Julia

The Adverbial Son

Hiya. How are things? Are you good? Happy healthy and whole?

I hope so.

Personally I have been feeling a little sad, so I spent the past several days organizing my pantry, rearranging my kitchen cupboards, planting seedlings and annuals and hanging baskets, and putting away the winter clothes after washing all the summer ones. I still feel a little sad but now I know that I have dried mushrooms to last me forever so I can stop buying them. Would you like to hear all the luscious organizational details?

Of course not. Hence my prolonged silence.

From today:

After offering Patrick a lollipop (he accepted) the nice cashier asked Patrick how old he is.

"Actually, I am three. I am really really three."

"Three!" she said. "And do you like dinosaurs?"

"No, I certainly do not. I most definitely do not. No."

"Oh. What do you like?"

Patrick squinched his face up as if he was in pain (he was thinking) and said, "Fonts."

"Fawnts?" she asked, bewildered.

"Yes, I absolutely like fonts. Absolutely I do. Totally."

She looked at me for assistance but I just smiled at her. I was damned if I was going to explain...

"Franklin Gothic," Patrick offered helpfully. Only he pronounces the word go-thick, like go-kart, whereas we say gah-thick, like ina-GA-ddadavida. I am not entirely sure how he wound up all Canadian but whatever. "Courier. Baby Kruffy."

She looked confused. Or, as Patrick would say, very terribly really completely confused.

"Thank you! Have a nice afternoon," I said, hauling Patrick into one arm while grabbing the bags and sprinting toward the door. "See you next time. Bye."

But I was not quick enough.

"Times New Roman!" Patrick shouted over my shoulder. "TIMES NEW ROMAN!

TIMES!

NEW!

ROMAN!"

So there is that.

PS. I went to his preschool picnic and discovered that despite his idiosyncrasies Emily is in love with him. First the teachers told me. Next Emily's mother told me. Then there was the unpleasant yet suggestive squabble between Emily and Elise when Elise also wanted to tuck wilted dandelions into Patrick's hair. Finally Emily drug Patrick by his hand over to where her mother and I were sitting.

"THIS is Patrick!" she beamed. "I love him."

"She does," Patrick said, "she totally really does love me."   

"You're kidding" is what I wanted to say. "How nice" is what I managed.

I find parents talking about so-and-so's "little girlfriend" creepy (my brother does it all the time. once he even intimated that there was a special attraction between his son and Princess Fiona. Princess Fiona! I mean, his son was two and she is a cartoon character. How desperate ARE you to assert your son's heterosexuality anyway?) so let's just say that Patrick obviously has a little friend (shall we say an admirer?) and I find it reassuring. How odd can he be, really, if a nice girl like Emily wants to introduce him to her mother?   

Oh Just Pick A Title

Steve had knee surgery this morning.

I am unimpressed.

Sure, I know, Woman... when pain and anguish wring the brow a ministering angel thou, but frankly I prefer to stay uncertain, coy, and hard to please. This is the FIFTH orthopedic surgery he has had since we have been married. Knee, shoulder, knee, wrist, ankle... no damn it, this the SIXTH. And it is not like he is a professional steeplechaser or anything neither (nor is he a lawyer. where did you get that idea? if Steve was a lawyer I would spend more time suing people and less time writing them strongly worded letters: "Dear Sir, You call this cantaloupe 'fresh'? How dare you. Love, Julia".)

Be that as it may, he thought I was joking when I forbade him to schedule another surgery so I had to get Steve to the hospital by 7:30 and Patrick to his final day of preschool by 9:00 and then I had to figure out how to fetch them both back again in a timely fashion (I went 85 mph and changed lanes like a race car driver, that's how. I hated the thought of either one looking forlorn and abandoned, although they both proceeded to whine all afternoon anyway so I don't even know WHY I bother being so giving and sweet). 

Hey I just learned that you need to cook brown rice like pasta. Fill up a pan with water, add some salt, bring it to a boil and dump in the rice. You have to stir it rather often but it is much more toothsome this way than the old absorption method I learned at my mother's knee. And it is faster. Start checking it after 20 minutes (bite one) but it should be ready by about 25 to 30 minutes, tops. You probably already knew this. Sorry if I am trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs over here. 

