#for that matter—how much sun we’ve had here altogether. way more than we typically get in November.

[cakeyouareoh]

list something small (or big) you’re thankful for in the tags.

[hopingforbabyblog]

Even though this vacation to Nevada has been really relaxing I wish I would have planned it for a couple weeks earlier. The first reason being that this particular January has been exceptionally cold in Alaska, and I wish I would have gotten out of our cold snap sooner. The second reason I feel like I planned my vacation a little too late is the timing of it fell within the crucial three-month window prior to FET. The three months prior to FET are important for building up a thick uterine lining to improve the odds of embryo implantation. I’m not aware of definitive evidence that stress in and of itself causes implantation issues, but I do believe that stress can contribute to poor health decisions (i.e., drinking, smoking, overeating) that can in turn affect implantation.

I tend to get stressed when I travel at times. A delayed flight, waiting in a crowded airport, and squishing like anchovies into the ever-shrinking plane seats are just some of the typical stressors when flying. But now the news is talking about the threat of coronavirus. To top it off both of the airports I went through (Anchorage and Las Vegas) had confirmed cases of coronavirus. I later learned the news seemed to overinflate the actual severity of the issue, using dramatic language that might lead viewers to believe it’s an epidemic, knowing that helped put my mind at ease somewhat. A few years back the major risk to pregnant women and women TTC was the Zika virus. I think if you want to play it as safe as possible don’t schedule a vacation during your three months prior to FET, unless it’s a ‘staycation’ or you are traveling for your actual FET.

Catch-up on Previous FET Prep Posts

FET Prep Week 1: 3.5 months until FET

FET Prep Week 2: Supplements, WTF Email, & Increased AMH Level

FET Prep Week 3: You say Future Tripping, I say Future Planning

FET Prep Week 4: Bad News from SIS Test

FET Prep Week 5: Surgery, Depression & Trip to Nevada

Countdown Until FET: 69 days (as of 02-15-2020)

Taking it Easy

You know the type of vacations where you are go, go, go non-stop with so many activities and you have a specific plan for each day, well I chose not to do any of that for this one and it has been working out pretty well. Although we’ve been busy, it’s been nice to not be the ‘planner’ and to just go along with whatever everyone else wants to do. This vacation, I chose to just let go and take it easy. I’ve been to Nevada a few times before and already saw the major must-see things, so I didn’t feel the urge to create a must-see list this time around. I just let my husband and mother-in-law plan the events.

I think this vacation has been a nice balance of relaxing and also going to different events. It’s nice to go to bed and not have to set an alarm for the morning. It felt like such a luxury to be able to sleep in as long as I wanted. There were only a couple days that were warm enough to be outside in the sun since we’ve been here. It’s been crazy windy, so much so that they actually have a high wind warning in effect. The wind is so strong it sometimes shakes the house. It was kind of funny to see about 40 tumbleweeds whip across the street at the same time. Not a good time to go for a walk and catch a prickly tumbleweed to the face. No thanks. I’ll stay inside until it dies down. It’s also been cold outside most of this week, in the 30s and 40s mostly. I learned this cold snap in Nevada was pushing down from Alaska. How typical, just when we try to leave Alaska’s cold weather it follows us.

  This wind is redonkulous! One of the many windy days on our vacation. 

  Okay this one turned out better, with less wind whipping my hair around.

  So although the weather has been crappy most of the week while on vacation, we still had fun doing other things. We saw Shin Lim, the magician, at his Vegas show. Normally I am not into magic shows, but this guy I swear is a true wizard. I saw him on America’s Got Talent, where he showed a card to the camera and somehow was able to make the numbers on the card actually change. Here is his show on AGT where he does that trick at the 20:00 minute mark. How in the actual eff did he do that? I was definitely impressed with his show in Vegas. I won’t give away too many details of the show, but it is definitely entertaining and I highly recommend you go check him out.

I also went to my first Tournament of Kings show, and I nearly s**t myself several times when the pyrotechnics went off. I felt like an idiot with how many times I screamed with each burst of fireworks. You definitely won’t fall asleep with this show, I’ll tell you that! So if you aren’t familiar with the Tournament of Kings, it’s a show where the performers act out a medieval storyline. The audience sits circled around the actors as they have epic battles using swords and also do jousting with real horses. 

    We did some other cool things on our trip too. We drove to Mount Charleston. I didn’t expect to see snow in Nevada, so that was pretty cool (cheesy pun intended).

