To Sleep

I have been sleeping like crap lately. I've been stressing out a bit about traveling for work, about some weird crap between my parents and of course - how this month will turn out. I'm so tired all day but here it is after 11pm and I'm no where near sleepy. I'm tired but my brain is on overdrive.

I'm lying in bed, typing on my tiny iPod keyboard with crazy Krista crawling all over me and my husband is asleep and breathing deeply, able to be refreshed in the morning.

I still haven't packed for my trip on Wednesday. I should have done some of that tonight. Then maybe I'd worry less and be able to fall asleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream....

Optimism

Ok, this is Post #100!

I had my meeting last night, I wasn’t expecting anyone to come because I’ve been scattered this past month and didn’t advertise at all. My therapist posted a couple fliers around the hospital and that was it. But one woman did show up. She had her loss about 15 years ago and wanted to find a group so she could lend support to other people going through the same thing. So that was really nice that she came. I told her that I’m planning on holding off on any more meetings until I get more interest, it will just take some time. I’m not sure how much I’ll get done in the next month because I’ll be traveling for work, but I’ll figure it out. Next week this time I’ll be flying into Seattle.

I got all kinds of awesome stuff from Carol yesterday, so I'm going to work on the sorely needed packet upgrade for the hospital in my area. I'm excited about it.

Regarding the "favorites" thing from my previous post, I wanted to elaborate a bit more. After we got back from vacation and on the cusp of renewed baby-making efforts, my husband said to me that he wasn't sure he still wanted to have a baby. He didn't say it in a way that caused me great alarm, but still. What the heck have we been doing for the past 2 years and 8 months! I asked why not and he said because I would love the baby more than him and that with "timed intercourse" he felt like all I needed him for is his sperm. And that he feels like I love our cats more than him. Unfortunately there's some truth to that because we rarely have sex just for the fun of it. And I do pay a lot of attention to the cats. I told him that he's my favorite person and I gave him a big hug and a raspberry on the neck to lighten the mood. (He said I'm his favorite person, too!) I said that I would still love him but I would also love a new baby just in a different way. As for the cats, well, I really love our cats. Especially Katie (don't tell Krista, although she has been more snuggly lately). I think it's because Sasha died and I want to make sure I get all the hugs and snuggles I can because the night before Sasha died we totally ignored her and it makes me really sad that I didn't hug her up as much as I could that last night she was alive. So that's the favorite person story with a little extra on the side. And really, who else do you marry if not your favorite person? (Hurray for Vermont and Iowa!)

I'm starting the new protocol today, I hope it will help things along as well as the HSG helps some too, so I feel like we're starting with a clean slate and I have a new optimism. It's been a long time since I've had that.

Easter for Favorites

This was the best Easter in a long time. My husband and I stayed home instead of going to visit his family. It was the first time he has ever spent Easter without them. We made the obligatory calls to wish them a Happy Easter and I felt an inkling of a guilt trip with every “we’ll miss you at dinner” we received. I didn’t miss the stress and fighting that accompanies a trip to my in-laws’.

We joked that we were spending Easter with our favorites as he’s my favorite person and I’m his. This was something we came up with a few weeks ago when we were being silly and it’s sort of caught on. (We also spent it with our favorite kitties, alas Sasha is buried out back.) We went to Mass Saturday night so we got to sleep in on Sunday morning. We ate our yummy Paska bread and some colored eggs for breakfast and then commenced dinner preparations. We really should have had half a dozen or so people join us because we had way too much food for only two people. We had meat stuffed manicotti to start, then glazed ham, kielbasa with horseradish, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes. For dessert we had carrot cake. It was so yummy. Even though it was only the two of us it was a really festive time without the stress of entertaining. We ate in the dining room on our wedding china, drank from our fancy crystal glasses and had plenty of room to spread out serving platters and bowls when we normally would serve straight from the pot to the plate. After we went for a 3 mile walk to burn off some holiday calories.


I’m getting my hopes up for this month, I can’t help it. It’s only day 12 so I have a while to go before I’ll know anything. I probably haven’t even ovulated yet, which is fine, more time for the swimmers to get in position. Wednesday I’ll start taking my injections and progesterone. I’m pretty proud of myself for telling my doctor what I wanted to do rather than defer to him or do nothing at all.

(Hurray for my 100th Post!)

Note: I miscounted, it's #99.

HSG Results

I had the HSG today, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm really lucky to have such a nice doctor, I wish I could say as much about his office staff. I also found out today that he got the award this year for being an awesome doctor and when I got to the hospital to go to my appointment I saw a big poster with his picture on it. Very cool.

