August 28, 2009
Bathroom update (and weekend part 2)
As you all know, S and I are on the brink of a bathroom remodel and we’ve been doing things little by little so that we’re ready when our helpers arrive. S has been itching to begin demo on the wall between the bathroom and guest room (we’ll be building a new one three feet further out), but I made him promise that he wouldn’t do anything until after our friends came over last Saturday night.
So after sleeping off our mini-hangovers Sunday morning, 😉 I started cooking breakfast and S disappeared upstairs. All of a sudden, I heard a loud BANG!, ran upstairs…and found S, in his boxers, demolishing the guest room wall (at 8:30 in the morning)!! I was like, “Umm hello? What about a drop cloth…mask…shoes?? And couldn’t you wait until after breakfast?!? Let’s just say the day went downhill from there.
But really, this is a perfect example of how different S and I are, and why it takes both of us to make a fully functional household. If I had my way, I would wait until the last possible minute to begin demo, so as to reduce the amount of time I was living in a construction zone (but also just because I’m a procrastinator). On the other hand, when S gets an idea in his head, he begins right then and there, without much thought to the “process” (or the aftermath!). If it was up to me, nothing would get done, and if up to him, we’d be living in a war zone!
Some pictoral evidence from last weekend’s destruction:
S hard at work 😉
Looking out through where the medicine cabinet USED to be!
The view from the guest room
(This is the wall that will be knocked down…)
Oh well…all’s well that ends well…for now! 😉
August 27, 2009
It’s the little things…
Before our bathroom renovation can take place, we also needed to replace the water line from our house to the street. Our pipes are so old that we literally had NO water pressure – i.e. if the sprinkler was on, the kitchen faucet wouldn’t turn on…if the washing machine was running, you couldn’t run a bath…etc. We knew back when we moved in that we’d eventually have to get it fixed, but there were a lot more pressing things (hello, roof?), so the pipes got put on the back burner. Now that we’re going to have a big fancy whirlpool tub 😉 we figured we should probably have the water pressure to fill it!
So the pipes were replaced yesterday and S got a call around noon, saying that they were done, that everything went great…but that we still had NO water pressure. Apparently the water flowed fine up to the water meter, so the problem had to be in the house. (P.S. This was post-$2,000-pipe replacement.) S asked them to take a look at some of the internal plumbing and luckily, the first pipe and valve they replaced fixed the problem!
When I got home, S and I ran around opening all the faucets, watering the lawn, and doing the dishes – ALL AT THE SAME TIME! And then went out for Chinese food to celebrate. LOL! We haven’t been this excited since we bought a piece of remnant linoleum and a folding table and called it a laundry room! ;-P
August 26, 2009
My fairy godfather
In preparation for my appointment with the new RE in a few weeks, I called last week and left a message asking to speak with my “old” RE (he was on vacation all week). I was kind of worried about it because it felt a lot like breaking up with somebody (!), but I wanted him to know that I was going elsewhere before he was notified of my request for medical records. Purely on the basis of location, a change was necessary, but I still felt badly about it.
I just got off the phone with him and I feel SO much better. Not only did he completely understand my need for a change, but he said that they are the best fertility center in Boston and that my appointment is with the best doctor they have!! He told me to make sure they know about my history, specifically:
— I have PCOS, with high testosterone and larger-than-normal ovaries
— I “dramatically” overrespond to fertility meds
— I was previously hospitalized for internal bleeding after an ER (maybe check for bleeding conditions?)
I also told him that I had heard that center was considered “conservative” and asked what he thought. He said yes, possibly, but that it is better to be somewhere that will closely monitor me, because I am essentially considered “high risk.” That made me feel good – not that I’m high risk (although I’m not surprised, I’m type A about everything else, why not be an overachiever here too? ;-)) – but that he truly felt (and told me!) that I was in exactly the right place.
He closed the conversation by wishing me well and making me promise to follow up with him, once I’m PREGNANT! What a sweetie… 😉
August 25, 2009
My first BABY purchase!
Okay, I may have just lost my mind, but I just made my first baby-related purchase – a super cute Vera Bradley diaper bag on sale from Ruelala!
