Diary of my Pregnancy - 40 year old first timer

7 weeks 4 days:


Well, today I had my first OB visit. And they have quite a well-oiled machine at this office. Clean waiting area with ample comfortable seating, art books to flip through, and receptionist ready and waiting to give you instructions.

Of  course, I screwed up from the first minute. I never printed out the info from the website, so I did not pre-fill out my paperwork. Something that could have saved me a lot of time. Then, I was handed a urine cup. I know darn well that you should NEVER pee before going to the doctor because we always want a sample. But at home, I HAD to go.

Since my bladder has been working more frequently lately, I figured a few cups of water while I fill out the paperwork and I'll be ready. And it worked. The mere act of drinking made me pee. (Sorry TMI?).

Then, I was directed to a wall of bathrooms to choose from. I did my business into the supplied cup (onto it too - totally gross - I washed it thoroughly before handing it in). Then put the cup into the bag and brought it back into the waiting room. "Where do I put this?" I innocently asked. It goes in the window of the bathroom. The "window" is a two way metal biohazard door. Pretty cool.

When I was called, they weighed me, blood pressured me, wrote a few notes, and then asked, "Are you the one who didn't label her cup?" Ummm, yes. Label? I assumed they put that there...I was already not having a good day.

Soon I was placed into the patient room to wait for the doctor. I've never met her before so I was curious what she was like. Even though she was recommended by my friend/OB (in another city). Of course my stuff was piled high on a corner of the counter because there is NO PLACE to put your stuff. Big pet peeve of mine. My husband is a healthcare architect and he agreed. He puts places for patients to put their stuff built into his designed rooms. All patient care rooms should have somewhere to put their personal items. I hate having to move patient items so I can find a place to sit down with my patients. I hate it as a patient too.

My OB is really nice. Smart. And stated her case for getting blood screening for various disorders. I was against it at first, but conceded that identifying heart issues early on can be extremely beneficial. All was going well, and I asked if we could have an ultrasound. She had not had me scheduled for one, but made an on-the-fly appointment with their in-house tech.

This was a tough spot for the husband. This is where he got all the bad news for his wife. I was pretty confident all was well because I had strong pregnancy symptoms, breasts swollen like balloons, the frequent peeing thing, etc...But again, I've been realistic because I'm 40. I kept an open mind. But when I saw the tech do her thing (very quickly) I was able to spot immediate issues. The dates were wrong. I couldn't find the heart beat. And the doppler did not show anything. She did not point this out - but I've done a bunch of these myself - enough to know the basics were not promising.

When she got my doctor, my suspicions were confirmed. I'm one week off, and even if that were true, I should still have some kind of heart beat. They had me at 6wks 2 days. So while the sac looked good, and I feel pregnant, the inevitable is coming. My first pregnancy. My first miscarriage. Getting pregnant at 40 so easily seemed to be a miracle. I hope it is not once in a lifetime.

Diary of my Pregnancy - 40 year old first timer

6 weeks 5 days:


Wow, so far still doing well. My breasts REALLY hurt and have grown out of many of my clothes that fit just weeks ago. And I'll probably need some new bras soon. I've had occasional bits of nausea and keep the zofran close just in case. I've taken it twice so far.

BTW just a note about Zofran ODT (orally dissolving tablets). Zofran is a great, safe medicine for nausea in pregnancy. The ODT version is fantastic because it dissolves under the tongue and works nearly instantly and can't be vomited up.

HOWEVER, to make it taste okay, the makers have put in aspartame for a sweetener. Aspartame is Nutrasweet. Personally, I have physical issues with nutrasweet, so I completely avoid it. Best thing I ever did, eliminating that from my diet. I was dismayed that as an MD I had no idea of aspartame being in the medicine. It is NOT on the bottle. However, if you get the peel-aways, it does list aspartame as an ingredient. This is true of another orally dissolving tablet - Prevacid solutabs BTW.

Many pregnant women avoid sweeteners. I am. So if you are trying to avoid aspartame, but need a nausea medicine that is safe in pregnancy and has low side effects, get Zofran tablets. Make sure it is NOT the ODT version.

I'm also proud of myself...you know medical professionals of any kind make the worst patients. And I'm not great about taking medicines of any kind. But I have not missed a dose of my prenatal vitamins. My bowels can tell the difference. The iron, is, well, constipating. I'm going to have to start eating more prunes. 'Nuf said, I know, TMI.

