Oh, The Holidays

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the winter holidays for me. A big day of cooking and eating and family, and then off we go to the races of holiday parties and holiday events and Christmas Cards and the Christmas holiday itself.

Tomorrow will be fine. We are hosting Thanksgiving, and my husband's mom and stepfather are here from Maine and my parents are coming down and so we will have six people at our table. We are lucky, because there won't be people who aren't in the know about our family situation (or lack thereof), there won't be small children there, there won't be so many of the landmines and pitfalls that can beset a holiday dinner with family. There may be the off unintentionally thoughtless comment, but I think we can get through those. All in all, it will be not nearly as painful as it will be for others in our shoes, others wearing shoes we've worn before -- when no one knows the extent of your pain and you have to do a gritted smile through everything and try real hard not to scream when something thoughtless is said and attempt to make it through without drinking all the wine in the house.

The Christmas parties...they will be okay. We have a couple we're going to where I don't know very many people and neither does Bryce, and so the "do you have kids?" might come up, and I just don't have a socially appropriate answer to that one anymore. Much less when someone tells us how lucky we are not to have a babysitter or to get a full nights' sleep. Yes, yes, that's great, but we would RATHER BE HOME WITH A BABY, THANKYOUVERYMUCH.

One Christmas party might be challenging but I am trying to keep an open mind. Challenging because there are expecting people going to this one and some new mommies and women who are obsessed with all things babies and children, and I have nothing to offer there and do not at all want to listen to a birth story or birth plan or how hard it is to make it through the holidays without a glass of wine. Luckily, there's also another couple who has no children, and while their circumstance is different from ours, they will be our allies that night. (It will also be challenging because there's a fair number of supporters for our president-elect, and I can't keep my big mouth shut when people say things that are just plain ignorant. I try to do it with kindness, but holy hell it's going to be hard if there is spewing of vile crap at this party. My goal is to both keep to my personal integrity and NOT get my husband in trouble, ha.)

Another is my work party, and this is usually awkward because everyone talks about their families. Not like parents-family, but children-family. I have NOTHING to add here. I have given all the updates I have. The people hosting have two small children and the house is full of evidence of tiny lives, and that can be hard. It's easier when my other administrator hosts, because his kids are mostly out of the house and his oldest is a senior. Not a lot of tiny person detritus in that house.

And...cards. Heh heh heh, cards. So you will remember that last year our holiday card featured the beautiful adoption shoot that we did in November. Well, a year has passed and no dice (story of our lives), so we decided to do a different kind of shoot. When I have the photos I'll share, but let's just say we spent a fair amount of time on Sunday doing a shoot that I like to call "Norman Rockwell Gone Horribly Wrong." Very tongue-in-cheek. Very different vibe from last year's abject hopefulness, but still not sad. Darkly humorous. I hope it comes across the way I want it to. I mean, I hired a photographer and got my hair done in period early 1950s style and did my face the same, so I sure hope it's worth it! Gave me a chuckle, at least.

Sneak peek of hair and makeup...

Finally...Christmas itself. Last year we stayed home and had a tree and had our family Christmas just the two of us, with Boxing Day with my parents. We hoped it would be the last Christmas just the two of us. Well, it wasn't.

So what we decided was to throw our holiday into the fuckit bucket, and book four nights in Vermont. It feels somehow selfish to spend a family oriented holiday by ourselves in a setting that's entirely restorative and based on outdoor activities, reading by the fire, eating and drinking decadently... but then again, things haven't worked out as we'd hoped yet again and so this will keep us from being sad saps around a tree in our living room, alone with each other again. It's going to be great. It's what we need. I am SO looking forward to it.

And so, that is how we are getting through the holidays. I look forward to the cards we'll receive, with children who once were babies and now are reaching double digits, even though they mark a march through time we've missed. I look forward to the parties and the get-togethers and sending out our own snarky card that shows just how time has stood still, in a cheeky way. I look forward to hiding away from it all in the valleys of Vermont.

I can hope that next year will be different, but if it looks like this, that's not too shabby either. I am pretty darn fortunate. I have an incredible love, friends to celebrate with, and the resources to hide away in a snowy mountain retreat. Although all the pieces we'd hoped for aren't in place, we have a beautiful life, and I am very, very thankful for that.

