THE call. The one we fear most.

How would I react if my phone rang, and it was the chief telling me I needed to come to the hospital because Mr. FEO was hurt? How would you react if it was your significant other?

I've gone over that scenario so many times and so many different ways in my head over the last four years that I don't think I'll ever really be prepared if that day actually does come. Just when you think you've covered every possible tragedy, something happens to shock you into place.

My girlfriends, M and J, got calls this morning. They were told to come to the hospital. The names of the injured hadn't been released yet. The media is certainly no help in this. They didn't know if their husbands were okay. I'm not even sure how they made it to the hospital. Adrenaline must kick in at some point. Thank GOD their husbands are both okay, physically. The girls are a wreck and the men are worse. Mr. FEO's best man (M’s husband) was literally 10 feet from disaster ... he told my husband that he could leave work in the morning and never go back. He has two little girls at home. J’s husband was transporting one of the injured. They have two little girls at home too.

However, there are some very brave men in critical condition tonight. Some very brave wives are by their sides surrounded by family (both biological and the fire family) and friends. It was a rough day for firefighters and their families around here. I’ve spent the better part of the day alternately crying and staring into space trying to calm the pit in my stomach.

Please send your prayers to these brave firefighters and their families.

So I come back to the question … how would I react if I got that call? My husband was safe at his fire station miles away from where this all happened. But bad fires can happen in any city, at any time.

And I am scared out of my mind of that.

Going Crazy!

I am so nervous for my appointment on Friday.

I hate hearing "Oh you didn't ovulate" time and time again.

And I'm nervous that if they say I did ovulate, and I've been taking cold medicine, that I'll end up causing birth defects of my phantom unborn child, and feel guilty for the rest of my life.

UGHHHHHH. Why couldn't I just stay healthy??

Still Sick.

Yes, I'm still WAY under the weather, and last night was probably the worst of all so far with the coughing.

I don't know if it's because last night was the first night I opted not to put Vicks Vapo-Rub on my chest or if the cough was just going to be bad regardless.

I'm taking Sudafed for the congestion (even though it's not "pregnancy safe") because I need the relief. I'm quite sure I'm not pregnant right now. If I even ovulated this cycle, it was probably not until sometime yesterday, or maybe early today. Being sick though, I'm not really sure.

I'm also taking a prescription cough pill (which the doctor at the urgent care said is safe for pregnancy) that seems to help during the day, but I tell you ... as soon as I try to lay down, I just cough and cough and cough. I have NO voice.

I'm guessing I'm going to stay home for one more day just to try to rest up some. I am trying not to use any of my leave because on the slim chance we do get pregnant, I am going to want to have at least 8 weeks off. I have about 12 weeks total in my bank right now, so I'm okay and I know we'll cross that bridge when it comes. Still, I am trying to be careful.

As for calling in tomorrow ... that will be the 4th time in 7 years that I've called in. It's just not something I do lightly, and I feel horribly guilty every.single.time which is why I so rarely do. Luckily, I was already off today, so it didn't count!!

On Friday, I'll go for my b/w and u/s to check my response this cycle. I'm not going to hold my breath, but I'll update one way or the other afterwards!

Happy?? Monday!

A new low.

I'm sick. As in, haven't slept in 3 nights because I've been coughing. Now I've got some mild congestion along with the aches.

I had sex last night ... and then, right after, had a huge fit of coughing and threw up. Luckily I ran to the bathroom as soon as I realized what was about to happen, but talk about embarrassing.

Is this what TTC has become? Forced sex while sick that results in vomiting? Never mind the fact that I'm sick as a dog is probably going to prevent me from ovulating anyway.

Ugh. I feel like such an idiot.

So we spent 3 hours today at the urgent care where they gave me a breathing treatment, a new inhaler and some cough pills for the coughing. I can continue to take the regular claritin and also tylenol as needed (since the coughing is making my head, back and neck hurt like crazy).

I am so ready to just be healthy again!!!!

CD14 and allergy hell.

