Moving Right Along!

We had our monthly visit with our OB/GYN Monday evening and as it stands we are looking good and moving forward. Katie's heart was nice and strong at 150 bpm and I have offically gained 14 lbs. from my lowest point and the doctor told me I can resume a regular diet now, no overeating to catch up! He also measured my belly, actually my uterus, and the measurement in centimeters should match-up with your development in weeks and I was dead on at 22 cm. So I guess I am average for once, who thought that would ever make me happy!

I will say this about being pregnant, I look in the mirror at myself and wonder how in the world my body is ever going to recover! I am enormous and to top it all off I still weigh about 14 lbs. less than I did when I first got myself into this position. My mind can't seem to wrap itself around the fact that I'm going to keep getting bigger and that I still have a LOT of growing to do; how does my skin keep stretching like this? I just keep reminding myself what my friend Michelle said after she had her daughter Makenzie, "It's not like we were strutting around in bikini's before we got pregnant!". True.

I am enjoying this part of being pregnant, this mostly calm 2nd trimester. Gone are the IV's, the constant trips to the doctors office, the constant trips to the bathroom to get sick, the not eating and not being able to leave the house. I feel almost human now, part of the world again; I can even drive my car!! There are still some food issues and this stupid heartburn that is a constant 24 hour friend, but overall I would say that compared to about 8 weeks ago I am sitting pretty.

Well that's it from me for now, I have to go eat something..............
Talk to you all soon!!!

Just shy of 22 weeks!

Ok, it's offical, I'm enormous! Laugh all you want, I'll wait.......

Done?

Well, in the news here is that Nat was able to feel Katie kick for the first time on Monday night. It was pretty cool, she would move around and start kicking and then the second I would place Nat's hand on my stomach she would stop. We played that game two to three times when Nat leaned over my stomach and started talking to her and off she went. I guess she recognized her daddy's voice becuase she gave him a few nice solid shots.

I'm just starting to feel her with consistancy and on a schedule and as we found out yesterday, bananas make her go crazy! She is still really low and I'm pretty sure she is on or near my bladder because I'm heading for the bathroom more and more every day and night. It's all really fun and exciting and for the most part I'm enjoying all of the changes, although my chest can stop itself from it's rapid expansion at any time. It's getting a little out of hand.

Ok well I have my next doctors appointment on monday so hopefully you will all hear from me at some point next week. To all my teacher friends and family, welcome back to the school year and good luck! 

Katie's Room

Here are a few pictures of the nursery, or what we have so far. The dresser was actually Nat's changing table when he was a baby, my sister Liz sanded it down and painted it for Katie to use. We are going to paint the room a light lime color and are looking into gliders but that will be it for furniture, it's a very small room so we didn't have much wiggle room. Well that's about it for now, I'm just photo happy................ 

Week 21:

I don't know if I was at a weird angle in this picture or what but you can barely see my bump. In case you aren't familiar with this group, from the left is my brother-in-law Doug, sister Liz, me, Nat, sister Sarah and brother-in-law Tim. Yes I'm really pale and with my dumb luck Liz and Doug just returned from the beach so I look like death. We were at Sarah's friend Brandy's wedding tonight, which was my first big event out and wouldn't you know the only other pregnant person there was wearing the same dress as me. (and she was skinny too!!)

Anyhow in bigger news, I'm finally eating so I'm getting bigger all of the time now. I have been eating almost everything that passes in front of me with the one enormous exception being chicken, go figure? I don't know what I have against it but it grosses me out right now so I'm avoiding it like the plauge. I am enjoying Italian Ice's , at least twice a day, and tonight I rediscovered ranch dressing which might finally bring vegtables back to my plate. Everything else is coming back little by little but due to my troubles with heartburn I have to be very careful with the size of my meals and the quickness to which I inhale it.

Well it's late and a bit past my bedtime so I'm going to make this a short post. Have a good week and hopefully I'll be in contact soon....... 

Half Way There! (20 Weeks)

Well first let me explain the noticable change in the background...... I'm bored and it's girly; Enought said. (Everything is pink right now, it's a sickness, I can't help it!)

Secondly, look at that big bump I'm wearing, can you believe I'm only half of the way there?! The funny thing about the belly is that I'm still about 15 pounds less than I was when I got pregnant and I'm only up about 7.5 from my lowest point. What I'm trying to say is that I'm going to be very rolly-polly in a few months, like Violet in "Willie Wonka" when she ate that flavored gum and had to be juiced. Oh yeah, I pulled that out of the memory vault, but I think it's an accurate compairison, or it will be.

Other than my rapidly expanding mid-section there isn't much to report. I'm starting to branch out with my eating, I had a slice of pizza last night for dinner and another slice today, yummy. I also had a miniature candy bar today, first chocolate tasting in over 4 months, is was so good I don't really care if it makes me sick! It beats the crap out of Triscuits that's for sure. I'm still slamming orange sodas for some reason and toast with cream cheese is my meal of choice, although I'm hoping that will fade as I can eat real human meals again.

Well Katie and I are going to try and take a quick nap while Nat and his dad are out at the fairgrounds checking out the plans for York's new minor league baseball team, the York Revolution. (We bought season tickets.) Oh by the way Katie's middle name is still being discussed, I thought we had it down to two options and now Nat isn't sure so the field is wide open again. Ugh. Have a good weekend, enjoy the break in the heat!

IT'S A GIRL!!!!

Introducing Katherine (no middle name yet?!) Burt!! Katherine is a name that runs all through Nat's paternal side of the family and it was a name that we really liked the nickname, Katie. Nat also happens to have two first cousins named Katie, one a Kaitlyn the other a Kathryn, so she will be a bit different. Plus even though she bothered her big sister and I growing up, Katie Tillotson always cracked me up and I think she is the reason I always liked the name. So Katie Burt she is and hopefully she will make her grand apperance right around Christmastime.

The ultrasound yesterday was awesome, no other way to describe it. We were able to see her heart pumping blood in and out, we saw her stomach, kidneys, the lobes of her brain and almost all of her skeletal structure. We learned that she is now 9 oz. and she has nice long legs, that's what the ultrasound tech. told us! We also learned that the hemorrhage that has kept me on my butt for 8 weeks has gone away, yippie!!, so hopefully after my visit with my OB on Friday I will be allowed to get movin'!

All in all it has been a very exciting 24 hours for us. We are so happy that Katie is healthy and growing and although Nat was expecting a boy, don't know why, he was already imagining her as a fighter pilot and space ship captain before we left the doctors office.

Ok well mark October 15th on your calendars, that's going to be baby shower day. I still need some addresses, you know who you are, so let me know so I can let my sisters know. Have a good week and hopefully soon we will have a middle name to share with you!

16 WEEKS AND 3 DAYS

I'm just starting to pop out above my belly button, to me it's obvious but maybe not to everybody, please ignore those two overgrown bushes above my eyes. I need to get out!! 

Iv trouble, again!

It seems as though any progress made by my uncooperative body is always followed by a random, yet significant setback which is then followed by a visit to the hospital. The last time I wrote, which unless you check the blog without prompting you never saw, was on the 4th of July. I had been feeling better, eating and drinking, and basically beginning to think that I was coming out of this haze of sickness and then BAM; I was getting sick all day and was back in the hospital getting fluid pumped into me. That was last Wednesday; a week ago today.

