Family, Health, humor, Lifestyle, Parenting, Random

Fertility Woes and Baby Hopes

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By Heidi Pfister

I was deleting my old email drafts and came across this almost two- year old email, which I never actually sent to the intended recipients…don’t know why. Now my baby, Penelope, will be one year old in about a month, which makes it even more amusing to read than if I had I sent it when I wrote it. The email subject line read “fertility woes and baby hopes”.

This is an update on my efforts to conceive, and so much has happened in the past few weeks that I’d like to update all of you in one e-mail. If clinical info makes you squeamish, stop reading here!

Earlier this month, I found out that my ovaries are “old”, my uterus lining is too thin, and none of that matters because my cervix is too acidic to let sperm survive long enough to get to an egg anyway.

I found this out after a series of doctor visits that included multiple blood draws, an ultrasound of my ovaries, and an extremely painful procedure to examine my fallopian tubes. I screamed during that event, and said out loud, “Why am I trying so hard to have a baby if childbirth is
going to feel worse than this?!!”

However…there is a bright side. My 36-year old ovaries are now performing well thanks to fertility medication, and we have bypassed the cervix issue by undergoing intrauterine insemination. The procedure took place yesterday, and now we wait. I pray it works because I really don’t want to go through all this again. And I really don’t want to have to pay $17,000 for in vitro fertilization!

That’s where it ended. And now that I think about it, I know why I didn’t send it: I didn’t want to jinx myself!

Gotta go…Penelope’s waking up from her nap. 🙂

Love to all of you trying to get pregnant,
Heidi

Heidi Pfister is a new mommy and guest blogger. This is her first entry.

Environment

Termite Tenting Sucks Lots of Water and Electricity

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Homeowners beware:  tenting for termites requires huge amounts of water and power adding expensive, hidden costs.  Termite fumigation is standard practice in Hawaii and other places with termites before a property can be sold and for routine maintenance.   Our recent experience tenting our off-grid home allowed us to see firsthand how this resource-intensive process works, without any forewarning from the company.

Most home service providers, like carpet cleaners and yard keepers, bring their own tools, fuel and water, but not termite controllers.  We were required to provide them with water and electricity for 24 hours while our house was tented and fumigated for termites.  Little do we know how much of our water and power they would use.  Here’s the breakdown:

Water

Termite treators use water to fill bags that weight down the fumigation tents after they have staked the tents.  Each of these bags requires about 10 gallons of water.  A tent for an average-sized house could use up to 100 bags.  Our 1,000-square foot cottage needed about 50 bags, or 500 gallons of water.  Think kid-sized swimming pool.

They also needed water to blow across the fans.  They turned on our spigot and turned it off about 12 hours later.  This used over 3,000 gallons of water and drained our water tank dry.  This nearly burned out our water pump.

Power

They also required continuous 24-hour electricity to power the fans and blowers.  They drew from our 7,000-watt generator and solar power system.  All together, fumigation sucked back about 100 KwH of electricity.  This is equivalent to 3-5 days extra days of power usage for a typical household in the US.  It’s like adding another week to your power bill.

News, Politics

Higher Postage Rates Effective May 12, 2008

See details about the 2009 rate increase.

On Monday, May 12th, the United States Postal Services (USPS) is raising postal rates. The new rate for a first-class letter will increase from 41 cents to 42 cents. Flat-rate Priority Mail envelopes will increase from $4.60 to $4.80. High fuel prices are the likely reason for the rate increase. The rate increases effect all parts of the country equally, including Hawaii and Alaska.

One way you can hedge against the rate increase is to buy a stockpile of “forever” stamps. These are available at most post offices, and basically, don’t have a price printed on them. This means that they will be accepted forever, regardless of future rates.

For more details about the postage rates increase, visit usps.com.