I promised updates on my cycle along this journey, so here's a bitty one :)

Friday started our every-other-day adventure in baby-making. It works out rather well, as that's CD 9, 11, 13 so far ... and we'll get 15, 17 and 18 in there before Mr. FEO leaves for a 3 day stretch at the fire station from CD 19-21, coming home in the morning on CD 22, then leaving again for 24 more hours on CD 23. BLAH to the fire service for that schedule.

I hope that if I'm going to O, it happens sometime this week, before he leaves on Monday morning. That would be the ideal world ... but who knows. I probably won't anyway ... but I'm letting it be more fun this time. The vacation helped A LOT with all that.

I have my next u/s on CD 23 to see if I responded to the meds this time. If not, I'll start provera because I am going to insist on a visit from AF this time. I need that time to be depressed and move on!

I'm also soooo sick right now, well allergies sick, because of the F'ing COTTONWOOD monsters. My chest is tight and I'm coughing up a lung, my head hurts, my throat hurts and yes, I'm a big baby. Because of the study, I can only take pregnancy safe medications - so just plain old Claritin (which doesn't work) and Tylenol (which also doesn't work and gives me a stomach ache). I was up all night because of the sore throat and I'm MISERABLE. I just want to curl into a ball and do nothing for the rest of the month until those trees are done wrecking havoc on my system. This can't be good for TTC.

I can't work out either, because it's in my chest and that's just not healthy. :::cries softly:::

Can we go back up north now???

A Romantic Getaway!

Okay, so when I say that Mr. FEO and I took a romantic getaway for the weekend, you probably wouldn't believe me when I say that this was one of the first things we saw:

But, as a matter of fact, it was! Right after we checked into the inn and got some information from the innkeeper, we went on a drive ... and this is what we saw along the way :)

I have no idea why the pictures didn't upload in the order I wanted them, but it's okay ... I'll go with it! This is Mr. FEO and I with the spectacular view from Willow Vineyards behind us, on part of our winery tour on Saturday.

We went to our first two wineries, and as we were on our way to the third, we were driving through Suttons Bay, and what do we see .... an old fire station that has been converted to a pub! Of course we had to stop, and have a quick beer. Why not? We were drinking away the afternoon anyway, and it was a nice change for Mr. FEO who isn't much of a wine drinker.

I think this is my favorite picture of the two of us from the entire weekend. We had just pulled up at our first winery (the one most highly recommended by the innkeeper), and met this nice older guy outside (turnes out he's the OWNER of the place!) who offered to take us over to the exact spot where the GPS's determied was the 45th parallel - the exact halfway point between the equator and the north pole. He told us the story and also how there are several couples every year who want to get married at that exact spot. We think it's totally romantic and altogether a great story.

Before checking into the inn, we had a little over an hour to spend beforehand, so we did a little bit of sightseeing. This picture is from the Maritime museum. The story here is that the Coast Guard workers would use a little train car to pull their boats to the end of the tracks you see here (they were never any longer than this) and then drag the boats across the dune sand to the lake in the distance. It was closer than it looks here, but you couldn't pay me to do that, that's for sure!

Anyway, now for what was supposed to be the beginning of this post:

Mr. FEO and I needed a vacation. All the stress in our lives was really getting to us. Sooo, smart man that he is, he suggested that we take a trip up to Northwest Michigan. We did some wine tasting at a few wineries (45 North, Cherry Republic, Willow Vineyards and Black Star Farms) and one cidery (Tandem Ciders). We also drove along the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive which had some spectacular views, we went to the Sleeping Bear Dunes Coast Guard Maritime Museum and made short stops in Leland (aka Fishtown), Suttons Bay and finally Traverse City on our way home.

All on his own my dearest husband found this bed and breakfast ... The Sylvan Inn in Glen Arbor ... and made a reservation for us to have the "Treetop Room" which is the top floor of the back building seen here toward the left of the picture.

We spent two nights at the Sylvan Inn, and hope to make this an annual Memorial Day trip for us, which would be absolutely wonderful.

