Night Before the Thaw

Howie, Aislinn & I are in VA for the FET. If all goes well the appointment is scheduled for 1:30 pm. My best friend, Brenda, is going to babysit Aislinn while we're at the clinic. I was feeling good and having a good time up until now. I have been trying to keep my mind off of the whole defrosting Frosty thing. Tomorrow we'll find out what happens. My stomach is in knots and I'm starting to obsess about the odds that our one little frozen embryo will survive the thaw. I know the odds aren't great and we only have one shot at this. I love Aislinn and if she's our only child that'll be fine. She's beautiful and amazing. We are so grateful for her. I would just LOVE to give her a little brother or sister. I just want a shot at it, I just want Frosty to thaw well. After that we'll worry about the next step. Keep your fingers crossed for us. We need it!

Fire Baby

As you know from my last post, we started off Mother's Day by burying Howie's grandmother in Long Island. Before heading to the funeral we had time to squeeze in a Mother's Day cupcake for breakfast along with some Starbucks coffee. Yum! We got to LI a little before the funeral, just in time for a quick lunch at a diner. I had a super greasy and extra tasty bacon cheese burger with sauteed onions. Why not? Aislinn enjoyed some strawberries that I brought for her and then she had some of grandma's toast and I think some of grandpa's french toast. When we finished up there we went to the cemetery and waited for Howie's grandma's body to arrive. We talked to the Rabbi about his grandma. While we were there Aislinn kept wanting Howie's mom to hold her and kept giving her kisses like she knew she needed a little extra love. It was sweet. She was being cute and making everyone smile even though it was a sad day. She makes everything better. During the actual burial Aislinn was getting hungry and a bit cranky so I put her down on the ground and she picked some little buttercup flowers that were growing in the grass. It was getting a bit cold and she had a sweater on but Howie took off his jacket to put around her. She put it over her head and was walking around with it dragging on the ground. We started to laugh because she looked like ET. After his grandmother was buried the Rabbi came over to talk to us and Aislinn gave him one of the flowers she picked and he said thank you. For the first time ever she didn't seem to want what she had given away back. We made her a bottle when we put her into her carseat and she she had finished it before we even left the cemetery. She was pretty good on the way home. She didn't sleep. She had slept for maybe about an hour, maybe less, on the way to LI but on the way home she didn't sleep. Anyway, when we got home it was a pretty normal night. She played, then we fed her dinner, and then it was upstairs for her bath. Her head felt a bit warm to me when we were getting her ready for her bath so we just quickly just used the ear thermometer. We know it's not the most reliable but we figured if she had any kind of fever it would let us know and then we'd do the more invasive rectal temp. The ear thermometer said she was fine so we put her into the bath and she was having a good time, as usual, until the end. She started to shiver so we figured it had something to do with the bath. I wrapped the towel around her and we took her into her room. She was still shaking like crazy so I put another towel around her and then Howie put a blanket around her. She continued shaking and looking really tired. We quickly got her dressed and then brought her down stairs. It was pretty early for her to be that tired but we were thinking that maybe she was just worn out from all the running around during the day and the fact that she had only taken a short nap in the car. We decided to give her a bottle so Howie went to go make it. I sat down with her on the couch and read Snuggle Puppy to her. She usually points out that the puppy has a ball when we read it but she didn't do that this time. She was sweet enough to give me a kiss at the two places in the book where I'm supposed to give her a kiss. She's such a sweetheart! Anyway, after reading the book I tried to give her the bottle but she barely opened her mouth which really weird because no matter how tired she is she is always happy to take a bottle. I still felt like her head was warm even if the ear thermometer said differently about 45 minutes before. Her body was hot too. I asked Howie to take her temperature again which he did and this time the ear thermometer said 102. We decided at this point that we should take her temperature with the rectal thermometer. That one said 103.3. We called her doctor's office and the answering service said that someone would call us in about 20 minutes. We called our parents, his said to put her into a cool bath, my mother (a former nurse) said to go to the ER. I kind of felt like since she was so out of it we should just go to the ER, which we did. When we got there her fever had gone up to 103.6. The ER doc said that her left ear was really red and he thought that it was the reason she had a fever. They gave her some Tylenol, Motrin & Amoxicillin and had us wait an hour and took her temp again. It was down to 102 and she started to perk up a tad. A half hour later the doc came back and said that we could go home once the nurse stopped by to give us a prescription for the amoxicillin. The nurse stopped by and also took Aislinn's temp one more time. It had gone down to 100. When we got home we gave her a bottle which she happily drank and then we put her down for the night. We checked on her once during the night and she seemed cool so we didn't worry too much. I got up at 6:15 am to head over to the fertility clinic for my monitoring and was back by 7:15 am. Aislinn and Howie were still sleeping so I curled back up in bed and Howie and I woke up around 9:00 am. We called her doctor and they said that we could just walk in between 9:00 and 10:00 am without an appointment. We woke Aislinn up and she was burning up again. We were going to quickly give her some Tylenol but we were all out. Yeah, I felt like an idiot! How can I not know the bottle of Tylenol is empty? How can I not have like 2 back up bottles? What kind of Mom am I? So we got her dressed and Howie made her a bottle for the car, which she pushed away. When they took her temp at the doctor's office it was 103.7 and she was barely moving again. They gave her some Motrin and the doc took a look at her ears. He said that he didn't think they looked too bad and there wasn't any fluid in there so he thought the redness was more of a symptom of the fever than the cause. Her throat was red so he took a couple of swabs to get a culture for a strep test and the quick test said it wasn't strep but they sent out the second swab just to be sure. He then wanted to rule out a UTI or kidney infection so we tried to get Aislinn to pee into a bag but she wasn't drinking any fluids so who knows how long we'd have to wait for a bit of pee, plus the pee in the bag wouldn't necessarily be sterile enough so we might have had to catheterize her in the end anyway so we just decided to let them put a catheter in so that we could get a urine sample. That was awful! I hated it and I know she hated it too. I hate bringing her in for shots but I really felt guilty about letting them poke and prod her but we needed to rule that out and it looked like the urine sample was clean. So, the next thought is that it's just some kind of virus or whatever and we just have to try to keep her fever down and get her to drink. He said we could take her home to see if maybe she'd be more willing to drink some fluids at home once her temperature went down, but if we couldn't manage that at home then we'd have to bring her to the hospital where she could get an IV. Fortunately her temperature did go down and she drank a few 5 oz bottles, had a few wet diapers, and played a lot. She also had a strawberry! She had her last bottle and fell asleep around 8:00 or 8:30 pm so I put her down in her crib. We woke her up about an hour ago for another dose of Motrin and to take her temp and it was up to 102.8. Her whole body was hot and sweaty again. We tried to give her a bottle but she refused it so we used a syringe to squirt some pedialyte into her mouth. She just seemed really tired so we let her go back to sleep and we'll just have to check on her again later. Hopefully her fever will go down and she'll be feeling better tomorrow. It's been a crazy couple of weeks for us. I just hope that our luck gets better before the end of the month. Howie gave me my first shot of Del Estrogen tonight. It wasn't too bad but I acted like a big baby until he gave me the shot. I didn't take any birth control today and oddly enough I'm not bleeding like crazy. When I'm taking the pill I bleed, when I don't take it I don't bleed. Right! That makes sense! Whatever, maybe it'll come tomorrow. We shall see.