I hope the holidays are kind to everyone this year. I hope you find a spot of brightness in what can be a dark time if your family isn't where you'd hoped it would be.

#Microblog Mondays: Snow Day

Sometimes, the universe throws you a bone.

We had our first snow yesterday into today, and it was a doozy -- about 11 inches, blustery winds that created blizzard conditions, and just super heavy, wet snow.

I put my pajamas on inside out last night, put ice cubes in the toilets, and put a spoon in the freezer. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching, but this year has been incredibly complex with more parent calls and meetings than I've ever had, I spent my weekend at the Christmas Carol performances where I was the Fezziwig Fiddler (so three 2.5 hour commitments between pre-show and show, where I was on stage a whopping three minutes...brief but totally worth it), Sunday was spent on a personal project I'll tell you about in a bit, and I've been fighting a respiratory thing and migraines on top of it all. A snow day was a total gift.

The thing about snow days is that they are a truly free day -- a day you expected to work, a day you planned for, a day you don't have to write sub plans for or worry about NOT having sub coverage as has been happening more frequently later -- and so you can just relax. You have time to go sledding or snowball fighting with your kids if you have them (says Facebook). You have time to sit on the couch wrapped in a cozy throw blanket and finish reading the book you've been sandwiching between student novels if you don't, and you even have time to squeeze in a nice sweaty workout.

This past week or so has been completely insane with meetings and obligations and play rehearsal and preview assemblies (three performances in a row! wheeee!) and performances and getting the house and grocery shopping ready for hosting Thanksgiving that having an extra free day without any plans in it was the best thing EVER.

Thank you, lake effect snow...I owe you one.

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!

#Microblog Mondays: Time Flies

How can it almost be Thanksgiving? It seems unbelievable to me that the holiday season has snuck up on me and I haven't even bought a turkey yet for the family meal we're hosting. I like to do my Christmas shopping BEFORE Thanksgiving, and that's out, too...it just seems like everything is just speeding up and speeding by.

I am looking forward to our Christmas in Vermont and starting to put together a stack of books (mentally not physically, as there's stacks of books everywhere) to take there.

I am hoping that I can have my hysteroscopy scheduled in early December (wishful thinking?) so that I am all set and done with this nonsense in time for a romantic, hopefully snowy, fireplace-filled respite for the holidays. It turns out my endometrial biopsies were negative for polyps, but there's something at that top end of my uterus that could be a small polyp, or a small fibroid, or the very odd "possible buildup of endometrial tissue" -- so off to the specialist I go to get eyeballs on my broken womb.

I so want this vacation to be a capper on another year that's come and gone (so far) without a change in our family status, not one that's depressing and reminds us that everything stays the same but one that is rejuvenating and restorative, and leaves us refreshed to face another year where things have the potential to change at any time, but also to stay the same. I vote for the former.

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!

The Importance of Birth Control

I am concerned about a lot of things with the election results, but one of my top concerns is women's health. Abortion is the obvious issue that has me fearful.

But I'd like to talk about birth control.

It seems that there are people who feel that birth control is a bad thing. It shouldn't be provided for free. If you have religious beliefs that say birth control is tinkering with God's will, then you should not be mandated to provide it to your employees who may or may not believe the same as you. Some birth control forms are veritable early abortions -- preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg. So say these people.

Our new Vice President is one of these people.

I am very, very angry about this stance. If you do not want to use birth control because of your religious views, I say have at it. Do whatever your beliefs mandate YOU to do. But, when you start taking your religious beliefs and pushing them on ME, you are no longer talking religious freedom. You are talking suppression of others' beliefs, because your beliefs shouldn't influence my family planning decisions. I do not have a problem with birth control.

In fact, birth control is pretty amazing for a variety of reasons.