What a VIEW!! Not just of the lake either ... Mr. FEO is quite a looker :) I love this picture of him!!

A self portrait of us ... we always have these on our trips because we don't generally feel comfortable asking strangers to take our picture (the exception being the winery owners who helped us out for the above pictures)!

Lake Michigan ... in the distance you can see one of the Manitou Islands, which are said to represent the bear cubs that gave Sleeping Bear Dunes its name. I kept repeating over and over again during this vacation that it was so hard to believe that we were still in Michigan. Looking at this lake is exactly like looking at the ocean.

We went down to the beach on Saturday night to watch the sunset ... it was absolutely gorgeous and I am so glad we were able to see this on our last night in paradise.

I leave this vacation feeling completely refreshed and ready to tackle the next few months. We have a very busy summer, and this was a fantastic way to kick it off!!!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!!

Opening back up!

Well, I decided not to keep this private anymore.

So here I am ... back to the blogging world allowing readers and followers :)

I'm having an exceptionally bad day, infertility-wise, but Mr. FEO and I are leaving to Glen Arbor, Michigan for the long weekend tomorrow morning. Even though we have to cut it a day short since he has to work on Monday, it's well worth it. We need this vacation!!!!

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Another new cycle.

I went in for what I assumed to be my 7dpo (or thereabouts) ultrasound and bloodwork on Friday, 5/21, which was CD 26 of my cycle.

I did not ovulate. There is no possible chance of ovulating this cycle. Sorry, dear, the meds just didn't work this time. Gee, thanks.

I had taken the lowest dose of the mystery drug possible (so it was either 50mg of Clomid or 2.5mg of Femara).

My lining was at 5 and I had no measurable follies (despite having "lots of good follies" at my previous check - where the hell did they all go??? Oh yeah, they become more PCOS cysts).

Because my lining was good, they told me that Saturday would become CD 3 of my next cycle - without ever having AF. Not that I'm going to complain about not having a visit from AF, but this gave me literally no time to relax and move on from the failed cycle. Not to mention no break from the forced, every-other-day sexcapade we have been on.

Don't get me wrong, I love my husband, and sex is a good thing ... but when we don't have a choice in the matter, it starts to become blah. I'm sure anyone going through treatments and forced TI can relate.

I found all this out on Friday ... after one of the craziest weeks of fertile people at work ever. Two of my coworkers had babies this past week, and two others announced pregnancies. So in the middle of the staff meeting on Thursday (right after the pregnancy announcements), my coworker said "WOW, we have such a fertile office! Hey, Mrs. FEO, when are you going to be announcing your news?" ... I spent the next few hours at my desk trying to concentrate on everything BUT that ... when all I really wanted to do was just sob and sob and sob. And then I get the text that my other pregnant friend gave birth to her baby minutes after the staff meeting.

And now I'm on CD 4 (I still can't get over the fact that this is a new cycle) and will take my second dose of mystery pills tonight. I'm taking double what I took last cycle. (100mg Clomid or 5mg Femara).

Based on my s/e, I' pretty sure it's Femara ... no real mood swings or headaches like I experienced with Clomid when I took it in December, and all it does is make me seriously exhausted.

I feel like a broken excuse for a woman, and I don't like that. Sometimes I'm temped to just go back on BCP's and say forget it. But damn, I want to be a mom. I want to experience pregnancy. I wonder all the time why this happened to me. I wish I'd never gone on birth control. I want to blame the BCP's. I want to be NORMAL. I want to have sex and get pregnant. I don't want to give 5+ vials of blood every 3 weeks. I don't want to have ultrasounds 3x/month.

I'm scared that the pills alone aren't going to work and I worry that we won't be able to afford future treatments outside of the study.

I just want to F'ing OVULATE ONE TIME so that I know I can do it. That's all I'm asking right now. Please?!?

How is this even a little bit ok?

Mr. FEO works for a busy fire department. Not quite the D, but close enough in regards to the amount of fires they get and the type of clientele they service.

