I'm on hiatus at my parent's house for the week. Then we are off to my brother's house for the weekend to celebrate my side of the family's Christmas. The week has actually been busy, but with the kind of busy that is enjoyable. Trips to the pool, the gym, making gingerbread houses. In a rare moment that I was alone, I had a conversation with my DH that took a bad turn. I don't want to get into details, lets just leave it by saying that I often feel like I can't live up to my husbands' idealistic expectations at Christmas. We resolved (I hope) some hurt feelings, but I was still feeling a little blue. Later I received another phone call from DH, thinking that it was going to more about the earlier conversation....but it was worse. Our tree had fallen over and the water in the base soaked all of the presents that I had wrapped right before I left. This event happened at about 11pm and C was up until 3 am cleaning up the mess. He ended up putting a hook in the wall and stringing wire around the trunk to keep it stable. We usually buy ornaments as souvenirs of our travels so I was worried that some had broken. Well, the ONLY ornament that broke was a glass stork that my MIL had given us a few years ago. If that isn't appropriate I don't know what is.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Scare
*Warning....child mentioned*
Oh, where do I begin? Yesterday morning I went into my daughter's room around 8:30. She is our alarm clock, and that was a bit late for her to be waking up. When I walked in she was standing in the middle of the room in a daze saying "I can't walk, will you carry me?" I sat down on the floor, she climbed into my lap and promptly fell asleep...sound asleep. My first thought...well that is odd. Then for the next 20 minutes, I try to wake her up. She had moments where she was awake, but they didn't last very long. She even fell asleep in the middle of a sentence.
There are two routes that I will typically take in a crisis involving family, over reacting or under reacting. As a nurse, I will often assess the situation and usually come away with "She'll be fine". I also come from a family where my father's motto was "It doesn't hurt if it's not bleeding". Let's just say that in general I am not quick to turn to medical help, after all I AM medical help right? Well, this thinking is seriously flawed for a couple of reasons. The first being that when it is my child or family member, I usually turn into an idiot and my assessment skills are impaired. The second reason is that I am a Labor and Delivery nurse, so pediatric illness/injuries is not my forte.
So after about 20 minutes of the flaccid somnolent child, I decide to call her doctor. Big surprise - she wants me to take her to the ER. As we are packaging her up (it was 20 degrees outside) she almost collapses. I immediately start thinking that there is something neurological going on, she's sort of acting like she has a concussion. And I'm really hoping that pre-school didn't somehow miss a child who had a severe enough accident to sustain a traumatic brain injury.
She stayed awake on the drive over, and I thought about turning around and going back home. But there was something that was just not "right". She continued to act groggy, but not as lethargic as she had earlier. When we get to the ER and go through registration, they almost tried to send me back to the waiting room, but there was no way I was going to wait a minute longer before someone other than me assessed her. She got through triage without lifting her head off my shoulder. Next is the history - recent illnesses, complaints, new foods, exposure to illnesses etc.....her history is benign expect for the previous 1.5 hours.
So then comes the IV and the bloodwork and trying to get a urine specimen. She was amazing. The only time she cried was when I told her not to pull on her IV. C met us at the ER with portable DVD in hand. We watched "Ala.din" and "Chick.en Run". After 5 hours the verdict was "moderate dehydration". She received a bolus of IV fluids, she had lots to drink and 3 popsicles and she was a new girl. I have no idea how or why she was dehydrated. By 5 pm she was running and jumping around like nothing was ever wrong. By the way she was acting, you'd never have known that just 8 hours earlier I was crying hysterically (but only briefly) while I put on a baseball cap and quickly smeared on some deodorant. I called out from work, but then felt guilty because she was acting just fine. Of course now it is 4 am and I am now feeling guilty because I am not at home.
So she will be under the watchful eye of my husband this weekend, as work Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. On an amusing note, the ER told us that since our last visit, they always put chocolate syrup in the charcoal when treating a child...although now they have added a dollop of vanilla ice cream.
Oh, where do I begin? Yesterday morning I went into my daughter's room around 8:30. She is our alarm clock, and that was a bit late for her to be waking up. When I walked in she was standing in the middle of the room in a daze saying "I can't walk, will you carry me?" I sat down on the floor, she climbed into my lap and promptly fell asleep...sound asleep. My first thought...well that is odd. Then for the next 20 minutes, I try to wake her up. She had moments where she was awake, but they didn't last very long. She even fell asleep in the middle of a sentence.
