Thankyou all for your kind words. I am not pregnant and neither is my sock progressing. Now that it is quite certain I am not pregnant my unpacking seems to have stopped progressing too… I shall be back some time soon when I actually have some knitting to report.

Once we get through the next week or so life should be much more mundane (in a good way) than it has been for quite a while, so hopefully when the knitting does resume there will be far more regular progress than there has been of recent times.

And yes, we really do have an outside loo, but there is no need to panic - it is not operational, not even as a wireless modem site. We have had to resort to dialup of all things.

Our Internet connection was rudely interrupted when our phone line got switched to the new house last Friday and the backup wireless system failed to get reception at the new house. Who would have thought that a man that runs an ISP could find himself without network access? Poor man spent a large part of Sunday wandering around the backyard with the wireless modem and a very, very long extension cord, to no avail. There was no access to be had from on top of the grapevine, nor from the roof of the outside loo. I spent most of the weekend at IKEA. Why is it that when you go to IKEA once you then have to go three more times the next day? And it’s not over yet.

No news on the embryo yet, though it’s not looking that hopeful at this point. No news on the sock either - I have boxes to unpack, yarn storage to organise….

Is that heel too pointy? It looks kind of pointy to me. Too pointy or not, I confess to being rather pleased with myself for getting it done hassle free on my first try a few nights ago. I thank Knitty for my success in turning the heel, how surprising is that? Not surprising at all. I cannot tell you how I love the Knitty articles. As for avoiding holes in the gusset - check out these wonderful photos. The instructions for the heel in the pattern are completely correct and I am sure more than adequate for someone who has knit a sock before, but I would have been lost without these two resources. It is so cool that you can learn just about any new knitting technique from the web. Funny how that never seems to reduce my lust for new knitting books…

Today’s post is brought to you by the lovely Annette who is playing endless games with Isabelle while I continue my new habit of doing pretty much nothing all day. I am not exactly on bed rest, but neither am I supposed to do anything more exciting that wandering around the house lest I agitate my ovaries. Confined to the house may as well be confined to bed as far as Isabelle is concerned and she is not impressed, though her patience for it all has improved enormously since we explained exactly why I was being so unspeakably dull.

I had an embryo put back this morning. I cannot tell you how exciting that is, all those drugs, all the pain, all the whining about the drugs and pain, actually resulted in a transfer! Which means there is finally some kind of chance of a pregnancy - who would have thought it? Of the 10 embryo’s we had on Saturday the one that was put back this morning was the only one at blastocyst stage so far. The rest have another 24 hours to catch up and hit the freezer, hopefully 2 or 3 will make it. It would be awfully nice to never do this again.

Thankyou all for your kind words. Today we still have 10 embryos - 8 grade one and 2 grade two, which is a far better result than we had dared to hope for. I was so excited I got out of bed, washed the dishes and did four of loads of washing (poor Jesse has to hang it all out)!

Also good was the sudden onset of the ability to sit up again last night. You know what that means don’t you? Yep, 4 repeats of the sock and the start of the heel flap. This sock thing is getting to be quite fun.

My Dr lost count of how many follicles I had. He guessed about 30, but isn’t sure he actually did that many. From that I got 11 eggs and a fairly strong conviction that he was trying to kill me in the process. His lovely bedside manner confused the point somewhat but in the end I realised that given his excellent reputation and the exorbitant amounts of money he stands to gain from my referring my friends to him, he probably does have my best interests at heart.

Today we have 10 embryos. Should I be well enough by Monday, should any of the embryos have survived that long, we will be putting one back. I am unable to sit in a chair today, so that is the extent of today’s entry. Thank you all so much for your kind words and support. The knitting news should resume around the same time I can comfortably sit in a chair again.

We got the house we applied for, we will be moving in about a week and a half - which should keep me nicely distracted through the waiting phase of the IVF, should we be so lucky as to make it that far. I also emailed every Rowan distributor listed on their website (apart from the UK folks I contacted last time) and The Knitting Garden has the right dye lot, so Shedir may yet be finished as planned.

Do you think they will let me knit my sock while I am waiting around in my hospital gown for my procedure tomorrow? I think I may be really wanting my sock right about then.

Would you look at that, two more repeats of the leg. I was going to ditch this sock, try a different pattern with the other ball and then rip this if I liked the second option better. Just goes to show that sometimes it is worth trying once more before giving up. I am getting gauge (hooray!), so I suspect that it is not going to fit. I realise it’s hard to imagine, but I know a few women with bigger feet than me and they are on my Christmas knitting list so if it doesn’t fit I do have options.

This yarn is so darn hard to photograph. My camera really doesn’t like the colour and I haven’t the faintest idea how to help it cope. I wish I could get a close up of those tiny stitches, they are so small and so regular that I find myself chortling stupidly to myself every time I stop to have a good look at them.

Oh and aren’t these markers pretty? They match the sock quite nicely don’t you think? Thanks again Jen.

And finally, for those of you who are interested my egg pickup will be Wednesday lunch time, turns out this IVF thing is for real. We should hear whether we got a house we just applied to rent around the same time. Big day Wednesday.

I have stalled. I am not sure if it is the pattern, if it is fertility drugs are yet again getting the better of my knitting or if socks are just not my thing, but one repeat into the main part of the sock I stopped knitting about 36 hours ago. The cuff was a pain in the backside, I had to count stitches after every single row, there were whole rows of purling, which with my style of purling is a misery on DPNs (I actually quite enjoy knitting on DPNs, but not purling). I was so glad when the cuff was over and yet one repeat into the actual sock and I have lost all interest.

Oh and I am worried about size too. I seem to be getting gauge, though it is a little early to tell for sure. If I am getting gauge then the sock will be 9 and 1/3 inches unstretched, which from what I read is a bit too close to my actual foot measurements (9.5 to 10 inches depending where you measure). However the pattern repeat is 12 stitches, making the next size down 8 inches exactly - which would be rather too small for my rather large foot… Perhaps they will make nice bed socks?

I will try to take a photo later today, what I have done so far is rather pretty. That is something.

I am just saying is all. If you have some amazing method for purling continental style on DPNs please share because what I am doing, well it’s only just workable.

I cast on my sock, it’s making me happy. I found a tip somewhere to cast all the stitches onto two needles held together and then slide the needles apart so you have half the stitches on each needle and then redistribute onto the extra needle/s from there. This worked really well and I am kicking myself that I forgot to book mark the page, it had lots of other sock knitting tips which may have turned out to be equally useful.

I spoke to Wendy at Jo Sharp’s studio, apparently my swatches are now en route to the mill with a request for an explanation. It doesn’t look like my yarn problem will be resolved any time soon. My Rogue is, I think, dead in the water. Perhaps it will be my first sweater next autumn, I guess it will depend on the effectiveness of the IVF and the timing of a successful transfer. I feel kind of sad and edgy about the whole thing, like I have forgotten to do something important and it’s about to bite me on the ass (I am talking about Rogue here, not IVF, or am I?).

Oh and my Shedir is in trouble too. The shop that said they had the right dye lot actually don’t have it after all, apparently some sort of discrepancy between their inventory and what was actually on their shelves. They say they are trying to track it down for me but I feel some frogging coming on…