So the HSG showed that I have all my parts and according to my doctor, after some thought, it wasn't to see if my tubes were blocked but maybe to see if I had a septum or other weird thing going on in my uterus. It didn't look bad but because it's retroverted it was hard to be sure. But seeing as I was pregnant with Isabella for 19 weeks it is probably ok. So he said to try really hard this month and hopefully I'll have some good news soon. ;)

Last week after I talked to my doctor about how to proceed and scheduling the HSG he told me that they now hand out a small packet for women when they have miscarriages, and he said I should make up a flier of some sort to put in there if I want to get the word out about my support group I'm trying to get going. So yesterday I stopped by and dropped of the fliers and asked to have a packet so I could see what they had in there. I thought it was pretty lame. There was a booklet in there about miscarriage and grief stages, but it was pathetic. There were also typos in the booklet which makes it seem even more lame that they couldn't proof read it well enough before printing it (not that it's my OBGYN's office's fault, they didn't publish it). I suppose it's better than not getting anything at all, which is what I got. But I think the thing that would be most helpful is if the doctors, nurses, techs would be more sympathetic. I never had a problem with my OBGYN (he's the best), but other people in the office (specifically that nurse who is horrible on the phone) and the ultrasound tech in radiology at the hospital were plain horrible. Not one sympathetic word from the lot of them. I've heard that the medical community doesn't like to say "I'm sorry" because it might give patients somewhere to place blame in the case of a botched procedure, but when it comes to miscarriage or stillbirth it can make a huge difference. And I don't see how I could blame anyone for what happened to Isabella or Sean.

So it was basically a form letter where they hand write in your name at the top, it lists types of miscarriages, gives some weak sympathy and definition of miscarriage terms. There's a small pamphlet for a visiting nurse association, but no where in that does it say anything about pregnancy loss. And then the crappy booklet. The booklet lists some books or other resources at the end and I wish it listed "Empty Cradle, Broken Heart" because that's one of the better books to read. 3 sad, crappy things. I feel like I need to find better stuff for them to put in there.

Any suggestions?

Breastfeeding in Massachusetts

Mass. mothers can breast feed in public

The Associated Press
Updated: 04/09/2009 09:33:18 AM EDT

Thursday, April 09
BOSTON (AP) - New mothers in Massachusetts who breast feed in public now have more legal protections.

A new law that takes effect today bars people from harassing or restricting women who nurse in stores, restaurants, parks or other public locations. The law was passed last year and signed earlier this year by Gov. Deval Patrick.

Previously, women who breast-fed their children in public could have been prosecuted for indecent exposure or lewd conduct.

Law supporters said if convicted, those mothers would have had to register as sex offenders.

Proponents of the law say the new protections will encourage mothers to breast-feed - which provides health benefits for babies and their mothers.

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_12103545

Thinking of Sean

Last year today I found out Sean had no heartbeat.
Last year tomorrow he left my body amid cramps and pain and heartbreak and tears.

My husband barely remembers it's been a year, why would anyone else?

Getting Caught Up

It’s been a super long time since I’ve posted and I still haven’t read anyone else’s blogs yet, I’m just starting to get to the bottom of my pile of emails and everything else since getting back to work.

Here is a quick update on what I’ve been up to in the last few weeks:

Friday, March 20th my husband and I got up very early to fly to Miami. We spent two nights there, went out to dinner for my birthday, went to the beach, and caught up on some sleep. Sunday, March 22nd we set sail on our cruise. It was wonderful! We had an awesome room, ate delicious food, and had fun with our friends who also came on the cruise. I had a couple massages at the spa on the ship, we did a cave tubing and zip line excursion in Belize and an all-day beach club on Cozumel. There was a bowling alley on the ship and we had fun there, the movement of the ship can make the ball roll off course at odd moments, but it worked out well for me because I bowled a 170 in the last game of the night! The only bad thing was I got a bad cold toward the end of the trip and lost my voice. We got back to Miami on Sunday, March 29th and flew home that day. It was nice to get back and see the kitties, they missed us a bunch.

Because I was coughing and sniffling and had lost my voice I didn’t go to work at all last week, so Katie was happy to have me around to snuggle all day. My first day back was this Monday, I had over 200 emails. I was also a huge slacker all week on my personal emails so I had a ton to sort through there as well.

In other news our washer finally kicked the bucket, it had been acting up for a while and then when I did some laundry when we got home it started leaking oil/grease on our clothes, so that was it. We got this washer only 6 years ago when we bought our house and at the time we weren’t told that front loaders needed high-efficiency detergent. When we had a service person come to look at it and we were told that they learned about 3 years ago that the higher foaming regular detergent was capable of ruining the bearings and then you get the mess we had. How nice. My husband’s grandparents have had their washer and drier for 30 years. They just don’t make them like they use to. So we finally got a new washer yesterday after having some plumbing done to make more room in the closet where the washer is. The new washers are bigger, and couldn’t fit with the drain pipe sticking way out. It was nice to wash some clothes. (My husband took a couple loads to a laundry mat last week to get us through until now.)