Netflix! Bastards. We do rent actual movies through them, sometimes, but for the most part we like to watch television series (serieses? seriess?) in their entirety. Nothing so satisfying as getting to a season finale cliff-hanger and just sliding in another DVD. Immediate gratification really is the very best kind of gratification, you know.

So a few months ago we were watching Farscape and enjoying it tremendously (Ben Browder- you complete me). However, they put the first season on DVD in a weird way, so you would have episodes 1 and 8 on one disc, 2 and 5 on another... weird. This resulted in our shuffling a lot of discs back and forth to Netflix very quickly and suddenly our one day turn-around time became a week. I thought it was a glitch or something so I tried to fix the problem by upgrading our membership to five-at-a-time. At which point it became even worse. So I sent them a letter saying that I had opted to pay them more in order to get the service I wanted and in exchange they screwed me, thus encouraging me to pay them less and this was stupid (Dear Netflix, You call this cantaloupe 'fresh'? How dare you. Love, Julia). Right around this time the whole throttling thing was revealed and I said Ah-HA! I knew it! and promptly succumbed to morning sickness such that I didn't care anymore and I didn't want to watch anything anyway.

Well, we all know how that pregnancy turned out (ok, not all of us, I guess. I got this comment yesterday on my post about morning sickness from a few months back: "... be really happy because nausea means a strong healthy pregnancy." No, actually, it doesn't. Sorry to be all "keeping it real" but no. Morning sickness does not mean the pregnancy is healthy. High initial betas do not mean the pregnancy is healthy. Doubling betas, shapely sacs, no spotting, heartbeats, wiggling parts and identifiable limbs... none of these things fucking guarantee that the pregnancy is healthy, ok? But congratulations and I am sure it will be different for you.)

What, you think I have miscarried ten times without picking up a soupcon of bitterness? Hardly. I am as endive, baby - cool and crunchy and absinthian.

Where was I?

Oh, watching Netflix. Or not as the case may be, since they have mixed up our queue again and we now have the fourth season of Coupling (British. very very funny. we spent most of the first season laughing aloud. fer real.) without ever getting the third, and the second and fourth discs for Deadwood season two but not the first or third. I get that they have based their profit assumptions upon average consumer behavior patterns (hellllloooo! MmmmmmBbbbbbbbAaaaaaaa concentration in Maaaaarrkkeettting* here) BUT adding some version of pay-per-usage to their business model would serve to strengthen customer loyalty with core users. Um, like a Titanium Netflixeteers Club or something. If they had sent an email last week saying, "You are about to exceed your algorithmic limits. Would you like to upgrade your membership to Comic Book Guy Level for $1000 or do you want to spend the weekend engaging in meaningful dialogue with your spouse, possibly while doing a jigsaw puzzle?" I would have given them unto half my kingdom for just one more red envelope. Anyway, Netflix and me, we are enemies now.

Although I still use them.

In fact, I just upgraded again.

Which means... great, another abusive relationship.          

Oh yes, I know what you were thinking when I said Steve was determined to have another child. You were thinking, "That ANIMAL! That despicable hairy man-beast! Doesn't he realize that it is HER body? She should give him a good stabbing, that's what she should do. Fix those inappropriate procreative urges tout de suite." Or, as my mother put it, acidly, upon hearing of Steve's declaration that we should persevere, "Oh? Really?"

Personally, I think it is endearing.

But we can talk about this tomorrow. I, uh, stopped at Blockbuster after picking up Steve's prescriptions and now we need to watch Narnia before he passes out. Yes, I realize that Netflix just gave a complacent chuckle. Shut up.

*For the record I never did complete my MBA. I still have to take two Finance classes, Research and something called Core or Clump or something like that involving a Big Final Project. Which I will never ever do. Because I don't want to. But I did finish all of my marketing stuff, so I am solid on this one.

