And I'm Back!

Phew! Give this girl a full time position and see.ya.lata. blog!

I kept up with my reading but posting....not so much.

Anywho. The internship went great but I'm happy it's over. 120 hours without pay is more than ridiculous. J and I are by no means rolling in the deep with ole Benny Franklin and to say our accounts took a hit is a gross understatement.

Aside from the lack of cash flow and the hour drive to my job site there was one other small factor I did not particularly enjoy about my internship. By particularly enjoy I mean I had to practice deep breathing and prayer just to keep myself from pulling a Brooke meltdown, seen  here .

One of my "mentors" was a total freak show. If I could use one word to describe her it would be rudeasscrazyhighpitchedvoicerag. She was so rude to patients that I would actual flinch when she spoke to them. To make it even worse she has this crazy inflection in her voice, by the end of a sentence stray dogs were running into the building.

We had a patient (grown woman) who had to give a urine sample. She had been holding it for so long she was about to pee her pants right there in the lobby. When she told Freak Show this Freak Show said she would have to wait. WTF!? The patient finally said forget it and wasn't going to wait but unfortunately for her the only other bathrooms in the area were out of order. Thinking I was being helpful I told my other mentor that the woman needed to pee very badly but we also needed a sample from her. She promptly told me to grab a specimen cup and label it with the name and DOB. I hand the cup to the patient and Freak Show has a fucking mental breakdown. I mean full on screaming that she is not taking responsibility for me giving the patient a cup and she’s washing her hands of it. All in front of the patient. Needless to say I brought the patient back and the test, ironically enough, was a STAT order and Freak Show would have been in deep shit if we didn't get it. I'm debating complaining about her practices to the medical group but ya know the old saying about burning bridges...

On the IF front, I had my lovely HSG on the 12th. During my lunch break. Yes, you read that correctly. Everything looked great. No retained tissue. No scarring but I was ever so lucky that she did it twice! That's right folks one excruciating pass through my ute was not satisfactory for the RE she wanted to give it another go. In end we're cleared for take-off when AF arrives the first week of February.

Since O, Monday, I’ve been having some crazy cramping. Today is the first day it seems to have subsided. My only guess is the HSG swept some serious cobwebs out of the old tubes and made way for a Will.y Won.ka sized golden egg. Too bad J's swimmers prefer to run in circles until they pass out without coming even remotely closely to me tubies.

I almost forgot to mention, the ENTIRE WORLD is pregnant right now. Except for me and all the infertiles of course. Every Tonya, Dixie, and Harriet on my FB is announcing their 4wk pregnancies. HAHAHA 4WEEKS! Imagine that!

One happy pregnancy announcement is that J's sister is having her 3rd. I'm so excited. She is an amazing mother and has been the best support system to me and J through this IF bullshit. She truly gets it even though she hasn't been through it. Their second daughter was born the day we lost Bump back in '09. She was literally in labor and delivery and we were in the ER in the same hospital. The funny part is my niece is so much like me it's crazy. I like to think my bump and she had a little convo on the way in and the way out.

I feel like it's our time now. This transfer will work. We will bring home twins. The Patr.iots will win the super bowl and all will be right with the world.

Smell that universe? That's the smell of excellence.

Ch, Ch, Ch, CHANGES!

Remember that little gem? You're welcome.

This marks the first week of my externship.

I.Love.It.

I knew I would like the medical aspect of it. But I honestly thought I would just have to grin and bare the 'dealing with the patients' part. Yes, I'm aware that sounds cold and heartless.  Bite me.

After dealing with only nonverbal, furry, just needed some love, patients I really thought I wouldn't be able to feel the draw and compassion to human patients as I did my animal ones. But I do. I really really do!

My geriatric patients make my day. They come out with the most ridiculous shit.

One lady told me that she hates kids because they are dumb and messy. HAHA! I mean who says that?! I laughed hysterically. They don't give a rat's ass what anyone thinks and they say whatever comes to mind.

Some are so sweet that I can barely contain myself from squeezing the life right out of them.

This experience gave me the reassurance that needed to move forward with nursing. I know now that it's what I'm meant to do.
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On the IF front AF is here with what can only be described as a ho.ney bad.ger in my uterus.

Ho.ney bad.ger don't give a shit.

I forgot how painful the first AF is after a D&C. While blow drying my hair yesterday morning I had a cramp so intense that I may have lost consciousness. I don't understand how I could have built up a lining of epic proportions in such a short amount of time.