Now that we’re back from vacation we’re officially off our break. I started my period last Thursday and called my OBGYN on Friday to discuss how to proceed. I was contacted before my vacation by someone who also has antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APS) and what she did to manage it, so I told my doctor about that and that’s what we’re going to do. Also, when I went to the specialist back in January she suggested doing the dye test (HSG) so he asked about that and why not, so I’m going in for that on Friday. So the plan is to start taking progesterone and blood thinners on the 14th day of the cycle and see what happens.

I was sort of going back and forth in my head a little about going all out this month because I’m scheduled to travel to the Seattle area for work later this month, basically for most of the “two week wait” time period. So I worried about having to travel with syringes and working 2nd shift out there which pretty much equates to a 3rd shift here, yuck, and what that might do to my body/sleep cycles in general as well as the stress of travel and living in a hotel for almost 2 weeks. But then I thought, if we’re going to try at all this month, I might as well do the whole sha-bang because what if I do get pregnant, even without the HSG (which supposedly a lot of women get pregnant the month they have that done), and I don’t take the blood thinners and I end up miscarrying again. That would suck. So it’s full steam ahead. HSG, blood thinners and progesterone here I come.

I think that’s everything. Now I’ll start catching up on others’ blogs.

Vacation

It's getting so close now, I can almost hear the waves crashing on the beach and warm sea air blowing through my hair.

I took a half day at work and then got my nails done. I feel very fancy now which is quite the change of pace for a jeans and t-shirt kind of person. It's interesting that I dress like a slob for the most part and then I go on vacation and I have a dress or skirt lined up for every night. Several pairs of shoes to go with it all too.

So this is a farewell of sorts, I most likely won't have access to my email or the internet in general until I get back and even if I did have access I could stand to be unconnected for a while.

Thank you to those who wished me a happy birthday.

1 day until vacation and birthday.
:)

Flowing Like Water

Vacation is looming closer, I'm starting to get excited and slightly stressed about getting packed and everything done before we go.

I had an appointment with my therapist today which I thought went really well. We talked about a game plan for when I get back from vacation and the advice I've been getting from my new blogging buddy on managing antiphospholipid antibody syndrome. It gives me a little glimmer of hope considering I figured we'd "just try" next month and everything would miraculously work out.

As far as the roller coaster that is my life goes it's on the upswing. I hope it will continue with sun, sand, margaritas and wine flowing like water and a couple much needed massages at the spa on board our cruise ship. It's finally starting to warm up here but it will be just the right medicine to go somewhere tropical and do absolutely nothing but relax and enjoy.

3 days until vacation and birthday.

Vent

It’s been a couple weeks since my last post. I’ve been feeling wayward lately. I had my second support group meeting last night and no one showed up. The woman who came last month called me to say she is sick and wouldn’t be coming so I at least expected to not see her. But after all the advertising I did I have to admit that I’m really surprised that no one came. I’m debating bothering to have it at all next month.

My husband and I visited his family this past weekend for his grandmother’s 80th birthday. In all it was an uneventful visit (probably because it was a short one) but we still had the fighting and sleepless nights leading up to and following the visit.

(Vent)
I’m really tired of hearing about his sister’s wedding. It’s probably just jealousy but I don’t remember being so endlessly consumed with wedding talk when we were engaged. Not to mention that I did everything myself and didn’t live at home with my parents where some people are practically waited on hand and foot. I doubt much will change when she moves into a house with her fiancé, my husband’s family lives for fawning all over him and his sister, alas we live too far away to take as much advantage as she does. What’s ridiculous is that she gets upset when we visit that they are so excited to see him that she is virtually ignored (yeah, right). Maybe if she went away for a while people would be excited to see her when she came back.

My husband made the announcement that we wouldn’t be visiting for Easter this year. While parents and grandparents seemed to “understand”, his sister voiced her disappointment/annoyance to me in a side discussion I had with her about all the jobs I’ve seemed to acquire for her wedding that I didn’t realized I had been asked to do. She’s been very cold to me lately so I can’t understand why she would be sad to not see me. Plus without my husband there she will get all the spotlight.

I don’t want to visit for Easter because of many things, the usual being my discomfort in their company, but also that we don’t go to Mass together anymore as his parents have taken to going to a traditional Latin Mass church which isn’t our cup of tea (so if we're going to go to Mass alone, I would rather go to our own church), and I don’t really care for the food served at Easter: lasagna with American cheese on it*, cold ham (because his mom is lazy and cooks it the day before), kielbasa, hard boiled eggs, kolachi and other things that I can’t remember. The only thing I do like is the Paska bread and I don’t have to go there to eat it because I can make it myself.

*Northeast Pennsylvania likes its American cheese, they also have it on pizza à la Old Forge Style. I remember after many years of eating the pizza there and wondering why it tasted so weird (bad) finding out why and feeling I had been duped all those years into thinking I was eating normal pizza.
(End Vent)

I had my period last week, it was a 26 day cycle, the shortest in a long time because we didn’t try this month and I didn’t take progesterone to prolong the inevitable. I was cranky and moody and lack of sleep and in-laws didn’t help.

9 days until vacation and birthday.