Fast forward to today and we are at the scary nexus once again. I have been back on IV therapy for a week, this time I haven't been feeling as great as before, in fact I have been so nauseas that getting out of bed hasn't been an option on certain days. Couple the nausea with the fact that my IV doesn't want to work and the fact that my veins are shot and we come to this moment in time, a big "now what?".

My current number #1 issue is the IV; I'm like a drug addict with that thing, I need it, I want it and I feel strangely attached to it. Sure it's not very convenient being tethered to a bag for 12 hours a day, but it keeps me from marathon vomiting so I love it. LOVE IT!!

The problem, of course there is one, is that in the past week my mini-cath, the actual injection site where the tube goes into your body, has had to be changed four times. Usually I can keep the same site going for three or four days before it becomes sore or irritated, but my last one only lasted one day before it became backed up and fluid couldn't be pushed through the line. Four changes in one week means four different sites have been punctured, irritated, and bruised and are now on the mend but can't be used until back to normal. Basically I'm out of fresh, healthy veins and my only option would be to have a PICC line put in and instead of boring and possibly grossing you out I'll leave it up to you to Google that process, it doesn't look fun and I really don't want to have one put in.

So this all brings us to right now, 4:45am Wednesday morning, wide awake trying to convince this growing miracle inside me to stop making me sick, begging is next. I have my weekly doctors appointment Thursday, oh and yesterday I had 9 vials of blood taken from me for all sorts of second trimester testing, routine stuff nothing out of the ordinary. Hopefully this time I can live IV free without the hospital outcome, but unfortunatly that's not completely my decision. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!!

Come On......

Good Morning!!

It's 3:30am here and I am once again wide awake and getting sick. What a life?! I was doing pretty well, in fact I hadn't run my IV since Thursday night and as a major bonus I was beginning to eat again, real food like steak and potato salad. (It was soooooo good!!) But the inevitable reared it's ugly head once again yesterday morning when that oh so familiar feeling passed over me and I haven't been able to keep anything down since.

So here we are 3:45am, watching the news and trying to keep my mind off of the rumbling going on in my stomach. It's annoying being this sick because even though I'm ravenous I know whatever I eat is going to make a repeat appearance in about an hour. Double annoyance is that I'm stuck feeling like this for at least a little while longer because I waited too long yesterday and missed out on calling my doctor, now I have to wait until at least 8am when the office opens again.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I'm assuming that my IV will be back in later today, hopefully sooner than later. I had a checkup on Monday morning and baby was chugging away with the heartbeat around 145 bpm. My weight is still somewhat of an issue but I think my doctor was pretty excited that I was eating and drinking on my own so she was cautiously optimistic. Who knows what they are going to have to do now but I am losing ground once again and that isn't going to make anyone happy.

Ok well I am going to attempt to snooze for a little bit, the news is about to begin repeating itself and I am sick of being awake. I hope you all had an enjoyable 4th of July and stuffed your faces for me! Even though I was stuck in bed all day I did have the perfect seat for watching the Jacobus fireworks so that was our little bonus surprise. I'll keep you all updated on my situation......fingers crossed!

My Gear!

Here's my PICC line, currently in my left wrist but they have to switch it today, I guess they only leave it in the same place for up to four days.

This is my cool little bag that carries my actual IV bag and my machine that controls the drip, Joan help me out here? It's very nice and compact, not too bulky, which is good because I have to sleep with it in bed!

I did visit with my doctor today and we are keeping the IV in for now, on a week to week basis, until I feel like I can live without it. Since Monday, and having the IV in, I have gained back 10 lbs. and my blood pressure has returned to a healthy 100/60, it was running 139/96!! Long story short, I'm a big fan of IV fluid!

Have a good week!!

I'm a Cyborg!

New day, same old story; I was back in the hospital again Monday for IV fluids. It's getting old, I know, but what's a girl to do when she is dehydrated and can't stop getting sick? This time I had a much more pleasant experience at the hospital, I had my doctor call ahead and pre-register me for a room in Labor and Delivery so I just showed up and went right in. Why Labor and Delivery, I don't know, maybe to scare me a little, because that's what happened.

My sister Liz took me to the hospital. I was really doing badly on Monday, I hadn't been able to keep anything down for a few days and was on the verge of passing out everytime I got sick. Liz dropped me off at the main entrance to the hospital and away I went to Labor and Delivery on the 4th floor. Just to point out how pathetic I was my sister dropped me off, parked her car, got directions, and still caught up to me before I made it to the registrar. Sad, sad, sad.

I got to Labor and Delivery and the nurse checked me in and I was lying in a hospital bed within 10 minutes of arriving, key information when you have shaky legs and you are out of breath from walking 50 feet! My nurse was awesome, I wish I could remember her name because she deserves a letter or card from me, she was in immediately, put in my IV and checked on me so much you would have thought that I was in labor. Nat arrived from work about 30 minutes after I checked in and we sent Liz back home to finish washing windows, secretly I think she was happy she got a break!!

After about an hour we got a visit from Sue, the nurse midwife from our doctors office, who explained that I had a ton of protein in my urine (sorry) and that until that corrected itself I would be parked in the hospital. I figured they would have to get a bag of fluid, maybe a second and then I would be on my way. But in the end it took almost three bags, 1000 ml bags, to clear me out and since this was my third visit with the IV fairy they decided to just go ahead and leave the pick line in. My parents ended up coming in around dinner time to sit with me, they brought Nat some food and sent him home for a break. While they were there I had a roommate that was just in the beginning stages of labor and the whole scene seemed so frantic to me, a little concerning.

Finally around 7pm my specimen was deemed protein free and I was allowed to go back home to my own bed. Nat was just getting ready to leave the house to come back to the hospital so luckily I was able to catch him in time and my parent chauffeured me home. Nat's parents offered to stop at the grocery store and grab some jello and bread for me, my food staples, and drop them off at the house. So once again our parents to the rescue, thank God, which made it possible for me to come home and plop right in to bed.

Yesterday I woke up feeling a little better, at least a little more hydrated, and put a call in to my doctor about the exciting day I was about to have. Yes friends there is never a dull day here! I was told that I would now be getting daily IV therapy from the VNA, visiting nurses association, and today around 3pm I would get my first visit. First I would have my supplies delivered by the hospital and then the nurse would come by later and hook me up.

I decided it might be best to have someone else there to watch what this lady was going to do to me, I'm not a very good listener as of late, so I called my mother and asked her to come witness this process just as my back-up. Mom agreed and said that she would come by around 2:30pm and sit with me until the nurse came. Well little did we realize that the time given to us was more of an estimate or a fun suggestion than and actual time, we waited and waited, then Nat came home and decided to call the VNA and we learned that it would be sometime after 4:30pm. Oh. We asked mom if she wanted to go home or stay and all she said she was going home to was more cleaning so she decided to stay. So we waited and waited some more until finally at 5:35pm our nurse showed up.

Finally.

She was busy, you could tell, and she was in speed mode so she explained everything really fast and hooked me up to this gigantic 2000ml bag that would take 12 hours to empty. Now if you are doing the math right now let me stop you, the bag would empty out around 5:45am and I would be responsible for disconnecting it and flushing the port. I got this fun little backpac to put the bag and the drip machine in that I had to sleep with and carry to the bathroom everytime I got up. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, it was pretty quiet and there was enough of the IV line that I could roll around in bed and not get caught. This morning I woke up early and made Nat stay home until the machine went off right at 5:45am.