There are two routes that I will typically take in a crisis involving family, over reacting or under reacting. As a nurse, I will often assess the situation and usually come away with "She'll be fine". I also come from a family where my father's motto was "It doesn't hurt if it's not bleeding". Let's just say that in general I am not quick to turn to medical help, after all I AM medical help right? Well, this thinking is seriously flawed for a couple of reasons. The first being that when it is my child or family member, I usually turn into an idiot and my assessment skills are impaired. The second reason is that I am a Labor and Delivery nurse, so pediatric illness/injuries is not my forte.
So after about 20 minutes of the flaccid somnolent child, I decide to call her doctor. Big surprise - she wants me to take her to the ER. As we are packaging her up (it was 20 degrees outside) she almost collapses. I immediately start thinking that there is something neurological going on, she's sort of acting like she has a concussion. And I'm really hoping that pre-school didn't somehow miss a child who had a severe enough accident to sustain a traumatic brain injury.
She stayed awake on the drive over, and I thought about turning around and going back home. But there was something that was just not "right". She continued to act groggy, but not as lethargic as she had earlier. When we get to the ER and go through registration, they almost tried to send me back to the waiting room, but there was no way I was going to wait a minute longer before someone other than me assessed her. She got through triage without lifting her head off my shoulder. Next is the history - recent illnesses, complaints, new foods, exposure to illnesses etc.....her history is benign expect for the previous 1.5 hours.
So then comes the IV and the bloodwork and trying to get a urine specimen. She was amazing. The only time she cried was when I told her not to pull on her IV. C met us at the ER with portable DVD in hand. We watched "Ala.din" and "Chick.en Run". After 5 hours the verdict was "moderate dehydration". She received a bolus of IV fluids, she had lots to drink and 3 popsicles and she was a new girl. I have no idea how or why she was dehydrated. By 5 pm she was running and jumping around like nothing was ever wrong. By the way she was acting, you'd never have known that just 8 hours earlier I was crying hysterically (but only briefly) while I put on a baseball cap and quickly smeared on some deodorant. I called out from work, but then felt guilty because she was acting just fine. Of course now it is 4 am and I am now feeling guilty because I am not at home.
So she will be under the watchful eye of my husband this weekend, as work Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. On an amusing note, the ER told us that since our last visit, they always put chocolate syrup in the charcoal when treating a child...although now they have added a dollop of vanilla ice cream.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Hard core
We had our first appointment with the actual RE today. Silly me thought that by seeing a woman doctor, I may get some of the warm fuzzies that I have been absent from my providers during this very long process. I will now refer to her as Dr. Professor. Both C and I felt like we were back in a college lecture and that we should be taking notes for a pop quiz somewhere down the road. Everything was very technical - as it needs to be I guess - lots of statistics and a step by clinical step explanation of IVF from suppression to stims to transfer. I have been doing lots of research and of course keeping up with blogs the best I can. C on the other hand left with his head in a bit of a spin. A lot of the information was review for me, but I did learn some very interesting things about ICSI. The only thing that I wasn't crazy about was that she always gave me statistics for the 40 year old age group.....I've got another year before I'm in that category. Ok, so maybe I'm a little sensitive.
The warm fuzzies finally came from the IVF nurse....let's see, let's call her Nurse Bubbly. She was awesome. We laughed and joked. She was a nurse for 21 years in the department where I will be starting in January, so I think there was a little sense of kindred spirits happening. The plan is for me to call Nurse Bubbly in February and we will schedule b/w and ultrasound (complete with a mock transfer) in March. Then we will start suppression with my April cycle and hopefully be looking at May for retrieval and transfer. At least that will give me a little time at the job to feel out if I will be able to take an hour out of my day to go for ultrasounds, etc. I don't like starting a new job and already anticipating taking time off.
I risked asking the question "Is there anything that I can do to improve my fertility?" Dr. Professor looked at me ever so briefly, then before she could answer I said "I need to lose weight don't I?" The response was a definite yes. Even though this blog is pretty anonymous, I still cannot bring myself to reveal my weight...let's just say that 15 pounds would be good start, more would be better. Both C and I have struggled with our weight for so many years. The good news is that even before this appointment, we have been taking steps to modify our diet and exercise. When we got to the car we agreed to go "hard core" in the diet department. If you raided my lunch box tonight, you would see carrots, celery, turkey sandwich, an apple, an orange and a yogurt....and yes I am already hungry.