Also, regarding my previous post about the baby forums for July, besides being shocked by all the non-pregnant people on the monthly due date forums, I'm also shocked by the misinformation being bandied about on the site. I know this is a forum for pregnant women to share information, but really, something as important as pregnancy should have MD moderators. OBs in particular.

As an MD I hesitate to ever give advice over the internet, but when I see such blatant dangerous advice...I feel it is my duty to pipe in. In particular, a woman asked if it was possible to be pregnant after a tubal ligation, saying she had "debilitating pain" much worse than a period. The answer is, yes, you can, but it is rarely normal - it is usually an ectopic (commonly referred to as a tubal) pregnancy.

This woman was wondering if she should go to the doctor because she was late, in severe pain, and her pregnancy test was normal, having had a tubal ligation many years ago. The answers given to her by others were, "I had 2 babies post tubal ligation" and "Just wait a week before going to the Doctor." Huh? The answer should have been (and what I posted) is, "While it is theoretically possible to have a normal pregnancy post tubal ligation, it is more likely to be an ectopic pregnancy...which if left untreated can kill you. Go the the ER. Now." Especially, when there is a history of "debilitating pain." I hope that woman is okay.

Diary of my Pregnancy - 40 year old first timer

Five weeks four days:


So far so good. Still no AF after my BFP and am 28 DPO. Confused? I was too.

These are all terms bandied about on the Baby Central forums where I was advised to join and lurk. What you do is give your estimated date of delivery (in my case determined by my first day of last menstrual period) and it puts you in a group of women who will deliver that week. Or so I thought...

What I found were a lot of women talking about daily temperatures, OPKs, and all sorts of terminology I knew of as fertility issues, not pregnancy issues. Lots of people would have headlines like, "Now on to August :(" or "I got my AF, on to August." Or worse, talk about their BFNs.

This also confused me. Not just the abbreviations which I will get to in a moment, but because there were non-pregnant women on a pregnancy forum.

I'm well aware of the difficulties of getting pregnant. I've lived through it with friends and with my sibling who has tried everything, unsuccessfully, to make me an aunt. I know the heart-wrenching experience women have when they get implanted and hope it will stick. All the meds they have to take for optimum fertility. It is unimaginably difficult.

That is why I chose to go the fate route and avoid all fertility issues completely. I never got fertility testing (at age 40!). I never took a hormone in my entire life. I also made sure that I never focused too hard on the idea of having a baby. Yes, I've wanted a baby of my own, but I have two amazing kids through marriage (full-time since my husband is a widower) and could go on just fine with only them.

And yes, I had a feeling I was probably fertile (from a making eggs perspective) as I have a regular 27/28 day cycle. Are there abnormalities in the eggs? Who knows. I try to avoid the X-ray tech as much as possible, but I work in a hospital. I travel in airplanes. I'm exposed more frequently than most ordinary people. I could have some damage there.

I'm also a realist. I know I'm 40. I know I had a small likelihood of getting pregnant naturally, and that I have a large likelihood of miscarriage (especially from genetic issues). Our eggs are vulnerable to damage throughout our lives, so I know that by 40, my odds are low. Then again, I found the man of my dreams (literally...a long wonderful story) at age 38, so I know that fate works and can work in my favor.

BTW, here's why eggs are so vulnerable: At birth you are born with all the eggs you'll ever have. Actually, the baby I'm carrying now will soon create all the eggs (if a girl) she will every have in her life. Those eggs are not fully developed. They are stuck in First Prophase until ovulation which then triggers the rest of Meiosis I to complete.

Which basically means (for those who don't remember high school biology) that in the process of creating eggs through Meiosis, the eggs are stuck about halfway through the process. Fertilization triggers the finalization of the process to proceed and complete Meiosis II. So environmental reasons can mess with the proper division of genes/chromosomes/etc...

Men, on the other hand, produce new sperm constantly. Each is fully Meiosis-ized (term made up by me). So the sperm don't sit around getting pummeled by radiation or toxins of any kind for a length of time. They are born, they die, new ones are born and die. If they are malformed, they are too weak to survive the journey to the egg and die.