It was a good thing that I made Nat stay home because I was worthless using only one hand, I couldn't do anything. The line screws in to the port and that turning motion is impossible with one hand so Nat, once again, saved me from frustration. We got the thing closed off and cleaned and off he went to work and off I went back to sleep. Now I am just waiting for another visit from the nurse, who will hook me up again and keep me hydrated!!

Well that's been my exciting life for the past few days, never boring. It's all actually been a good thing and a blessing, I feel better, I have been able to eat and the pick line is no bother at all, you forget it's there. I am back to the doctor tomorrow for another check-up and to see if they are going to continue the IV therapy, which I am going to beg for! I'll update with some pictures tomorrow, show you how I'm now half human, half machine. Hehe!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Happy 30th Birthday to my always fashion forward husband!!! I LOVE YOU!!! 

A Big Scare!

Sorry it's been a long time since I last spoke to many of you, we have had a small hiccup on my bumpy road to motherhood but now, at last, I think things are moving in the right direction again. Whew.

This past Saturday night at around 10pm I began bleeding, heavily and for no apparent reason. It was really scary and Nat and I were both understandable terrified so we made a bee-line for the hospital. The emergency room on a Saturday night is not fun, it wasn't full, but we had to wait over an hour for a room. I guess you could say we were lucky to get a room and not a bed with drapes pulled around it in the middle of the room, but we got one with a bathroom and a door!

The nurse came in right away and started me on an IV drip and a doctor closely followed with a ultrasound machine to check things out. Right away I saw the baby, I didn't know if I should be relieved or upset that I had to see this, but there it was so they decided I should get a better ultrasound to check things out. After about another hour I was wheeled over to another part of the hospital for a much better ultrasound and to me it was clear that the baby was doing just fine and everything looked A-OK.

Of course I was still bleeding and not having a medical degree hinders a little in the diagnosis stage so Nat and I were wheeled back to our room and told a doctor would go over all of the ultrasound pictures and let us know what was going on. After nodding off a few times and trying to hold a conversation while sleep deprived the doctor finally came in the room with the diagnosis, I had a subchorionic hemorrhage. A what?!

A subchorionic hemorrhage is when a sac of fluid that had been developing along side of the embryonic sac decides to rupture and some or all of that fluid leaks out. After visits to the hospital, my doctor and then a visit today at Maternal Fetal Medicine I still only slightly understand what really happened, what I gather is that they aren't very common but they are usually not harmful to the baby.

YAY!!!

You can google it if you want, I could go on forever explaining what I think it is, but my answer would probably contain only about 50% fact and the only part I really cared about was the part where they said the baby was fine. The fluid sac is still inside me, I saw it on the ultrasound today, and the doctor said I could possibly have another crazy bleeding episode, but not to worry. (I still will anyhow!)

On a good note my nausea and vomiting marathons are coming to a close and although I'm still unable to eat a lot of foods what I am eating is staying in. Plus today my mother got to come to my ultrasound with me and see her grandchild upclose and personal, we got a great profile shot and the heartrate was 153 which is nice and strong.

Well we are getting some thunder and heavy rain right now so the I'm going to get off of the computer. Talk to you all soon!!!!

Getting Bigger!!

Today was our last visit to The Fertility Center, on to our OB/GYN!!!

Everything looked great, baby is starting to look like a baby and while they were doing the ultrasound he/she was moving all over the place. The heartbeat was 162 bpm and the baby is measuring 9weeks 4 days, one day off of the last measurement but baby wasn't fully cooperating by sitting still for the ultrasound tech. My weight has almost stabilized again, I was only down about half a pound since Tuesday, so they were excited about that as well.

On a bad note for me, my miracle drug Zofran ran out today, my insurance will only cover 12 pills a month, so Nat and I are thinking about forking over the $250 it will cost to get 12 more pills. Stupid insurance. The stuff really does seem to work for me though, it knocks me down to getting sick only once or twice a day, which beats the 5 times I got sick yesterday when I decided to test the water without the drugs. Yuck!

Well today is Nat and my 5th wedding anniversary so I am going to go and spend some quality time with my husband, watching soap operas while he plays video games. That's true love!! I hope you all have a great holiday weekend!

I'm IV proof!!

So how many puncture wounds can you find in these pictures?? The last picture actually has two; one is on the wrist one on the hand, to bring the grand total to 6 sticks. Now what, may you ask, causes one to be stuck by a needle 6 times?? Well there is one hole due to blood work, four holes made in attempt to find a viable vein for an IV and one hole that the IV actually decided to work in. Just imagine how much fun that was!!!

Here is the real low down on what happened. I have been getting sick a lot, four or five times a day, and the medicine that my doctor was prescribing me wasn't getting the time it needed in me to work. I had been in touch with my doctor almost every day letting him know what was going on and how the drugs weren't staying in and neither was most of my foods and liquids. Finally yesterday they had either had enough of me calling and complaining or they were getting worried too, maybe a little of both, and they told me to go and have some blood work done and then head over to their office to see the doctor.

I went for the blood work around 9:45am and was at my doctors office around 10:15am, they took me back to a small room, weighed me and took my blood pressure. (I was down 5 lbs. from last Friday and my blood pressure was 132/89, high for me.) After talking to Dr. Filer for about five minutes he decided to hook me up to an IV and try and rehydrate me, get some color back in my cheeks. He said he was going to try and get two 1000mL bags in me and that it would take about an hour. So Sue, the drug lady, went back to get the bags and all of the other paraphernalia and we were ready to begin.

Well stick one came on my right hand, she had the needle in and turned the drip on and I got this immediate stinging because, as I learned later, the vein was blocked and the fluid was just stretching the vein, ballooning it. On to the left hand, again problems with my veins, I guess when you are dehydrated your veins shrink so getting in there seemed to be a problem. This process went on again on my right wrist and then back to my left hand again, until finally they got the process to work in my left elbow area, where the blood had been taken about an hour before.

Needless to say this process took quite a while and by the time I had absorbed about 1 and 3/4 of the fluid it was 2pm and I was not only stir crazy but also nauseas and tired. The day was almost finished when Dr. Filer came in to let me know that before I went home I had to go back to the lab and have one more test done, I might have a kidney infection. UGH!!! Ok fine, just one more little side trip and then I can go back to my bed, lie down, and forget about this day. So around 2:30pm I was finally back home, full of fluids, and about to pass out. I did throw up again, only once though, and I think it was just as much the tired as the nausea on that one.

So now I am home, fighting with the nausea still, but thankful for the fight being in my own home. So far this morning the Zofran is working and nothing has made a repeat appearance. I am still both hungry and nauseas at the same time, which makes things interesting. Hopefully this stage will be peaking soon and then on the decline so I can get back to somewhat normal living. On the plus side I did learn yesterday that if I have to get IV fluids again that Dr. Filer will call a home health care nurse to come to my house to do it, yay for my own bed!!

Alright, saga over for now. I will talk to you all soon!!! 

Well here is baby!!