Birth Control Is A Medical Treatment
I was on birth control pills starting at 18, the summer before college. Not because I was having sex at the time (I wasn't quite yet), but because I had periods that felt like they were trying to kill me. They were unpredictable. When they came, they were heavy. As in a deluge that required constant trips to the bathroom and came with cramps that laid me flat (or curled in a ball). It took several tries to get a birth control pill that helped with this, that also didn't give me migraines. Initially, my birth control use was entirely to treat a medical condition. It can be used to treat PCOS, endometriosis, and any irregularity or painful periods. It allowed me to not be a slave to my flighty uterus that could leave me periodless for up to 9 months, and then release a torrent of awfulness. Like the time I took my Physics Regents and had my period, and left once in the first hour to go take care of business and then realized I needed to go again in the second hour and the proctor WOULD NOT LET ME. So I told her I'd leave a puddle in my chair if she didn't let me go, and...she was left with a puddle to contend with. I didn't do so well on that exam, which was partly because of my disinterest in physics and partly because I WAS BLEEDING ALL OVER MYSELF. Something which stopped when I went on the Pill. Right now I am on Depo Provera, to help keep the PCOS nonsense in check. It is a medical treatment course.

Even When It's Not Medical Treatment, Birth Control Creates Freedom For Women
If you would like a divine power to decide how many children you have, that is a choice that you can make. For yourself. For many women, having the capacity to prevent pregnancy through any variety of birth control means freedom. Freedom from having pregnancy after pregnancy and having that be your role. Freedom from the medical risk of many pregnancies, one right after the other (obviously if you're fertile, as some of us don't have to worry as much about this piece). Ability to space out your children as you would like. Ability to NOT have children if that is not what you want. Ability to limit the number of children you have for financial reasons. Without birth control, women are brought back to archaic times when their roles were very limited. Now, if birth control becomes more of a financial burden, I will still be able to obtain it because I am fortunate. But those who can't afford it? They will be more likely to have more children, and I feel like women living in poverty who have many children don't exactly get respect for it. They are often denigrated, whether they chose to have more children or not, for being a burden on taxpayers, for "breeding" when they can't afford it, and on and on. Seems not fair to me. It's called family planning because it allows you to have those children (or not) on your terms, not a roll of the dice (or divine mandate).

I Thought This Part Was Obvious: Birth Control Prevents Abortions
If women are able to afford and use medically sound birth control, they are FAR less likely to have an unplanned pregnancy. One that might be wanted if the timing was better, if the financial situation was different. If you have fewer unplanned pregnancies, there's fewer abortions. It's a simple concept. Birth control that prevents an egg from being fertilized or a possibly fertilized egg to implant is NOT actually a form of abortion. Every day there are fertilized eggs that don't implant. If every fertilized egg implanted, I would not have had the difficulty I have had in becoming a mother. I would have A LOT of children, because I had 27 fertilized eggs that passed through me at different stages and everything was set up for the optimum success and STILL those suckers didn't implant. The average fertile couple only has about a 20% chance of getting pregnant any given month. Birth control prevents circumstances that make conception (successful implantation in my mind, otherwise again I've conceived 35 times and embryos I've conceived will be gestated by the couple in the MidWest who have adopted our remaining 8 embryos) possible. It doesn't disrupt a pregnancy. It keeps one from happening. And if you don't get pregnant when it's not the desired outcome, you don't have to make the tough choices. I would think this would be a good thing -- preventing the need for abortions in the first place. It's odd to me to be against BOTH.

Some People Need Birth Control to GET Pregnant
Guess what was part of every IVF protocol I had? Birth control pills. Yes, that's right, for me and countless other women, you needed to be on birth control to suppress your system to get ready to receive embryos that could become babies. It is part of the process, not for all protocols but for MANY. I guess if you don't want to tinker with the divine plan IVF falls under that umbrella so maybe this one isn't so compelling, but IVF is supposed to help create new life! To help out in the whole procreation thing! And if there's no birth control, it doesn't quite work as well. Interesting, no?


It really confuses me, especially when men have such strong opinions on what goes in and out of my body. Or really, when anyone who is not my husband or my doctor is part of the discussion about what I should or shouldn't do with my body. We have choices, and choices are good. I don't have to get an IUD, but friends of mine love the device. I cannot do estrogen-based pills anymore, but I have progesterone-based options, including Depo. Even though my body has failed me in the reproductive arena, without birth control I would be an emotional mess, never sure if maybe something could have happened that could raise my hopes (even though the chances of my getting pregnant naturally are beyond slim, what with my ovaries that don't ovulate most of the time, my one Fallopian tube, my scarred up uterus, and the male factor). It helps me stay sane. It helps treat my medical condition.

