Julia

Bleh

Sorry... sorry.

I should have warned you that with my family in residence and my computer in the kitchen I would be padlocking this place for the week and swallowing the key. I love these people dearly (although not as much as I did eight days ago before I had so very very much of their wonderful company) but they are nosy. At one point I logged on for two seconds to send a quick message and when I turned my back for a moment my mother's gentleman friend started opening .jpg files saved on my desktop. All perfectly harmless, of course, since I am the model of rectitude but it gave me a coronary nonetheless. The only reason I am updating now is because I sent everyone out to lunch.

So I am sorry not to update sooner, although there was really nothing to say a few days ago that is any different now. I have a drawerful of vaguely positive pregnancy tests. And by "vaguely" I mean it requires significant concentration and a bit of creative flair to see a line at all. A whole week's worth, no darkening. This morning the First Response was actually negative and the Fact Plus was positive but not glaringly so. Yesterday's ept was encouragingly  plus-like but it is in sad minority in terms of being clear. Since I am... well I am not sure what I am since we do not know if the blast was a 5 or 6 or 7 day embryo  but let's say I am at least 4 days past the "first missed period" marker or well beyond a point at which a pregnancy test should be definitive if there is any chance it won't all end in tears. 

The Grove does not do betas until 18 days after whatever so my hcg draw is not until Tuesday. I am disappointed but slogging along. As usual.

I hope you had nice holidays and I will be back once my house is empty, which should have been tomorrow but Steve's birthmother is apparently coming to visit while she is in the area ("area" meaning Chicago, but fair enough). I think she leaves Sunday.

We'll talk soon.

I'll Be Damned

The blast survived at 100% and was duly transferred, which is apparently good.

So it's good.

Wheeeeeeeeee!

Frozen

The combination of zero expectations for success and feeling physically like hell is making my first-and-last frozen embryo cycle something of a trial.

Although I suppose it is remotely possible that I could get pregnant and have a baby after negotiating this series of flaming hoops, I very strongly doubt it. And it is not why we are doing it, anyway. It is more like we are trying to close a door but we cannot with a frozen blast wedged in the jamb. So I am going through the motions fully expecting to be in the exact same position next week that I am this week (entirely unpregnant) but the motions suck and I am feeling awful.

In theory a frozen cycle is much easier than a full-bore IVF. You go for one ultrasound and blood draw, take estrogen for a couple of weeks, go back for another ultrasound and blood draw, start progesterone and then they bung in whatever cells they have lying around with your name on them. Compared to the weeks of monitoring with a fresh cycle it is more like background music than anything else.... ok, the frozen stuff IS much easier. But the estrogen is making me sick and I still cannot see very well and I don't remember the progesterone shots being quite so debilitating. I have only had two of them so far and I am already crabbing along with huge purple lumps in my ass.

Grumble grumble.

I went to the ophthalmologist yesterday.

He tortured me with those horrible machines for a while and finally said that my eyes are fine, healthy, great. I do not need glasses. However, when I fainted during the exam (bright lights. blinding pain. red wave. flashing stars. CLUNK) he suggested I might want to go see my primary care doctor about the migraines. I told him I do not get migraines but he seemed unconvinced.

He also told me that his brother had a terrible time conceiving and they went through all sorts of procedures and finally adopted a wonderful little girl from China and naturally his sister-in-law then got pregnant right away so they went from nothing to two in one year. Which just goes to show you that he actually read my intake form as I had listed delestrogen under Medications, Currently Taking. He sort of rolled with it from there.

I get so incredibly uncomfortable talking about our reproductive woes that I tend to start twisting my body into a pretzel the longer the conversation lasts. By the time he was done my ankle was wrapped around my head. Maybe that is why I passed out. I suppose that I could serve an educational function, calmly telling my fellow preschool mothers for example that yes, we would like to have more children but unfortunately we struggled to have Patrick and I have had multiple miscarriages in our attempt to have another and some women have bigger reproductive challenges than simply avoiding marital congress in the early Spring because they think Christmas babies are at a birthday disadvantage. Although probably one of them has had a loss of her own and if I mentioned our problems she would tell me hers and we could sympathize with each other. Except, as I think about it, I feel like I am in a whole different realm when it comes to miscarriages, a realm that has only been toured by about three other people (hello MustangSally!) and it is unlikely that any of those three are at Patrick's school. In fact I am certain of it because the only other only child in his class was the product of a shotgun wedding that was followed by an even more abrupt shotgun divorce. So... so what?