The warm fuzzies finally came from the IVF nurse....let's see, let's call her Nurse Bubbly. She was awesome. We laughed and joked. She was a nurse for 21 years in the department where I will be starting in January, so I think there was a little sense of kindred spirits happening. The plan is for me to call Nurse Bubbly in February and we will schedule b/w and ultrasound (complete with a mock transfer) in March. Then we will start suppression with my April cycle and hopefully be looking at May for retrieval and transfer. At least that will give me a little time at the job to feel out if I will be able to take an hour out of my day to go for ultrasounds, etc. I don't like starting a new job and already anticipating taking time off.
I risked asking the question "Is there anything that I can do to improve my fertility?" Dr. Professor looked at me ever so briefly, then before she could answer I said "I need to lose weight don't I?" The response was a definite yes. Even though this blog is pretty anonymous, I still cannot bring myself to reveal my weight...let's just say that 15 pounds would be good start, more would be better. Both C and I have struggled with our weight for so many years. The good news is that even before this appointment, we have been taking steps to modify our diet and exercise. When we got to the car we agreed to go "hard core" in the diet department. If you raided my lunch box tonight, you would see carrots, celery, turkey sandwich, an apple, an orange and a yogurt....and yes I am already hungry.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Bored
Well, it's 2:30 am, we have no one in labor....so I blog.
Thanksgiving was awesome, but as always it went by way too fast. Both C and I were illin' with a nasty cold, so we didn't partake in the traditional trek through the woods. We ate a lot, but not too much. We played lots of Wii video games. I'm not a big "gamer" like my hubby, but getting the family together around a Wii is a riot. My 67 year old mother loves to play - especially baseball. We gave Z a controller but took out the batteries so she felt like she was a part of the action. My favorite part of the holiday though, was watching my daughter fall asleep on my father's chest. Five years ago he was diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to lymph nodes and an concurrent primary kidney cancer. The prognosis initially was bleak. He did things to insure that my mom would be taken care of should the unimaginable happen. He talked of regret in his life - in which he had only one - that he would not be around to see my children. Fast forward to today and he is healthy and vibrant and cancer free. Whenever I observe a tender moment between him and my daughter I fight back tears.
My mother broke the news that my cousin and his wife are expecting twins via IVF. I am not particularly close with that side of the family. He did come to our little family reunion that we had back in September, but before that I don't think that I have seen my cousin since our wedding (6 years ago), and he only lives one and half hours away. I keep thinking about how he continues to smoke when his mother has emphysema and requires supplemental oxygen 24 hours a day. His wife was also smoking at the reunion so I am curious what the her RE thinks about that. I pressed my mom for some details of why they needed IVF, but she didn't know. All she knew was that when they got married 2 years ago they wanted to have children right away, but that obviously didn't happen. I am contemplating getting their contact info. She would be my only connection IRL that has gone through this process, but she is only a little less than a stranger to me. I also had a brief moment of anxiety about the tone in which my mother told me they were having twins...almost like a warning. Sometimes I think that my mother feels it would be worse to have twins than not to have another child. C gently pointed out that my micro-analysis of my mother's intentions were unwarranted. My mother may have concerns, but she does not possess a mean bone in her body. If anything there is ignorance in her comments, but never malice.
Thanksgiving was awesome, but as always it went by way too fast. Both C and I were illin' with a nasty cold, so we didn't partake in the traditional trek through the woods. We ate a lot, but not too much. We played lots of Wii video games. I'm not a big "gamer" like my hubby, but getting the family together around a Wii is a riot. My 67 year old mother loves to play - especially baseball. We gave Z a controller but took out the batteries so she felt like she was a part of the action. My favorite part of the holiday though, was watching my daughter fall asleep on my father's chest. Five years ago he was diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to lymph nodes and an concurrent primary kidney cancer. The prognosis initially was bleak. He did things to insure that my mom would be taken care of should the unimaginable happen. He talked of regret in his life - in which he had only one - that he would not be around to see my children. Fast forward to today and he is healthy and vibrant and cancer free. Whenever I observe a tender moment between him and my daughter I fight back tears.
