby, I don't mind the white stuff. I mind the frigidness accompanying it. Real cute Ebby. Real cute.

Okay, despite the fact that this is the POLAR NORTH BLOG, I do try to refrain from killing the topic of weather. So onto other excitement.

In other news, I had lunch with a dear friend yesterday. I won't put her name on here because I am now going to share the miraculous gift she gave me, and I don't want to get her in trouble so I'll keep her anonymous. Needless to say, she had a slight mix-up with her medication during one of her IVF cycles which resulted in the cycle having to be cancelled. The pharmaceutical company heard about the mix-up and the wasted Gonal, felt bad, and gave her FREE GONAL!

Now some background for you non-fertility-challenged blog visitors. Gonal is the grand-daddy of infertility medications when it comes to your pocketbook. It's the medication that causes the pharmacy cashiers to say things like, "Holy buckets! That's more than my paycheck!" or even, "I won't say this out loud," as they scoot the receipt over toward me. Unfortunately, because I do not ovulate on my own, every IUI (artificial insemination) we tried (five), required heavy doses of Gonal. (Some women can do the IUI without the medication, but I couldn't). And IVF, of course, requires Gonal. I won't go into the details of how much it costs but an average cycle ranges between $1,000 and $3,000. And that amount is our HALF. Mayo pays 50%.

Anyways, my dear, anonymous friend is currently waiting to find out if her first attempt with IVF worked. She also has one "sticky baby" in reserve, so she is very hopeful that she will not need any of her leftover Gonal. So, yes, you guessed it. She has given me her Gonal. Now, technically, doctors tell you not to share medications. However, these are closed cases of precious liquid that will, hopefully in her case, have to be thrown in the trash. Thousands of dollars worth of medications. JB and I did tell her, however, that if for any reason, she does another harvest before the meds were to go bad, we would pay her for them. But we are praying hard she gets pregnant and we save a few thousand dollars.

Pretty cool, huh? Thank you my dear, anonymous friend. I can't wait to celebrate your good news with you.

We also went to the Rochester Towers potluck last night. It was fun. Interesting. I ate cold baked beans. I had never really heard of serving baked beans cold, but obviously people here do that. I also ate sausage drenched in beer. Don't think I'll eat those again. We were the youngest couple there, however, we sat next to our friend Susan's daughter and her husband and five-year-old daughter, Kayla. Kayla is a frequent occurrence in the Rochester Towers. She is often over at her grandparents' house. She is also adopted. Before we knew it, her father was telling the story of her adoption -- how at 44, he thought he would never be a father, when he met a woman through his job as a counselor who's daughter was pregnant. Long story short, the daughter picked them to parent her child. It was quite a story. He talked quite candidly about having to watch his wife sit in the pews at church while all the mothers were honored on Mother's Day. (Reason number 8 I do not attend church on Mother's Day.) I have never had a conversation with a male about infertility and adoption like this. John and I were both blessed by seeing how well their open adoption worked and how much of a blessing Kayla was in their lives. The potluck was fun, but I'm glad it finished by 7:15 because we had forgotten to tape Survivor! Thank Goodness I remembered it was on.

It is currently 5:30 on Friday morning. Why am I up already? I am not feeling well. Got some doozy of a cold and am feeling really cruddy. I really needed a throat lozenge, and you can't really suck on those while you are sleeping. I debated for about twenty minutes whether my throat was soarer than my desire to lie in bed. My throat won out. I am tempted to call in sick today, but I am just not a "call in sick" type of person. I read that people actually get mad at people that go to work sick because they spread their germs. That may be true, but I bet you fifty bucks my boss would rather I spread my germs than not come into work. So, I'll manage.

This is, I realize, the first time I have really been sick in well over a year. Maybe two years. I think that's a pretty good track record. Of course, I've been sick from my medications, but that doesn't really count.

I also realized that since I entered the work force in 1999, I have never, ever called in sick. I think that is a pretty good track record as well. I have left sick a few times when I was a teacher and didn't have anything big planned in the afternoon, but I have never called in and said I couldn't come to work. I've decided to try and keep that going as long as I can. I'll manage work today. I'm only a half day at Mayo. Then I'm having lunch with a good friend at one of my favorite lunch spots: Jasper's. Then I'll be working from home for RLSF. Then the weekend is here. I can manage!

Thanks for reading my early morning babble. Have a great weekend.

I also wanted to share an amazing video about surrogacy with you. I cried and cried as I watched this video. NURSE BECOMES SURROGATE FOR INFERTILE COUPLE. There will be an ad and then the video will play.