They don't get stuck halfway through creation for 30ish years like eggs. Men make gazillions of sperm through their lifetime. Women make 400 eggs (estimated) over her fertile lifetime. Doesn't seem fair, but at least they have to suffer through their prostate in their older years--which women thankfully don't have.

So back to the forum, it makes me sad to see all these women are so desperate to have a child that they join the forum for where they hope they will be pregnant, long before they are actually pregnant. The disappointment, IMO, seems to be compounded by the fact that they are doing this month after month.

The abbreviations? Well, AF stands for period. Huh? I wondered that too. AF is slang for "Aunt Flo" for whatever reason. I keep picturing this big heavy woman "Aunt Flo" bleeding. Not a pleasant bit of imagery. Seems like P for period would make much more sense. But alas, AF is what they use on the boards. Learn to love it. Or not.

And it is ubiquitous on the baby boards. BFP stands for "Big Fat Positive or I've seen "Big F---ing Positive" for the pregnancy tests (likewise BFN is Big Fat Negative). DPO is days post ovulation (that one makes sense). And OPK is ovulation predictor kit. Here's a list of all the terms commonly found.

Next article, I should be caught up with my blogging in real time baby time. And I will talk about all the apps I'm using to track my baby's progress.

Diary of my Pregnancy - 40 year old first timer

4 weeks 2 days

So now I'm pregnant. I know, there should be an exclamation point. On baby central they use the term BFP (Big F---ing Positive). Clearly it is a big deal. But it is hard to be excited when I know the realities.

Everyone I know miscarried the first time. I'm only 4wks pregnant. Just a blob at that point. I'm 40. So much can still go wrong. I am more likely to miscarry than not. So it is hard to get overjoyed. I'm usually an optimist, and those of you reading this would think I am a complete buzz kill. However, I don't want to start naming the baby before I have even gotten past the point where I can see my baby on ultrasound.

I did make an appointment for that. Nearly 3 weeks from now. A long time to wait. Every day I go to the bathroom and half expect to see my period. So far so good.

My husband is like me, and has had similar feelings. He's been to 18weeks and then miscarried, so he knows what it is like to get really into it and have it all go wrong. That being said, we wonder aloud what our child will look like (will have a VERY thick head of hair), what they will act like (probably like his daughter who is remarkably similar to me...only moreso), what the name could be (already picked out for a girl, no clue what it would be for a boy)...

How am I feeling? Honestly, early stages of pregnancy are remarkably like PMS. Sore breasts, a little weepy, and a little crampy. I think the dull aches are from the implantation process of the baby into the uterus. The parasite (i.e. miracle child) is boring a hole into my uterus. Makes sense that would hurt a little.

While we are mostly keeping this under wraps, there are a few select people who know. Mostly because I need an outlet to talk about it or I will go insane.

(Note the posting is not completely contemporaneous with my actual dates at this point because I started the blog a week after all of this is taking place...so there will be a few posts this week as I catch up and will eventually have a weekly posting to reflect the actual time frame.)

Diary of my Pregnancy - 40 year old first timer

So I'm creating a pregnancy diary. It has been recommended I do this on multiple baby websites, so why not do it on a blog? Exactly. Which brings me to...

In brief, I got married last year, to a widower with two children. He went through all the fertility issues with his first wife, without much success, and a lot of heartbreak. His first child is adopted, and his second is via a surrogate. I did not want to put him through that again. However, as it stated in the title, I'm 40 years old now. I knew my odds were not good. Actually, the natural way, my odds were 5%/month likelihood of getting pregnant naturally.

Another way of stating this is a 1 in 20 month shot of trying versus succeeding. Since we only started trying 5 months ago, we are actually way ahead of the curve in that sense.

How did I find out? I was not obsessive about the process. I did buy a pack of three pregnancy tests last May when we started trying.

I found out because my iperiod iPhone app, where I diligently enter in my first day of menstrual cycle, tracks my fertility periods and when my expected periods are.

As an MD, you'd think I'd be able to remember when my LMP was each month, but no. I never can get that straight. My patients always seem to know, which is a marvel to me. They don't know what medicines they take, or what medical problems they have, whether they got vaccines, or even what the previous doctor said to them. But they always know their last menstrual period.

So I use an app, because apple says, "There's an app for that." And there is. Free too.