I don’t know whether it’s good or bad karma, but take that universe! This is the FIRST time I’ve been willing to buy ANYTHING, so maybe that’s a sign?? 😉
August 24, 2009
Weekend update, part I
So it turns out I wasn’t just grouchy, I actually was sick! I stayed home Thursday and Friday and did some much needed resting – wasn’t even feeling well enough to read, just napped and watched TV.
The weekend was eventful for other reasons. Saturday morning S and I went to a bathroom showroom to decide on our tub and vanity…and let’s just say that we weren’t speaking by the time we got home. I’ll leave the part in the middle to your imagination.
Once home though, we noticed that Bailey’s right eye was dripping and goopy and swollen, so I took her to the “emergency” vet’s office. Three hours and $250 later, this was Bailey.
They think that she must have gotten a bug bite above her eye, and in the course of scratching at that, actually scratched her cornea. S thought I was crazy for bringing her right away, but the doctor told me that I did the right thing – that eye problems are nothing if you catch them early, but that they can turn into BIG problems if let untreated. Vindicated! 😉 Anyways, we had company over Saturday night and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening trying to prevent Bailey from crashing into things with her cone, lol!
I think I’ll leave it at that. The events of Sunday really deserve their own post, and some pictorial evidence, so look for that tomorrow. 😉
August 19, 2009
Call me Oscar
Man, am I a grouch today! Woke up with a sinus headache and a sore back, and came “this close” to calling in sick. I’m annoyed with work and not busy enough to be distracted, and I have SO much that needs to be done at home! Laundry, bills, cooking my new batch of herbs (a two+ hour process), bulldozing (I mean, cleaning) our office…I just want to be hoooome. 😦
August 18, 2009
Disappointment, drama, and delays
Hi all, sorry I went MIA again. I got some frustrating news towards the end of last week, and couldn’t bring myself to write a post that didn’t just scream “why meee?”
Very long story short, due to several insurance changes at work, we are now completely self-pay for any future infertility treatments. A year ago, my company was sold and I went from health insurance that covered infertility treatments at 100% (a law in MA) to insurance with a $5,000 lifetime maximum. HR told me to “hang in there” until the end of the fiscal year (June 2009) when they would be switching insurance plans and would “hopefully” have better coverage for infertility. Not only did that not happen, but they didn’t switch plans at all! I was expecting to have another $5,000 to work with, at the bare minumum, but now have NOTHING!
This is the main reason that S and I have been on a “break” for the past year – doing acupuncture, taking herbs, and making crazy diet changes – in the hopes that we’d have more financial resources at our disposal at this point in time. Now we have to come up with $10K out of thin air, or delay our next cycle, AGAIN!
Out of necessity last week, I wrote a big long email to my boss asking for a raise, and also called my former boss to see if there were any openings at her company. Now I have to decide whether it’s worth looking for a new job and potentially delaying treatments for at least three months after starting (so that I’d be eligible for paid maternity leave!), although I really feel like it would be bad form to start a new job and then get pregnant, lol. Or do I fight with my company for a raise equivalent to at least one IVF cycle? It’s just ludicrious that a company based upon educating the youth of America doesn’t support people trying to create more of those youth! Ugh…!
August 11, 2009
Never a dull moment
Thought I’d switch gears today, and bring you all up to speed on the other things going on in our life. Besides preparing for our next (and hopefully last!) IVF cycle, we’re also getting ready to remodel our bathroom. For someone who is a serious procrastinator, and takes FOREVER to make decisions, this whole process has been agonizing. 😛 After much debate, and viewing of samples, S and I finally decided on the design/color scheme – white tiles (4×4 on the walls, and 8×8 on the floors), up to the mid-way point on the wall, with a pale gray paint above. We’re also going to have a tile border that looks just like a chair rail (at chair rail height around the room), with 4″s of this glass tile border (under the chair rail, and above the white tile).
Our house is very traditional (a colonial built in the ’20’s), so with all of our design choices, we try to balance traditional elements with a slightly more contemporary look. Our house also has painted white trim throughout (we didn’t do it, I promise!), so we thought we’d stick with the white look. Plus, with this neutral palette, I can change up the shower curtain and towels and not feel stuck with a particular “look” for the next 20 years, lol!
