Carrie-Anne’s Guide to Top Drawer Business Traveling

1. When you have a 60 pound booth to set up, do like every other business does and have it shipped ahead of you to the EXACT LOCATION where it is supposed to be assembled. DO NOT have it shipped to the nearest UPS store thinking it would be easier to haul it yourself. Hint: In California, nobody holds the door open for you while you struggle through with your crap.

2. When you go to pick up your rental car, go ahead and pay the additional $5 to get a bigger car. Go ahead and get the $23.50 insurance. They ask you lots of questions really quickly and everything they say seems like the smartest and most sensible thing you ever heard. Just make sure you know that they are talking “per day.” But it’s okay…your company will reimburse you after you get home and explain why you spent an additional $40 a day on a car you’ve driven 18 miles so far. And don’t forget the $10 a day hotel parking fee.

3. Make sure you know what size the refrigerator in your hotel room is before you buy groceries and a 12 pack of beer.

4. Learn this two word phrase, ”Expense it.” This does not, however, apply to a day pass to Disneyland, even though the restaurant you want to eat at, which your company WILL pay for, is inside the park. Hey, a girl has to try!

5. When at a business convention, make sure you bring pens, coffee mugs, candy, something…ANYTHING for people to take. They feign interest in your company until they look down and see you have nothing to offer them other than pricing brochures and a business card. They really don’t care.

6. While at a conference with a big student population in attendance, let them use their big new words like algorithm and hydrological. They know more than you – just ask them. They don’t eat meat and they smoke two packs of cigarettes a day because they love nature.

7. Make GOOD friends with the gal who brought pecan pralines to hand out. BEST friends in fact.

8. Drink all the complimentary coffee you can. It’s the only thing you don’t have to hang on to a receipt for.

9. DO NOT let on to anyone that you are traveling completely by yourself. Otherwise you get asked to dinner by convention attendees and vendors in the booth across from you who don’t care that you are wearing a wedding ring (they certainly don’t care that they’re wearing theirs).

10. It is not advisable that you drink the huge glass of complimentary wine after a very long, busy and emotionally trying day when the only things you have eaten are thin "fancy" crackers and cheese that smells like ass. Well, on second thought, maybe that’s the perfect time for a free drink!

Ovaries on the Ceiling...

Right now I am sitting in my exhibition booth in the Anaheim Marriott ballroom at the SPE Regional Conference. It is beautiful here! I’m including some pictures of the gardens and flowers I’ve seen around the hotels and convention center. My gardening self is in heaven!

I have never seen so many birds of paradise! I may have to try growing them at home. I just don’t know how much they would like Northeast Texas.

I am also completely surrounded by men at this conference. Which, being a female engineer, is not uncommon. I find it amusing, though, to watch these men as they meet up in the hotel lobbies and cocktail lounges, and sit around showing each other how big their penises are. I’m speaking metaphorically, of course, but really, why else do they have open urinals?

I think I’ve talked to Josh about 7 times today. It was very lonely waking up this morning alone rather than with Josh and anywhere from 2 to 4 animals on the bed with us. I even positioned some of the pillows so that my feet had no room to move - just like home!

The lights above my head in the Exhibit Hall remind me of my ovaries. Hey, could that be a fertilized egg I see?

Working Ovary Time

I have never been so in tune with my body. Prior to May 16th I had no idea that it was possible to “feel” my ovaries. I have felt them swell, ache, cramp, respond to hormones and I’m pretty sure that yesterday afternoon my left ovary was piping Barry White through my fallopian tubes.

And so it has been - Josh and I at the mercy of my reproductive system. Tomorrow morning I leave for my business trip and won’t be back until Sunday afternoon (4 nights away). By all the extensive calculating I’ve been doing, and banking on Clomid giving my ovaries a metaphorical swift kick in the pants, I should be ovulating as I type. I don’t know if ovarian cramping is any indication that ovulation is about to take place, but I have definitely been feeling some pressure from the gal on the left for the past few days. I’m banking on the fact that she’s my over achiever.

I must say that I have absolutely loved the past five days with Josh. We were just talking at lunch today about how much fun it is to plan our rendezvous, especially during my lunch hour (which the past few work days has been more like 2 hours). It’s like we have our own little secret – our own special world together where we just enjoy each other. Then we both go on about our days with a mischievous little smirk, a little less stressed for the rest of the day.

Meet Gerbie, the Garden Monster...

This is my Garden Monster, Gerbie. He’s in charge of keeping the cats from peeing on my ferns.

Well, in between work and all the baby making, Josh and I worked in the yard yesterday and gave our three dogs baths. I still have a hydrangea bush, a rose bush and three plants to get in the ground, but I’m getting closer to having an awesome front yard. I had a nice little gardening surprise yesterday...it looks like we’re going to have pumpkins! I can’t wait to watch them grow!

Things have been so busy lately…which is a blessing for my brain. The more I have to do, the less time I spend sitting around giving pep talks to my ovaries.