My mother broke the news that my cousin and his wife are expecting twins via IVF. I am not particularly close with that side of the family. He did come to our little family reunion that we had back in September, but before that I don't think that I have seen my cousin since our wedding (6 years ago), and he only lives one and half hours away. I keep thinking about how he continues to smoke when his mother has emphysema and requires supplemental oxygen 24 hours a day. His wife was also smoking at the reunion so I am curious what the her RE thinks about that. I pressed my mom for some details of why they needed IVF, but she didn't know. All she knew was that when they got married 2 years ago they wanted to have children right away, but that obviously didn't happen. I am contemplating getting their contact info. She would be my only connection IRL that has gone through this process, but she is only a little less than a stranger to me. I also had a brief moment of anxiety about the tone in which my mother told me they were having twins...almost like a warning. Sometimes I think that my mother feels it would be worse to have twins than not to have another child. C gently pointed out that my micro-analysis of my mother's intentions were unwarranted. My mother may have concerns, but she does not possess a mean bone in her body. If anything there is ignorance in her comments, but never malice.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Cry baby
Yep, that's me. I really need to stop with all the crying when telling people that I have resigned. The crazy thing is that I am upset, and they are thrilled (not that I'm leaving, but that I will have the chance to do IVF). The support has been amazing.....except......
I made the announcement of my resignation at the end of staff meeting the other day. Then I answered a bunch of questions about the IVF plan. Cue the anecdotes and dreaded comments:
"I have a friend who decided to adopt then found out they were pregnant"
"Now that you've made the decision to change jobs, that is when you will get pregnant"
"What if you get pregnant before January, will you still leave?"
"Since you'll be working days, you'll get pregnant on your own"
"You just need to forget about it, that's when it will happen"
and my personal favorite "It will happen if it's meant to be"
STOP! I know that every person was well intentioned, so why do those comments sting so much? Maybe it is because they trivialize my plight. Giving advice for something that they know NOTHING about is not helpful.
I'm trying to be a better blogger....commenting more, lurking less. Family comes tomorrow for a few days. The house is finally clean, pantry is full of groceries, the Wii is hooked up and ready for play, guest beds all made up, now all I need is a couple hours of sleep then the mayhem that is Thanksgiving can begin. We are going to have another "White Thanksgiving" this year. There is already a couple of inches of snow on the ground, and we should be getting more.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, may you enjoy a tryptophan induced nap!
I made the announcement of my resignation at the end of staff meeting the other day. Then I answered a bunch of questions about the IVF plan. Cue the anecdotes and dreaded comments:
"I have a friend who decided to adopt then found out they were pregnant"
"Now that you've made the decision to change jobs, that is when you will get pregnant"
"What if you get pregnant before January, will you still leave?"
"Since you'll be working days, you'll get pregnant on your own"
"You just need to forget about it, that's when it will happen"
and my personal favorite "It will happen if it's meant to be"
STOP! I know that every person was well intentioned, so why do those comments sting so much? Maybe it is because they trivialize my plight. Giving advice for something that they know NOTHING about is not helpful.
I'm trying to be a better blogger....commenting more, lurking less. Family comes tomorrow for a few days. The house is finally clean, pantry is full of groceries, the Wii is hooked up and ready for play, guest beds all made up, now all I need is a couple hours of sleep then the mayhem that is Thanksgiving can begin. We are going to have another "White Thanksgiving" this year. There is already a couple of inches of snow on the ground, and we should be getting more.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, may you enjoy a tryptophan induced nap!
Monday, November 19, 2007
Reality
Well, it's official. My last day at my current job will be January 9th. Orientation starts on January 21st. What am I going to do with all this time off? I think that I may go to a yoga retreat (Kripalu) and go to a knitting weekend of all things (and yes, those are one and the same). Kriapula has amazing workshops - my first thought was to attend one on letting go of "fear", but then I saw this knitting workshop: 3 days for experienced knitters and lecturer is (drum roll please) Karen Allen......of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" fame....c'mon you know who I'm talking about. Apparently the actress thing got boring and now she has a knitting book and goes around the country doing knitting seminars/workshops. So fear be damned.....I'm gonna learn inartisa knitting! I would love to go with a friend, but my friends who knit don't do yoga and vice versa.
I'm trying not to think too hard about how far away IVF #1 seems (5 1/2 months). We have an appointment with the RE on November 28th. They have scheduled it to be one hour long, so hopefully we will come away with a bit of plan and an idea of how much the meds are going to cost. I believe that they have done all the testing for me that they are going to do, so I'm hoping that I will even have a protocol so I can start doing some research. In the meantime we are "trying" this month on our own. I have only a vague idea of what cd it is. This weekend C asked me what kind of "schedule" we were on....of course the most fertile days are going to be the day the whole family arrives through when they leave....of course. But my response to the schedule question was that I am not going to get wound up about it this month....or maybe even next. The family is coming here for Thanksgiving, so that is the last thing on my mind right now. My brain is full of thoughts of vacuuming and cleaning toilets.