We just returned from our first ultrasound and boy was that awesome!! The baby is measuring 7 weeks and 5 days and the official due date is December 24th. (Almost exactly what I had picked!!) The best part of the ultrasound, by far, was getting to see the heartbeat and then being able to hear it. There is nothing like hearing that sound and then realizing that it is coming from inside you. AMAZING!! The heartbeat was nice and strong at 155 bpm and both the doctor and ultrasound tech. said that everything looked great!!

We are scheduled for our final visit with Dr. Filer on our 5th wedding anniversary, Friday May26th at 9am. We will have one last ultrasound and then are promoted to our OB/GYN. Woo-hoo!! Ok well I have to go eat lunch part #2 and take a nap to avoid getting sick, lovely huh?! I'll talk to you all soon!!! 

It Has Begun.........

Well we just returned from our first pre-natal visit and upon entering the house I got sick for the first time. I knew it was coming, I had some peanut butter crackers that weren't sitting quite well, and just like that I was running for the bathroom; yes I made it in time. So the next exciting chapter in my pregnancy has begun, the vomiting stage.

Right now I feel alright, I think I got all of the crackers out. I just hope that I can limit this new activity to once a day, I have a feeling that won't be the case though. My nurse practitioner already gave me a prescription for an anti-nausea drug that I can have filled at any time, but I am going to wait for at least a little while just to see how things will fare.

Well other than that our appointment went well, nothing new or exciting to report. We did schedule our first ultrasound for next Friday May 12th at 11:30am. I can't wait. That's all for now, I have to go lie down again.........

Feeling strange......

This past Saturday evening Nat's company had their 10-year Anniversary party at the Centre Club on the 16th floor of the Legg Mason building in Baltimore. We were so excited because we had heard there would be an awesome view but we got a bonus surprise when we learned that the 5th leg of the Volvo Ocean Race was ending that day in Baltimore. If you click on the picture you can get a larger view of the Waterfront Festival and the sailboats, the 3rd boat from the right is the Black Pearl, the Pirates of The Caribbean ship owned by Disney. (I think, Karen can tell me what I missed here!)

Anyhow the party was a lot of fun, the view was fantastic and at the end of the night the company handed the keys to a new 2006 Ford Mustang GT over to one lucky employee, and no it wasn't us, although if you would have asked Nat we were definitely walking away with those keys. The woman that won the car is a receptionist at his company and she is such a nice person that we were almost thankful that she won instead of us, she was there with her father and uncle who were in the same state of shock and amazement as she was. It was pretty cool!

To change the conversation I am beginning to really believe this whole pregnancy thing. It has taken some time to come to grips with it, believe that it's really happening, but when the nausea begins, it's real. Over the course of the past 48 hours it has been slowly creeping in, a little here and a little there. Nothing too bad yet, but I'm packing crackers wherever I go. Last night around 3am I was up for one of my nightly bathroom trips and man was my stomach ever going nuts, I felt like I was on one of those sailboats in choppy water! Fortunately I forced a few crackers down and was able to fall back to sleep but I have a feeling that wasn't a random event. Right now I am trying to figure out what to eat for lunch and my stomach is wanting none of anything, I need some advice here!!

Ok well I am going down to rummage through the cupboard and hopefully find something that will calm the beast within. I'll be back on Wednesday to update you all on our first pre-natal visit, talk to you soon!!!! 

Keep Em' Coming

So I guess this morning was a slow one at the Fertility Center because my results were back by 9am, usually they don't call until after 1pm. Anyhow, still looking good and progressing, my HCG was 3,487 this morning which is still above average, but not high enough to be twins. (Very OK with that!!) Michelle, my nurse practitioner, set up our first pre-natal visit for Wednesday May 3rd at 7:30am and Nat and I are super excited!!! I found out that the first ultrasound won't be until the following week, she said two-weeksish from today. She really did say weeksish.

Other than that things are relatively quiet here. We still haven't sold our house and we are both getting a little discouraged with the whole process, but with everything else that's going on, who cares!!! Well I am heading back to bed, I wasn't expecting that phone call so early and I was actually sleeping again. (tough life, huh?) I will definitely keep everyone posted on my progress and when weird things begin happening to my body, you will be the first to know....

Quick Update

Today I went back for another round of blood work to check my HCG levels and my progesterone levels. Both, thankfully, were great. My HCG level rose from 89 on monday to 594 today and my progesterone levels which had fallen from 24 down to 15 last week, were back up at a little higher than 19. Woo-Hoo!!!!

The next step is yet another round of blood work on tuesday and then we are released to our OB/GYN. Sue, the drug lady at the clinic, told me that they like to see the levels over 1,000 before they let us go. According to what I'm reading I might be getting my first ultrasound soon, maybe not next week but the week following (first week of May). They can see the gestational sac once the HCG levels hit 2000 and by tuesday I should be around 2500; I know with IVF patients they like to confirm the number of gestational sacs ASAP!!

Ok well I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Congrats again to Amy Mishler and husband Matt, they found out yesterday that they are having a baby girl!!! YAY!!!!

PREGNANT!!!!

After almost two years and 6 rounds of Clomid, 3 IUI's, 2 IVF's and 1 FET and a whole lot of aches and pains, a plus sign!!

CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS!!!!????

Nat and I are still letting it sink in and still keeping our fingers crossed. We are about 15 days pregnant, so not too much going on. My blood work, done yesterday, showed an HCG (human growth hormone) level of 89 which the doctors said was right on average and on Friday I return for another round of blood work to make sure my levels are still rising.

As for me, I'm just sleepy. I have doubled my Progesterone to keep my uterus happy and one of the side effects of the Progesterone is lethargy and man do I have that. I don't mind staying off of my feet right now, if it gives me a better chance of staying prego I'll do just about anything!

Now on to the most asked question, when will we know how many are in there? Well I think, and I'm not sure, that by eight weeks I will have my first ultrasound. Since this isn't a normal pregnancy, I will be considered "high risk" and will be in the doctors office more than normal prego's. Nat is positive that there is more than one in there, my mom told me this morning that she would be just fine with three, and Michelle told her husband that I was having quads. (No birthday gift for you!!)

As for me I still can't believe that it's happening. I still can't believe that it worked, all of this mad scientist stuff, the shots, the pills, the talking to my uterus, it worked! And to you, all of your prayers, words of encouragement, and positive thinking; can I get an "Amen"!! We still have a long road ahead but getting to this point is just a thrill and a miracle. (By the way did I tell you that I found out that I was pregnant on Easter Sunday and that my due date is Christmas Day.)

Well that's the best news I could muster up today, hehe. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers, like I said we have a long road.

Side notes:
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you too Shannon, this is our month!!

Donna, you are in my prayers and I am hoping to hear only good things from your camp in the next few days. Your strength encourages me, keep fighting!!

Holy Crap!!!!

Hello from Nat's office in the basement!! For some reason I am wide awake at midnight on Friday, that's late for us, and I forgot the book I'm currently reading upstairs in the bedroom. I am not allowed to do stairs, well not a lot, so I am pretty much stuck down here with bad nighttime TV and a computer, so here we are.

I thought I would give you all an update on the transfer and the nightmare scenario that ensued leading up to the big event; yes it had to do with the water. As for right now I am doing really well. I made it through the 24-hour bed rest with little excitement and besides some miniscule cramping; I am doing better than I could have hoped. This has definitely been the easiest treatment thus far and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is somehow relevant to the outcome.

But on to the water torture.

