Part 2...

Part 1

In the two months while we waited for our RE appointment (April and May 2011), I spent a lot of time researching fertility. Specifically about natural remedies, acupuncture and diets that promote and increase fertility. I've never been really into "alternative" medicine, but everything I was reading seemed to make a lot of sense and there were a ton of success stories. I was intrigued.

So June 1st rolled around and we headed off to the RE. I came with about 50 questions, all my charts and I tried to keep my emotions in check. I really didn't want to cry in front of a doctor I was just meeting. The appointment was pretty straight forward - the doctor wasn't super friendly, but he seemed to know his stuff and I appreciated his no-nonsense attitude. I did shed some tears, but what can you do?

Luckily, the appointment fell in the right time of my cycle, so I was able to have my bloodwork and an ultrasound done that day. Everything looked good and he wrote me a referral to get an HSG, which is a slightly uncomfortable test where they inject dye into your lady parts to make sure your tubes and uterus are all clear and look good. I had that test done a week later and everything came back normal. J also got the pleasure of getting yet another semen analysis, which he was obviously stoked about! ha!

So about 3 weeks after our appointment, we got our "official" diagnosis - Unexplained Infertility. It sort of felt like a slap in the face. They couldn't find anything wrong with us, so there was nothing they could "fix". At that point, I honestly wanted there to be an issue with one of us so we could be treated for an actual problem. The doctors recommendation: Intrauterine Insemination (IUI). Basically artificial insemination. He gave us about a 20-25% success rate per cycle, which is about the same as just trying on our own.

So then we met with the financial advisor for the doctor's office. Our insurance didn't cover any fertility treatment and one cycle of IUI would cost us $2,700. I about had a heart attack and I'm pretty sure J may have said "holy shit" out loud. The cost included all the medicine I would need to take, the trigger shot to get me to ovulate and all the ultrasound monitoring during the cycle. And did I mention it only had a 20% chance of working, so we may have to do this multiple times? Yeah, it was like a punch in the stomach.

We thanked them and left, to go home and "discuss" our options. We didn't have that kind of money sitting around to spend on getting pregnant - we had planned to use our savings as an actual "baby" fund, not a "making a baby" fund. After a lot of crying and talking, we decided we would just keep trying naturally until the end of 2011 and see what happened.

The day after our diagnosis, I made an appointment with an acupuncture clinic in our town, that specializes in fertility. For some bizarre reason, our insurance actually did cover a little bit of acupuncture (a 30% discount on treatments). One hour long session of acupuncture cost $45 - a little bit easier to swallow than $2,700. I was really nervous leading up to my first appointment - I hate needles and I wasn't sure what to really expect.

I met with my acupuncturist, Camille, and I instantly felt at ease. She was so easy to talk to and had a great calming presence. We spent a good hour talking about everything - my charts, the RE appointment and diagnosis, my current diet, what I did for exercise. To my surprise, I didn't cry one time during the appointment. Then she gave me my first needle treatment - I honestly couldn't feel any of the needles when she was putting them in or while they were in. She put them in my legs, feet, belly and arms and then one right between my eyes (not gonna lie, that one freaked me out!). I laid with the needles in for about 45 minutes and pretty much immediately fell asleep. Like a super deep, wonderful sleep. When she woke me up, I felt like I had just gotten 8 hours, not 45 minutes!

So after the treatment, we set up a diet plan to help increase my fertility and she recommended weekly acupuncture treatments - you mean, she wanted me to come take relaxing 45 minute naps every week? Sign me up!

Part 3 coming soon - my holistic regimen!

Part 1...

I've debated writing this post for months now. I just wasn't sure I wanted to share this part of my private life. But as this pregnancy gets closer and closer to the end (eeek!), I decided I do want to share my story, in hopes that it might help someone else silently struggling to have a baby.

2011 was one of the worst years for me emotionally and mentally. It actually started in 2010, but by 2011, I had reached a new level of emotional distress. The reason - infertility. I actually really hate that word. It sounds so definite and finite and as evidenced by my growing belly, we obviously overcame our diagnosis. So I'm sharing our story of trying to have a baby. We were extremely lucky in that our journey was much shorter and less invasive than many couples and we are very grateful for that.