With CD1 came the lovely HSG which will be scheduled for Thursday afternoon. I'm not able to miss a day of my externship so I have to have it done during my lunch break. That will be the best.day.ever!!!

Riiiiiight

Once I get the all clear from the HSG results we'll be looking at our next FET cycle the second week of February. Just in time for my nimrod boss to change health insurance companies. He does this every single year and I have to force him to wait until I'm done my cycle. Talk about awkward. Although I have openly told him we are doing IVF he still says things like "I don't know the specifics but I know you need notice for health insurance changes." I always pull out my calendar and let him know the dates of upcoming treatments just to make him cringe. 

I'm a sadistic little troll, aren't I?
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We're going to J's parents tonight to celebrate his Dad's birthday and watch Ti.m Te.bow get his ass handed to him by the one and only dynasty that is the New Engl.and Pat.riots. Ya, can you tell we're fans? Of course we'll also be watching the Bru.ins game.

I'm sure by now you've narrowed down where we live. You sneaky little devil you.

Quick Question

For those of you who have had the unfortunate experience of having a D&C. When did your AF show afterwards?

At the WTF appointment Thursday my RE thought I should start any minute. Thursday was 4 weeks since the D&C.

From what I hear from other ladies it may take much longer than 4 weeks to get AF again.

I seem to remember with my last D&C, AF starting right when it would have had I never been pregnant.

The reason for the question.....

I had a sudden feeling of 'OH CRAP' this morning when I still had no signs of AF.

J and I have no intentions of using pregnancy prevention from now until the day we die so obviously this time was no different. But now I'm having a semi-panic feeling of what if we got PG on our own and shouldn't have because my lining etc. hasn’t healed. Dr. T made no mention of us using protection. But why would she? We've been deemed infertile.

I seem to recall my old OB telling me we had to wait until everything was 'healed'.

Maybe I'll take a HPT tomorrow if no sign of AF. Maybe I'll just wait it out.

Opinions?

Confessions

I know. Two posts in one day is just annoying. But I figure only about 1% of you is actually reading me wee little blog so for that I am sorry Marly . Your comments always make my day :)

I've been meaning to confess something on here for an eternity but every time I sit down to type my IF issues scream at me from the fore front of my mind and I completely forget.

Back when I joined a TTC blog I was very unfamiliar with the lingo. Ya know all the abbreviations and such. At some point I thought I got it but I wasn't totally sure and just used what I though was appropriate to the best of my knowledge. (I know there's a friggin lingo dictionary on the site but as I've mentioned previously I'm kind of a douche when it comes to anything technology based, web pages included)

After about 6months of using the site I joined a group with a lovely bunch of ladies. I figured out how to do what is referred to as my "siggy"(signature under each post even though it sounds like a hallucinogenic). It was then that the ladies started referring to my husband.

Hehe this is where you gasp and say "ohhh she has a 'life partner'. How trendy." No, I'm straight, but both my parents are gay so how's that for trendy. No not two Moms or two Dads but both Mom and Dad realized they preferred the same sex after getting married and having moi.

But I’ve digressed.

I assumed (as I thought they were) that it was due to the fact that we were TTC and everyone makes that assumption. Then to my horror I realized that my 'DH' was not my Dark He-man but Darling Husband. My siggy had 'DH' carelessly strewn about! Being the true totally afraid of confrontation and judgment although I'm a judgmental bitch, person that I am, I just went with it. I felt I was too far in at that point.

But I’m saying it here and now.

I am not married to the love of my life J.

Will we get married? Yes

Why aren't we? Because we would rather focus on having a baby.

Will we have a ceremony with all the bells and whistles? Over.My.Dead.Body

We will someday elope and it will be romantic and quiet and exactly what we've always wanted. But for now we live in our little house with our two dogs and a cat hoping for a baby. My dream is to get married with our two best friends as witnesses then go to a Bru.ins game with 'Just Married' on the back of our jersey's. I know you can roll your eyes now.......

Nothing more romantic than Bru.ins hockey!

Sub.ban is such a bitch. Get him March.and!

Shell Shocked

Yesterday was our post-op, aka WTF, appointment with Dr.T. From the report there were no genetic abnormalities with the twins.

This was definitely a HUGE relief to us. It was also frustrating because we have no reason as to why they didn't make it. Dr. T seems to think there was some kind of "damage" to them when they were thawed.

What does that mean?

The embryologist was tossing our little blasts around in the lab like they were raisinettes?