    Of course we went to a handful of different casinos and tried our luck on the slots. Well, I mostly watched Kurtis try his luck on the slots. I’m not much of a gambler. The first time I ever visited Vegas years ago I had very little money. I would go from casino to casino and sign up for their players club card, where you would get free plays on the slots. It wasn’t worth much, maybe $10-$15 but it was still fun to try it out and not worry about losing money. I did a little of that this time also. I tend to enjoy playing bingo more than slots. The first time I ever played bingo back home I won $1,000, beginners luck of course.

  Keeping up with Supplements While on Vacation

I am not being super strict about following a diet while on vacation, although I could have been. I had a very laissez faire approach with my FET prep while on vacation. Although I did try to consistently take my supplements.

Here’s what I did to help me stay on top of taking my supplements while on vacation:

Reuse old prescription bottles for free pill organization.

Take a marker and write on the cap when you plan to take your medicine. For example I wrote “AM” on the ones I take with breakfast and “PM” on the ones I take with lunch. Since I am also taking L-arginine multiple times throughout the day I decided to create my own travel bottle specifically for that supplement. 

Set phone reminders to take supplements.

Most supplements for FET prep recommend taking with a meal. But if you are not yet in the habit of remembering to take your pills after you eat, setting an alarm in your phone can be really helpful to make sure you don’t miss your dose. You can remind yourself in other ways like putting a post it note on your mirror or refrigerator. Do whatever works for you.

Keep a snack in your purse at all times.

This snack should be your designated backup in times when you cannot have an actual meal with your supplements. For example, if you are going on a long road trip or flight and you are unsure of when you will be able to have a meal with your supplements, that snack in your purse will help you to stay on track with your supplement schedule. 

  The Game Changer

I plan on adopting in the future, whether I have a biological child or not. And I’ve considered adopting through the foster care system. But what is one of the biggest obstacles that keeps so many people from starting the path to becoming a foster parent? I’d say it’s becoming attached emotionally to raising a child who after some time ends up going back to their biological family. I can honestly say I am not ready at this point in my life to handle that possibility. I’ve read articles and memoirs from foster parents who say it was one of the most painful experiences of their life. Some said it was as painful as grieving the death of a loved one.

I’ve been visiting my husband’s family in Nevada this past week, and my mother-in-law was a foster parent. I explained to her that one of my hesitations for becoming a foster parent was that I didn’t know if I was emotionally ready to handle getting attached to a child that would end up leaving back to their biological family. But she explained that she learned that some foster parents choose to only foster children whose parental rights have been permanently relinquished, and are therefore adoptable. That right there, was a total game changer for me. I did not even know that was an option. I thought it was inevitable that as a foster parent you had to expect that possible loss, I didn’t realize you could avoid that whole scenario altogether. Now it’s just a matter of finding out if that option is available here in Alaska too. The plan for now though is to continue trying infertility treatments until I turn 35, which is over a year from now. 

  Mini Victories for the Week

Kept up with supplements while on vacation.

Got more sleep and relaxed more this week.

Asked more questions and did a little more research about the foster care system.

  Work in Progress

Contact the Seattle Clinic to find out if I need a repeat SIS before my upcoming FET.

Reduce caffeine intake from 1-2 cups down to less than one cup next week. Eventually completely cut out caffeine sometime soon.

Get back on a 1200 calorie per day diet.

  This post may contain affiliate links. You can read the disclosure here. 

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AMH (Anti-mullerian hormone)

FSH (Follicle stimulating hormone)

E2 (Estradiol)

LH (Luteinizing hormone)

TSH (Thyroid stimulating hormone)

FT4 (Free thyroxine)

PRL (Prolactin)

T (Testosterone)

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FET Prep Week 6: Relax! You’re on Vacation. Even though this vacation to Nevada has been really relaxing I wish I would have planned it for a couple weeks earlier.

[yahoo-the-dagger-blog]

Hope after desolation: How New Orleans captured its first post-Katrina league title

Christavious Gill is one of four UNO senior starters who had no other D-I offers. (via UNO athletics)

Only a few weeks after inheriting a program with a skeleton staff, a talent-starved roster and a mountain of debt, University of New Orleans basketball coach Mark Slessinger entered a storage shed at Lakefront Arena and rifled through dozens of FEMA boxes inside.

He was in search of something he felt his players needed more than anything else at that time: Hope.

When Hurricane Katrina tore through the roof of Lakefront Arena and flooded the interior in 2005, the school’s championship banners, trophies and memorabilia sustained massive water damage. Whatever wasn’t thrown in a dumpster got packed away and quickly forgotten.