I was headed to work and checked my phone and my iperiod app announced "Your period is 1 day late!" And I have never in my life been late. I've been early--always ranging between 25-28 day/month cycles. Lately I'm nearly 27-28 day/month cycles. Something about getting married has made me more regular (and more fertile perhaps?).

I called my husband and let him know (we discuss everything) and he said "Hmmm" and I said "Hmmm" and we were like, we'll see what happens during my shift. Perhaps something will show up during my shift.

Something did show up--a dizzy spell. Very brief, and related to sympathetic pain of a severe bone injury. I sat down, drank some juice, and was fine afterwards. I used to get episodes like this frequently in med school and residency as the shock of something painful would cause a brief drop in my already low blood pressure (a known phenomenon called orthostatic hypotension from a vasovagal event). [It is such a soap opera cliche that no matter how old, the female who passes out is diagnosed as being pregnant]

Since I hadn't had something like this in a decade, and I know that blood pressure drops in pregnancy, I went "Hmmm" to myself.

And then I went home after my shift, opened up the second of three pregnancy tests and immediately got a deep pink line. Just one. So, no pregnancy, right? Oh wait, you are supposed check after 3 full minutes, not 30 seconds [bad doctor!]. So I watched a little longer and a faint line appeared to the right. And it got darker and darker. So I am pregnant! For real.

To be continued...

Keep it simple...

I was reading a humorous article on slate.com which was all about a 10 year expat's appreciation for US appliances (or dis-appreciation for European ones). The overly complicated euro-glyphs were everywhere, and unlike the kind of driving signs like we have in the US which make sense no matter what language you speak...

...okay so they don't ALL make sense...(see this link for larger image of above)

Anyway, back to my original topic, the description of the insanity of the difficult and overly complicated instructions (not to mention poorly performing devices), reminded me of another Ritz Carlton experience - this one at the Ritz Carlton Berlin. (see my previous article about the Ritz Carlton).

I've stayed in many hotels around Europe in a variety of countries. While you might have issues with their lack of air-conditioning, the controls were pretty simple to use. Except in Germany. And not just any hotel...this was the Ritz Carlton.

When I arrived, I was instructed that a certain elevator was restricted due to secret service agents for some important VIP who was going to arrive. This was one of the high end Ritz Carltons, with soaking tubs where they'll draw you a bath, and a pillow menu. Did you know you can choose more than just foam versus feathers? Here you can. And that's for no additional charge (see previous article as to why it is nice not to be nickel-and-dimed at high-end hotels).

Again with the tangents...I'm sorry...so when I'm there, the temperature is a little cooler than i would like, so I approached the thermostat. It was completely unrecognizable.

I'm not a technophobe. In fact, quite the opposite. I'm an "early adopter." I love technology that makes my life better and easier. I read manuals. I know what every single function on my camera does. I know NOT to have the flash on when taking photos in a stadium (big pet peeve of mine when a thousand flashes go off needlessly at a ball game). I have two advanced post-college degrees. And yet, I could not figure out how to make the heat go on.

I wish I had taken a photo like the author of the slate.com article I referenced above did. But OMG, there was no blue or red areas,  no NUMBERS (I know Celsius so I'd be fine if they gave me that...). But that did not stop me.

There were two buttons, I assumed (incorrectly) that one was hot and one was cold. All I had to do was guess which one. So I experimented, and could not get heat to go on. In fact, I was convinced that my room was colder no matter what button I pushed, as if there was a cold and colder button for air-conditioning, but no button for heat.

So I assumed the thing was broken and called for assistance. Due to the language barrier, they sent someone to my room to help. I was a little embarrassed (stupid american!) so I watched from a distance. I don't know what they did, but in a moment, the heat was on.

That should have been the end, but realize, I'm a stubborn person. I wanted to understand. Were you supposed to push both buttons at the same time? Perhaps in time to a specific rhythm? I don't know. But someone with a lot less education got it to work, surely I could.

A short time later, it was clear that the heat, while on, was not warm enough. I tried again to manipulate the thermostat without luck. I did not want to further embarrass myself by calling to have the heat increased yet again. So I slept with extra of the plush blankets they provided, and enjoyed six different pillows for a lovely night's sleep.

This was my european Kafka moment. Have you had one? Do tell.

