I structured things a bit differently this week. Normally I include all of the scenes at one setting in the same group, but because Sansa and Littlefinger traveled throughout multiple areas that also saw other characters, I grouped them all separately, in the order in which they occurred.

***BOOK SPOILERS IN MY THOUGHTS AT THE BOTTOM***

Recap

Opening title sequence: King's Landing, Moat Cailin, Winterfell, The Wall, Braavos, Meereen


Braavos Part 1

-The House of Black and White is filled with a bunch of creepy statues.

-Arya has taken up janitorial work, and she's not happy about it. She questions Jaqen, but he reminds her that all men must serve, and that she has to become no one and serve the Many-Faced God.

Best quote: "There is only one god. A girl knows his name, and all men know his gift" - Jaqen


King's Landing Part 1




-Cersei is irritated to hear the people cheering for "Queen Margaery" on the way to Tommen and Margaery's wedding.

-We skip the boring stuff and head straight to the final vow of the wedding ceremony, and what I can only assume is Tommen's first kiss.

-Cersei wants to smack the smug smirk of Margaery's face, and for once, I kind of want to too.

-Since all the kids have been aged up for the show, they apparently decided it wasn't necessary for Margaery to be "thrice wedded, never bedded", because we cut to their wedding night, where sweet Tommen is concerned he may have hurt his bride, which Margaery seems to find amusing. This also kind of reaffirms the popular "Marg is definitely not a virgin" theory.

-Like most teenage boys, Tommen just wants to have sex all the time.

-Tommen feels weird that he doesn't feel guilty about getting his new life because Joffrey died, but really, I think Cersei (and maaaaybe Jaime) is the only one who cares that he's dead.

-Margaery, master manipulator, cons Tommen into wanting to get rid of Cersei so that he can have some space without her helicopter parenting.

-While on a walk with Cersei (who gives off some very Regina George vibes with all the "She's certainly very pretty, isn't she?"), Tommen tries to convince Cersei to go home to Casterly Rock. Cersei's Margaery senses start tingling.

-Margaery brags about all the sex she and Tommen had to Cersei and rubs her face in the fact that she's the queen now, because their cat fight will never stop.


Best quote: "What's the proper way to address you now? Queen Mother, or Dowager Queen?" - Margaery

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week, a week to make information about infertility more prevalent. If you're a regular reader of my blog, you know that I have been pretty open about my own infertility, so you may wonder why I think we need to spread more information about it. The sad fact of the matter is that many continue to suffer in silence, and many people do not understand some of the causes of infertility and what it can do to a person.

This year's theme is You Are Not Alone, which I thought was very fitting. Infertility can be extremely isolating. It is not at all uncommon to feel alone. To feel like nobody else could possibly understand what you're going through. To feel like you're the only one having to deal with the crushing weight of infertility.

These are feelings I am all too familiar with.

Even when I had other friends struggling with infertility, I felt alone. This only increased as the years went by, and one by one, they began having healthy pregnancies and beautiful children. It seemed that I was the only one left aching for so long for something I can't have, and even though I know that I am not the only infertile person in the world (after all, 1 in 8 couples face in fertility at some point), it can still be hard not to feel that way sometimes.



It seems to be an implied rule in American society that we don't talk about infertility because it's "unpleasant". As a result, many people keep their struggles to themselves, and that can be an even more isolating feeling. Of course, people have the right to their privacy, and I would never imply that someone who does not feel comfortable talking about their infertility should feel forced to do so. It's an extremely personal topic, and some people just don't want to share that part of their lives, and that's fine.

But if you think you wouldn't mind talking about it, I encourage you to do so. It doesn't have to be on a big public platform like a blog or Facebook, but sometimes even just telling one person can help you to feel less alone. Telling your story can even inspire someone else who has been hiding their infertility to reach out to you, and I don't know about you, but I always feel better when there's someone else who can relate. If you don't want people in your life to know, but still want to talk about it, there are many online forums where you can connect with others in similar situations in an anonymous way.

If you have been dealing with infertility and you feel alone, please feel free to reach out to me. You can email me to keep things more anonymous if that makes it easier.

You don't have to do this by yourself.

You are not alone.

And I am not alone either.



For more information on infertility, please visit http://www.resolve.org/about-infertility/what-is-infertility/

For more information of National Infertility Awareness Week, please visit http://www.resolve.org/national-infertility-awareness-week/about.html

I knew from the title that this was going to be a good amount of Arya (my favorite character), and it didn't disappoint!