I had been on birth control pills since age 17. I never had a problem with them and they obviously worked for me. After J and I got married in September 2009, we discussed when we wanted to start having kids. We decided that I should go off the pill right after we got married and maybe start officially "trying" right around the 6 month mark of being married - we weren't getting any younger!

I went off the pill in October 2009 and my cycles regulated pretty quickly - I started getting my period within 2 months. We officially started trying in May 2010 - basically just not preventing and just seeing what happens. I figured we would just have a bunch of sex and I would probably be pregnant within 3 months. July 2010 rolled around and I got a little bit anxious (yes, I realize that I'm OCD and anal!). This led me to buy the bible aka "Taking Charge of your Fertility" to try and understand my cycles a little bit better for good timing. This book seriously opened my eyes and taught me so much about my own body.

So I bought myself a nifty little thermometer and started temping/charting. It was fascinating to me to watch my temperature over the month to see my spike with ovulation, count the days of my luteal phase and then be able to tell when I would get my period (or hopefully, NOT get my period!).

I noticed that I was ovulating every month, which was very reassuring. By September 2010, I had added in ovulation predictor kits (where you pee on a stick and it tells you the best 2-3 days to conceive). I'm not sure if it was the nerd in me, but I found it sort of like a personal challenge to chart my cycles and make sure that we had great timing. There's only about a 5 day window a woman can conceive every month and we were always making sure our timing fell in this window. I figured I would be pregnant by Christmas - how could I not be with my normal cycles and our perfect timing?!?

Of course, this does take a lot of the romance out of "baby making". Even on nights when we were tired, sick or stressed, if it was a "peak day", then we needed to be trying. I could tell J was getting a little bothered by this slight obsession, but we both wanted a baby so we were committed to keep trying. I told him that I just wanted to try as best as we could for a year and if it didn't happen, we could step back and re-evaluate.

So Christmas and New Years came and went and there was no positive pregnancy tests. In March 2011, I went to my annual well women check up with my OB/GYN. I decided I would just bring my 7 months of charts (printed out in color and labeled by month by my OCD self) and talk to her about it. I'm not going to lie, I had a breakdown in her office. Maybe we were trying too hard? Maybe I was too stressed about it? Did I need to "relax and see what happens". My OB/GYN did not think I needed to relax. She was impressed by my charts and called my cycles "textbook". She saw our timing and agreed we were definitely doing everything we could.

Obviously it can take up to a year for a healthy couple to conceive - we were still 2 months away from the year mark. But after looking at my charts, she recommended that J get a semen analysis done, since it was easy, quick and could possibly identify a problem. This was a bit of a shock - I didn't know if I was ready for us to start this sort of testing and it seemed like we were admitting that something was wrong. After a lot of discussion, J agreed to get the test and he got down to business (ha!). I have to admit, deep down, I was convinced that the results of his test were going to be abnormal. There had to be something wrong with him, since my body seemed to be "textbook", right?

Well his results came back 100% normal. Again, I had another breakdown. Here we were, two young, healthy adults and nothing we were doing to have a baby was working. I went back to my OB/GYN and she wrote me a referral for a reproductive endocrinologist (RE). There's only 1 in our town and they have a long waiting list, so she suggested we call and try to get an appointment since they probably couldn't see us for a few months. They couldn't get us in until June 1st, so past our 1 year of trying mark. I crossed my fingers that we would conceive in the 2 month waiting period and we would get to cancel that appointment. That didn't happen.

To be continued...

Confessions of a (soon-to-be) working momma

So my kid isn't even born yet and I'm already experiencing mommy guilt. And I can only imagine it's going to get worse after he is here and I fall in love with him even more than I already am.

When I was little and someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said "a mom". My mom stayed home with me (she worked part time once I started school and full time when I got to high school) and it was wonderful. I always pictured myself staying home with my future kids, since that was what I had grown up with.

Sadly, that is not in the cards for us at this point. It's not just about being able to "re-budget" and adjust our lifestyle so that I could stay home - we could not pay our mortgage, utilities and other life expenses without my salary. We live in a pretty high cost of living area and while we certainly live well within our means, it also requires two salaries to maintain a comfortable, but frugal lifestyle.

I'm not going to lie and say I'm not upset about having to go back to work in late August/early September and putting the little man in some sort of day care/nanny situation. I have cried about it, pouted about it, prayed about it and complained about it. J would like me to stay home as well and I know he also feels bad about the fact that it's not a possibility.