The Ritz Carlton and other nice details in life

Recently I stayed at a Ritz Carlton and a Courtyard Marriott. I've been at many Ritz Carltons before, and while luxurious, they are by no means the perfect hotel chain. Mostly, I enjoyed this experience at the Marina del Rey site. However, the little details that make it great, are also the ones that taint it as well.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of both Marriott owned facilities (Note--I'm really picky about bathrooms and use it as a big qualifier for liking a room. And I love baths. So if you prefer a great shower, your opinion might vary.)

Courtyard (Culver City)
Cost: $169/night
Room Size: Enough to walk around without tripping.
Room Amenities: Modern design, clean, average quality, firm comfortable bed, nice size desk with plenty of outlets, no ipod dock alarm clock.
Bathroom: Nice use of granite and travertine stone. Small but functional. Adequate shampoo/conditioner/shower gel provided of good quality. Unusable bathtub typical of Marriotts of all price ranges - so shallow that even a under 5'2 female cannot cover body in water. Exposed pipes under the sink, also typical, and gross, visible from bath and toilet.
Check-in/out: Quick and easy.
Bellhop assistance: Non existant. There's a desk, but no person around when we were there. There was a cart that can be used.
Overall staff presence: Pleasant but sparse.
Parking: $16 for valet, $10 for self which is close to main entrance.
Food: Not-included breakfast, continental style, average quality.
Internet: Wifi is free and works well.
Other: Free coffee in the mornings. Safe did not work. Must pay for water that is in machine down the hall. Nothing in room.

Overall: Good value for the money.

Ritz Carlton (Marina Del Rey)

Cost: $259/night

Room Size: Enough to walk around without tripping. Plus small seating area, roomy desk area.

Room Amenities: Typical Ritz Carlton, designed for your grandfather with dark wood galore, yellow and gold highlights. Firm bed with soft topper makes a great night sleep, plush sheets and comforter. Desk is nice size, but not enough spots for plugs, for computer and cell phone charging. No plug in the safe. Drop moldings near ceiling leave straight shadow, which is a nice touch and reveals good quality build. Lots of storage space. Ipod charger alarm clock in room was useful. Especially since there were not sufficient plugs at the desk.

Bathroom: Lots of marble. Not too small, but not very big. Good smelling shampoo/conditioner/shower gel but the containers were difficult to extract the liquid--wonder what it would be like for someone with arthritis? Useable bathtub, but not a large soaker that I've experienced at other Ritz Carltons. Not a special experience, but at least functional. Shower is not separate, only one showerhead. Nothing special. Nice cabinetry that hides pipes under the sink. Robes are nice, absorbant, and plush--albeit very heavy.

Check-in/out: Quick and easy.

Bellhop assistance: They gather your things and magically bring them to your room. Friendly. Helpful. Always trying to offer directions.

Overall staff presence: Pleasant and plentiful. Gift shop attendant was very helpful and sent items to our room.

Parking: $35/day for valet! No self-park associated with hotel. Front desk lied to us about self-park availability. Bellhop told us about public parking next to hotel that is not in/out parking, but only $6/24hours.

Food: Worst breakfast buffet I've every seen at a Ritz. Great quality off-the-menu items, with fabulous banana praline french toast. Good quality buffet, but some days there was only a small selection of prepared items, no made to order tables. Nice view of the marina from the restaurant.

Internet: Wifi costs $10/day, slow, and clunky sign-on. Annoying and disappointing. Left a bad taste in my mouth.

Other: Free watermelon water in the mornings that is fabulous. No free morning coffee that I could see. Excellent fitness center with state-of-the-art machines. Too bad they were not facing the water view. Love the hand towels placed on each machine. Nice pool, jacuzzi, location on the water, tennis courts and basketball court. Hotel design was drab exteriorly--too much beige. Free newspaper, bottled water in room.

Overall: While the $90 difference in price would suggest the Ritz is a great value, the little extras that cost more do add up and frankly, I'd rather have them rolled into the price. The nickel-and-diming that occurs at a luxury chain like the Ritz is stupid. However, if you plan on using the pool and other amenities, that does make it worth it. I love the great service that a Ritz Carlton provides, but here the service was amazing and sometimes disappointing. The luxury features were less evident, and frankly, I think the Ritz could modernize their design throughout the whole brand. I've also stayed at locations that were vastly superior in room size, and bathroom design for similar prices. 