The reality of leaving this job is hitting me in little jabs. The other day I was at a committee meeting and the group leader was asking for someone to volunteer for a project. It was something that I normally would jump at doing, but I know I wouldn't be there to see it through, so I sat there silent- which is not like me at all. My OB is part of this committee, I had not told him my decision yet. He has actually been left out of the loop because I didn't really trust him not to spill the beans at work. So I said "I need to tell you something". He says "Let me guess you are leaving and going to work at ****Hospital so you can have IVF".
What the *#%$?
Apparently my primary care doctor and my OB were at a seminar about infertility and my primary care doc spoke up and said that she had a patient that was changing jobs specifically so she could have insurance coverage for IVF....didn't mention any names....that was all she said. But my OB knew that she was talking about me.....have I mentioned that I currently work for a VERY small hospital.
Anyway, so after I hit the "publish post" button. I will be working on my resignation letter, which I need to turn in today. Then comes that task of starting to tell people that I am leaving. I have never given this much notice...almost 2 months. I know that I should tell co-workers sooner than later. I had said right from the beginning that I would definitely tell people the reason I am leaving, but now I am not so sure.
I'm trying not to think too hard about how far away IVF #1 seems (5 1/2 months). We have an appointment with the RE on November 28th. They have scheduled it to be one hour long, so hopefully we will come away with a bit of plan and an idea of how much the meds are going to cost. I believe that they have done all the testing for me that they are going to do, so I'm hoping that I will even have a protocol so I can start doing some research. In the meantime we are "trying" this month on our own. I have only a vague idea of what cd it is. This weekend C asked me what kind of "schedule" we were on....of course the most fertile days are going to be the day the whole family arrives through when they leave....of course. But my response to the schedule question was that I am not going to get wound up about it this month....or maybe even next. The family is coming here for Thanksgiving, so that is the last thing on my mind right now. My brain is full of thoughts of vacuuming and cleaning toilets.
The reality of leaving this job is hitting me in little jabs. The other day I was at a committee meeting and the group leader was asking for someone to volunteer for a project. It was something that I normally would jump at doing, but I know I wouldn't be there to see it through, so I sat there silent- which is not like me at all. My OB is part of this committee, I had not told him my decision yet. He has actually been left out of the loop because I didn't really trust him not to spill the beans at work. So I said "I need to tell you something". He says "Let me guess you are leaving and going to work at ****Hospital so you can have IVF".
What the *#%$?
Apparently my primary care doctor and my OB were at a seminar about infertility and my primary care doc spoke up and said that she had a patient that was changing jobs specifically so she could have insurance coverage for IVF....didn't mention any names....that was all she said. But my OB knew that she was talking about me.....have I mentioned that I currently work for a VERY small hospital.
Anyway, so after I hit the "publish post" button. I will be working on my resignation letter, which I need to turn in today. Then comes that task of starting to tell people that I am leaving. I have never given this much notice...almost 2 months. I know that I should tell co-workers sooner than later. I had said right from the beginning that I would definitely tell people the reason I am leaving, but now I am not so sure.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Job Offer
And so it begins....a new paragraph for my resume. I was offered the job on Tuesday. I actually have not officially accepted. I am waiting for some answers to a couple of questions that are not deal breakers by any means, but I just want clarification on. Orientation starts on January 21 and I plan on at least ten days between jobs. I have had a couple of people ask "Are you excited about the new job?" The answer is complicated. I am nervous about the new job. I guess I would be more excited if the job was actually what attracted me to the new hospital, but it wasn't....it was the insurance coverage. I'm sure that I will like it, I have heard only good things....but it really doesn't matter if I like it....the job will help us grow our family and ultimately that is what is most important to me.
When I came to work tonight there was an email about the benefits fair for the up coming year. As I will only be around for 11 days in the New Year - do I go? I guess I should, if nothing else to discontinue the dependent care and medical spending accounts through my current job.
*as I am doing spellcheck for this post, and nothing needs to be changed, I realize it is because I have not used IF abbreviations or obscure medical terms like adenomyosis....it's a post that anyone can read and actually understand! that doesn't happen very often.
When I came to work tonight there was an email about the benefits fair for the up coming year. As I will only be around for 11 days in the New Year - do I go? I guess I should, if nothing else to discontinue the dependent care and medical spending accounts through my current job.
*as I am doing spellcheck for this post, and nothing needs to be changed, I realize it is because I have not used IF abbreviations or obscure medical terms like adenomyosis....it's a post that anyone can read and actually understand! that doesn't happen very often.
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