Routine

Mandie has gotten very into planning and scheduling.  It actually helps get her to go to sleep faster.  Every night after I tuck her in I tell her, "You are going to sleep in your bed, I am going to sleep in my bed, because tomorrow we are going to do _____."

Really Mandie is just like most kids and likes routine.  She likes having an idea of how/when things are going to happen.  Taking her lead I have decided to start small and give each day a theme, with a goal of doing at least one big activity based on that theme.  (I hope to do more than one thing each day, but I am admittedly easily distracted.)

So here is our chart for the first two weeks..

Cooking, school type learning, swim, crafts and sports

 Now if I was the Mom that I am in my head,  Monday would go something like this.....

She would help a little with breakfast - maybe stir her eggs or something.

At some point after breakfast we would have a pretend meal that she would prepare in her toy wok.

Then in the afternoon we would make pizzas out of construction paper, including little paper mushrooms and pepperoni - the works!

 At dinner time she would completely help with making 3 or so mini pizzas with different toppings.  Some with new things that she hasn't really tried - and of course her favorite pepperoni and cheese.


What I know will happen is the pizza making.  At least one pizza.

Let's hope that I can make at least some of the other stuff happen....and I'm hoping to get through the entire week. 


Well I'll post what the outcome is next week...I'm really hoping that this will be a good plan.

Circles

I love crafts, and apparently so does my two year old.  She is even willing to clean up her play area, and eat vegetables to earn craft time.  I have decided to take advantage of this and make craft time also learning time.

Our routine goes as follows:

With her safely gated in the living room, I set everything up so that there is not too much running around for miscellaneous items.  This is because I know that if I step away from the craft table my daughter will manage to glue herself, or one of our pets to something or each other.

Then I have her step just into the room and put on her "listening ears".  To test the functionality of her listening ears, we do a toddler version of Simon Says - which is basically where I just tell her to point at parts of her body to see if she is listening.  (BTW she has phalanges and sternum down.)  If she passes this test she gets to go to her craft table.

Last week we did shapes, so for circles I had a circle cut out of a nice colorful piece of paper.   Then on a white sheet of paper I drew a larger circle and wrote the word circle at the top.

Armed with a glue stick, she glued the pretty circle onto the page inside the circle I had drawn.  We talked about the shape, and things that were shaped like circles.  Then came her favorite part.  Using a toilet paper tube and a plate of different colored paint, she got to "stamp" circles onto the sheet.  She loved it so much I gave her a second plain sheet to do more.  

Stamping circles is serious work!

 We did the "okay, two more then we are done" and there was no fussing when the project was over.  We followed it up with squares, triangles and rectangles on other days that week - and I made sure to review her previous projects before starting the new ones. 

She loved the projects, but I  was worried that it had been too simple - then the other day she was playing a game and she pointed to the O and said "Circle Mama!".  So now I am happy with the results.  It has made her a better listener, given her a creative outlet, and she is learning.  Happy Mama and happy kid.  

It's a new year...

So after the drama of last year and some rather sad posts, we are moving on.  We have decided that we are content with our family, and we are opting to not do anymore rounds of IVF.  This was not an easy decision, but we think it is the right one for us.  It definitely wasn't our plan to have an only child, but "the best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry".

So now this blog will not be about IVF, but will be about life and my family.  So if you are one of the many people who bitch about constantly hearing about someone else's kids (and at times what they do in the bathroom)....then this blog will probably not be for you.  However if you enjoy hearing about my two year old, who is currently wearing mittens and using her drumsticks like chopsticks to pick up Legos, then you might enjoy my future posts.

Life is messy...

Life is messy. 

I could never have predicted where I would be today.  Even with the planning that my type A personality dictates, I could never have guessed the course my life would take.

No one can plan for everything, for every possible outcome. 

I am angry …I am angry that I have to be responsible for taking care of my parents when I still feel the sting of fucked up childhood.

I feel selfish for still feeling resentful about my childhood.

I feel overwhelmed. 

I feel gypped.  I see other people my age enjoying a relationship with their parents, who are just appreciating seeing their grown children start families for themselves.

I worry that I’m not giving Mandie enough of my time.  That I am so focused on my career, which we are financially dependent on; that I am neglecting to give her what she really needs, which is my attention.

I feel like my job takes advantage of me, but that I also allow for that to happen.

I feel bad for my sister who has to deal with my parents as well.

I have an amazing daughter and a husband I love.  I have the best sister I could ever ask for.  I am thankful for these things.   I just wish there was less pressure everywhere else, so that I could spend more time enjoying the good things I have in my life.

Moving Forward

So we don't find out for sure until tomorrow but I'm pretty sure that this round of IVF was a bust.  We've decided to go right into another round.  I thought I didn't want to do this again when I was suffering through the ovary over stimulation issues, but once I recovered I got over it pretty quickly.  We are disappointed that it didn't work, but hopefully we will have a better go this round.

Now I'm going to post some happy things.

Paul was invited to test the new Wii U that is being released before Christmas.  We went to a fancy hotel in DC where they had set up the conference room like a swanky club...that was filled with geeks that did not have on nearly enough deodorant. 