What is the future role for traditional publishers?

I came across an interesting blog post recently, that talked about the mistakes publishers are making in the digital age, in particular, the use of the ipad.

And in the Amanda Hocking era of self-publishing success without having a book contract with a publisher, do the publishers have a role? What is it? Can they be profitable?

In this pdf, J.A. Konrath and Barry Eisler discuss the success of ebooks and the rejection by Eisler of a 500k book deal.

If this is the sign of the times, it makes fiscal sense for well-known authors to self-publish ebooks since they can get a 70% royalty of what they sell. In fact, why WOULD a Dean Koontz or Dan Brown continue with regular publishers when their loyal readers will pay for ebooks that could largely go into the authors pocket, FASTER than the slow process of the traditional route?

The number one answer is an unnatural attachment to the paper form. Eventually, these people will die out, and like in the above pdf, the analogy given is with candles. "Originally, candlemakers were in the lighting business; today, they're in the candlelight business." In other words, publishers will publish paper books, but the main business of selling books will be digital. (for the record, I still love paper books, and right now, a paperback is still a superior mode of reading at the beach where I would hesitate to bring my ipad)

Number two reason: You want to make a movie based on your book. Some ebooks have been optioned, and that market is growing. However, getting a book deal legitimizes you, and activates the "trollers" who look for books that would make great movies. Most authors make a living, not on book sales, but on movie options on their books. I think that movie producers will look for ebooks with high sales, and still use publishers as a guide for quality work. In other words, unless you are Amanda Hocking, you won't get your ebook noticed for a movie deal, you will need to go the traditional route.

If you are a popular author who isn't attached to a professionally published book, and doesn't care about the movie business, it makes sense to self-publish by ebooking. (yes, I made that term up)

So, if I extrapolate logical behavior of popular authors, then in five years 80% of the well-known authors will self-publish some or all of their work in ebook format. Who will be left for publishers? What will their role be?

Publishers will need to keep popular authors by giving added value. This can include editing, marketing, and a superior quality printed book, plus a MUCH larger cut of digital sales. If publishers carefully vet their authors and put out high quality books, consumers will recognize a traditional publisher as one worth "the risk" of a purchase. And if self-pub ebooks are on average $2/book price, traditional publishers could charge twice that and justify it.

As mentioned by Dr. Brenner, they don't charge twice that. They charge five or ten times that. Which is ridiculous.

If, hypothetically, 80% of popular authors go rogue, then the role of traditional publishers will be to find rising stars. Would a reader risk reading a new book by an unknown author that has no track record? If they have a large online presence, possibly. Otherwise, the publisher throwing their weight around could likely inspire confidence and thus, a purchase.

Would this mean publishers would lose so much money as to not be viable? Unlikely. If the model is mostly digital, then the costs to publish are nearly nothing. With low cost books, more people can and will buy them, increasing the market size. And clever publishers could create added value in these digital books by association with their "name."

In other words, if publishers adapt, they will survive and flourish, admittedly with a slightly different role as they serve now. If they don't adapt, they will die. And quickly.

HTML Hell

While my book Marriage of Deceit sits on the desks of publishers (for over one year), I've decided to go all Amanda Hocking and sell some ebooks. Okay ebook. Singular. I do have many books, but they're in different genres and my agent has advised me to have a different identity for each genre.

So I experimented with the Kindle and iPad search engines and discovered the Kindle is much more search friendly. I love apple products. Between my husband and me we have every type of "i" product out there. I have many generations of apple computers. I am completely PC free, and the only microsoft product I use is microsoft office - which I don't like but tolerate.

Where apple loses is in its searching prowess. When I want to look for a book, I can search an author or title, best sellers that are free or paid, but not by keywords. Let's just say I want to find a thriller: I can search the category "mysteries and thrillers," but that only brings me the top authors in alphabetical order, for the paid/free books. That means if you are not already selling a lot of books, and your name is not already well known, it is not possible to discover someone new and up-and-coming. As a buyer and a seller I am frustrated with the iBookstore searching ability.

Luckily, there is the Kindle. I'm not sure why Steve Jobs is allowing their competition to have a free bookstore alongside their own, but I'm glad. The Kindle app is superior in its searchability. If I want to find a thriller, I click on the category "mystery and thrillers" and then the subcategory "thrillers." What makes it user friendly is the "sort by" feature. I can sort by ratings, price low to high, high to low, best selling, and publication date.