Birth control is important. Having access to free or inexpensive birth control options should be a medical right -- just as it is anyone's right to NOT take advantage of it if it is against their beliefs. But restricting it for all women? NOT OKAY. That's not freedom. That's oppression. And I hope with all my heart that it does not come to pass.

Hope Is A Thing With...Fangs

Hope is a funny thing. It's supposed to be this bright light, this thing that gets you through the bad shit. It allows you to believe that good things can happen, even in absence of any actual proof.

But when it comes to infertility, hope is difficult. It's a double-edged sword, because it can push you forward, but it can also push you to do more than is reasonable in the name of getting pregnant. And you can hope all you want, but sometimes you just aren't going to be that success story.

Last week I was scrolling around facebook, and I saw a video posted by one of my former clinics, one that was very research-based and fairly conservative. It featured a doctor I am fond of, personally, and so I watched it.

Oh how I wish I hadn't watched it.

It was basically about three breakthroughs in technology over the past several years related to IVF that has resulted in, "Some of the highest success rates I've ever seen in my career."  One is doing PGD on every embryo, and then transferring just one instead of more because the healthy ones are more likely to implant. Another is improved freezing practices (I guess they are doing vitrification now, which was being done in other places for years prior), and the last was delaying transfer until a month or two after retrieval, since FETs are now so much more likely to succeed thanks to vitrification and I assume letting the body recover from the trauma of extraction.

The video was very new-age-y, with music and a calm sonorous voice throughout, and very, very positive. "Our patients have more reason to hope than ever before."
"We are seeing success rates of  60-70%, sometimes even higher."
"Older patients have traditionally had lower success rates and higher miscarriage rates with IVF. But now with these new technologies, we're seeing the same pregnancy rates that our younger patients have experienced."
"Implanting just one egg avoids risk of multiple-birth pregnancy."

Did you catch that last one? IMPLANTING. Not transferring, although the term "transfer" is used throughout, but IMPLANTING. I can't tell you how much I hate that terminology, which is false and misleading. They don't implant the motherfucking embryo. They transfer it and HOPE that it implants, because if they could IMPLANT the damn thing, pregnancy rates would be 100% and there would be some serious voodoo magic going on. Please tell me that the ASRM (American Society of Reproductive Medicine) hasn't decided that it's okay to use the term "implant" for the transfer procedure. That one filled me with fury.

Now, I really do enjoy this doctor. Even though I did not get pregnant and stay that way, and we always seemed to fall on the WRONG side of every single statistic, I don't blame him for any part of that. He was also the only person to start the conversation of, "If this next cycle with your frozen 2PNs doesn't work, we will have that conversation about you choosing other paths to parenthood." Not exactly a come-to-Jesus moment, but the closest we ever got. (It's my fault that I heard that and promptly went to another clinic that would sell me more hope.)

Because that's what this feels like to me. Selling hope. It feels a little smarmy to me.

I will be honest, when I watched it, the thought did cross my mind...What if technologies have progressed so much that we have a shot? Maybe these new breakthroughs since we've been out of this game would do something for US!

And then I snapped out of it. And was so mad that even for that brief moment I entertained the thought of going back down the rabbit hole of treatment that did nothing but empty our pocketbooks and damage my emotional well-being and my reproductive system. I could argue that had I not pursued IVF, I would have both my tubes and I would not have uterine scarring. I'd probably still have those pesky polyps, but the others were a direct result of treatment and outcomes from that treatment. Not in a liability-laden way, but just in a matter-of-fact way. I am forever changed because I did 13 rounds of IVF, 10 transfers (since 3 were cancelled), 27 embryos gone the way of the dodo, 8 embryos off in Texas to be transferred to a hopefully more receptive womb in the couple who adopted them. WHY ON EARTH WOULD I GO BACK TO THAT?

But that's sort of the point of a video like that, right? It's a marketing tool when you shed all the emotional feel-good stuff of bringing healthy babies to couples who are infertile. I don't doubt that the doctor truly loves his work and that it is so rewarding when things work out. But it just reeked of peddling hope. And I felt like I was susceptible to the siren song, if only briefly.