PS I tried this with short-grain brown rice, if that matters. Also, ur-hum, you know you have to drain the rice after it is done, right? Good. Just checking.

Again With The Kitchen

I am confused.

With regard to your concern about the refrigerator with the glass door I must ask: Huh? I hardly understand... do you mean to say... don't tell me your fridge is all cluttered with Tupperware containers of dubious antiquity and crusty-lidded condiments? Really? Tsk tsk tsk.

Right now mine holds three sun-kissed peaches nestled in a Baccarat Harcourt bowl, a layered cake upon which sugared pansies spell out "I Love You, My Precious Wife", a bouquet of fresh herbs, half a dozen ostrich eggs and a gorgeous cobalt blue bottle of spring water from the Norwegian fjords. I mean, honestly, in a properly run household one's refrigerator should be a Still Life just begging for a picture window to the world.

A-hem.

Re. the noted cleanliness of my house: I am trying to decide if I will feel like less of an ass if I tell you I am so obsessed by tidiness that I polish the cats every morning at sunrise or if I tell you that I (a stay-at-home mother with absolutely no self-generated income and a child in school two mornings a week) have a cleaning woman named Mrs. Skogen who comes with the frequency of a city bus at rush hour. Ummmm, yeah. Still not sure. Feeling like an ass regardless. Will let you decide which is true.

It IS a pretty kitchen, thank you. Per your comments I asked Steve why he didn't just move the dishwasher to the other side of the sink in order solve the refrigerator problem and he said, accusingly, "Because YOU didn't want the dishwasher to be farther away from the cabinet where the dishes get put away."

"You put an addition on the house because I did not want to walk an extra three feet?"

Yes, he said.

Which is actually kinda sweet. Crazy, of course, and most probably a delusion on his part because I certainly don't remember insisting that he should demolish half the kitchen but... ok. I have learned it is necessary to pick one's battles in life and if Steve wants to spend his free time gilding this lily who am I to argue with him? Maybe the see-through fridge will constitute his entire mid-life crisis. Wouldn't that be a treat.

GAH! I have NEWS to impart. PLANS to share. Why do I keep distracting myself?

Next up: Finalized Reproductive Agenda 712 and Netflix is throttling us again and I feel like  smacking them. Has Netflix ever slowed your shipments down to a trickle and started sending them out of order? Were you in the middle of watching a series? Isn't it enraging?

Apologia

Shoot if you must this small black head but spare my Rotozip, he said*.

Apparently I can scoff at Steve's inability to, say, empathize fully with the myriad ramifications of recurrent pregnancy loss. I can banter about his terrorist sperm and merrily theorize about what they might mean, evolutionarily speaking. I can even publicly declare his beloved duvet cover to be the ugliest fucking thing ever and I can assert that the fact that he spent the mid-80s listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd just goes to prove that I am smarter than he is

BUT

when I imply that his remodeling skills are less than ept or that his project schematics are flawed... well, I have gone too far.      

Steve, icily, wishes me to set the record straight and to explain that I occasionally take liberties with The Truth in my relentless pursuit of The Funny. So, lest he go all Lysistrata*** on me just as I am emerging from post D&C funk, here it is.

The Truth is: Steve does excellent home improvements. He is creative, meticulous, knows via osmosis everything there is to know about wiring plumbing duct work carpentry and load-bearing whatsits, and he works like a man possessed. If Steve starts a project he will finish the project. The delay this time was not Steve's fault, it was Scott's fault. And there was little Steve could have done to avoid the troubles caused by Scott the Flake as 1) Scott came highly recommended (with reservations: good skills, poor reliability) by a cabinetmaker we admire and he DID do excellent work when he was actually here; and 2) Steve thought he had stymied the reliability issue by negotiating to pay Scott only half of the fee until the project was completed to his satisfaction. HALF! 50%! Steve just underestimated a man's willingness to not get paid in exchange for not doing the work but, hey, he is only mutant after all (zing! ha! get it? Steve. Genetics. Mutant. I SLAY me.)   