The Recap

Opening title sequence: King's Landing, The Eyrie, Winterfell, The Wall, Braavos, Meereen

In Braavos:



Arya arrives in Braavos and is taken to The House of Black and White, a large windowless structure with one black door and one white. She knocks, and an older grumpy-looking gentleman in a hooded robe answers the door. She pulls out the coin Jaqen gave her and mentions his name, but the man says there is no one there with that name, and refuses to let her in. Disheartened at being turned away, Arya sits down on the steps and stays there all night, reciting her hit list to herself: Cersei, Walder Frey, The Mountain, Meryn Trant (my, it's certainly diminished, hasn't it?). The next day, irritated, she tosses the coin into the water and walks off.

She ends up on the streets of Braavos, killing pigeons to eat. Some men come and try to take it, but she pulls Needle on them, which then makes them eye the sword instead, which they deem worth a hundred pigeons. She notes that "nothing's worth anything to dead men" (yet another badass line from the episode!), and the man in the hooded robe appears, sending the thugs scattering. Arya follows him to the House of Black and White, asking who he is. The man changes his face, and Jaqen is standing there. When she asks why he lied about being there, he insists that he's not Jaquen, he is no one, and she must become no one as well. He opens the door for her, and she enters.

So I'm doing my Game of Thrones reviews a little differently this season. Last season, they were exclusively on my Youtube channel, but this season, I've decided to do a full written review followed by a more focused, shorter Youtube video.

WARNING: BOOK SPOILERS AHEAD


Opening Sequence

I'm totally one of those nerds who always pays attention to the opening sequence. I love to notice the little changes, and I find the entire thing beautiful anyway. This week, the opening sequence featured King's Landing, the Eyrie, Winterfell (was it my imagination, or did it look less damaged than usual?), The Wall, Pentos, and Meereen.

In The Past

The episode begins with the long-awaited flashback to Cersei's childhood trip to visit Maggy the Frog, a fortune teller in Lannisport. Cersei and an unnamed friend (in the book, she went with two friends, Jeyne Farman and Melara Hetherspoon, though Jeyne had run away frightened pretty much immediately, so I'm assuming the friend is supposed to be Melara) are tromping through the woods on the way to Maggy's hut. Upon entering, Cersei is displeased to find that Maggy is not as terrifying-looking as she had heard. Maggy doesn't want to tell her fortune, but Cersei, bratty as ever, threatens to have her eyes gouged out if she doesn't do it. Maggy says she needs a taste of Cersei's blood, so Cersei cuts her thumb and Maggy sucks the blood from it (which was a little weird, mostly because it just seemed oversexualized). Maggy agrees that Cersei can ask three questions.

Believing she is betrothed to Prince Rhaegar, she asks when she will marry the prince. Maggy tells her that she won't wed a prince, but will wed a king. She then asks if she will be queen, and Maggy notes that she will, but that one day a younger, more beautiful queen will replace her. Finally, she asks if she and the king will have children. Maggy tells her they will not, but the king will have twenty and she will have three (which Cersei finds extremely confusing); her children will have gold crowns and gold shrouds.

The flashback pretty much ends there, and that was a little disappointing to me. It is possible that I just missed it, but I did not hear any mention of the valonqar. Additionally, in the books, Melara wants her fortune told as well; Maggy prophesies that Melara will die that night, and she ends up falling down a well (a widely believed theory is that Cersei pushed her). Obviously they can't leave in every single detail of the books (though I wish they could), but I was a little bummed that they left it out.

Unfortunately, it looks like we may have reached the end of our journey in having a biological baby.

Now, it's still possible that it could eventually happen randomly, but the chances of it happening seem to be decreasing each day.

I did not respond well to Femara; even with a trigger shot, my progesterone level was only 10.8, which is extremely low for a medicated cycle. Because of this, my doctor thinks there is nothing left that he can do for me. He thinks I will need to move on to injectable medications, and is referring me to a reproductive endocrinologist. He wanted me to have an HSG done to make sure my tubes were unblocked, which was scheduled for next Tuesday. I received a call this morning telling me that when they tried to run it through the insurance, the insurance wouldn't cover it because it has to be coded under infertility. Without insurance, it's going to set me back over $2700, which I can't afford.

Up until now, since I was still seeing an OB/GYN, he was able to code things a little differently in order to make it more affordable for me. However, now that won't be the case. Which means I likely won't be able to continue treatment.

The funny part about this situation is that we chose this particular insurance because all prenatal visits were covered, and we thought we'd be pregnant this year. And now it turns out that it will probably never happen, and the coverage we're paying for isn't the coverage we need after all.

Last year, Tom and I had discussed continuing to try to have a biological baby this year, and then pursuing adoption next year if we didn't end up pregnant. A few months ago, we decided it might make more sense to start the foster-to-adopt process after we moved (which will be in the next few weeks). That hasn't changed. So in the next couple of months, we are going to begin the process to become foster parents.

Thoughts and prayers would be greatly appreciated.