He is the officer in charge of one of the engine companies. He has been with this department since 1996. (I tease him about this because I was still in high school at that time - bad wifey! LOL)

The engine company he currently works on - which used to have 2 firefighters, one driver and one officer - is now diminished to one firefighter (who has to drive) and one officer (Mr. FEO).

Mr. FEO had to pull hose into a burning dwelling ALONE last week, while the firefighter ran the pump. It took the other engine companies (from across town) over 5min longer to get there. I realize it wasn't a super long time to be alone in a fire, but any amount of time alone in a burning building is too much if you ask me.

I hate the fact that Mr. FEO and the rest of his department took 14% paycuts last year to prevent layoffs, AND they didn't replace those who left due to injury or retirement. I don't think it's fair that he does one of the most dangerous jobs and continues to receive less and less in return, especially since if the new budget doesn't pass they are going to have to lay off the guys they saved last year with the paycut.

It scares the living daylights out of me that he is being required to do things like this, and who knows how often? I'm sure he doesn't tell me everything because he doesn't want me to worry.

I just don't think it's right and I wish there was something to be done.

If I worried about him when he was at work before, this worry has quadrupled now. Hug your significant others and tell them you love them every chance you get! You just never know what tomorrow will bring.

Praying for O.

Well, let me say this. I'm on CD 17.

This means that IF I'm going to ovulate this cycle, it is going to happen sometime this week. Whether it already has or not is a mystery for now.

Timed sex sucks in general, because you really get no say in the matter. It doesn't matter if you're too tired, not feeling well or just plain not in the mood - you HAVE to do the deed. And then write it down in a journal to give to the study coordinator. But one benefit of it is that I'm guaranteed to get some ... looking at the bright side. I do feel bad for Mr. FEO though since he is beginning to feel like a sperm bank. But for his bright side, he gets some too!! :)

But like a good friend told me yesterday, the end result will be totally worth the headaches and the hassles. She always has a way to cheer me up!! <3 She knows who she is <3

I did have some possible O pains yesterday (well, I could feel some stabby twinges in the general vicinity of my left ovary), so it's entirely possible that my mystery pills are working. And really, even if we don't conceive our miracle this cycle, I'll be happy just to see that I O'd.

I'll certainly be better about keeping this updated as things progress.

Also, I'm considering reopening this to a public blog? Thoughts????

Have a great day, my friends!!

A poem

Someone I know posted this poem today, and while I don't know the origin or the author, I thought it was fitting, and I wanted to share.

There are women that become mothers without effort, without thought, without patience or loss and though they are good mothers and love their children, I know that I will be better.

I will be better not because of genetics, or money or that I have read more books but because I have struggled and toiled for this child. I have longed and waited. I have cried and prayed. I have endured and planned over and over again.

Like most things in life, the people who truly have appreciation are those who have struggled to attain their dreams.I will notice everything about my child.I will take time to watch my child sleep, explore and discover.I will marvel at this miracle every day for the rest of my life.I will be happy when I wake in the middle of the night to the sound of my child, knowing that I can comfort, hold and feed him and that I am not waking to take another temperature, pop another pill, take another shot or cry tears of a broken dream. My dream will be crying for me.

I count myself lucky in this sense; that I have been given me this insight, this special vision with which I will look upon my child that my friends will not see.

Whether I parent a child I actually give birth to or a child that I am led to, I will not be careless with my love.

I will be a better mother for all that I have endured.I am a better wife, a better aunt, a better daughter, neighbor, friend and sister because I have known pain.I know disillusionment as I have been betrayed by my own body. I have been tried by fire and hell many never face, yet given time, I stood tall.

I have prevailed. I have succeeded. I have won.

So now, when others hurt around me, I do not run from their pain in order to save myself discomfort. I see it, mourn it, and join them in theirs.I listen.

And even though I cannot make it better, I can make it less lonely. I have learned the immense power of another hand holding tight to mine, of other eyes that moisten as they learn to accept the harsh truth and when life is beyond hard. I have learned a compassion that only comes with walking in those shoes.

I have learned to appreciate life. Yes I will be a wonderful mother.