To Slessinger, salvaging the faded newspaper clippings, dusty photos and broken trophies in those boxes was about more than merely decorating the basketball office’s bare white walls. It was also a way of reminding his players that league titles and NCAA tournament bids were attainable goals at UNO even if it sometimes didn’t feel that way.

“When I got here, nothing around us told the story of how great our program once was,” Slessinger said. “It was hard for my guys to understand how good things once were here when we didn’t have a conference, we were playing an independent schedule and we had absolutely no chance of reaching the postseason. I needed them to know the story. I needed them to know what we could do.”

A rebuilding job that began six years ago with cleaning rags and superglue has now reached a major milestone. Slessinger can add another trophy to the collection on display in his office, a gleaming new one with no dents, broken nameplates or water damage.

UNO squandered a late six-point lead at home to Southeastern Louisiana on Thursday night, but clinched a share of the Southland Conference title anyway when second-place Stephen F. Austin also suffered an upset loss. If the Privateers beat Nicholls State on Saturday, they would clinch the outright league title, an unfathomable feat for a cash-strapped university that not long ago had given up on competing at the Division I level.

“It’s an amazing, amazing accomplishment,” Slessinger said. “You have to have an undefeated attitude every single day if you’re trying to redo something to this magnitude. You’ve got to be tough as hell, you’ve got to be willing to work and you’ve got to hold firm to what your values are. You’ve got to stay on the guys every day about working hard, getting better and seeing how high we can go.”

Mark Slessinger has led the Privateers within a win of their first league title in 20 years (Getty Images)

The floodwaters had long since receded when Slessinger arrived at UNO in June 2011, but the school’s athletic department was still drowning in indecision.

A crippling drop in enrollment, massive state budget cuts and insufficient fundraising efforts had plunged UNO athletics into a $5 million debt after Katrina, forcing cut-backs in staffing and substantial scholarship reductions. Making ends meet became so difficult that school officials began to debate whether remaining in Division I was financially feasible anymore.

On Nov. 11, 2009, UNO announced it would withdraw from the Sun Belt Conference and drop from Division I to Division III, a controversial decision that ushered in a three-year period of paralyzing hesitation and uncertainty. At first, the school did nothing, not even join a Division III conference. Then in March 2011, UNO declared its intentions to reclassify to Division II and join the Gulf South Conference. And finally a year later, the university reversed course altogether, announcing it was staying in Division I and applying for entrance to the Southland Conference.

Nearly three years of wavering ultimately did more damage to UNO athletics than the storm ever did. More than 100 UNO athletes transferred somewhere they could compete at the highest level and many of the athletes who replaced them were ill-suited for Division I.

Making matters worse, the athletics infrastructure at UNO no longer resembled a typical Division I operation anymore.

Rows of offices in UNO’s athletic facility sat empty in April 2012 because school officials had halved the size of the staff the previous five years. The coaches and administrators who remained often did the equivalent of two or three jobs because the school couldn’t afford to fill essential positions like academic coordinator, strength and conditioning coach or marketing director.

Angela Marin, then UNO’s director of athletic operations, served as travel coordinator for the whole department and also filled in as an assistant volleyball coach despite possessing little experience in the sport. Ola Adegboye, then an associate athletic director who oversaw the department’s finances, also assumed the role of cross country coach even though his athletic background came as a sprinter.

“Sometimes I think it can’t get any worse, then something else happens,” Adegboye told Yahoo Sports in April 2012. “People on the outside cannot understand what we’ve gone through. I feel like I’ve been sprinting and I have not stopped sprinting since I took this job. There are a lot of issues, but you’ve just got to keep going.”

The strain of wearing so many hats was too much for the three UNO head basketball coaches who preceded Slessinger. They all left for assistant coaching gigs somewhere else rather than trying to help UNO rebuild on a shoestring budget.

None of that fazed Slessinger when UNO offered him the job. The longtime Northwestern State (La.) assistant had a desire to be a head coach, a willingness to work long hours, extensive recruiting ties to New Orleans and a love for the city after meeting his wife there.

In Slessinger’s head coaching debut on Nov. 11, 2011, UNO lost at New Mexico by 52. The next day, the Privateers fell at Rice by 34. Slessinger didn’t let it worry him. UNO didn’t have a Division I-caliber roster yet since the university was still a few months away from even publicly announcing its desire to remain at that level.

