Everything is going along smoothly

The doctor called this morning with the result of my third hCG. It went up to 426. She said she's very pleased and everything is progressing wonderfully. So I'm happy, although I can't wait for the first ultrasound.

I spoke with my mom last night and I think I've realized why she's so afraid. She doesn't understand why I would put my life on the line for this little baby (who she doesn't even know, really) to have this surgery. I told her that I needed to take the risk, and if God forbid something were to happen...well, it would happen. She's having a hard time understanding this concept. We know the risks, they are small...and don't include danger to me really. But anything can happen. It's still a major surgery. Derick and I have talked about the risks, and it's so small that we are willing to take it in order to have children.

She also told my dad. He's worried. Typical. He always worries about us. That's what he does. We'll be fine though, I'm sure. And if not...at least we are together.

So I've just got to bite the bullet and tell my brother and sister in law. They are perhaps the most judgemental people in my life. So it's not going to be fun. Regardless of whether I tell them or my parents do, she's still going to talk about us behind our backs. That's just what she does. Just got to bite the bullet I guess.

I put a call into Dr. Davis (the TAC specialist) and hopefully he'll get back to me soon. I'm anxiously awaiting a date for a safe landing.

I think this one's a keeper

I think, and I don't want to jinx myself here...but I think this one's a keeper : )

My hCG went up to 103 on Friday. So it more than doubled. She sent me back this morning, and hopefully things will go up again some more!

I'm going to call Dr. Davis this afternoon to tentatively schedule my appointment for the surgery. I'm anxious to get it scheduled so that I have something to go by.

And I'm going to make my prediction now and not that I care, of course...

But I say girl.

I forgot

I had a good post in mind, but I forgot what I was going to write about. I've been doing that lately...forgetting...I think it's the pregnancy brain. I forgot to put my car in park the other night, and I only realized it when it started rolling towards the car in front of me. Then I forgot to wash the conditioner out of my hair when I took a shower last night. I don't remember locking the door when I leave for work, and I when I get there, I have to write everything down otherwise I'm asking people the same information they've already given me. I don't ever remember it being this bad before, but it must be a good sign.

Yesterday I felt like crap. ***TMI*** I almost threw up a few times, and by almost I mean that I could taste it at the bottom of my throat and threw up a few times in my mouth. That MUST be a good sign.

I think the bean is doing well. I hope, at least. The doctors office called Friday night to let me know that she couldn't get the results then but will call first thing Monday morning with them. I fell pretty confident now. Nature has a way of reassuring you that everything is alright. My breasts are sore, my stomach hurts, and nothing is appetizing. All those must be good signs!

Monica H left me a comment on my last post about worrying. She said that when she was pregnant with Sam and Jack she never found out until she was like 6-8 weeks along. I thought about it, and remembered that when I was pregnant with Dylan and Riley I refused to take a test until I was about 6 weeks. It was a lot less stress and things just seemed to go quicker. At that poing there was already a heartbeat, we could already see them on the ultrasound, and the 1st trimester was half way over. This time, however, was different. With the boys I didn't get a postive on a HPT until much later...if/when I tried to test around 10-16 dpo it was still negative. That's why I'm so suprised that I got a positive now. However, since I'm so crazy this time and because I have to have the TAC placed, I wanted to know ASAP.

I'm NEVER going to know this soon again : )

Derick and I talked yesterday, and we both agreed that this is very stressful on us both. More so than we had thought. So we talked about how if this one is born healthy and on time, we might not try again for another 5 years...maybe even 10. It's just so much for us both. It'd be ok if we only had one child, but neither one of us would be content with it. We even talked about the possibility of doing a surrogate next time. And of course, adoption is still in our minds. I guess we just never realized how hard this would be on us. I don't know when we are going to relax. Maybe 26 weeks? 28 weeks? If I even get that far...

Last night Derick was holding me...

Him- "I think I'm going to sleep on the couch when the baby comes."
Me- "Why? You don't have to do that, we'll take turns gettting up."
Him- "No, it's not that."
Me- "Ok"
Him- "I just don't ever want to sleep as far away from him or her as we do from the boys."
Me- "Uhh...ok."

I'm blown away that he thinks like this. I'm pretty sure that he would sleep next to our child for the rest of his life if it meant that they'd be safe. It's weird what men think of. I think of them being safe in a motherly way...healthy, warm, fed....and he wants to physically keep them safe. Like safe from the world almost. If he sleeps right next to them nightmares can't get to them, there won't be any monsters under the bed, no crying at night, no staying up past their bedtime, no sneakng boys into the house, no sneaking out at night...it's a lovely thought, but someday they will grow up and the inevitable will happen...

As much as we would like to keep them as safe as we can right now, it doesn't mean that things will always be this way. What's strange is that for us, the safest place for them to be right now is NOT in my uterus. It's in our arms.