So my transfer was scheduled for 11:30am and they ask that you arrive at the office about 30 minutes prior so you can get into the fashionable hospital gown and they can go over the procedure. For some stupid, but medically relevant, reason they need you to have a full bladder for the procedure and they ask that you consume about 64oz. of water by an hour before the procedure.

Now you know how I tried to cheat last time and got caught, I thought water would travel through the body faster and quickly learned that I wasn't the medical professional in charge so making up my own rules wasn't so smart. I wasn't even close to having a half full bladder so I had to wait for all of the water I had mischievously finished only minutes earlier to find it's way down to the bladder. I felt rotten that I had to hold everyone up so I figured this time I would follow the rules.

I finished my water at 10:45am, I was 15 minutes late, but I was confident that it wouldn't matter. Nat and I headed to the Fertility Center and by the time we arrived, 10 minutes later, I was in pain. I was like a little kid trying to rearrange myself on the chair, rutching around as we say it here in York, trying to find a spot that would keep me from letting loose right there in the waiting room. Thank goodness we were the only ones there because with my little dancing it was obvious what was going on.

By 11:10am I was dying, I mean I thought I was about to blow a kidney. Jamie, the office manager, must have seen my routine from behind that doctor barrier wall in the waiting room and said that if I could control myself I could go to the bathroom, count to 5, and then I had to stop. I could have kissed her. I didn't even stop to consider that maybe I couldn't control myself, which I did, I ran to the bathroom and damn did that feel good. (Had to swear)

I came back out to the room, sat down with Nat and began to wonder what the hold up was. Nat and I chatted for about 5 minutes when that pain and pressure came back again. I stood up and walked around, sat down, fidgeted in my seat and then looked up for Jamie to tell me that I could go again, but she wasn't there. In fact no one was behind the desk. I looked to Nat for some guidance but he didn't know any more that I did, crap, crap, crap. It was now 11:25am and I knew there was no way, no way that I could hold it until the transfer.

So I went again, counted to 5, and snuck out of the bathroom before getting caught.

Once again, sweet relief, I still felt full but I wasn't in pain. It was almost that exact moment when Sue, the drug lady, came to take me back for the transfer. She stupidly asked me how I was doing, was she kidding?? I made it known that my transfer was supposed to be at 11:30am and here we are and I'm just being taken back to the tranfer/retreival waiting room. She apologized that they were running behind and had me change in to the wonderful hospital gown.

When I came out of the bathroom from changing I sat down in the chair they had set up for me and Sue went over the procedures and made me sign some stuff. About this time I realized that once again I was cramping up from the full bladder, can you believe this? I couldn't, I felt like a skipping record. I told Sue that there was no way they could expect me to hold a full bladder for any longer, they were running late and this was no longer an issue of comfort. She let me know that it would be another 15 minutes before I went in for the procedure so I could go again, this time there was no counting.

This time I was given a Styrofoam cup.

Oh yeah, I was given an 8 oz. coffee cup and told I could fill this up and no more. Boy was that fun. The cup looked so big and yet it turned out to be so small, but it worked for a little bit longer. I was now waiting only on Dr. Filer to show pictures of my embryos and for them to take me in the procedure room. About 5 minutes passed when Lisa, the ultrasound lady, came out of the procedure room to ask me how I was doing, hello?? Obviously she had been briefed that I was on bathroom break number #3 and was worried that I still felt so badly. She promised me that they were moving fast to get me in and as soon as they escorted me back she would do a quick ultrasound to check my bladder and then let me go a little more.

As soon as she turned around to leave the room Dr. Filer came in and showed me the 4, that's right, 4 embryos that we transferred. Two embryos were from this cycle, one a grade I and one a grade II, and two were thawed from my cryobank, both were grade II's. (Grade I is the best, IV being the worst.) I don't even remember what he said to me, or anything after that, until Lisa came back to take me over to the transfer room. To illustrate how much pain I was in I could barely get out of my chair and I couldn't stand strait, the pain on my right side was so intense I walked with a swagger.

I hobbled across the hall and into the special chair they have, Lisa reclined the chair and started the ultrasound. As soon as she started the ultrasound Michelle, the physician’s assistant, came in the room, looked at the screen and said "wow". A second later Dr. Filer came in the room and said the exact same thing, same tone and everything. "Ok", I asked, "that was two "wow's" is there something I should know?" Well Lisa turned the monitor of the ultrasound machine towards me and I immediately got the same wow feeling, my bladder took up the whole screen!

It looked like it had swallowed every available inch in my lower abdomen. I was then informed that the pain I was experiencing was my bladder pressing my right ovary, which was swollen to 4 times it's normal size, into my cervix. Awesome. At this point I didn't really care, although it was nice to know, all I cared about was my next bathroom break. Lisa said I was allowed 1 and a half cups this time, and with that I got up out of the chair grabbed the back of my gown so that my butt wasn't completely out and ran back across the hall. This time when I was done Michelle came into the bathroom, gave me my shot of Versed, and I calmly went back across the hall and the transfer finally was underway, at 12:05pm.

The procedure went well, I was relaxed from the shot, and I was back home around 1pm. Sorry that story was so long but I had to get this down so I won't ever forget it. I still can't figure out with all of the advancements in medical science why no one has figured out a better method of transfer than the "full bladder" method. I know there are female doctors that have gone through this, hasn't anyone complained?? Man, you have no idea, seriously. I really thought, and told Nat, that I was going to have to reschedule because there was no way I was making it in to that transfer.

Whew.

Ok well now I am tired, all that typing can take it out of you!! Tata for now, I'll be in touch soon!!!

No More Snow

Yep, those are flurries, in April. (If you click on the picture you can see them more clearly.)
Come on Spring, what's the hold-up?.........

More below..........

The big day!!!!

Well the two little embryos made it through the night so we are on for the transfer tomorrow at 11:3oam. We have decided to thaw two other frozen embroys for a last ditch effort and transfer four. Scary, huh? The doctor did say that the two "fresh" embryos looked great and that they were cleaving, dividing, just fine. So finally my awesome cleavage has done me some good!

Sorry dad; poor taste?

Anyhow, on a crummy note, I have started to hyper-stimulate. In the past 2 days I have gained 4.5 pounds of water and I seriously feel like I am developing a swimming pool in my stomache. The pain isn't unbearable, but I am so bloated even sweatpants are tugging at the waist. Oh well, it can't get worse.

Oh wait, tomorrow I have to drink a gallon of water for the transfer, remember the water torture game? It will get worse! I have to have a completely full bladder for the transfer and last time I got caught trying to cheat, didn't have a full bladder on time, and I held up the transfer team for about 25 minutes. Oops. This time I'll be good and get this thing done on schedule, although I did notice that they gave me the last transfer time before lunch again, maybe they are already planning on me screwing up?

That's it from me for at least another 36 hours or so. We are sans laptop at the moment so being on bedrest will prevent me from giving you an update until friday afternoon. Feel free to call and chat after about 3pm tomorrow, the shot they give me before the transfer usually knocks me out for about 2 hours, but once awake I will be bored so please bother me!!

Happy Birthday Puddy!!