It's so hard to know when to stop, to feel like you can say ENOUGH, when new technologies are always coming out. It's a strong thing to say NO MORE in the face of the continual hope and progress and nevergiveup mentality that weaves its way through the IVF industry.

Now, it could be that I am bitter because it didn't work for me. And I definitely felt bitter when EVERY SINGLE COMMENT on the video post was people praising the clinic and the doctor for all of their "Miracles." No joke, every one referenced their child as a Miracle. And that shit goes through me like a nail. Maybe I would have felt differently if I'd been successful, but I can tell you that when you fall on the other side of success rates, the term "miracle baby" makes you feel somehow undeserving of said miracle, like you were passed over or unworthy somehow of that experience and so were not blessed in that way. That is for other people, not you.

It's a shitty way to feel. These kinds of promotions also make you feel like you didn't do enough -- that you threw in the towel too soon, that had we only waited ONE MORE YEAR maybe we could have used these technologies. Did we give up? Did we fail to do everything possible? THAT IS THE FEELING THAT VIDEO INVOKES IN ME.  That and every person who claims that this diet or that acupuncture regularity or this leave of absence from work was the miracle cure that resulted in pregnancy.

There are so many ways to feel deficient, and it doesn't stop with infertility treatment. We are being told constantly to "Hang in there!" "Don't give up on your dream!" "It WILL happen, you just have to keep the faith!" with adoption.

Do you know what that feels like? It feels like if we don't adopt, if we hit a point where we have no steam left and we can't keep living in this limbo, that it's OUR FAULT. We didn't persevere enough. We aren't doing enough. We aren't doing private adoption, so are we really that dedicated? It's all UP TO US.

I know people who say these things are well-meaning. But, as much as I wish I had another seven years to give to adoption, I DON'T. We spent five and a half years doing the infertility treatment thing. It was too long. It took too much from us in every way. I don't have the same amount of time to give to another process. I wish we had started earlier, when we weren't so tired, so beaten down by always waiting for something amorphous that just doesn't seem to ever materialize.

I hope that we receive our call before the date we've set as our Hail Mary timeframe. It's a decent amount of time that fits into national timeframes for adopting, as opposed to the 6-9 months from homestudy to placement average that we were given by the agency (which isn't working for us, as we're in month 16). But as Bryce said the other night, "I can't do what we did with IVF. I can't keep this up indefinitely. I need to know that we can live our life at some point, either with or without a child, free of this in-between place."

It never fails to make me cry. This would not be the ending that I'd envisioned to this journey. BUT, there's enough time between now and D-Day (decision day) that I feel comfortable with setting it. And I hope, I so hope that our Mystery Baby comes before that day. Because hope can be helpful, but it can also wear you down, suck you bloodless, and leave you a husk of yourself as you put your life on hold for that chance at parenthood that should have come so much more easily than it turned out.

#Microblog Mondays: A Different Context for Ultrasounds

It's weird to see your bits on a big screen and feel like you are seeing an old friend, or a frenemy as the case may be.

I had my saline sonohistogram on Saturday, and it was both surreal and highly unpleasant.

I'm not sure the ultrasound tech enjoyed my jokes...like when my ovaries (which had a surprising number of follicles clearly visible) showed up on the screen and I said, "Oh, hello, ovaries...thanks for NOTHING!"

I thought it was hilarious. I'm not sure she felt the same.

The upshot is, there is something at the top of my uterus, possibly a polyp, possibly a small fibroid, but the scarring wasn't clearly visible on the SSG.

I can tell you that the catheter and the filling up of my uterus with saline was just as shitty as it's ever been.

And then I had the extra pleasure of having two endometrial biopsies done.

Remind me again why they wouldn't give me a prescription for one valium before this procedure? It was awful. I was crampy all day Saturday and into the night. My uterus was thoroughly pissed off with me.

I get results on Wednesday. I've already been told the likely outcome will be me seeing a specialist who does hysteroscopies routinely, under anesthesia, in his office. I probably have an endocervical polyp (or a small colony, as has been the case for the past few hysteroscopies I've endured...they look like little waving aliens hanging out by my cervix, inside my uterus. It's a party I wish would disperse.). I'm a bit weirded out by whatever was causing an anomaly at the top of my uterus, where my scarring is. Maybe I can add fibroids to my list.