I'm neurotic

I went for my hCG levels on Tuesday. Wednesday the doctor called and said, "It was 46. That's a little on the low side." Nothing like a little worry. Last night I was at work, went to the bathroom and I was bleeding. Not a lot, but it was bright red. I bled with Riley too the same way. I knew it was ok, but I started to freak out. I cried, thought about going home, and then I thought about how I have to stay calm. I can't stress myself out about it. If it's going to happen, I thought, there's nothing that I can do to prevent it.

So I went home, did some dishes, and laid down on the couch. I noticed that from doing the dishes, I had broken out in an allergic reaction on my hands. Apparently I'm allergic to the dishes and can't do them anymore ; )

To make a long story short, including a lot of tears and praying....the bleeding stopped this morning. It went from bright red to brown this morning. I went for my second hCG this morning and I called the doctor and she's going to try and get the results for me this tonight instead of having to wait until Monday. Only because I was bleeding and concerned.

Hopefully I'll hear something back tonight. Otherwise I'm going to be completely neurotic all weekend!

Reluctant to post

I'm a bit reluctant to post this. However, I can't hold it to myself any longer.



WE'RE GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER BABY!



Ok, I'm done now.



My heart wants so much to be excited about this. But my brain keeps saying, "You can't tell anyone. You don't want to untell them. This might not work, it's not a guarentee...things could happen." But my heart is feeling otherwise.

I'm cautiously excited at this point. Still in shock, and very, very anxious.

It's just so hard to believe that a baby will come at the end of all of this...

Quote

"If when you are at the edge of life, go ahead and take the step. If God doesn't provide the foundation He will give you wings."

Monica H sent me this quote the other day in response to my post about jumping off of a bridge. I've decided to take the leap. I just can't imagine my life any other way.

Currently I'm in the 2ww. I should expect my perid next week sometime after Tuesday. I have no signs that I'm pregnant, except for some spotting earlier in the week and cramps. No nausuea, no sore breasts...nothing. I'm pretty sure this cycle is a bust. Onto the next one I guess... But there's still a part of me that is hopeful only because with Riley I had no symptoms either and I was most certainly pregant with him. So maybe it's not a bust....or maybe I'm just setting myself up for dissapointment. But if it's not going to happen I would prefer that my period start sooner than later because the sooner it starts, the sooner we can try again for another month. I wish that it would just happen. I wish that I could will myself pregnant like all of the other teenagers trying to trap their boyfriends : )

I've never been obsessed with TTC. But I find myself this time completely obsessed. I obsessively try and read my body...could this be, could it not be? The rational part of me is like, "It's going to happen when it happens." But the control freak part of me wants to control every aspect of things.

My good friend Lisa thinks it's going to happen soon. I think it's going to happen for her soon too. Maybe we are just destined to be pregnant together with our cervix's stitched shut, and our big bellies. We can shop together, and register together, and ride around in our motorized carts together at Walmart.

Now I'm getting ahead of myself...but she had a valid point. In the last week I've had 2 dreams that I was dying and one dream that another baby died. In the dream that the baby died, I kept having to give him CPR because he would just die. Then he would breathe again and die, and I'd give him CPR again. Anyway, Lisa said that dreams about death mean that a baby is going to be born.

So maybe I'm not crazy afterall...

100 posts

I can't believe it's been 100 posts.

When I look back through the last year and 8 months, I can't believe how far I've come and how much I've lost. It seems incredible to me. Almost like it was someone elses life.

But it's funny, you know, because my life has not started back up again since the moment we lost Dylan's heartbeat. It never got back on track, and things never became even close to where they were just hours before my water broke.

But still, we've come a long way...

We're trying to have another baby now. That in itself is a big step towards the happiness of our future. We've moved and have our own place again. We've got great jobs that we love (most of the time). And I cannot forget about my family. Derick lives and would die for me, and Lilo wags her tail so fast when I come back into the room that it's as if someday it will fly off.

So why then, won't I be happy until I have a toddler running from room to room with Lilo following close behind? Why can't I be happy until that image in my mind comes true? Why can't others (the rest of my family) want the same thing for us?

I'm close to happy. I really am. However true happiness won't come until I hear my own baby scream. I'm closer now to happy than I've been in a year and 8 months.

I had a dream last night that I was at the doctors office. The doctors that were treating me were from Private Practice and one was just a TV with his face on it. Every once in a while he would go to commercial. Anyhow, they told me that I had a blockage that was traveling to my brain. My aneurysm was like a bomb. It could explode tomorrow, two weeks from tomorrow, or 25 years from tomorrow. My first though upon hearing this news was that Derick was going to loose me, and what was he to do? My second thought was that I need to do things in my life now to make me happy, because someday it might be to late. I need to start living NOW instead of putting it off for tomorrow. Otherwise life is going to pass me right on by. When I woke up, I looked around and said to Lilo, "Oh my God. It was only a dream."