A PCOS Study.

Well, my friends, I am a research guinea pig!

Today I was poked and prodded in ways I've never before experienced.

I had a balloon inserted into my uterus, inflated, and had a saline solution that felt like liquid fire flushed through to make certain my tubes were open (and they are). It felt like 10 years, but really I think it was about 10 minutes, including the ultrasound - during which the balloon was inflated. I have over 30 cysts on each ovary. I almost started crying. I didn't want to hear that. Then they said these were not problematic cysts, just proof of my PCOS, so I felt a little better.

I had 10 vials of blood taken from me on an empty stomach that had been fasting since about 7pm yesterday.

I almost passed out from the blood draw (the whole hearing became muffled, I felt dizzy and was seeing spots thing), but thankfully I had a protein bar in my purse and some gatorade in the car, so I was okay after that.

I had my annual pap and breast exam.

They checked my vitals (and my nervous, racing heart made my blood pressure look too high at 135/95).

I've been cramping all day - still feels like liquid fire. "it will feel like menstrual cramps" HAHA no, not at all.

I have to start provera again in about 10 days after my bloodwork and pap results come back. This will have been my shortest cycle yet.

I start the study meds on CD3 of the next cycle. Less than a month away now!

Holy cow, I could be pregnant in a month. Or at least sometime in the next 5 cycles!! It's been a long road, and with a lot of bumps and uncertainty. I hope that this study gives us the result we've been waiting for.

And if not, then I'm already under the care of a specialist, and we'll be moving on to injectible meds and IUI.

At least we have a path that we're happy with!!

Happy Monday!!

Provera is the DEVIL.

NFT.

Positive Moments

In the midst of my terrible hormone-induced headache, insatiable appetite and the intense desire to lay down under my desk and take a nap, I have decided to battle the worst side effect of side effects - bad moods and irritability - with 10 days of positive thinking.

Today is Day 3 of 10 days of provera ... I mean 10 days of positivity.

My positive moment of today is that I will be going to cycle class tonight at the gym for 60min of amazing cardio. I love how I feel when I leave that class, even when I feel like I might die during the ride. I'm also happy that Mr. FEO took a sick day today and will be home with me tonight! (he's not sick, just had a long day teaching yesterday).

Have a POSITIVE day, my friends!!

Need to go private!

Faithful readers,

I need to make my blog private for awhile ... please send me an email or leave a comment with your email address, so I can send you the password information if you still want to be a reader.

I'll be making the change over the weekend.

THANK YOU FRIENDS!!

Love and Hate.

I both hate and love Mr. FEO's work schedule.

The love part - we sometimes have random days off together, and someday if we're ever lucky enough to be parents, we won't really need daycare since he's home a lot.

The hate part is much more extensive. I have gone to many weddings and parties on my own because Mr. FEO is stuck at the station for 24, 48, 96 or however many hours in a row. I have another wedding to attend in October....

(SIDEBAR: I just got totally interrupted by our office senior aides asking me useless questions about what mail I get - um, I get the mail addressed to me???? And they still had my maiden name on the form they were using - I changed my name 18 months ago and there's a big name plate on my cube AND mailbox in the back ... anyway, I lost my train of thought - GAH, I'm so ADD sometimes)

....Where was I? Oh yeah... I'm doing the reading at church for the wedding I'm attending in October. I'm bitter about not being a bridesmaid - this was my closest college friend who I lived with for 6 years - but that's beside the point. Mr. FEO can't come to this wedding with me because he's working. So I'm bringing one of my girlfriends because frankly, I don't really even want to go. I'm really hurt by the fact she didn't even ask me to be a bridesmaid. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding AND did one of our readings.

So I hate going to weddings and parties alone. That part sucks about Mr. FEO's work schedule.

But something else that sucks? If he wants someone to work for him without having to pay it back, we have to PAY the other person. For example, he's coming home from work around 9pm tonight since he has to teach at the college tomorrow morning. So someone is coming in for the second 12 hours of the shift ... this week and next week. We have to pay him union rate for the hours so that Mr. FEO won't have to work two 12 hour shifts for him in return. $360. So all the money he'll earn teaching is going right to this kid. What's the point????