Not So Great

Well Dr. Filer just called with some not so great news, only 2 of my eggs made it out fertilized. I can't believe it, out of seven that were retrieved, only four were mature and only 2 fertilized; now we have to wait until Thursday and hope that they make it. I did speak to him about the possibility of thawing the some of the four embryos that we have still frozen, and he said that we could do that if needed and would discuss that tomorrow when he gives me my next update. (they weren't the best quality embryos, that's why we decided to try again)

Another wrench in the system that I wasn't expecting, but it seems as though that is the norm now. Nat seemed pretty upset, as did my doctor, I guess after having a successful first try with 10 fertilizing, 2 seems like failure. I'm going to stay hopeful though, two is better than none and we only need one for a baby so I'm still thinking happy thoughts. I will update more tomorrow when I hear from the doctor again and let you know what we have decided. Keep praying for Nat and I please!!!!

New Pup

This is Maddie, a 10-week-old Golden Retreiver that my sister Sarah and her husband Tim adopted yesterday. They came to visit me today when I needed some cheering up, and by looking at her cute puppy face you can tell it worked! The fun part of the visit was the Mexican stand-off between my cat and the dog, it was so cute, they were both intrigued and scared of each other!

More Below........

My Day

I'm home, in recovery mode, feeling not so great. I am more cramped up than I remember last time, and I'm having issues sitting up straight, makes the cramps worse? I have already taken some Tylenol extra strength about 4 hours ago, but I don't think that made too much of a difference so I'm going back to the bottle and hopefully find some relief. (like they promise)

Other than my current state of affairs, the day went along pretty well. I was supposed to be there at 9:30am and we got there a bit early and they took us in right away. I was nauseated all morning, nerves and lack of breakfast, so I'm glad that they whisked me right away rather than leave me festering in the waiting room. Once again they went over the procedure and had me put on that stupid hospital gown that never covers your butt and then weighed me for the anesthetist.

After about 15 minutes of signing my life away, literally, they took me in to the too cold transfer room and then the real fun began. I guess that was the point in the day when I should have been most anxious and nervous, but for some reason I was calm and I didn't even flinch too much when they started the IV line in my hand. Of course the anesthetist had a sense of humor, right before he jammed that needle in my hand he looked and me and said, "this won't hurt me a bit". It didn't hurt him at all, and only slightly bruised me. After the IV goes in they put the oxygen nose tube thing on and a finger pulse monitor and then the part where they say, "now you are going to feel a little sle......". I'm assuming they say sleepy, although I have never made it that far.

The next thing I remember is my doctor telling me how great I did, I was unconscious, what did I do break into a comic routine? I guess not going in to cardiac arrest or convulsions is doing well, so maybe I should pat myself on the back. After trying to keep my eyes open and listen to the doctor for what felt like ages, but was probably 1 minute, Nat was ushered back in to see me. The doctor informed us that he was able to extract 7 mature eggs from me, which was the same number they said I had on Friday. I don't remember what we talked about next but I do remember getting some peanut butter crackers and grape juice, you never forget the food!

After the doctor left and I finished my snack I was allowed to get dressed come home. I almost tipped over a few times while trying to redress, stupid anesthesia, but I did manage to clothe myself and we came home with no broken bones. As soon as I walked in the door I went straight to my room, took some Tylenol and fell asleep until 2pm. (We left the doctors office around 11am.)

When I woke up Sarah and new puppy Maddie came over to play. They stayed for about 30 minutes of fun, until I felt like crud again and had to lay down. I hope to be feeling better by tomorrow but right now I'm sore and tired. So back to bed with me, Nat is asleep right now, apparently taking care of me is exhausting, tomorrow I find out how many of the seven eggs fertilized and their quality. More tomorrow.....

More Birthday Fun!

Today was a fun day spent in Lancaster County celebrating Nat's uncle Arthur's (Pud) 60th birthday. I was feeling pretty good today, nice weather and good food, not so bad. As the day has progressed I have gotten increasingly nervous and now at 8pm I'm wondering if I will be able to sleep! I just wanted to pass on a few pictures and distract myself in the process; cute babies and puppies are an easy target for that!!
This little cute thing is Maya; she is Nat's step-cousin, or something like that. She will be turning 1 in about 2 weeks and is she ever adorable, look at those big blue eyes! Even though she was fighting off a cold she had a blast watching the puppy run back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth. She would laugh every time "Skipper" would come anywhere near her, I'm telling you babies and puppies, great combo!
This is Skipper, Pud's birthday gift. He's a Sheltie, and oh my gosh is he furry! We had a lot of fun chasing him around the yard and when I picked him up he just snuggled with me for about 10 minutes; it was like holding a giant teddy bear. Hopefully tomorrow I will have another puppy picture up here; my sister Sarah and her husband Tim were bringing home a 10-week-old golden retriever today. (I'm hoping for a special guest appearance tomorrow after my retrieval!)
Ok well I guess it's time for me to attempt to relax and sleep, big day tomorrow. I'll try and let you all know how things went when I am awake and alert, no druggie blogging for me! Thanks again for all of your thoughts, prayers and support, it has helped me in ways you will never know. 

Monday

I was right, Monday morning it is. My retrevial is set for 10am and although I am under anesthetic, twilight, I should be home by noon. Woo-hoo!!! The transfer is most likely going to be wednesday, which just happens to be Nat's uncles 60th birthday, so hopefully that will be some good luck?! I have a long weekend of shots and drugs ahead of me so if you need me you know where to find me! :)

It's the final countdown.....

The countdown is on.......

I just returned from the doctors office and my first ultrasound for this cycle, finally. As I said in my last post they were concerned by my Estradiol numbers, a little low, so the pumped up my Follistim intake and as of today their trick worked! I haven't gotten my blood work results back yet but from the ultrasound I can safely say that my retrieval will most likely be Monday, if not Sunday.

I went in today expecting that I would have a few small follicles, still developing, and that I would be back in two days for a follow-up check and then we would see some maturing. Nope! I have twelve measurable follicles, larger than 12mm, seven on my right and five on my left. I'm an egg making machine! Out of those twelve, seven are mature, meaning larger than 18mm so if we had the retrieval tomorrow I would most likely have seven eggs. I couldn't believe it, I feel like I was in much more pain the last time I did this, maybe I'm just handling it better? Who knows. All I know is that I respond to medication really, really well!!

The next step is taking what they call a "trigger shot". At some point, either tonight or tomorrow night, I will give myself yet another injection of a drug called Ovidrel. Ovidrel is given about 36 hours before the retreival as a final push for the maturation of the eggs and to loosen them up for the retrieval. Lisa, the ultrasound lady, figures with the Ovidrel I might be able to pick-up a lagging follicle or two and maybe get 8-10 mature eggs. (fingers crossed) I had 10 mature eggs last time so anything in that range would be fantastic!

So now I just sit and wait for instructions from Sue, the drug lady at the Fertility Center. She normally calls around 1pm, so I have an hour to wait patiently, yeah right, for my final instructions.

I can't believe this is it!!!!!

Not too bad.

Other than the fact that I am horrible at giving myself shots, this round of treatments is going pretty well. As you can see the bruises are even smaller than previous goose eggs, so I'm improving in my bad qualities as well!! Yesterday was my first round of bloodwork; my Estradiol levels were lower than they should have been so they boosted the level of Follistim that I'm getting every night. It's not that big of a deal except for the fact that there is now so much medicine in the syringe that I have to depress the plunger with the other hand, my finger spread isn't long enough!