Not sure if I ever blogged about this, but in August, I transitioned into a new job within my company and now I work 100% from home. I'm an account manager, so I have a list of accounts that I handle and this is split into about 80% at home (making phone calls, answering emails, etc.) and 20% out in the field, visiting my clients and going on appointments. Working from home is definitely a challenge but I do like it and am generally happy spending my days in sweatpants.

I think when some people hear that I work from home, they think this entails sitting around, eating bonbons and occasionally answering an email or two. This is definitely not the case - I probably work harder from home than if I went to an office every day. I can never "get away" from the office and I find myself answering emails at 10:00pm on a Saturday night just because my desk is sitting right there and I can't tear myself away.

I've found that along with this, comes the people who are genuinely surprised when they hear that we'll be putting the baby in daycare. I've heard this comment more time that I can count:

"Oh, you are so lucky to be able to work from home and stay home with the baby so you won't have to put him in daycare"

Umm not so much. I can't work full time (which for me is 50+ hours per week) and raise a newborn/infant/toddler/preschooler full time. My general response to this comment is:

"No, the baby will be in daycare. Would you take your infant to work every day with you?"

I can only imagine making calls to my client in between the baby screaming, pooping or some other sort of meltdown that I haven't even experienced yet. Not going to happen. It's hard to get people to understand that I work during the day and can't be expected to do my job full time as look after the baby all day long.

Another issue I seem to get facing is in my own head - there are a lot of aspects of working from home that are really lonely. The only "person" I have to talk to during the day is Spencer and unfortunately, she doesn't talk back. If I have a question about something, I can't just walk down the hall to ask a co-worker. Sure, I can call one of them, but it's not quite the same as face to face. Usually by the time Jake gets home from work, I'm dying for some human interaction and talk his ear off for a good hour as soon as it walks in the door.

The more I started thinking about being home alone all day, with no one to talk to, while the baby is at day care, the more upset I got. I've had several mini-panic attacks thinking about this - would I be able to focus on my work all day long being at the house with no change of scenery or co-workers to take my mind off of the fact that I'm away from my baby boy for 9-10 hours a day?

So I decided to focus on the positives of being home all day while my son is at daycare. I made a list and I keep it tacked up on the bulletin board in my office so I can look at it whenever I start to get freaked out.

1. Since I can generally take my lunch break whenever I want, I could sneak away and go visit the little man during the day.

2. Without a commute, I can start my day earlier and therefore finish earlier - then I could go over in the afternoon and pick him up early some days...extra bonus time in the afternoon with my little boy!

3. I can use my lunch break and a few other small breaks during the day to finish up laundry or other household chores that I need to do, which equals more uninterrupted time with the baby in the evenings.

4. I can pump my breastmilk in the comfort of my own home and store it easily in my own fridge/freezer!

5. I can also use my lunch breaks to go to the gym (which is what I currently do during my lunch) - this gives me more baby time in the evening, plus keeps me happy and can reduce my stress by giving me some "mommy time". Happier mom = happier baby!

6. I can use the lack of an evening commute to cook dinner while J is picking up the baby from day care (he will be the primary drop off and pick up person) so we can eat as a family when they get home.

I'm going to keep adding to my list as I think of more positives about working from home. This list is pretty much keeping me sane - ha! This post is more of a brain-dump for me to get all my feelings about being a working mom out.

Baby's First Pictures

So I'm not usually a fan of sharing sonogram pics, but I got a new scanner and I've been playing with it and finally scanned in our ultrasound pictures from our anatomy scan back in December. These were taken when he was around 20 weeks (now he's 25 weeks) and I'm amazing how clear and well they turned out.

Per my insurance, they send us to a high risk fetal doctor for all our ultrasounds and he has really high tech, good quality ultrasound machines so our pictures always come out great. We have one more ultrasound scheduled for mid-March at 30 weeks and the doctor promises the pictures will be amazing since he'll be so big at that point!

