A Second Day of Freedom!

Friday, January 15, 2010 was another day that did not require an alarm to be set.  Prescribed medications generally take a couple of days to begin having an effect on the development of "oocytes," as they're called, so the start of a cycle always feels a bit more like a vacation than it does later on, when the stakes are higher for things to be working properly.  So, Wendy and I slept in again, then enjoyed breakfast at the hotel.  (Since breakfast at the Rochelle Park Ramada Inn ends at 9:00, we were never able to sleep in very late!)

On this day, the Midwinter Youth Convention was to begin in Albany, NY, at the Pineview Community Church, and we were planning to drive there to attend the opening services.  Since Albany is a shopping destination of sorts, compared to where we live, and we have quite a few friends in that area, we decided to make the trip a multi-purpose endeavor.  Around noon, we left the hotel, stopping first at the Crossgates Mall when we arrived in Albany.  After wandering for a bit, we left and went to our friends' house in Schenectady.  Mark and Gina Vosburgh were gracious hosts, and we enjoyed a delicious dinner of pizza, salad, chips, and brownie sundaes for dessert!

Following the meal and fellowship, we went to the Youth Convention service, where a good message was shared by Rev. Joel Byer.

It is strongly encouraged that the injections for each evening be administered at approximately the same time.  Since it's about a two-hour trip from Albany to where we were staying, we really needed to complete those before returning "home," and we were prepared to do so.  We were able to utilize a small prayer room at the Pineview church, with permission of those in charge, and successfully took the evening's medication before departure.

Having only two meals during the day was unheard of, so we stopped at Roy Rogers on the way back to NJ, splitting a chicken sandwich  and some fries.  We purchased a couple of other goodies to take back to our hotel for a later time, supplementing the "supplies" with which we had already stocked our small refrigerator there.  Again, there's no question that food was an outlet during the stressful times of our fertility treatments; that fact may be even more clear from a retrospective vantage point...

When we arrived back at our hotel room, we were energized and alert, and ended up staying awake until about 3:00 a.m.  We already knew we didn't have to go to CRM early the next morning, so there was no urgency to go to bed early.  My, how our hotel habits have changed since Mathias joined us!!