Four

A quartet, a foursome...


The word four has four letters. In the English language there is no other number whose number of letters is equal to its value.


The number four on a calculator is made up of four light bars.


Many things are arranged in fours. There are four suits in a deck of cards, four points of the compass, and four phases of the moon. There are four wings on a bee and four leaves on a clover, if you are lucky.


The four seasons are spring, summer, autumn and winter. 


A tetrahedron is a kind of pyramid with four triangular faces. It also has four corners. *

Best of all 4 years is how long I have been married.  

Today is my wedding anniversary (and my husband's too - fancy that!)  Yes I know it is April Fools Day - we thought it was fitting after our false start the previous year when we had to cancel 5 weeks out from the big day.

We have been together for 9 years all up and it has been a wonderful adventure.  We have had many ups and definitely our fair share of downs too but we have stuck it out and we're still very much in love.  He makes me laugh every day (sometimes with and sometimes at) and that is really all I need.

* This information shamelessly stolen from HERE.
** The idea for this post even more shamelessly stolen from the amazing and clever Mrs Woog

HCG Update

All the twin speculation is over - we had a scan today and can categorically tell you there is not two babies in there.

Unfortunately that is about all we know for sure right now.  After such wonderful HCG levels so far, yesterday's blood test caused some concern with only a very small rise in the 4 days since our last test.  The clinic was understandably concerned and thus the ultrasound this morning.

The scan showed a bleed in my uterus which also happened with our pregnancy which gave us Noah so in itself may not be too terrible.  The scan also showed one good size egg sack albeit sitting lower than is optimum.  It's too early for a foetal heartbeat so it's impossible for them to determine if the sac they can see is still a viable pregnancy.  Blood tests will provide better information so we have another one on Saturday morning and then another scan in a week.

All we can do now is hope and pray and take it one day at a time.  It has always been the limbo that is the hardest part of IVF.  We are back in a holding pattern - the initial excitement replaced with worry and fear but we will certainly be trying to be optimistic.



P.S.  Sorry for the lack of light and fluffy Easter posts promised but I'm sure you understand.  I will still be drawing the winners of the hot cross buns from all the peeps who commented over the week.  Last comments that can be included will be Saturday April 2nd at midnight (WST)

Where do you draw the line??

I am not a budget food shopper.  I didn't grow up in a budget home.  We always had lots of nice food and nothing was really out of bounds.

I am not a loyal shopper - I flirt with them all making no commitments to one favourite supermarket. I shop at IGA sometimes even though I know it is more expensive but hey it is open 7 days 12 hours a day and it's convenient.

If I'm shopping and an item we need is on special I may buy extra and 'stock up' but that's about as far as it goes.

When I was in primary school I had a friend whose mum would read all the catalogues and make shopping lists for every store based on what was on special in each one.  I admired her dedication but even back then at the ripe old age of 12 it seemed to me to be a false economy.  All that time and effort to save a few dollars overall.

I knew another woman who would take a small paring knife shopping with her and actually cut the ends off the beans so she didn't pay for any weight she didn't need.

I remember my mum telling me stories about my Nanna coveting stone fruit but not buying it because it was too expensive.  It's a scenario I simply cannot imagine but today when I went to buy 2 largish bananas and it was going to cost  $6 - I had to draw the line.  I'm sure I've paid as much before - probably the last time there was a banana shortage - but it would have been hidden in a larger grocery bill. Seeing it broken down like that was just too confronting.  On an average day Noah eats 2 bananas sometimes 3 - that's a minimum $42 a week banana habit.

Are you a budget shopper?  Are you a disciple of the catalogues and specials?  Have you bought any bananas lately??

A Camping Weekend

HCG Update

As of Saturday my HCG level is 3960.

These were the stats my husband had compiled previously -
Day 21 = Sat

Single = 1929

Twins = 2896

Kirsty = ???

I think we can all see where this seems to be heading.  Some people are even starting to utter the word Triplets - god help me.

Tune in tomorrow for more frightening HCG numbers.  

Twins??

The twin speculation around these parts has hit a fever pitch.  We eagerly await the results of each blood test for Hcg levels to try and see if they can shed any light.  We will know for sure one way or another in only a few weeks when we have our first scan but still we care very impatient.

My husband  has done literally hours of research on the Internet (google can be such a dangerous tool in the wrong hands!!) and being the super nerd that he is has created a graph.

Yes - a graph.  He has mapped known Hcg levels according to a couple of research studies he found and has added my results to the graph.

As you can see from the graph my levels are tracking high.

Here is the exact email my gorgeous crazy husband sent me Wednesday

Day 12 (Thurs)

Kirsty = 100

Day 14 (Sat)

Single = 142

Twins = 212

Kirsty = 400

Day 16 = Mon

Single = 321

Twins = 481

Day 18 = Wed

Kirsty = 1600

Day 21 = Sat

Single = 1929

Twins = 2896

Kirsty = ???

I’ve plotted this up below. Call me a scientist, but I reckon we’re headed for twins!!

Blood results on Saturday would be very interesting/informative – maybe I should take Monday off work, so we can head down south after bloods on Saturday and stay Sat/Sun night instead of Fri/Sat??

Just in case there is any confusion yes he is suggesting we change the dates of our planned camping weekend  just so we can have a blood test exactly at Day 21 for the purposes of 'the graph' and yes I agreed to it.

Ah bless him and his nerdy ways.  In the end what will be will be but we are very excited for the prospect of twins as this will almost definitely be our last pregnancy.  Either way we are feeling very lucky just to be pregnant after such a long challenging journey this time around.

I'll keep you posted

As I was typing this my husband called to tell me he is leaving work early to go and line up to buy an iPad 2 when they are released at 5pm - does the nerdiness know no bounds??