So my sincere apologies to my adored husband whose tireless dedication makes these completely unnecessary home projects possible.

(Seriously, I have just taken this picture of my kitchen. Isn't this a perfectly nice kitchen, as is? Certainly the nicest I have ever had. Do you know how many of my childhood kitchens could fit into this one with no exaggeration whatsoever? Six . And yet Steve is going to add a little wing to it. Just because the refrigerator and dishwasher doors touch... oh and he has developed an unholy passion for this refrigerator. He is a little insane, I think. Possibly hereditary.)

Well damn it. I sat down to write about something completely different but got distracted by Steve asking if I was posting and demanding a public apology.

And what a great apology it was, too: "I am sorry I told the internet you are a shoddy general contractor and I will rectify this by explaining that you are merely suffering from mental disease." Although I admit this is better than my usual apologies which tend to run along the lines of, "I am sorry you are such an insufferable dick."

Now I will have to post again later because I actually had something to say. Damn it. 

*"Up from the meadows rich with corn..." etc. Ode to Barbara Fritchie, I think. Who, we are informed, scratched when she was itchy**.

**And THAT was Ogden Nash. Are you sure you want citations? They kinda bog things down.

***Lysistrata. Women, displeased, withhold sex. You see where I am going with this.

Homer Improvement

Remember when I told you that we cannot open our dishwasher and refrigerator doors at the same time because they are three feet apart and directly opposite each other? Well, this bothered Steve the way nuclear fallout bothers people who are adverse to radiation poisoning. It preyed upon his mind like Macbeth. For two years he paced the kitchen with a tape measure and an oversized pad of graph paper, sketching scribbling erasing. At night he would awaken me with his fevered slumbers and muttered oaths about "two-person cleanup impossible" and "staggering accumulated time wasted while waiting to put away leftovers until after the counter tops are cleared." I feared for his health and his sanity.

So it was with profound relief that I greeted the news that Steve had found a solution. I didn't even ask what he had designed*, I just smiled at him and offered him a spoonful of nourishing broth. 

In January he bought a lot of lumber and concrete and the house rang with the sound of his hammer. In February he had scads of dry wall delivered and the house hummed with the buzz of his drill. In March he asked a guy named Scott to tape mud and sand. In mid-March he asked if Scott would mind also putting up a primer coat of paint and laying the new tile floor while he was in there. In late-March he pointed out that as long as we were putting tile down we might as well demolish the powder room and have the tile match the new space, perhaps Scott would be willing... . Scott said yes, certainly, and absolutely. He drew up fresh extortionate quotes and we meekly agreed. What could we do at that point? After all, Steve had promised the dishwasher and the refrigerator that soon they would meet as allies, not enemies, and it was a sacred vow he intended to keep.

In April, however, rather than facilitating appliance detente, we just spent a lot of time wondering where Scott was. He would call at 11 to say he was probably not going to make it by 8am after all. He would show up at 4:30, work for twenty minutes and then tell me he had to go to the hardware store again. I am still not sure what "go to the hardware store" is a euphemism for but it must be pretty great because these trips would frequently last for days. He became like a lamented old friend, gone but not forgotten as we entered and exited through our front door since the exit to the garage was now located on the far side of a partially tiled wasteland. Scott's name was frequently on our lips as we gazed at the closet where the little bathroom used to be.      

Two weeks ago Steve either threatened to break Scott's thumbs** or the hardware store put back on its clothes. In any event, Scott showed up regularly for a whole week and finished his share of the project. The powder room looks like hell ("A touch of paint!" Steve promises) but at least the toilet works again. The new space is completed except for wee details like the fact that it has no cabinets, no counter tops and a big rectangular hole in the exterior wall where a window will go when Phase II is completed.

"Phase II?" you ask.

"PHASE TWO??" I asked.

"Oh yes!" Steve told me. "This is just the new laundry room. Once THIS is completed then I will knock out these walls and make THIS into a corridor and move THAT over here and frame a new wall THERE and put the new range HERE and then...."

Then?

"THEN I can move the refrigerator!"

And he looked so pleased with himself, too, the fucking lunatic.