So without further adieu, here is our baby boy when he was half-baked!Side profile - Love his little nose! Also a good shot of his spine - craziness! We joke that he's going to be a male model with this shot. Little man is straight chillin' with his leg up like that! It's also crazy to me that you can see the bones in his legs, especially since he was like 8 inches long at this point! 3-D pictures usually freak me out (and in the beginning when he was really small, they were really freaky and alien-looking). But this one is pretty cool, you can definitely see his face developing and his cute little button nose and pouty lips! This is J's favorite picture - he think it's looks like he's flexing and trying to kiss his bicep. Umm yeah, not so much. I do like that he sort of looks like he's smiling in this one though.

So that's our baby boy from like a month ago. I can't wait to see how much bigger he's gotten at our next appointment!

The Anatomy of a Nursery

Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of themed nurseries or bedding sets. There are exceptions to this rule - I think that Pottery Barn Kids and Land of Nod have some amazing bedding sets and that their "themed" rooms are very pretty and well done. But when someone says to me "Jungle themed nursery", this is the image that pops in my head: Ick.
(No offense if you are a fan of this type of room for a baby, these are just my opinions on the issue)

I'm just not sure why retailers seem to think that new parents want to plaster their babies room with cutesy designed bedding and matching lamps, curtains, wallpaper, wall hangings, etc. It's also funny to me because one of the questions I'm asked most (mainly by strangers) is "ooh, what theme are you doing for the nursery?" Like I have to pick a central image and base an entire room around it. You should see the looks of confusion when I say "umm, we're not doing a theme". It's like I said that we're planning on having the baby sleep in the coat closet or something.

Anyways, since there will be no "theme" in our son's room, I have been busy pinning inspiration pictures and searching sources like Project Nursery to find rooms that I like. We are keeping the walls in the room the same green that we painted when we moved in - Minted Lemon (not sure why green paint is named lemon, but oh well). Here's the color:
It's a nice, neutral sage green color. Since forever, I've wanted to do baby boy's room in navy blue, and since that goes well with the green walls, that became our main color. To throw in a little bit of brightness, we'll also be doing yellow accents.
Because we're not re-painting the walls, I got a great idea (thanks Pinterest!) to do a horizontal striped accent wall in navy and white along the wall in the room where the crib will go. Here's my inspiration for the stripes:

I love how bold and graphic it is and I think it will look great with the soothing green on the other 3 walls.

The crafty bug has also bit me, so I plan on making the crib skirt and curtains for the room, as well as some throw pillows. I finally settled on these two fabrics (from fabric.com):

One of our main goals was to furnish and decorate the room on a pretty tight budget, so I've been bargain shopping for most everything. I became obsessed with ottoman poufs to use with our rocking chair/glider and was determined to find one without breaking the bank - some of those suckers are pricey! I couldn't justify spending $150+ on something that may get thrown up on. Imagine my delight when I found this one a few weeks ago, for $34.99 on Joss and Main:
(I was testing it out with the couch in our living room).

I'm seriously obsessed with this thing and I can't wait to see it in the nursery, in front of this rocker: We also plan to find a dresser on craigslist or at goodwill to use as a changing table/dresser combo. I want to paint it yellow or navy, but J is fighting me on that and wants to keep it nuetral by painting it white. We'll see who wins that battle! We haven't found the perfect dresser yet, but I seriously stalk craigslist every day, so I'm hoping we can get something soon. Here's what I'm thinking for the dresser:My wonderful parents gifted us with the little man's crib, which was just ordered last week. We went traditional and inexpensive - the Graco Lauren crib. Highly rated by Baby Bargains and you really can't beat the price! We found it at Walmart of all places, with a mattress, for $175.
So that's the plan for the baby's room - I'll be doing a TON more posts about how it all comes together and a final budget breakdown when we finish as well!

Our Love Story...

Since tomorrow is Valentine's Day, I thought I would link up with From Mrs. to Mama and share J and I's love story!
1. How long have you and your significant other been together? We've been together for 6 years (it will be 7 in October) and married for a little over 2 years.
2. How did you meet? {What's your "love" story?} We met on my 24th birthday, October 26, 2005. We were introduced through mutual friends who had been sneakily trying to set us up for a few weeks. They used my birthday as an excuse to throw a party so we could meet and the rest is sort of history. We pretty much started dating right away after we met that night.