I am just beginning to feel the side effects of the Follistim, mainly bloating, which isn't that bad. I'm sporting sweatpants full time now and will be until the middle of next week, another thing I can easily live with. I am beginning to worry about over hyperstimulation of my ovaries again, last time we did this they ended up being 4 times their normal size for about a week and let me tell you it is noticeable and not fun! This time since they are upping my medication mid-cycle I'm feeling a bit more vulnerable, like it could get hairy again. I guess it's better if I not speculate on the pain, although I can't stop thinking about it.

Well I am going back to bed; did I mention that I am constantly tired? I have actually been sleeping pretty well, no need or even want for afternoon naps, but I still feel like I'm dragging myself around everywhere, I blame it on the hormones!! So I am going to lie in bed, watch some cartoons, get a little reading in and then at some point get up and accomplish something. Hopefully?!

I hope you are all having a great week, enjoy the weather for me! I'll update tomorrow after more blood work results are back.

New House Picture

Sorry I wanted to add this the the following blog, but of course forgot. Please continue to the blog...

Too Much To Do

We have been extremely busy here, so once again I have to go on the defense and apologize for the length between writings. I am going to try to explain everything that is going on here but in a nutshell, how did I get in such a nut? (bonus points if you can name that movie), we are most likely moving again! I know what you are thinking, "didn't those weirdos just move two years ago?". Yes, yes, us weirdos did just move here, two years ago in May, but as fate would have it we fell for a house right down the street!

The house we have put under contract, yes we have moved that fast, is a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath ranch style home with an unfinished walk-out basement. From our current bedroom you can see the back of the house, it's about 2 blocks down the road. It was built about the same time as our town home, 2004, and at 2100 sq. Feet it is actually a little smaller than our current house. Ok so now you are thinking we have lost it, and I would for the most part agree, but this house is designed with no wasted space so 2100 sq. Ft. feels larger. The house consists of the rooms mentioned above, a large dining room, a great room, and eat-in kitchen. Oh did I mention, we would finally have a garage, hallelujah!! Both Nat and I agree that the house is small, but efficient and with 2000 sq. Feet of unfinished basement the room to expand is there in spades.

Finding a new house was easy and fun, now comes the hard part, selling our house. Ugh. Surely there must be no greater evil than putting your house on the market, keeping it spotless, and then waiting for someone to buy it. Everything the cat has is now relegated to the basement, I refuse to cook anything with more than five ingredients (too messy), and keeping the bathroom hairless (my fault, I married an Italian!!) has become my obsession. So I have all of this and, oh yeah, I'm going through my last IVF cycle. Hehe!

Yep, started my shots 12 days ago and so far I think I have been doing pretty well. I have been off a little on my sleep and I am tired a lot, but compared to the first two trips down this path, Im doing A-Ok. (No hot flashes!!) Tomorrow night I begin my Follistim, which is the medication that stimulates my ovaries to produce numerous follicles. Once the Follistim begins to work I will become increasingly uncomfortable, which is also about the time they decide I should have bloodwork and ultrasounds every two days. Weird huh? As of right now I am scheduled for my retrieval between April 2nd-4th and the transfer the 5th-7th, so we are coming up on this last try rather quickly.

Yes, I am excited about this try, 3rd times a charm! Unfortunately I am also being realistic, so I am still looking into adopting. Nat and I have both come to accept our situation and not look at it as a burden, or cross to bear, rather a path to parenthood that most don't have the opportunity to appreciate. We know that eventuality of parenthood is right around the corner, which makes this final attempt so exciting and nervewracking. I am trying to stay calm and this moving thing is actually helping take my mind off of the shots and tiredness. I still can't believe that this is it though, two years of infertility treatment boil down to this one last attempt. In most ways I am ready for it to end, I just won't know to what degree until it is truly final. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Well that's it from me, I have to get moving on my day. I just wanted to give you all a quick, but lenghty, update on the situation here. Now that I am grounded for the next two weeks I should be updating a little more frequently, suggestion not promising. Enjoy the rest of the week and if you are in the area and looking for a great town house, we will be open Saturday and Sunday 1-4pm.!!

Final Note:
Happy Birthday's (belated to some)

Emma Marie Becker turned 1 whole year old on March 9th!!!
My father-in law Brooke had a birthday on March 21st!!
Last but not least my mother Connie Sylvanus has a birthday tomorrow, March 24th!!

Goodbye 20's!!

BYE-BYE 20's!!!

Today is the last day I will spend as a freewheelin twenty-something and tomorrow I begin anew in my 30's, as a bonafied adult. I know half of you reading this are thinking ugh 30 and the other half are think aahh 30, either way tomorrow it's happening to yours truly and to be honest, I'm excited!!!

No, really.

Sure I’m a little sad to say farewell to my 20’s, they were pretty awesome as far as decades go. (They sure beat being in my teens!!) But would I want to relive them or repeat them, no freakin’ way! I guess if history has anything to say about my aging thus far it is that my life is only getting better; I mean let’s face it I am way ahead of where I was 5, 10, 15 years ago, would I switch places with 25 year old me, no way Jose!

I’m excited for what my 30’s will hold, children, nieces and nephews, new friends and exciting adventures. I welcome this new chapter of life. Sure I’m going to start finding wrinkles and gray hairs, who cares, I can sit down with friends I have had and kept for over half of my life and laugh about it. Now that’s something worth celebrating!

So as I turn 30 I thought it would be appropriate to leave myself some good memories about the past 10 years, so please indulge me in remembering:

The Best Things That Happened To Me In My 20's: My TOP 10!!!

10. Retaining friends from high school, I don’t think many people can say that their best friends when they turn 30 are the exact same as they were when they were 18.
9. Becoming a Burt, from Grandma Lucia down to cousin Natalie. Those Italians love their family and love to eat, ain’t nothin’ wrong with living that way!
8. Becoming friends, not enemies, with my parents. (Wouldn’t have said that 15 years ago!!)
7. Buying my first and second homes, mostly my second because I love it so much.
6. Living in Texas, it was fun while it lasted and made me fall in love with my favorite American city, thus far, Austin!
5. Getting to see many of my best friends get married and being in two of the weddings (Amy and Karen)
4. Ben, Emma, and Makenzie, they didn’t happen to me, but my friends really have some good lookin’ kids!
(Tie). Adopted my fat cat Scout!!
(Tie). I saw both of my sister’s, Liz and Sarah, marry.
(Bonus on this one was I got to be the Matron of Honor in both weddings!!)
1. I married my favorite person in the world!

Well that's it from here!! I have to hurry up and do something crazy before I turn 30 and it's already noon. ( 12 hours left!!) Aagh!!!!

One More Try

I said I wasn't going to go through it again, in fact I think I swore that I wasn't going to do it again. The disappointment, drugs, injections, moodiness, I was quitting and we were moving on to adoption. Nat and I had the talk a half a dozen times; we were both defeated and ready to be happy and excited about something again. Two years was long enough, starting in December we decided to stop talking about babies and just enjoy each other’s company. We had planned on taking 6 months off, time to enjoy turning 30 and celebrate our 5 year Anniversary, then get down to business with adoption paperwork.

It had been a refreshing change in the house, a rebirth of normal conversation. No more talks of strange bruises and hot flashes; instead we talked about investment opportunities and the possibility of me working and going back to school. I began sleeping again, we started eating better and we had planned trips to Texas and to Montana. All this time we were getting back to normal when the conversations slowly turned back to the inevitable, what about that third round of IVF that the insurance would cover?