For Slessinger, what happened after his first season was more concerning. That’s when the NCAA penalized UNO basketball for underperforming academically before Slessinger’s arrival, handing down sanctions that included a postseason ban, recruiting restrictions and a reduction in practice time.

“For three years, we had every APR penalty known to man, and none of it really was our fault,” Slessinger said. “We were penalized for kids who were in our program when we were going to transition out of D-I and then we came back, they weren’t eligible. You trick yourself into saying it’s not that big of a deal, but eventually I added it up in my head and I realized we were practicing a month less per year than everyone else.”

Some of the old trophies that Mark Slessinger pulled out of the storage shed. (via Mark Slessinger)

Between UNO’s meager budget, postseason ineligibility and NCAA-mandated restrictions, Slessinger faced a daunting challenge trying to sell his program on the recruiting trail. The most success he enjoyed often came with prospects no other Division I programs wanted.

Christavious Gill, a high-energy, big-hearted shooting guard generously listed at 5-foot-8, received scant interest from other programs because he’s so undersized. Fellow senior starters Nate Frye and Tevin Broyles also had no other Division I scholarship offers until Slessinger came along.

But the player who has made the biggest impact on UNO’s turnaround is the fourth member of the Privateers’ outstanding senior class. Forward Erik Thomas has emerged as the leading candidate to win the Southland Conference’s player of the year award after averaging 20 points and 7.8 rebounds so far this season while also shooting 60.8 percent from the floor.

When former Baton Rouge Community College assistant Tyrone Mitchell urged Slessinger to come take a look at Thomas, the UNO coach was initially a little skeptical about taking a chance on a 6-foot-5 combo forward who was both undersized and overweight. Only after scouting Thomas and falling in love with his diverse skill set did Slessinger change his mind.

Slessinger asked Mitchell and Baton Rouge head coach Ricky Wilson who he had to beat out to land Thomas. To his surprise, the only other school interested was a local NAIA program.

“McNeese State, Southern, Northwestern State, they all knew about him and they all passed,” Wilson said. “I don’t know what people were looking at. I was recruiting a couple weeks ago and I had one of the coaches at Southern come up to me and say, ‘Hey, why didn’t you call us about Thomas?’ I said, ‘I told you guys about him. I told everyone. But nobody really bit until UNO finally did.'”

Injuries and an inability to win close games prevented UNO from making much progress last season, however, the Privateers returned nine of their top 10 players from a squad that went 10-20. Though Southland Conference coaches projected UNO to finish ninth in the league’s annual preseason poll, Slessinger began the year quietly optimistic the Privateers would exceed those expectations.

The first sign of validation for Slessinger arrived early in the season when UNO demolished city rival Tulane by 24 points and routed Washington State by 16 on its home floor. Narrow losses against Louisiana-Lafayette and Utah State were frustrating yet also signs of progress.

By the time Southland Conference play started, UNO had developed an identity as an excellent defensive team that forces turnovers with an aggressive half-court man-to-man. The Privateers shoot poorly from the perimeter and turn the ball over too much on offense, but they make up for it by displaying smart shot selection and cleaning up the offensive glass.

Even as UNO was in the midst of making its run at the program’s first conference title in two decades, there were plenty of reminders that its athletic department still isn’t on solid financial footing.  UNO still only attracts 700 or 800 people to most home basketball games, still can’t afford to pay its coaches a competitive salary and still had the third lowest revenue of the 231 Division I athletic departments surveyed recently by USA Today.

Two nights before a critical victory over second-place Stephen F. Austin last month, Slessinger had a task to do that didn’t involve preparing for his team’s biggest game of the season. He and UNO women’s basketball coach Keeshawn Davenport both took tickets from fans when they arrived at Maestri Field for the Privateers’ baseball game against second-ranked LSU.

“We had a great time,” Slessinger said. “We talked a ton of trash. I told every LSU fan who walked in that we had a whole trailer selling UNO shirts and hats. It was never too late for them to make a good decision and go buy a blue shirt.”

To Slessinger, sometimes a great attitude can go a lot further than great resources. This UNO basketball season is proof of that.

The Privateers have now added a new trophy to the basketball office, validated the school’s decision to stay in Division I and provided Slessinger’s future teams with the single thing he values most.

Hope.

More on Yahoo Sports: • TV reporter’s awkward chat with NFL star Adrian Peterson • Dan Wetzel: Aaron Hernandez’s lone courtroom supporter • Former NBA star Stoudemire apologizes for antigay ‘jokes’ • Life without Kevin Durant off to a bad start for Warriors

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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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