Five months of construction and all we have to show for it is one and a half laundry rooms. Well, two and a half actually if you count Steve's Hunting-Clothes Only room in the basement. And you know what? I HATE laundry.

*You now think Steve is an architect. No. It's just his hobby.

**And now you have concluded that he is in the Yakuza. Nah, that's just a hobby too.

In My Spare Time

We live near quite a few households in which the Man of the House is around some weekdays. There is the pilot, the radiologist, Steve, the guy who retired early, the guy whose wife has the money... a regular little pack of them running around mowing things on Tuesdays rather than Saturdays. This is nice because if you ever need a hand moving a grand piano* in the middle of the week you have some options. It is also nice (and I don't know why I find this so funny; perhaps because I am a sexist throwback to the unenlightened ages) because they provide Steve with the occasional social event. On Wednesdays, you see, this group of men gets together for coffee. Coffee! Delicious coffee! It slays me. I keep picturing the menu section of my beloved 1963 Joy of Cooking only rather than housewives it is a bunch of males trying to figure out what they can next suspend in gelatin and label "salad".

HA!

Steve went this morning and took Patrick with him so I am now ALL ALONE in the house. This never happens. As many times as I suggest that Steve and Patrick should go kayak the Missouri or something they always find reasons to stay home or bring me with them. I celebrated my independence by making the bed**, cleaning the kitchen, putting a load of laundry in the dryer and now I am writing a blog entry about nothing. I clearly live for pleasure alone.

Until very recently Patrick still used a sippy cup. Partially because I worried about his getting enough liquid (what with his bowel issues, ahem) and a sippy cup did not involve my having him to haul him to the table or an oil-cloth every half hour during his less dexterous years, but mostly because every time I tried to pour juice into a normal cup Patrick would scream "AAAAAAAIIIIIII! I can't have a sippy cup! AUGGGGHHH! AUGGGGGGHHH!" and I decided maybe it wasn't time to make the change. Because the change involved screaming. And I am weak. So two became three became almost four years old and Patrick was still using a sippy cup. When I tried to go cold turkey a few months ago he just did not drink anything. At all. All day. Which is actually a pretty effective negotiating technique, when you think about it. Short of prying his jaws open and pouring the apple juice directly into his esophagus via funnel it is hard to win that battle. So the sippy cups returned.

A few weeks ago I googled the subject of sippy cup addiction hoping to find some tricks on easing the transition. First, I was embarrassed to see that every mention of the subject involved children half Patrick's age and then I was horrified when I stumbled upon an article called something like "Are you babying your special needs child?" The horror was that I was guilty of seven out of the nine things the author mentioned and, um, Patrick's only special need is that I am apparently out to sabotage his development.

Unwittingly, of course, but still.

So I decided to ease Patrick off some of his more dependent behaviors (one day Patrick will coolly tell some nice girl, "I am sorry, Lois, but my mother used to remove the seeds from my cherry tomatoes. You are just not meeting my emotional needs when you suggest I put away my own socks") before I wreck the kid for all time.

Operation SippyCup has been surprisingly painless.  One night for dinner I poured Patrick's soy milk into a Dixie riddle cup. He read it. We all had a hearty laugh over the fact that fish are smart because they travel in schools. Then Patrick demanded his sippy cup- ha ha and all, but joke's over. We explained that he would now use a normal cup at the table for meals but he could still use a sippy cup at other times. He screamed. We ignored the screaming. He gave up after a minute. And he is drinking out of a normal cup as I type this. Voi-fucking-la.

The mills of my parenting are exceedingly slow but they grind exceedingly fine.

Next up: Pulling up his own pants, washing his own hands, using a fork, zippers, using a potty for all bodily functions and not just those of a uric nature, and algebra.

Thank you for your thoughts on getting Patrick to be more cooperative at school. I should have realized this already but I had never tried to apply my understanding of Patrick (slight though it is) to getting him to do things. I have always been, like, want a sticker? No? Well I am fresh out of ideas.   