Anyway, it's strange to get such a close up and personal view of your ovaries and uterus and have it have absolutely nothing to do with reproducing. No frantic writing down of follicle measurements or lining thicknesses in a floral notebook. Nothing but a quest for answers for this unusual bleeding, and hopes that there's nothing nefarious happening in my nethers that have been so thoroughly traumatized for really, in the end, no good reason.

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!

Seven Years -- Anniversary Highlights

Seven years...so many days, weeks, and months of moments shared between us over that time. We celebrated our anniversary over a full week, and two weekends, because of our legal-and-ceremony dates. We did a pretty darn good job of not going down the rabbit hole during our celebrations, and keeping our shared infertility anniversary out of the picture. Mostly. 

On Saturday October 22nd, we went out for a fancy dinner at one of our favorite fancy restaurants. We felt a little like we were scamming for free champagne, since they always ask if you are celebrating something and we'd been twice before fairly recently to celebrate our 10-year dating anniversary and my 30 book summer reading challenge win, but they served us anniversary champagne anyway. Who are we to say no to that? 

In a giant booth, snuggling up with our champagne

The food is just spectacular here, and we ended up getting exactly the same thing. This new curried cauliflower soup is out of this world -- it's got "cauliflower couscous" which is really three types of raw cauliflower chopped into couscous sized pieces, with a curry gel artfully arranged in the bowl, and then they pour the cauliflower soup puree over these things from a pretty carafe and you get to stir it up or not however you like. It is amazing. Then we both got the tenderloin, which is my new favorite because it has morels and a cabernet sauvignon sauce, a grilled carrot puree that is sweet and savory all at once, and this potato pave thing that's these paper thin layers of potatoes pressed into a dense brick of deliciousness. Amazing. We also had a bottle of Spanish wine that's new to them but not on the menu because of limited production, and so they said they serve it for special events or if people ask for "something new and interesting" and an earthy straight up tempranillo is a good match. We had a dessert wine sampler with the butterscotch creme brulee (with Marcona almonds on top!), so we could each try a taste of three different kinds. It was the perfect foodie meal for us, with perfect wine pairings and a snuggly giant booth where we could have a bit of privacy. 

The next weekend, we celebrated our ceremony anniversary by going to a fancy hotel that overlooks the valley -- made possible by me "winning" a silent auction bid at an event in March to fund fertility preservation for cancer patients. And...always tell people it's your anniversary, because when we checked in and we mentioned it, they upgraded us to a swanky jacuzzi suite! Now, it was quiet and that suite was probably going to be empty, but they didn't have to upgrade us and it was quite the room. 

View from our room

The room had a very odd Egyptian theme going on, so that you could sort of pretend you weren't 5 minutes from a giant mall and 10 minutes from where I teach. 

So what did we do in this fancypants jacuzzi suite? Well, we'd already had our fancy night out, and so we planned to get woodfired pizza takeout (there is no end to the delicious and safe gluten free food in my area) and chill out in the room. Maybe go swimming in the pool...but we had a late start from getting home from work and packing up and everything, so we canned the swimming. 

Instead, we immediately ordered the pizza and stopped off at a liquor store to get a half bottle of champagne. It's sort of a tradition to start any vacation (even a one-night one) with a glass or two of champagne from a little bottle. We've done it for every hotel we've stayed in for years now. So once that bubbly popped and the pizza was on the room's table, we knew we weren't going to go near the pool. 

The funny thing is, we had the most low-key time in this swanky suite possible. We don't have cable at home, and so we ate our pizza and drank our champagne to a marathon of "Tiny Houses," which I've never seen before and was strangely addictive and highly entertaining. We sort of vegged on the couch for a little bit, which seemed perfect after the insanely busy October we've both had. Holy hell, has it been nonstop. So it was lovely to just melt into the couch and mindless TV, champagne in hand. 

We did bring a special bottle of wine with us, that we had bought back in 2009 after we got engaged. Aptly named Carnival of Love, it's been in our basement ("cellar") for as long as we've been married, and the drink-by date ended with 2016 so it was a perfect pick! It was SO INCREDIBLY DELICIOUS. Almost smoky, and raisiny, closer to a port than a wine. I am embarrassed to say that I had a hard time opening it, and the foil cutting knife gave me a harder time than usual. When Bryce took over and just twisted it open, it turned out it was a screw-cap and I had just mutilated the heck out of it. Ooops.