Thus, I decided to first publish on the Kindle format. This allows me to use it on the Kindle and iPad platform. Of course, this meant getting the product ready for upload, and my word document did not translate well. I was forced to slog through the HTML and CSS in order to get an acceptable appearing document.

I am not a programmer. When I was a kid I learned BASIC, but never evolved into a hacker. A few years back I taught myself rudimentary HTML with the hopes of designing my own website. Only I realized that the time commitment was not worth it. And I scrapped that idea and simply went with a blog that allowed me extra tabs to include other pages. In other words a website blog. Blogspot.com allowed me to do all of this AND it has the "edit HTML" feature to make me think I can play around with the programming if I choose. Usually I don't.

I re-taught myself HTML and added on a quicky version of CSS to interpret the microsoft word generated HTML and clean it up. I did this painstaking process, and think I came up with a pretty good document. I have since uploaded it all to kindle and in a few days, I should have an actual app to buy. Then, I'll see how it looks in real time, and if it is okay, command people to buy it.

Of course, my neighbor can't wait to read it, but only on her Nook. It took me 30minutes to even locate the part of the barnesandnoble.com website where you can even consider adding an ebook. They accept HTML so I did the upload and...well...it did NOT look pretty like on the kindle. The word file itself needed some help, but looked better than the HTML version. In the next week or so I'll pretty-up the word doc and upload a Nook version.

And soon, I'll post some material from my book.

Signing off,
Bayla

PS I know I'm not gonna sell like Hocking, but I would like to move my book forward. Mostly I'd like to take some control over a system that moves so slowly it is amazing ANYTHING gets published.

Mixed feelings about LA

I used to live in LA. Briefly. I had this vague idea growing up that I wanted to go there. My parents wouldn't let me go to college there. So after graduating I went. It was a liberating experience.

I was awed by the beauty of the landscape with nearby soaring mountains (especially best viewed after a recent rainfall) nearby the pacific ocean. When I would take the 101 to the valley, I would be stuck in traffic and distract myself with the amazing beauty of the hills beside me. I imagined they were formed by g-d taking his enormous hands and poking upwards on the crust.

I adored the warm sun, which was ever-present. Nearly every day it was 80 degrees and sunny. The weathermen had to resort with segregating the forecast into areas to create variety. Cooler in Santa Monica by the beach, baking in the valley, snowing in Big Bear. All the while, it was the same "80" and image of the sun that populated the forecast.

But like everything else, there is a duality. LA is a desert after all, and the nights were cold (for me). One of my favorite memories growing up were the warm summer nights spent outside. Perhaps I was unlucky, but during my short 10 month tenure in LA, there were fires in malibu, and a large earthquake in Northridge. I still have a tiny measure of fear whenever I visit the city. The earthquake didn't just shake the ground, as I too have never quite been the same since that experience.

I have many friends in LA (and now a relative due to my new sister-in-law), so I always have a reason to visit. And there are many warm people in and around the area. However, I can't help but see some of the truth in shows like "Entourage" "Episodes" and "Californication." There is a frenetic energy in the city of angels; a constant layer of anxiety behind many smiles. Where ambition and creativity meet, there can be strife.

It is for this reason, I had my first novel (first complete one) set in LA. That first novel will always hold a special place in my heart, as will my feelings about Los Angeles.

Spartacus

I'm sad to see the pre-quel come to a close. It was interesting in that we got to see how the main characters came to be. However, you had to assume that certain people who were not in present day would meet a dastardly end.

My husband calls Spartacus porn for women. Probably true. He doesn't seem to mind it himself - I think there is just the right balance of men in loin cloths (for women) and blood and gore (for men).

Oddly, Spartacus isn't our only guilty pleasure. We like "The League" too. And Bob's Burgers. I'm trying to get him into Millionaire Matchmaker, but right now, that one is all mine.

Brie

Am I alone in my love of brie? Bake it, slather apples, figs, peaches or some other sweet fruit on top, and it simply melts in your mouth. I'm one of the pickiest eaters on the planet (I say "discerning") but I like brie. Mmmmm. It's making me hungry.

I mention brie because my husband is on a work trip and had some recently. I'm supremely jealous. Of the brie, not the work trip.