The plus side of that I guess is that he'll sleep in bed with me tonight. <3

I think that's the hardest part ... some people say I'm fortunate that my husband is gone a lot. I don't necessarily agree. I am sometimes jealous of my friends who have husbands who work normal jobs and are home every night. I mean, can you see how having him gone a lot is probably hindering our TTC efforts too? Not that I ovulate, but if I did?

Was there really a point to this post? I don't think so. But I'm a bad blogger and wanted to say SOMETHING!!!

A trip to the Windy City

Two weeks ago, Mr. FEO and I took the train to Chicago to celebrate his 37th birthday. It was a great trip, so I thought I'd share just a couple of pictures from that weekend.




This is an old fire station, and of course we had to take a picture of it. We usually scout out a few different stations on our trips to Chicago, and this one was my favorite one that we saw this time.

When it's just the two of us traveling together, it's hard to get pictures together, unless they're self portraits, so this was a unique opportunity to take a self portrait in a mirrored sphere in Millenium Park, so you can actually see all of us, and not just our heads!

The building with the gold top is the Carbide and Carbon Building - The Hard Rock Hotel, where we always stay when we visit Chicago.

The hotel sign!!

This picture is one that I really like from this trip. The reflection on the water is really pretty, and it was a beautiful clear evening!

On our trip to Chicago I also discovered that I like Blue Moon beer. And maybe I drank a few ... and although I'd lost 9 lbs before going on the trip, I gained 4 lbs back while we were there. How that happens over a 4 day weekend, I will never understand, but whatever.

As of yesterday morning, I have officially lost 10 lbs!!! So it took me an extra 2 weeks to get to this mini-goal because of the backwards movement I had from our trip, but I am so happy!!

All in all, 2010 is turning out pretty good so far!

Looks like we'll always be condo dwellers.

I'm not happy to report that Mr. FEO and I found out over the weekend that we did not get the house that we offered on.

Why, you ask?

Because the bank accepted the other offer.

There were shady dealings going on. We're pretty sure that the realtor bought this house herself. We also don't think that the offer they accepted was put in until after ours (because she waited until we submitted ours to actually put hers in, and then made ours the 2nd offer). Additionally, we got a call on Wednesday last week that she was going to call us on Friday with a counter offer on our offer. When the call came on Friday, it was for her to tell us that we didn't get the house. She is such a lying scammer. Now we're waiting until this Friday, in case the deal falls through on the financing, but then we're going to demand a formal letter of rejection of our offer ... which basically means that the house can't sell for less than our offer.

It's maddening, I tell you!!!

In happier news ... I've lost 9 lbs (well, probably 10 but I had a lot to drink the night before my weigh in, so we'll see next week!) in the last 5 weeks. This is a refreshing change, and I'm SO glad to finally see some progress in the right direction!!

4 weeks ago today...

We made an offer on a house.

We still don't have an answer.

When I said I was going to lose all my hair over it, I was only partially kidding. I got it all chopped off, but that's another story. And no, I don't have a picture. But it's super short and flippy and I have bangs. I love it!

We extended the offer on the house for one more week. I hope to hear something by then, but I'm obviously not going to hold my breath.

And for those of you following my TTC journey, I'm still off meds. CD71 today and no sign of AF. I have a follow up appointment on April 12.

In other news, Sunday will mark my 3 week anniversary with weight watchers. In the first 2 weeks, I've lost 5lbs!! Amazing :) I might derail it all when Mr. FEO and I go to Chicago at the end of this month, but it will totally be worth every extra calorie I eat! I haven't had a cheat meal or cheat food this entire time, which is pretty impressive for the girl with the biggest sweet tooth in America!

Anyway, hope you're all doing well!! Have a good weekend!

Okay, really, I'm done with waiting.

I can't take it anymore, this waiting to hear about our offer thing.