Where was I?

Oh, I don't like to talk about our fertility issues (except here on the internet. isn't that why all infertiles/subfertiles eventually wind up on the internet? because we feel isolated and sometimes you are just dying to tell someone about your hormone levels who actually understands?) but my eye doctor made me. Then I fainted.            

DC clinic just called to give me my alleged transfer time- 1:00 on Monday. I cannot shake the feeling that they will call again around breakfast on Monday to say the embryo died so I am free to make other plans for the afternoon, how about the Air & Space?

I will keep you posted as events warrant. I would appreciate some good luck, if you have any.

Have a nice weekend.   

PS I have just read this over and I think I am feeling a little depressed.

Clip Show

I cannot tell you how much better I feel after your reassurances that four year olds are frequently willful little creeps. With no comparative experience I do not have a great sense of what normal looks like, so it is nice to hear that Patrick's abrupt metaphormosis into completely unmanageable is not a new variant of his own particular oddness.

And it isn't so much what Patrick is doing that is driving me insane, it is what he categorically refuses to do. Which is anything that he is asked. Like as a matter of principle or something. So that I am spending thirty minutes (im)patiently waiting for him to bend over and tug the velcro straps on his own stupid shoes. Or watching his knees turn blue as he wanders around without pants because he stripped from the waist for some reason and I have asked him to get himself dressed again. Setting limits every three minutes and then being compelled to enforce them over and over and over again is a total drag. I have nothing against pudding on the face, or letters that look like pyramids, or self-portraits that look like letters, it would just be nice to be able to say "OK, enough" and once, just once, have him say, "OK."

But you have told me this is normal so I feel better.

++

I wrote this three days ago and Patrick has been a cooperative joy ever since. Go figure.

My computer screen is making me sick. So is driving and looking at the television. I finally made an appointment for this Friday to see an eye doctor and I am hoping he concludes that my vision is failing because then we can correct it. Otherwise I won't be able to write here, watch Netflix, or go to Target without throwing up... which pretty much rules out my entire existence. Which is, on many levels, a depressing thought.

As much as I love you (and I do) there is only so long I am willing to nauseate myself while sitting here in sunglasses typing for your putative amusement (apparently about two minutes).

Rusty just went to the vet and is doing quite well. She said he seemed well-hydrated and his weight is holding steady, so we are continuing with the daily Azodyl and new food and will check back with them in a month or two. The secret with him seems to be keeping a drinking glass of water next to his preferred bed on top of the dishwasher and constantly refreshing it with clean water throughout the day. I am very relieved that he seems to be in good shape so far. Thank you again for all the encouragement in managing renal failure.   

OK I am now writing this with one eye squinted and the other pressed behind my palm. What the hell is this?

Fortune

I was not particularly in favor of Steve's kitchen remodel. My position was that we had a perfectly nice kitchen already and ripping it apart sounded like a big hassle. Steve's response to my reasoned objections was to shout, "What?! I can't hear you! I am ripping the kitchen apart!" He is funny like that.

Now that it is finished, however, my initial ambivalence has been replaced with an unhealthy passion. I love the new kitchen. I love it I love it I love it. It would not be completely misplaced to say that I have become the kitchen's bitch. I used my shirt to mop up a red wine spill the other day because the granite guys had warned me of the perils of acidic liquids on stone and the drawer full of kitchen towels was three whole feet away. I have contemplated buying those weird little fingerpad covers that the French use to prevent leaving prints on steel. I spent four hours arranging cookbooks on my new midget cookbook shelves, which are all of two feet wide and two feet high. And the range... the range! The range that I patted absently in the store while Steve kicked its tires is now an honored member of the family. It is the son I never had. Right in the middle of roasting a chicken last week, I kid you not, I used a good tea towel to wipe grease splatters off the inside glass of the oven door. I have considered putting bowls of flowers in there to complement its pretty cobalt interior. I have apologized repeatedly to the burners for my lack of commercial cookware, which seems so disrespectful.