Someone said something about, um, damn it, I don't remember how you put it, but it spoke to Patrick's definite need to have structured goals. When I asked him to put away the marble run this morning he declined. When I asked him to put away the red pieces first, the yellow pieces second, the green pieces third and the blue pieces last he eagerly asked, "And can I count them too?" I graciously agreed and then he graciously agreed. Since I have already admitted I am a lousy mother I guess it won't do any harm to confess this approach had NEVER occurred to me until I read the comments.

So thank you. 

*Richard Scarry of Busy Busy fame once sent the following telegram to the woman he later married "MUST MOVE GRAND PIANO. HEAVY. NEED HELP. COME IMMEDIATELY. ...DICK." Just try to tell me that isn't absolutely charming.

**I forgot you were going to help me with my bedding problem. First, be soothed by the complete absence of the Worst Duvet Cover Ever.

Ah.

Now, lack of terrible batik aside, doesn't it still look a little weird? A little sterile or something? I think I need more pillows but I don't know what they should look like. Here it is with the rug again. What do you think? Should I bring in some of that red, maybe?

PS The very observant will note that we now have THREE cat paintings and have put them over our bed. I remain defiant on the subject despite the fact that there will be a special cutesy corner of hell waiting just for us. In other respects we are ardent modernists, though, I swear it.

For CancerBaby

With admiration, respect, affection and deepest deepest sorrow I direct you toward a great and graceful person. Her writing is phenomenal. Her strength and wit and lightness will always inspire me. I wish I knew her personally.

CancerBaby

Clarified

Sorry, I gave an appalling explanation of our PGD results. I was afraid I was never going to post again if I didn't get something up and I rushed it.

The gist is that Steve and I misunderstood the PGD findings in both IVF cycles. We thought the conclusion from the testing was that generally 40-60% of the embryos we create are normal but in fact it is more like 20-30%. Nothing has changed but our understanding of our odds.

Questions Answered:

Where did I get the theory that a blighted ovum usually has genetic problems? The internet, of course. I get everything from the internet. If you google "what causes a blighted ovum" practically every page will say they are believed to be the result of chromosomal issues.

What would an IVF cycle without PGD do for us? Well, nothing apparently. We considered it when we thought that we made a significant number of normal embryos that did not survive to a five-day transfer. The logic was: we have 15 embryos, 9 of these are normal but half of them will not survive past day four. Why not just transfer a clutch untested and see what happens, freezing the rest for later? The clarification we received concerning our actual PGD results made this less appealing. If you have a small beaded evening bag into which you place twelve red M&Ms and three blue M&Ms what are you willing to bet that you will extract at least one blue M&M if you remove only three from the purse? OK, what will you bet if the red ones will kill you? What if they just sort of make you sad for awhile but each M&M costs about $1500?

You see our dilemma.

Why not do a natural FET (frozen embryo transfer)/assisted FET/Utz potato chip enhanced FET? Well I don't think it matters all that much, really. My position is that if we are going to spend X dollars and X time on a frozen cycle when there is only one embryo on ice we would be better served by incorporating that embryo into a fresh cycle, or saving it to use with another batch of frozen embryos later. In other words, if we decide to do this again I would rather not fuck around.    

Huh. I just said "if" there and yet we know we will do something with that frozen blast. I think I am being trying to be coy because I realize we have entered the realm of Those Whose Actions Mystify Others (TWAMO). From around the world the tinny cry of "Just (adopt/use donor sperm/be happy with what you have/shut up)" reaches my ears. I know, I know. I hear you.

Moving on...

I had Patrick's second preschool conference on Thursday (I know that sounds ridiculous but state law requires two conferences per year to be certified or something.) She had a folder for each child with a few art projects they had done and an brief assessment of their cognitive abilities, social skills, scissor-work, etc. Patrick had agreed to draw a self-portrait, which floored me because he usually (and by "usually" I mean "always") writes words or simple equations or (if he is feeling particularly whimsical) he will draw letters in boots or numbers wearing hats. His picture of himself was charming. He is green with an enormous head from which extends two legs and two arms. Patrick apparently has no body that he is aware of, a fact which explains a great deal about our toilet woes. Despite this he is smiling and his huge eyes have big irises in the center, a la the PowerPuff Girls. Beneath his feet there is grass and above his head twinkles a green sun. It is deliciously weird.