I'm so antsy, and it doesn't help that the people IRL who know about this offer have been asking me all the time, "Hey, so have you heard anything yet?", and I have to respond that I'm still waiting, extremely impatiently.

Tomorrow is finally FRIDAY and we were told that we'd hear by FRIDAY or the following TUESDAY. I swear, if they make me wait through yet another weekend that I'm going to end up pulling out all my hairs, one by one!

I'll keep you all posted!

It happened so fast...

On Wednesday night, Mr. FEO and I were driving around the town where we'd eventually like to live when we see an adorable little house on a corner lot, with an extra half lot too. It's for sale!

We tell my parents (who are helping us with a down payment should we find a house).

My dad schedules a showing on Thursday evening after work.

We made an offer on Friday afternoon...

And now we have to WAIT until this Friday or possibly next Tuesday to hear back about our offer.

I hate waiting. Nevermind the fact that I think we've flat out lost our minds.

Some specifics:
This house is about 500sqft smaller than our existing condo ... but it has a full basement, so technically, it has more space. It's also on a lot and a half, and after calling the building department of the city, we learned that we can basically triple the size of the home on the existing lot.

The bedrooms are smaller than we have now, and there's virtually no closet space or kitchen cupboards.

It's across the street from a really old cemetary. This kind of freaks me out, but as Mr. FEO says, we'll have quiet neighbors who only come out in October. I had to laugh at that .... because I suppose he's right. It's not a bad thing to have quiet neighbors after living with people on all sides and below us for all these years. To have a house and a yard and a neighborhood is something I thought we'd only ever dream about -- not something that would ever be a reality.

It needs a TON of work. So if we get the house, our plan is as follows:

Before moving in (hopefully over 6 months):

1. Repair the drain tile. There's been water in the basement.

2. GUT the basement: including tearing up the asbestos tiles, taking down the nasty paneling on the walls (it's bowed from the water damage), tearing down existing walls, replacing windows with glass block, replacing sump pump and walling it off so it's not visible, and converting the fireplace that's down there from wood to gas, as well as adding a full bathroom.

3. Convert the entire house from boiler heat to forced air with central air conditioning, using a furnace and air compressor that will sustain up to 1200sqft more house than is already there.

4. Replace linoleum in the kitchen and replace half the cabinets (they are weird built-ins that surround the chimney), and expose the brick of the chimney. Replace the dishwasher (which we learned is broken) and hood fan with a microwave hood fan.

5. Paint walls, ceilings throughout the house.

Within the first year:

1. Replace the rest of the appliances with ones that will also work in the kitchen/laundry after the expansion.

2. Replace windows as necessary.

After the first year, we will be saving as much as possible. We plan to expand the house in 3-5 years depending on finances. The expansion will include a huge kitchen, larger living room, master suite with a full bathroom and a 2-3 car attached garage with a bonus room above. The existing 1 car detached garage will be torn down. Thoughts of the expansion will keep me sane as we live in a work zone for at least the next year! Once we're moved in, we'll get to start looking at plans so we can determine what the eventual cost will be and save accordingly. What's nice is that all the builders, electricians, contractors etc are in my family, so we'll pay cost for everything!!

We'll live in the condo during the first stage of repair. Then we hope to rent it out while we have it on the market. It would give us enough income to make it worthwhile.

I just can't believe how quickly this happened!

You might think ... wait, they don't know for sure they have the house, but they have all these plans ... and that's a very valid statement. Before we made the offer, we had to think about the possibilities of this house to know if it would even work for us. Clearly, we've decided that it will!

We were the second offer. The first offer was put in on Thursday afternoon, about an hour before our showing. Although the realtor can't tell us what the other offer was, she strongly suggested that we put in our offer anyway. We're assuming that the offer was lower than ours. Additionally, our offer was a cash offer and not a mortgage. And since we're dealing with a bank short sale, this is apparently a good thing.

All I can do is try to stay sane for the next week, and keep my fingers crossed!!!

I'm thinking this is more stressful than any fake 2ww that I've experienced in the past year!

Have a great day all!!