3. If married, how long have you been married? {do tell} We've been married just about 2.5 years. Our wedding was September 5, 2009 (Best day of my LIFE!) 4. If you are married, where did you get married at? Big or small wedding? We got married in a Historic Park and Gardens in our town. It was on the water and we got married in the garden and then had our reception under a tent on the grounds. We had about 150 people at our wedding, so it was pretty average sized. 5. Do you have any nick-names that you call one another? Do share! We really don't have too many nicknames. Sometimes I call him by his full name and he will occasionally call me Babe, but we're not really big into nicknames I guess.

6. Name 3 things you love most about your honey. #1 - He is always positive and is able to cheer me up whenever I need it. #2 - He is the most hardworking person I've ever met. Whether it's projects around the house, his job or really anything. #3 - He is really into family and he loves my family as much as his.

7. Tell us how he proposed? We had a low-key engagement, which is perfect for us. We got engaged on November 14, 2008, which was just a random Friday. It was gross and rainy out, but Jake suggested we go to dinner at this little cafe that we eat at quite a bit. He was pretty calm and collected for all of the dinner. He insisted we get dessert and coffee, which was sort of unusual (I think he was getting nervous and wanted to stall!).

After dinner, he suggested we take a walk through town and I said no since it was cold and rainy, but he was very persistent. So we walked and ended up at this waterfront park. All the sudden he grabbed my arm and was down on one knee. I have no idea what he even said, but all the sudden he had the most beautiful ring! Again, the details are pretty fuzzy because I was in shock but I'm pretty sure I said yes at some point. Then we called our families (who obviously knew it was happening) and then stopped over at my BFF's K's house (she was also in on it) where she had champagne waiting for us to celebrate!

8. Is he a flowers and teddy bear kind of guy for v-day, or strawberries, champagne, and rose petals? Umm neither? We really don't do much for Valentine's Day and that's ok with me. Normally we just exchange cards and maybe some candy.

9. Are you a sunset dinner on the beach kind of girl, or pop a movie in and relax on the couch? Can I say both? haha. We are big homebodies and prefer to stay home and relax, but I do love getting dressed up and going to dinner or out to get a drink.

10. Tell us one thing you'd like to do with your significant one day. If you could do anything? Go anywhere? I'd love to take a 2 or 3 week trip and travel to Australia, Fiji and Bali - just relaxing on the beach and traveling around to see the islands. I guess that will have to wait until after our kid(s) are much older! But one day!11. Tell us what you plan on doing on this Valentine's Day. We always cook the same meal on Valentine's Day as a special treat. Lamp Chops and Sweet Pea Risotto with black cherry balsamic reduction. It's the only day of the year we eat this and it's always fun to cook together. Then just sitting in our pj's and relaxing!

12. Are you asking for anything this Valentine's day? This is the preggo in me talking, but we are going to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast on Valentine's Day because ever since I saw the commercial for the chocolate heart shaped donut, I've been craving it! So I guess I'm asking for a donut?? HA!13. Give us one piece of advice of keeping a relationship strong and full of love. I think I would have to say respecting each other. We don't always get along and obviously have our fights, but I respect everything J says and thinks and he does the same for me. We have our own opinions, but try to stay open to the other person's feelings/thoughts and I think that's super important.14. Show us a picture of what love means to you.

This picture is from Christmas, I was 18 weeks pregnant and we had just found out that we were having a baby boy! I can't wait for our little family to grow and I think 2012 will be our most exciting year ever!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Step away from the google...

**This post may be TMI in regards to pregnancy stuff**

I'll be the first to admit that I spent a good part of the 1st trimester acting slightly crazy in terms of anxiety. Every cramp or twinge freaked me out and I got used to checking the toilet paper for any spotting/blood every time I went. I couldn't help it and nothing really calmed me down (I did get MUCH better once we hit the 2nd trimester and had 2 good ultrasounds). But I have been downright relaxed since about 13 weeks.

I tried not to google or read too much, but I did sign up for the weekly emails from What To Expect and Baby Center. I look at these as a double edged sword - they are helpful and interesting in terms of what was happening and how the baby was growing, but they also freak me out. I think in my 6th week, they sent an article called "The truth about miscarriage". Umm really?!?! Thanks for calming my nerves Baby Center! Especially when they also send articles about how staying relaxed can be beneficial to the baby. It was at that point that J made me step back from the computer, and I was very glad to have a little break.