I was amused to see that she had given him a G+ for color and number recognition and counting, but only a G for knowing shapes and recognizing his own name. When we went to the doctor for my eyes the medical assistant asked Patrick what his name was. He said, "Patrick." Then he gave our last name. Then he spelled it for her. Finally he repeated it, slowly. When she just smiled at him he asked if she needed him to write it down. I think he knows his name, is my point.

So the cognitive stuff was all warm and fuzzy. The words "never had a three year old this smart" were offered and modestly accepted. I was just pinning the Mother of the Year badge on my lapel when we swung into less savory topics.

Apparently Patrick, my sweet unassuming Patrick, has suddenly gotten defiant. Is that the right word? He doesn't throw tantrums or anything, he just refuses to do things. The other day the teacher asked him to get his backpack and jacket and he said, "No. I don't think I will." And he did not. He has started being given warnings as a precursor to a dreaded Timeout. Seeing as how he spends most of his days pointedly ignoring what I tell him to do I cannot say I was all that surprised, but he has traditionally been so well-behaved in public... it's a pity.

When I came home I told him that his teacher had said a lot of very nice things about him but there were a few things he needed to be better about at school.

"Like not helping the other kids clean up?" he asked instantly.

"Yes," I said.      

"I don't want to do that."

"Well, you have to."

"Or else what?"

"Or your teacher will give you a timeout."

Patrick thought about it. "I would rather have a timeout than clean up."

I told him to just help clean up or else. Let me tell you how glad I am that the conversation ended there, because if he had asked "Or else what?" again I would have been stumped. I just hope the strength of my personality and the depth of Patrick's filial devotion will triumph.

Or else.

Seriously, any thoughts on how to deal with Patrick's new-found intransigence? To put it bluntly: what threats work for rather immature three year olds?

Here, I just took this from the front door (pride of landscapeship compels me to point out that the enormous dirt patches were covered by buckthorn and scrub until last summer. we haven't had a chance to get grass planted yet.) Find the baby trees. Hint: most of them are down there on the far side of the driveway. See 'em?

Yeah. We can't either. Seriously. We went out to water them yesterday and although the little pines were obvious we have no idea where we put the cherry and lilac trees. I will bet you a million dollars that Steve annihilates them all the first time he brings out the mower.

I Never Call, I Never Write

Steve's business partners came for a meeting this past weekend and, apart from a certain disinterest in the world of the living that landed me in a grocery store (the Twin Cities have the fanciest grocery stores, I swear) buying a hogshead of chicken salad and clean place mats twenty minutes before the gentlemen arrived for lunch, it was rather nice to have the distraction. They tactfully avoided all mention of our Unpleasantness and, even more tactfully, got me so drunk at dinner on Friday night that I thought a Cuban cigar sounded like a good idea. A cigar, my friends, is never a good idea. Exhibit A: my brother's rehearsal dinner, the mere mention of which can still turn Steve a delicate green. Exhibit B: last Friday night.

Saturday I had offered to make dinner for them and it literally took me 50 minutes that afternoon to trim one pound of green beans. I had to keep placing my head in the vegetable crisper in an effort to revive myself enough to snap just one more bean.

On Sunday Steve, Patrick, and I planted 125 trees around the property. I should say "trees" because we got them from the conservancy and they are mighty weensy. Patrick said "THAT is a tree" and pointed to a tree. "THIS is a stick," and shook it. Still, he cooperated fully, approving of anything that involves getting that dirty. We had a system: Steve dug the holes, Patrick crammed the baby trees in, and then I poked the roots down and stamped the earth into place. Afterwards we all took a bath in my enormo-tub with lots of bubbles.

When you think about it, life is quite good, really.

Sorry I have not posted for over a week. I was struggling with what to say about recent events and I still don't know.

