Show & Tell: Cake.....

What would a Show and Tell be without another cake...but this time it's got a theme. Can you guess it? :)

Oh and better yet, it's entirely made of cupcakes. I was not a fan before this of the Cupcake Cake, but I have to say, I am a convert. So much so that I made another cake last night for a friend's son who had to bring a sweet to his class halloween party

Oh, and ignore the obvious missing pieces. A friend could not resist and just had to have one or two. Unfortunately, I had forgotten I had yet to take a photo.

Enjoy!

A Sad Day

Patti is one of my closest friends, and the sister that I never had. Today her mom is finally at peace. She touched the hearts and lives of many people. She will be missed.

I don't know if Patti will post on her blog but if you want to leave condolences here, I will pass them on to her.

RIP Betty.

UPDATE: Patti has posted if you prefer to leave comments on her blog.

Lost and Found: Flowers

It's been a while since I've participated in Mel's Show & Tell....

So, I've finished my cake decorating classes and I find myself with free time so to speak. I've got a couple of things on my agenda, but fear not, I will do the odd one day class. Meanwhile, the last class I took was called Gumpaste Flowers. It was one where we were taught to make life-like flowers for bouquets that would go on cakes. Initially I couldn't decide if I was enjoying the class or not, possibly because I was just so busy with work, home, and the other class I was doing at the same time. You can check out that finished product here. However, by the end of the course and seeing the finished product and what can be done, I think I did like it and in time could see myself making more of these.

Enjoy!

Doctor Visit Update

So today was the big day. I was finally going down to see the OB who did my fibroid surgery and hope she would be willing to do some tests and exams to see if there is any reason why we haven't been able to get pregnant on any of our previous cycles.

For those of you just joining us....we have been with our current clinic since May 2007. Over the last 2+ years we have had two different egg donors. We have always gotten excellent embryos. The first donor we shared and we got 6 eggs and 6 embryos. Neither couple achieved a pregnancy with this donor. Our second donor we had exclusively. We got 20 eggs of which 14 fertilized and in the end had 9 quality grade A embryos. Our fresh transfer of 3 resulted in a beta of 21 which quickly went down, the FET a month later was a BFN so we've now got three remaining embryos on ice waiting for us to be able to do our last cycle. That brings you up to date if you don't feel like reading the archives. :)

So, I go in to see our favourite doctor and unexpectedly she is standing in the reception area and a) remembers me from the surgery in 2006 and b) she's totally on time! So, she sees me immediately. I am hoping this bodes well for anything we do with her. So, we review what's been going on for the past three years and specifically the past IVF cycles and what I want her to do and what she thinks. She's agreed to do pretty much anything I want.

So, I'm booked for both a pelvic and a transvaginal ultrasound on October 26th. We were hoping that they could have taken me today as I'm on CD2 because she also wants me to have a sonohysterogram if the ultrasound deems it necessary. Since that has to be done between CD6 and CD10 that will be likely the second week of November, if the technician sees something. After those appointments, I'll go in for a followup. Based on any findinds (or lack thereof) will determine our next steps. Just in case she sees a polyp, endometriosis or another fibroid, she's got a surgical date booked in April, so there's no additional waiting. I had asked her about the fibroid surgery we had done in 2006 and mentioned our REs comment back when we first began seeing him asking why we'd removed them as he might not have and she reminded me that they had been distorting the uterus so it was necessary. So, at least I know there was necessary (which I knew at the time and had forgotten).

She also sent me down to the lab for bloodwork. We discussed a number of things and because I don't know just how indepth the bloodwork had been initially, she wrote up an order for all kinds of things:

hemoglobin
rubella
Prenatal: ABO, RhD, antibody screen
Repeast prenatal antibodies
Russell-Viper Venom
MTHFR
Homocysteine
Protein C
Protein S
Antithrombin III
Anti-DS DNA

Looking back on an old post, I don't think the RE ever did all of these, but I never saw the request, I do know that we did the anti-cardiolipin IgA and IgM which isn't on this list.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. But at least we're moving in a positive direction. :) Have I said how much I love this doctor? I really hope that she's able to help us and we can see her for a pregnancy.

It's October!!

And for those of you who are still reading, and remember, October means I've got my appointment with the OB who did my fibroid surgery several years ago. Back in July when I got the appointment I thought it was for October 10th, but that would be Saturday. However it's this Thursday, the 8th!!

I don't know what, if anything, she'll be able to tell me but I'm hoping she'll be able to give me a once over and check and make sure everything is okay inside. I'm not sure she'll be "doing" anything at this appointment. I'm concerned that I may have scar tissue from the surgery that has affected our past cycles. Of course I don't want there to be anything wrong, but if there's nothing wrong why haven't we been successful?

So, if anyone has any suggestions of questions I should ask her or other issue I could point her to, let me know. I'll be heading in to see her on Thursday morning.

I'll let you know how it goes afterwards.

More cake

So, it seems that all I do is post about cake....which really isn't that bad a thing considering it means, V gets a lot of cake. :)

I've just finished two cake decorating classes last week. This is the cake we did for one class. I have to say although my piping skills are getting better, they are far from being as good as I'd like. I guess that just means I'll have to make more cake. :)

The flowers are made from royal icing and dry hard. The little birds are made from colour flow icing and also dry hard but are somewhat fragile. The cake is a 7" oval chocolate devils food cake filled with raspberry jam and iced with vanilla butter cream.

Next week I hope to be able to show you guys the flowers I've been working on for the last 4 weeks....I just have some finishing touches to do. Meanwhile, enjoy!