It was still fun and Mandie even got her own lanyard and swipe card.  She danced to "Call me maybe" which was one of three songs they had for the singing game demo and was the only song everyone picked to try.  She also enjoyed her Wii U cookie...

Then her Daddy won first place in a new Donkey Kong game and got her Luigi, he has become her favorite car companion.

And in even bigger news ...  Mandie has decided that she is ready for the potty.  We had not planned on potty training this early.  We were definitely not trying to potty train while going through IVF, but Mandie decided it was time. 

The other day while getting her bath ready she sat herself down on her potty and went pee.  She had peed on her little potty before, but it would be if she woke up with a dry diaper I would let her try.  That's kind of cheating because I knew she had to go.  Her choosing to go on her own was a big step forward.  I still didn't think she was ready...but then she started wanting to try more often and every time I put her on there she would go.  So today we bought her another little potty for downstairs.  When we got home from Target her diaper was still dry and she immediately tested her new potty out.  Later after another trip to Target and a trip to the playground we noticed that her diaper was still dry.  She hopped on the potty and earned another sticker.  We put on her training pants expecting an accident, but amazingly enough about a half hour later she came to me trying to pull them down and after I helped her out of them she sat down and peed again!  She did eventually pee a little in her pants, but she was quick to let us know that it had happened.  Overall she is doing amazing considering that she has basically done all of this on her own.  Though I wasn't ready for this step I am very proud of her quick progress.

3 Amigos

(This post jumps around more than a Vonnegut novel...but it is really how it all felt.)

So on Wednesday we had the egg retrieval.  I had been feeling pretty crappy the days before, but the day of I wasn't feeling bad at all.  It's a quick wham, bam, thank you ma'am procedure, where you go in they knock you out, they stick a needle through your vaginal wall and into each ovary stealing the eggs.  It takes 15-30 minutes.  I handle the anesthesia well and hopped right up and was ready to go both times.  This time though I was fine as I got home but then started to be in quite a bit of pain.  Then it started hurting when I would breathe ...all the way to my collar bone.  I couldn't lay down and I was miserable.  It turns out I had some over stimulation, probably because they couldn't retrieve all of the eggs due to respiratory issues I was having.  If I laid down I was in excruciating pain from my belly button to my right shoulder.  And I was exhausted so all I wanted to do way lie down. 

I was worried because they had only retrieved 6 eggs.  Last time they retrieved 19 and only had 4 that were mature enough and only 2 that fertilized.  So now I felt like the odds were really against us.  I was scared that they were going to call and say we had no mature eggs.  We were still at Shady Grove when the doctor told us this and I almost wanted to fight and say ..no let's go back in and try to get more.  I didn't.

The next day, even though I couldn't breathe I was thrilled to hear that once again we had 4 mature eggs and that this time 3 had fertilized!  I was so excited that I didn't even tell the doctor the pain I was in.  (Later when it became unbearable I did call and tell the nurse.)

So now on day 2 post retrieval we still have 3 good embryos.  (And though my abdomen still hurts, it stopped hurting when I breathe.)  We have an appointment to put them back in tomorrow.  Now we could still receive a call saying to wait until Monday, but we have to be ready for tomorrow.  I am excited and nervous.  It will take two weeks after the transfer to find out at the office if we are pregnant.  I will cheat and pee on a stick before that.  I am just not patient enough to wait.

This round of IVF has been much more rough on me than the last one.  I am looking forward to the bed rest after the transfer because I could really use a nap.

(As a TMI side note I have to take pill in my vagina 3 times a day to keep my uterus fluffy.)

Hopefully only a few more days

This is going to sound like whining and it probably is ..but I hope it is also helpful to anyone else who might be going through this.

So I have been on meds for 10 days now.  I feel horrible.  I don't remember feeling this horrible last time, but I also had the ability to sleep when I felt like it.  I have had a headache for pretty much the entire time I've been on the meds.  Then I started having cramping and pulling at my ovaries around day 3.  I do have at least 13 follicles between 14 and 18mm as well as several smaller ones crammed in there.  This is a good outcome but I feel like I'm dragging my ovaries behind me. 

I have appointments everyday now with blood work and a transvaginal ultrasound.  Which means even when Mandie will sleep in I have to get up.  I did however spend most of today laying down because I just don't feel like moving. 

They think I will trigger tomorrow, which means one injection in the morning, then one big one at night, then we are done with the at home shots.  YAY!  A couple days later they should retrieve the eggs.  Something that confused me last time was that I still felt like I was dragging my ovaries after the retrieval, and it turns out it was because they only take the eggs not the follicles which means I'm still carrying around the equivalent of the egg carton. 

The next couple of days will be rough because we are both working, which means full time work and Mandie duty for me.  And I have become the ultimate slug.  I literally went from laying down in bed, to laying on the couch, to resting my head on the dinner table while I waited for Mandie to finish eating.  I'm really hoping this works in one try again, because I'm not sure how well I would handle going through another round.

Right now it is not quite 9pm and I am laying in bed and I don't think I will be getting up again until it is time for my appointment in the morning.  Fingers are crossed for triggering tomorrow.