We are not even close to deciding what to do about a second child, if anything. The nice thing about a D&C (other than the anesthetic and the hot-air blanket, neither of which I got this time. not that I am bitter, because I am not. it was my own damned fault for being too cowardly to seek a follow-up ultrasound) is that there is no point in deciding anything for five or six or twelve weeks anyway. Nothing is going anywhere, if you know what I mean. I like to get started thinking about it, though, because it gives me a chance to live with different ideas before having to act on anything.

Right now we are confronted with the Dilemma of the Single Frozen Blastocyst. Our last IVF cycle produced four normal embryos, three of which we transferred. Actually, at least one of the three was not really normal as the pregnancy that resulted was a blighted ovum and that is, I believe, always a genetic problem although not our specific genetic problem but... let's not get sidetracked by details. The point is that there was one blast leftover and our instructions were to freeze it if it continued to grow. It did and they did, so we currently have one frozen (wait for it) SEVEN DAY embryo on hold. Seven days sounds like it should be good and all, but my understanding is that the later embryos are frozen the lower the rate of survival. And frozen success rates are not all that good anyway. Let's say about half that of a fresh cycle on average (although I am pulling that number out of my delicately carved behind, so feel free to correct me). The phrase "snowbaby's chance in Hell" springs to mind. For it to survive, implant, grow and be normal.... the mind boggles. It is to laugh, really. However, we can't just destroy it. I mean, we could and heaven knows we do not romanticize little cell clumps around here, but we really WANT another child and that embryo represents a chance. A very very very very small chance but still, a chance.

So we decided we have to do something with the frozen one. But a FET costs about $4000 and the embryo is in DC, which is a hassle. My friend Julie pointed out we could just have it shipped here, preferably with a case of Utz potato chips attached, and luxuriate in the ease of cycling in our backyard. That sounded pretty good, so I looked into the local clinics again and realized that a whole new fresh IVF cycle here is only $7500. Now, I am no cost accountant but it seems to me that spending $4000 on a blast that is mostly doomed is rather silly when we could just spend the extra $3500 or so and get a crop of rosy new embryos all ready to go in case the Frozen One expires before transfer. We were thinking we might as well skip PGD because (in addition to doubling the cost. PGD adds $4500 but the only local place that offers it is more expensive) the last two cycles each produced fifteen embryos out of which six and then nine embryos were deemed normal but only half of the normals survived to day five... OR SO WE THOUGHT. Cue tense music.

I ordered copies of my DC records in preparation for consulting someone here. I flipped through them and was startled to see that rather than 6 and 9 normal embryos, the PGD report said there were 3 and 5. Also, the embryologist's notes indicated that 14 of the 15 embryos tested survived to day five. What the hell?

Well, it is a funny story actually. The night before embryo transfers each time we got a call from the PGD guy saying that they had completed round one of the PGD testing and we had six/nine normal embryos. The next day we were told only three/five (four, long story) were available to transfer. We ASSUMED that the others had just stopped growing. 

This was what is known as a "communication problem". What round one meant, actually, is that they had tested ONE chromosome. Of the 15 embryos, 6 had a normal first chromosome. The next day's resulted indicated the number of embryos left after the fourth chromosome was tested.

Whoops. Boy, do we feel stupid. I mean, when 9 out of 15 embryos are genetically normal it makes sense to, I don't know, have another try the old-fashioned way or something (work with me here. I realize that probably none of this makes sense anymore.) When that number drops to one in three it is less promising. So who the hell knows. I have a consult here next week and I thought it would be refreshing to have an appointment in which I was legitimately seeking advice rather than pushing my own agenda. I have no agenda. I literally have no idea what we should do. Probably give up, eh?

Bleh. 

I guess the good news is our terrible pregnancy history now makes more sense in light of the testing, so I can stop feeling like we are monstrously unlucky when statistically we should be favored. The bad news is our terrible pregnancy history now makes more sense in light of the testing, so we are indeed monstrously unlucky. In reproductive matters, at any rate.

That's my update. Let's never go this long again without talking, ok?