Now that I'm 2.5 weeks away from the 3rd trimester, I've found that the crazy email hype is back! Right after I hit 24 weeks, the articles about pre-term labor started. What to look for, symptoms, etc. I'm not saying that it's not a good idea to know about this if something is happening, but it seems like it's pushed into pregnant women's faces and it is super scary! Now I feel like I'm back to analyzing every cramp and checking the toilet paper again.

The midwives I go to tell me to keep an eye on any leaking or increased discharge and then in the same sentence, tell me that my discharge may increase at this point and it's completely normal. Ok, well then which one is it??? Cramping that feels like menstrual cramps may be pre-term labor and it also might be round ligament pain or stretching, which is common and normal. Alright, when should I be concerned?? There's so much grey area!

J and I were talking this morning about how it was probably so much easier to be pregnant before the days of the internet. Blissfully unaware of all the bad things that can happen and no easy access to google every simple symptom that you have. I've learned to just read the articles about the baby's development each week and I don't really read anything else at this point. It's better for my mental health (and the babies!)

What's in a name?

I think I've mentioned before that we are decided on a name for the baby. But we're not sharing it with anyone (even parents!) until he's here. I never realized how hard this would be, or how many people (including strangers!) would have such opinions about the name and bug us to tell them what we picked.

Honestly, before we knew the baby was a boy or a girl, we agreed on a boys name right away. I was actually sort of surprised by how easy it was. I've had this name as my #1 boys name choice for years and as soon as I suggested it to J, he was on board. Simple as that! Of course, we could not agree on a girls name AT ALL! So I was thinking the baby would be a girl just because of that! But then when little man showed his goods at the ultrasound, we both sort of breathed a sigh of relief that we could stop discussing names.

We did debate the middle name for a few days, as we wanted to incorporate a family name as the middle name. We got lists from both sides of the family and it turns out that both of our maternal grandfather's have the same name. So that pretty much ended that debate and his middle name was settled on pretty easily as well. I like that his middle name has significance to both sides of the family.

But it's been really hard to keep it a secret, especially since it's usually the 1st question people ask when they find out we're having a boy. It got to be so annoying that now I tell most people we haven't decided on a name yet, because if you tell them you have one but you're not sharing, it leads to a lot of whining and complaining. And then you get the suggestions of what you should name him - you know, because I would want a stranger in the grocery store line to name my baby! So for now, I just remain quiet and say we are still discussing it!

It's fun because we do call him by his name when we're alone and talk about him using his name. So far (knock on wood) we haven't slipped up in front of anyone else and I think we'll be good for the next 3 months. But I do really LOVE the name and I can't wait for everyone to find out! I think it will fit him perfectly and now I can't imagine him having any other name (even before meeting him!) So you all will find out in May!

I don't think you're ready for this belly...

Ok, sorry for the super lame, cheesy blog title - but it was the first thing that came to my mind after we took this month's belly pictures. Whoa BELLY! I'm 24 weeks (which, ps, is 6 MONTHS PREGNANT! That baffles my mind!) and I give new definition to the term "all belly". I think I look about 8 months pregnant at this point, which sort of scares me. Little man must be going through a growth spurt in there. He's also moving up, so I'm definitely not carrying super low anymore. Without further adieu....here it is...
Umm yeah, I know - ridiculous right? I actually screamed when I looked at the camera after J took these photos. And also, that shirt probably won't make it to too many more monthly belly shots.

The funniest part is that this month, I only gained 1 pound. I know, you can't really tell by looking at that picture, but it's true. I'm still feeling really good at this point, so I'm making it to the gym 3-4 times a week and doing my yoga and pilates DVDs pretty much every day. I'm hoping this energy level continues because I'm loving it.

So the countdown is on and there's just about 3.5 months until baby boy makes his debut! We started clearing out the nursery this past weekend, which felt amazing. I love purging! I've started buying a few nursery items now that we can store them in the room so I'm sure I'll be posting about those soon!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

PS - I got my hair chopped! (as you can tell in the pic). She cut 8 inches off and it feels AMAZING! It's in a angled bob and I love it!

Confession...

I've gotten the salad bar from Whole Foods 3 times this week - and I'm running there tonight after I hit up Target for my 4th delicious salad of the week. I guess I can chalk this up to a baby craving? At least it's healthy, but it's hitting my wallet a little hard! A $14 salad really adds up! But I can't resist...