I guess it started creeping back into conversation when we innocently began looking at new homes. Every comment was about space for kids, their room sizes, family room sizes and if the yard could accommodate an impromptu kickball game. I envisioned my children and their friends coming home after school and playing in the yard, grandparents coming over on Christmas morning, and aunts and uncles teaching them jokes and telling them embarrassing stories about us. It all came back, all of the emotions, the desire and the yearning to have a child.

The conversations may have slowly turned back to this "last chance" but the emotions came flooding back all at once. One night after dinner I looked up at Nat and blurted out that we had to try again, just one more time. I couldn't leave the job 2/3rds done, we had this one other shot just hanging out there and I felt like it was taunting me. Initially Nat was the one that was dead set against doing this again, but he too had cracked, it was time for one last go.

Gone is our trip to Texas, my reaquaintence with sleep, and meaningful discussions. We have traded it all in for one last shot to try and have a baby. One last attempt and then we can truly be at peace with the decision to move forward with adoption.

(More on the upcoming IVF soon, we are looking at the beginning of April)

I'm so dizzy, my head is spinning.....

In my ever growing quest for normalcy, in life and health, I have come up short, again. It is times like these when I wonder what I must have done as a child to deserve this constant barrage of weird ailments, I'm sure if you ask my parents they could render a lengthy list within a nano-second, but it digress. What, you ask is plaguing me this time??

The dizzies.

Not strong enough to mean anything to a medical professional and not weak enough to ignore; as Goldy Locks herself realized, they are just right. By just right I mean I have lost a little bit of my balance and I have motion sickness without the sickness, meaning I move my head to quickly and my stomach moves from my throat to my knees instantly, but I don't get any nausea. What I do get is pharmaceutical grade Dramamine which renders me worthless in 20 minutes.

Example:
This morning I woke up around 8:30am ate some breakfast, read the paper and popped a little pill. By 9am I was laying in back in my bed, still in my robe, with the sheets covering only my lower right leg. I was aware that I needed more sheets but I was literally useless, my arms and mind were shutting down and were apparently fine with the current situation.The next time I was conscious it was 11:30am, and I awoke to cat hair tickling my nose seeing as my cat decided to nest on my face while I was passed out. She normally does like to sleep close to me but I can only assume that most times I am with it enough to change positions and maneuver around her. Not on this stuff!! Once you are out, you are out. This brings us to yet another challenge, driving.

I am not allowed to drive while taking this stuff. For the first time I think I am going to heed my doctors warning about drugging and driving. Just typing this blog is making me realize that I am wacked out, it has taken me about 25 minutes to get this far and I have used the spell checker three times because I couldn't remember how to spell some not to tough words. I would give examples but I have already forgotten which words they were, hehe, I'm senile too!

Back to the point; I am stuck at home with my cat who has apparently been trying to smother me for quite a while, a pile of dirty laundry, which in sickness or in health I would ignore, and a blockbuster online movie that has been here since September that is dying to be watched. I have stuff to do and a cat to make amends with and yet I still can't cure the wanderlust within, I already want to break out. I know I can't drive, I mean I really understand this time, mailboxes would be just obliterated all around town if I were driving, but I'm bored and it hasn't even been 24 hours since I have been under house arrest.

On the flip side I always know if I get too bored I can pop a pill and lose a few hours, it might not be the best solution for killing time, but it's handy. Just kidding people, I have better things in mind to kill time; my stories, as Grandma Lucia calls them, tend to keep me entertained. "Days of Our Lives" may be tacky but damn if it doesn't take an hour from you without you realizing. Plus Amy Mishler's mom, Mrs. Lauer, sent me some salad recipe's so maybe I can hone my inner chef, starting with salads seems the least deadly cooking I can do with narcolepsy. (spell checked that one and I actually got it right!!!)

Well it's time for some lunch and another pill, another nap, and another chance for Scout to give me some "death snuggling". My doctor told me that this should all go away within a week or two so I am homebound for at least a little while longer. If you want to keep me company feel free to stop over or call between the hours or 8-9am, 12-2pm, and 5-8pm, I should be up then!!

Saturday night was the annual holiday office party for Nat's company so we were down in Baltimore at the B&O Railroad Museum. The museum houses old railcars, engines, and even machines used to fix the railways themselves; it was awesome! Nat and I meandered around like the little nerds we are to read all of the information about the museum and the fun stuff inside, Nat even missed a group picture because no one could find him, oops!! I really wanted to get inside one of the engine cars but they actually had things roped off as if we were going to get crazy and wreck the place, hello these are computer people not sailors!! (Andrew)

The setting was really cool, the food was only so-so, but they did redeem themselves by having not one but two fountains of chocolate, one regular and one dark. Luckily we sat at the table nearest to the regular milk chocolate fountain, and by luck I mean we purposely sat there when we saw the caterers putting up the fountain, so we were first in the very long lines to get some chocolate covered bananas, marshmallows and pretzels. I bet you wish you were there now, huh?!

Oh, the picture above is of us with Nat's cousin Steff and her fiance Justin. As nepotism goes, Nat got Justin a job this year with a division of his company so we are starting our own mini-empire in the computer world. If you wouldn't have guessed Steff is on the Italian side of the family, her mother and Nat's mother are sisters. She obviously stole all of the Italian from everybody else!

In other news, Nat and I decided to skip the adoption meeting this past weekend. Well we didn't actually skip it, we postponed it. Nat and I both decided to take a longer break from all of this baby stuff, focus on other things for a while. We have some big events coming up, I turn 30 in March, we have our 5th wedding anniversary in May and he turns 30 in June; we want to enjoy those events, not stress about paper work and meetings. In all reality taking another few months off won't hinder the process by much anyway since China requires us both to be 30 when we submit our dossiers. So a few months off to clear our heads and hopefully squeeze in a trip to Texas and then we will be relaxed and ready for the road ahead.

Okey dokey people, that's all I have for now. I hope the new year is treating you all well so far, so far so good here. I'll be talking to you soon.......

Happy New Year!!!

Goodbye 2005, Hello 2006!!!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and fun New Year's Eve. Our Christmas season was hectic as usual, but this year we added a twist, a super fun twist.

We had a Christmas party!!

The Friday before Christmas Nat and I had a great shindig for our oldest friends here at our home. It's hard to see everybody these days since most of my friends have spread themselves far and wide so a party at Christmas, when they all come home, was the best time to rope them all together. The morning of the party I had a list of people who were definatly coming, 22 people, and a list of maybe canidates, 4 people. Well I guess word got out that Suzi Sylvanus was having a party, high school flashback, becuase we had 33 people show up. Woo-hoo!!

Still got it!! (or maybe free booze still has it?!)

We had a blast and I think everybody else did too, so as of now the 2nd Annual Christmas party is on for December 22nd, same time, same place. Mark your calendar!

That's it for now; I'm beat. Karen and Andrew partied us out last night in Annapolis and Nat's parents stuffed us with pork and sauerkraut this afternoon; it's 10pm and Nat and I are both in our jammies and the big guy is already in bed. We are wusses. You will hear from me next weekend, saturday is our first adoption meeting, yay! Until then..............