So you can imagine my consternation on Saturday night when I set the damned thing on fire.

Yes, Saturday. The night of my big party. The party over which I was already wound tighter than a spool of thread. Ten minutes before our guests were due to arrive I started a blaze in the oven that would have made any arsonist proud. There was smoke. There were flames. There was an overpowering acrid stench. "Fire! Fire! Fire!" I squealed like an idiot. Like the sort of idiot who would put a sheet of....

So you know phyllo dough? Have you ever worked with it? Basically you get these thin wafers of dough and saturate them with about 6 cups of melted butter until they are pliable, at which point you can stuff them (perhaps with feta and spinach and mint and olives) and fold them. You then brush them with another six cups of melted butter and bake 'em. Or freeze them, I suppose, but I baked them. Right on a cookie sheet. A rimless cookie sheet. And do you know what happened? All that melted butter that had hardened on the phyllo melted again and started to pour off the sides of the cookie sheet like a waterfall, only to pool on the pretty blue bottom of my beloved new oven. Where it first burnt, then smoked, and finally, cheerfully, ignited. A devil's lake of flaming butter.

Damn it.

It is a pity that the only thing Steve has not yet done in the kitchen is hook up the range hood. So the only thing we could think to do to get the smoke alarm to stop going off was open all the windows in the house. And since it was ten degrees outside this ushered in a whole new set of problems, mostly the risk of hypothermia. Such that the first guests to arrive at my house on Saturday were simultaneously kippered and frozen, an unusual combination and hardly hospitable.

I greeted everyone: "Sorry about the chill. Sorry about the smell. I was stupid. There was a fire. Drink?" while Steve helpfully offered to take coats but added "Of course, you might want to keep it on... just in case." Whether he meant just in case they were cold or just in case I set another fire he never specified.

That was my party. Needless to say it got better from there because, well, it would have had to have done, wouldn't it?

Patrick is driving me absolutely fucking crazy but I cannot even write about it right now. I get tense just thinking about him. We had preschool conferences yesterday and you would think that one of the advantages to having a bright kid would be that school conferences would be mostly pleasant but ohhhhhhh nooooooo. His teacher has concluded that Patrick is going through his Terrible Twos, fashionably late. My mother consoled me by pointing out that the flip side to Quirky is Quirky, meaning that the same mind that delights me with its breadth and humor is going to pummel me with its unwillingness to ever. just. be. normal. and. do. normal. and I suppose she is correct. However....

of the three self-portraits Patrick was asked to draw in the past three months (as part of the classroom assessment) one was from the day after Halloween, featuring a letter A with hands face and feet, neatly labeled "Patrick" with the note: In My Costum; and one was four odd clumps that resembled broccoli underneath an elaborately printed number 1216. When I showed Patrick that one and asked what it was he laughed, "Oh, that is a picture of me!" Pause. "A SILLY one! Ho ho ho ho..."

And when I said I liked it and it was nice, but his teacher had asked him to draw a little boy and he needed to be a better listener and follow directions he just looked at me. Like, yeah, whatever. And then he looked at the clump picture and started laughing again.

He never just does what he is asked to do. Never.

His teacher said that if she had just met him this year she would believe he was simply naughty, but knowing him as she does she thinks that he is having a spurt of social development that is late but necessary. Like a toddler rebellion stage. At four and a half.

I could go on and on but, like I said, it is making me tense just thinking about it. We had a hostage situation over taking off his own stupid shoes this afternoon that lasted half an hour. Argh. Gargh. Blech. Stupid stubborn kid.

Nothing new in the frozen cycle. Delestrogen is making me amorous, so much so that I am wondering if I can just stay on it forever. I go for a follow-up ultrasound and bloodwork one week from tomorrow and provided that looks good (and I assume it will) I will go to DC that weekend. I have never been more certain of anything than I am that this embryo will defrost and die but, like I said, we needed to deal with the frozen one some time or other and I am looking forward to seeing my mother and every experience is a part of life's rich tapestry, no?

Hope you are well.