Josh and I are staying positive. We are enjoying planning our rendezvous. I am taking a business trip to Anaheim this week and will be gone from Wednesday morning until Sunday afternoon. Dr. S gave us a 10 day ovulation window and my trip will cut into a couple of those days, but my peak ovulation is, fortunately, the days just before I leave. Josh works the 3-11pm shift so lunchtime will fast become an exciting time for us, and will undoubtedly relieve the afternoon stress at work!

My advice - plan some afternoon delights with your man!

Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. —Ecclesiastes 9:9

OK Boys, DO YOUR DUTY!!

Eggs meet sperm. Sperm, GET ‘EM!!

Gentlemen, over the next 10 days you will engage in a full blown assault! I’m talking to YOU semen! Don’t dilly dally around the cervix like a bunch of whiny school girls…YOU’RE MEN!! Charge the cervix! Find the egg! Victory is yours men!

CHAAAARGE!!!

Round one complete…

Well I have just taken my fifth and final pill on my first round of Clomid. *deep breath, let it out slow*

I’ve read so many stories of women with first round success stories or third round success stories, but also very sad and painful stories. I’ve read about women, like myself, who have thought they have been pregnant, shown all the early symptoms and let the excitement creep in, only to feel disappointment when they started their next cycle.

Every one of these women with stories of false positives and disappointments have said, ”Maybe next month,” or “We’ll try another round and maybe then my body will be ready.” These women are so brave and so determined NOT to let their hopes falter. These women, like me, want to experience the rawest, purest form of being a woman pregnant with a child – to feel our bodies swelling and changing and growing new life within us. Is it possible to ‘will’ yourself to be pregnant? If it were, I have no doubt there would be a lot more happy new mommies out there!

I am pretty bad about worrying. I think about things and I rethink them and then I reenact scenarios and look at all possible ways to and from and around the thing that I am worrying about. I am learning to take a proactive approach in every worrying instance in order to face more circumstances head on. And I’ve also learned that I don’t need to be involved in everything in order to feel like I’m doing something. Taking a step back from filling up my schedule outside of work with personal commitments has really helped me get my life back into perspective and I get so much more enjoyment out of my daily life than ever before.

"And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?" Matthew 6:27 (NIV)

I pray that God continues to work in my life and in Josh’s life. I pray for the strength to persevere no matter the outcome. My faith and my trust are in God. Guide me in the direction of Your will.

“Fertility drug,” I pondered…

The past couple of days at work have been fast paced 12 hour long exhausting days. I didn’t use commas in that sentence because lately there have been no commas in my day. With my body doing weird Clomid things, it’s certainly made life more interesting throughout the day. I was very tired last night and climbed into bed about two hours later than I had hoped. It was a little chilly in our room and as I crawled under the sheets I made this comment to Josh, “I hope the hot flashes come back again soon so I can warm up.” Well, I would like to formally redact that statement. I made this declaration to Josh at about 3:30am. I didn’t think he heard me, so I woke him up and told him again.

I sometimes wonder how in the world any of us made it through life without the knowledge power of the internet. I am a Google-maniac. I love researching. Any question or interest I have, I always check out what the internet community has to say about it; the more information and stories and experiences I can find, the better. I don’t know what I would have done the past several weeks had it not been for the internet. I have found so many women who have gone through exactly what Josh and I have been going through. My heart goes out to every single woman whose stories and experiences I have read. It’s very comforting to know that I’m not alone.

After my lab work, blood test, sonogram, Josh’s lab work, my (terribly painful) HSG all came back normal (with the exception of the HSG – I had one slightly blocked tube that opened up during the test), Dr. S said we would start Clomid. “I’m sorry what was that?” I asked using my best infomercial imitation. “Clomid,” Dr. S confidently replied. “It’s a fertility drug that will give your ovaries a little ovulation booster.”

“Fertility drug,” I pondered. Hmmmm….My only knowledge of fertility drugs were of octomoms, john-plus-kates, and the like. In all honesty, I really didn’t have that much knowledge about my entire reproductive system. From the beginning of all of this, I stumbled through the medical questions they asked me, not knowing many of the terms they were using or what they were even asking me. I could probably calculate the math behind the control systems of the sonogram equipment they used, but ask me a medical question and you will not get an intelligent response. I even showed up for my sonogram (cycle day 1) unshaven and wearing a tampon because I thought they were just going to rub some gel on my belly and run that scanner around over my ‘above surface’ uterine area to check things out. I didn’t find out that Dr. S was going subsurface until they were all in the room and I had a sheet wrapped around my lower half. I had to get back off the table and run to the restroom. I kept wondering why I had to undress!

It’s so comforting to know that lots of women are going through what I am. It’s comforting to know that I have a husband who loves me and is going through all of this with me – every second of it. It’s comforting to know that God is with me through all of the pain and uncomfortable circumstances. My faith is in Him. He knows what is best and He is preparing us for what He has in store.

Psalm 27:13, "I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." (NKJV)

God Bless!