Somewhere in there between no genetic issues and thyroid levels she threw in that they were boys.

They were boys.

The twin boys that I have imagined all my life came and went without me ever meeting them. That shook me. I just sat there shell shocked after that. My only other contribution from then on was ridiculous bobble head impressions every 10 seconds or so to make sure she knew I was still sitting there.

I didn't anticipate this piece of information. I'm not sure why. I knew they were able to tell but I didn't think she'd share said information. I bawled my eyes out the hour ride home.

But even with this news there was still no definitive answer as to why we lost them. Which leaves us waiting for CD1 so I can schedule an HSG. Oh what fun! Nothing like getting an incredibly painful procedure after your D&C.

Dr.T wants be sure there isn't any retained tissue that will affect conception in the future. I'm bitching about it because it hurts but I can definitely see the reason behind it and I’m thankful she's doing it.

Once we get the all clear from the HSG we'll be waiting on CD1 part deux to start meds for an FET. No new plans for the FET. Pretty much what we had in place before I realized I was indeed preggo. We're transferring 3 blasts, adding acupuncture, and closely monitoring my thyroid.

3 blasts....

Never really sounded like a lot until I typed it here. Hmm...Maybe I’ll call Dr.T back on that one.

 I'm sure we won't end up with 3 because our snow babies don't tend to tolerate the thaw but I’m not sure I'm comfortable with that number. Not because I’m afraid to have 3 babies, I would love that like this fat kid loves cake, but because I don't want to make my pregnancy even more high risk than it already is and risk losing 3 babies just because I was becoming impatient with the lovely world of ART.

Don't get me wrong with almost 2 years of IF treatments under our belts I am legitimately impatient but I will never be willing to risk my baby’s health. I'm also about done with losses.
Just throwing that into the universe.

Dear Universe,

I've reached my limit for miscarriages so please be kind and stop sending them my way. Actually, how about you do away with such nonsense all together. K? THANKS!!
Love,
Patty

Please keep a fellow blogger in your warm thoughts, vibes, and prayers. She just recently found out her little bean no longer had a heartbeat. She and her husband have been fighting the good fight for 4 years and deserved that baby more than anything. Give her some love here .

Working On 'Me'...

The holidays have come to a close. Well for me anyway. All of my friends and family are still off today. Celebrating the last vacation day by eating good food, drinking cold beer, and watching hockey. Me...I'm reading blogs all day and pretending to work.

Next week I'll be starting an externship. I'm currently in sales. Although I'm pretty decent at it, if I do say so myself, I LOATHE it. No one likes a sales person. I for one become so uncomfortable with sales people that I have hid down many an isle in stores, dove behind cars, and pretended not to hear them altogether.

You would think being in the field would make me sympathetic to my fellow sales comrades but it doesn't. I just get so uncomfortable and embarrassed for them. Especially if they are bad at it. Oh dear lord. I could just die. I'm the type of girl that cannot watch the Ameri.can Ido.l auditions because the amount of embarrassment I feel for them makes it an extremely uncomfortable experience for me.

But I've digressed.

Before we lost the bump in May '09 I was a veterinary OR nurse at an animal shelter. It was my life’s work. There wasn't a day that went by where I didn't mind going to work. We worked four 10 hour days and I would go in on my day off just to get my fix a leg up. 98% of my patients were pediatric. Yes folks, PUPPIES AND KITTENS. Does it get better?!

But when we lost the bump I left. We felt that the constant exposure to anesthesia wasn't something we wanted to worry about while TTC. I know there are plenty of medical professionals that work in OR's and around anesthesia on their day-to-day and still bare children but I felt strongly about my decision and so did J.

I never returned to the veterinary field after that. I had no desire to work in general practice and the other shelters in the area weren't 'no kill' so that was out of the question. So I returned to my sales job that I worked summers at out of high school. (I swear it isn’t as lame as it sounds. I'm not selling cotton candy at that fair.)

In September I signed up for a certification class that will allow me to work in the medical field per diem while I'm going back to school for nursing. I've made the switch to 'people medicine'. Something I've always known I could do but I much preferred my biting patients to speaking ones. Or biting and speaking ones...

Since leaving the veterinary field I've had a HUGE hole in my life. I thought that because I was leaving for the greater good of having a baby that we would actually have one and I would again be full filled. Well the baby is still quite elusive and I'm done putting my life on hold. It's a really scary liberating feeling actually.

I’m getting back to the old me people. Look out!

                                                 Wishing I still had that tan too!