Un-Happy Mother's Day

Sadly, Howie's grandmother died this morning and the funeral is on Sunday. Howie's parent's didn't want to bury her on Mother's Day but Howie's crazy ass aunt has full control and she said she doesn't want her son to miss school so they are flying up from FL with the body, then we're going to quickly bury her and then his aunt and cousin will hop back on a plane and that will be that. I don't know, but when my grandfather died I think I was allowed to miss a day of school. I thought it was ok to take a moment to morn the loved one that you just lost. His aunt is a cold hearted bitch who basically just drained his grandmother's bank account so I'm not surprised that she and her son barely care. She broke the news to Howie's mother by leaving her a message on their answering machine saying "Mom died this morning(message was left around 5 pm)and I think the funeral is going to be on Sunday. I don't know if you want to come or not." Since she didn't get Howie's mother she then called Howie and told him that his grandmother died. In my opinion nobody should be calling the grandchild before speaking to the parent and telling them in a cold kind of way that his or her grandmother is dead. In the past year she called Howie twice to say that his grandmother was moments away from dying and then the next day she'd say "Oh, you're grandmother isn't going to die for a long, long time." Unfortunately this lady has full control over his grandmother and the money and apparently even had the will changed before his grandmother died. So, who knows what will come from that. Howie's parents are feeling really bad that this has happened on Mother's Day weekend but I'm not at all upset. Well, I mean, I'm more upset that Howie has lost his grandmother and his mother has lost her mother just as Mother's Day arrives. There's no reason for them to apologize. It's not like anyone wanted this to happen, it just is what it is. Unfortunately this isn't the only time this has happened to them. Howie's dad's mom died on Mother's Day when Howie was a kid. I think it's just another knock against Mother's Day for them. I hope that this doesn't ruin Mother's Day for Howie's mom forever. I hope that when the next Mother's Day rolls around she and the rest of the family will be able to focus on all of their good memories of his grandmother rather than on her death.

The Final Plan

Hi y'all! It's been a while, I know! Last week Howie and I went down to VA for the mock transfer. The lining looks good and I asked about the light bleeding and Dr. Sunshine said that was normal and that the bleeding would eventually stop. For shits and giggles she decided to look at my ovaries. The right one is working real hard because I have 24! TWENTY-FOUR! follicles. Yes! That's two dozen follicles that will never pop out an egg. Shitty ovaries. What a tease! Anyhow, here's the timeline:

May 12: Go into CT fertility clinic for monitoring & start Del Estrogen

May 24: Go in for a lining check in the VA clinic

May 28: The Big Day! Keep fingers crossed while waiting to find out about how well Frosty defrosted and hopefully then have the transfer!

I'm oddly calm. I don't know why, but I am. I almost never take anything one day at a time, but that's what I'm doing this time. I don't want to over think it. All I have is one blastocyst and I have to believe that saving it and transferring it is worth it. So, the first hurdle is defrosting, if that goes well the next hurdle is the two week wait and the test. There's other hurdles but I'm honestly just thinking about the first one right now and that's all that matters to me.

So, enough about baby 2.0, what about our current baby? She's doing very well. She's all toddler now, not much baby is left. Well, her cheeks are still super baby kissable. She has 4 new molars and one new lateral incisor on the bottom. The tantrums are more frequent but she is really good at giving herself a timeout when she needs to regain her composure. Howie and I got her a little ATV for 12-36 month olds. She seems to really like it and it keeps her away from our neighbors' kid's four wheeler. It's so nice that the weather is getting warmer because I think Aislinn and I were getting cabin fever. Sometimes you need to get out and run around barefoot in the grass. Aislinn's favorite outdoor activity is picking dandelions. Luckily we have many so it's unlikely that we'll be running out anytime soon. We're really looking forward to taking her back down to VA. Our old co-workers haven't seen Aislinn in a year. I really miss everyone in my old office, specifically my former boss. She's like family and part of me wishes that we were raising Aislinn down there so that they could see Aislinn grow. I feel like I shared every other significant event in my adult life with them and when I finally got pregnant I up and left before you could even see the bump. I have always been torn between CT and VA, I doubt it'll ever end.