So for my next 100 posts, here are my goals:

1. have a living child
2. loose some weight (or most of the weight I need to loose)
3. finally take our dream honeymoon (even if it's with an infant)
4. save money- enough so that if something happens we won't be shuffling things around
5. visit Disneyland again but this time with Derick...and maybe baby!
6. get EVERYTHING unpacked completely
7. start writing again
8. pick up my paintbrushes where I left off
9. finish my scrapbooks
10. have a better relationship with some members of my family.
11. finish the baby blanket I've been making because 'someday' we'll have a baby
12. learn to communicate with Derick better
13. make more time to spend with the ones that I love
14. have a better relationship with my SIL
15. stop and take the time to smell the roses and take in everything this Earth can offer.


Ok, so that's them. Stay tuned to see what I can accomplish!

And as always, for those that read and comment and for those that read and don't comment, thank you for taking the time to come and visit anyway. And if you're just a casual lurker, leave me a note and I'll be sure to pop in on you to see what your life is like.

Jumping off a bridge

I feel like I'm standing on a bridge. I could run across to safety (and a lifetime without children), or I could jump. But if I jump, the river is narrow and only a few feet of it is wide enough to survive the jump. I could land on the rocky shore, and that would be sudden death (loosing another baby). So do I jump and hope that I land in the river? If I do, it wouldn't be sudden death. No matter where I would land, I would be safe...although I would be a bit more worse off if I didn't land where the water is deep. But if I do land in the deep water, I'll be safe!

So what do I do? Run to the other side, jump and risk sudden death, or take the jump and pray for safety?

That's how I feel about trying again. The fear is the equivalent of jumping off a bridge without a safety net.

Except with trying again, I will have a safety net. I'll have my cerclage...

So then, knowing that I'll have my safety net in place, why is it so difficult to move ahead?

I've stopped using the OPK's. I'll admit that they were very cheap, and perhaps there wasn't enough dye in them. But when I looked through the garbage (what else would any other rational person do?) I think I came across one that was positive. So perhaps I've O'd already and missed it. I don't know. But even if I did ovulate, the other important part of the equations hasn't been there. So it wouldn't matter anyway.

No pressure, no pressure! That's what he keeps saying.

OK hon, no pressure. But today is the day, and without pressure it's not going to happen.

So instead I go to sleep sad, blaming it on myself because yet again it's something that I just can't do right.

Even if I have O'd, there's nothing there to meet it at the end of the journey. And if I haven't, at least I have more time.

The perfectly rational part of me knows that these things can take a while. But the perfectly irrational part of me is throwing a tantrum.

Thank you for your support and your rational words. I appreciate it more than I'm sure you realize sometimes!

I think I'm loosing it

I'm not sure what to think of things anymore...

I've been using the OPK's since Sunday (cd 12) and have not had a positive yet. I'm so worried that I do really have PCOS now, and I'm not just borderline anymore.

I think that if I do, it would put me over the edge.

I want to call the doctor so badly and tell her that I need to start Clomid now. She needs to do something, NOW...but I feel like a crazy person.

It's true that it could just be a cycle that I don't ovulate. Or it's true that I'm not ovulating...or just later than normal since my cycle seems to be ranging from 32-40 days now. So that would mean that theoretically, it could be cd 16-20 that I do ovulate. In which case, I'm on cd 16 today. So it could be anytime in the next few days. My last cycle was 38 days. So that would be cd 19 that I would, theoretically, ovulate.

Does anyone know anything about this? I'm just at a loss, and I'm starting to get discouraged already. I'm getting down on myself, and there isn't anything that I can do but wait.

Day three of POAS

According to my crazy cycle, I should be on CD 13 today. Which should, theoretically, mean that I'm supposed to O tomorrow.

However, I have not had a positive OPK yet. I'm starting to get a little nervous. The Doc assured me that if I was getting a period, I was ovulating. But it's like the OPK's aren't even detecting a little bit of an LH surge because there is nothing but the control line. Should I worry? Or is that just how some of them work? I've just never had them like that before. Usually something other than the control line shows up. But now, nothing.

Maybe I've just moved to a 30 or 32 day cycle. The doc also said that was not uncommon, especially due to the amount of stress I'm under. Also, childbirth can do that as can a change in hormones. So maybe I'm more likely to O around CD 15 or 16 now.

Any thoughts?

I know that it's easier to determine if I were charting. Frankly, I'm to lazy to get up and take my temp at the same time every morning. Morning Becky is not a happy Becky.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I have to take Lilo to the vet tonight at 7 pm. She's had goopy stuff coming out of her eye. And me, being the bad mother that I am, chalked it up to being a cold or part of her allergies. Until this morning....we woke up and it was pink and slightly swollen. The goopy stuff has also started to change colors and get....more goopy. The vet thinks that she might have an infection because maybe she scratched the lens or something.

Lilo, being the amazing dog that she is, never fails to get sick when we literally have no money. So my mother saved the day again. She offered to pay for her vet care until we can pay her back. After all, she says, a blind Lilo would not be a happy Lilo.