Ah, Carnival of Love...and thank you, sir, for holding it.

Full size shot of the helper table guy we named Nebuchadnezzar, because it just seemed right. He was kind of staring down the bed, which was creepy, and also in the middle of the night it was off-putting to have some kneeling guy on the way to the bathroom. 

Once the wine was flowing we added to our HGTV and strange Halloween-themed travel and history shows (while Tiny Houses was fun, the rest reminded us why we DON'T have cable), the games came out. Because that's another tradition...whenever we go to Vermont, we bring games. 

This time I had a new one.

Bryce's puzzle. I am too embarrassed to show you mine, because I had a mistake in it...

Yes, that's a math version of Bananagrams, called Mobi. You have to make equations instead of words and when you're down to one tile you yell, "FLIP!" and everyone has to grab three more tiles until someone is out of tiles. When we play Bananagrams, Bryce HATES the "PEEL!" part, because he feels it takes too long to visualize the words and he gets under pressure and it makes him feel slow. Well, I now know how he feels because while my mind is fast with the words, it is NOT with the numbers. I mean, I did okay and had some nice complex thingies on mine (minus the error), but I had a zillion tiles left when he finished all his tiles. It was fun!  Also, you can see the scarred up screwcap in the upper right of the picture. Sigh. 

We followed this game up with Wine Wars, which is a nerdy trivia game about wine -- production, grapes, sommelier stuff, pairings, storing, blah blah blah. I won that one.

My winning board--I collected all the bottles in every category! 

Finally, the best sobriety test game ever...Memory. I don't have a picture of this one because it was getting late and my phone was being used for music, but it's a travel one with illustrated nature images. So there's luna moths, and hermit crabs, and bees on a flower, and kangaroos. It's the cutest game ever. I lost, though. Bryce holds his Carnival of Love better than me. 

Instead of swimming we took advantage of the jacuzzi. I sort of think it's a rule, right? If you have a jacuzzi in your room you HAVE to use it...or have a really good reason for not. It was very relaxing and I could pretend I was in a pool. Except instead I was in a bathroom the size of my living room. 

On Halloween itself we usually exchange Halloween cards, because we've done the anniversary ones on the 23rd. Last year we both gave each other mummy themed cards, which was strangely synchronized. Every year for four years now I get an Anniversary Ghoul -- a scary drawing from Bryce inside my card. It's fun to guess what it's going to be. The first one was a werewolf. The year after that was a Walking Dead zombie, very well done. Last year was a full color Pennywise from It. Which was TERRIFYING. 

This year? The front of my card was this: 

Inside it says, "I mean, BOO! What was I thinking?" HA HA HA

As soon as I saw the guy in the hat I knew. I KNEW WHAT MY GHOUL WAS GOING TO BE. 

Have you seen The Babadook? A film from Australia that is both smart and absolutely terrifying? Well, if you have, then you would think the same thing. 

OH HOLY JEEZUM, THE BABADOOK IS IN MY CARD. 

And he was. As a POP UP, no less: 

AAAAA! Bryce is so talented, but AAAAA!

He popped up at me, and then I saw the background. Yeah, that's the view of our bedroom FROM OUR BED. So he's coming for me in my own space!!!! It was an excellent ghoul. SO UNSETTLING, especially because the pop-up feature is very accurate, but perfect. 

We gave out candy on Halloween, and basically had celebrated ourselves out. We made all FOUR trick-or-treaters happy with the full-sized candy bars we hand out to try to get a bigger crowd the following year (this is our fourth year doing that and still no dice). We ate pumpkin pasta bake with apple sausage. We had some wine. We watched a fabulous black and white horror movie (recent and foreign) called A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. If you haven't seen it, give it a go. It's beautifully filmed. 

It was a perfect anniversary, really. A weeklong celebration of our marriage that we've kept strong through so many trials, a celebration of our foundation that we keep strong for the two of us and for that elusive Mystery Baby, wherever he or she may be.