The next major decisions that need to happen are the vanity, sink, and countertop, and then we have to decide on the (whirlpool ;-)) tub. Before we confirm all that though, S informed me that he has to cut a hole in the guest room wall (that we’re planning to move out to expand the bathroom) to confirm that it’s not a load-bearing wall, cut another hole in our future nursery wall to figure out exactly where the bathtub drain needs to be, and tear up some of the floor tiles to figure out what’s underneath. We also have a mystery box at one end of the tub, that we’ve been afraid to tear in to, but that will also need to be investigated before we make our final plans. S is planning to do all of these things little by little, so that if we run into issues, we can fix them before we line up friends and family to come help us put things back together. But that means that I’ll gradually be living in a construction zone…! S claims that he’ll keep it “neat” and that we’ll only need to move out for about a week, but I’m anticipating wanting to run away much sooner than that!
Besides the bathroom remodel, we also may be adopting a kitten in just under two weeks! A friend from work is fostering a litter and I went to visit and fell in love. We’ve been wanting to get another animal, but don’t think we can commit to training a second puppy with everything else that is going on, but a kitten might be just the thing. What do you think of this little guy? Isn’t he adorable??
Finally, I thought I’d share a picture from our ride up to Maine last weekend. This was after we’d finally got off the highway and out of traffic, and Bailey decided she needed some fresh air. 😉
Hope you’re all having a good week!
August 10, 2009
Water, sand, and sun…
Just back from a fantastic weekend up in Maine at my family’s cottage. (Cottage is actually a pretty generous descriptor for this particular building, but the fact that the water is 20 feet from the front door more than makes up for it.) I had a great time with my family and Bailey, reading and playing ball, while S worked on the upholstery for our next-door neighbor’s houseboat. (Don’t feel badly for him…S would rather be working any day. ;-))
Not too much to report, except that I thought I’d share a funny story from last summer up at the lake. This was right after we had gone through the first round of IVF…we were sitting around the campfire with some friends, when suddenly the fire started throwing off a lot of sparks. S says “watch out for the embryos!” and then looked at me horrified, LOL! I was like “I think you mean embers, right?” And both of us pretended like it was just a normal slip of the tongue, when in fact we had been living and breathing eggs and embryos for weeks! Poor S, lol!!
August 7, 2009
One…or two…or one…
So now that the countdown has officially begun for our next IVF cycle, I’m back to doing what I do best…worrying and overthinking. 😛 I’m actually feeling very positive about this cycle, but there is definitely a lot to think about. One of the biggest decisions that we’ll have to make with the next cycle is whether to transfer one or two embryos. With the past two cycles, only one embryo made it far enough to be transferred each time, so S and I never had to worry about that decision. Going forward, I am hoping that with a new protocol we’ll have much better egg and embryo quality and that we’ll hopefully have the option of transferring more than one embryo (and maybe even have a couple left over to freeze for later! ;-)).
When S and I started down the road to IF treatments, we discussed and acknowledged the fact that twins were a possibility (especially with Clomid, the medication that I was on initially, which occasionally causes more than one egg to be released). However, accepting the fact that twins are a possibility is much different than consciously deciding to transfer two embryos. Generally, the recommendation is one embryo for women in their 20’s, two in your 30’s, and three in your 40’s, however, each time, you have the option to override the doctor’s recommendation (to a point…no option of octuplets, lol!).
There are also clearly pros and cons to each option. If you transfer one, the only two possibilities are one baby or no baby. When transferring two, there is a built-in safety net in the event that one embryo does not “take,” but if both survive, twins are actually very risky. You don’t hear about it as much as with triplets or other higher-order multiples, but there are a lot of complications with twins, for both the mother and the babies.
At this point, S is really excited and ready to be a father, and is leaning towards transferring two. (Especially because years ago, his mother went to see a psychic who said that the next babies in the family would be twins, lol. ;-)) However, I’m still not sure. Here are my thoughts:
- Pro – we could have two babies for the price of one!
- Con – health risks for me and the babies
- Pro – if one doesn’t survive, we’d still have one baby for our “trouble”
- Con – two babies would take twice as much money and effort
- Pro – no one would expect me to return to work if we had twins, right?! I mean, two daycare payments??
- Con – my mother might have to move in to help for a while, lol
- Pro – if we aren’t able to get pregnant again, I would be happy with two children (although I’ve always wanted four)
- Con – if we were able to get pregnant again, I wouldn’t want our next child to feel left out (so I’d clearly need to have two more! :-P), but who’s to say we’ll be able to get pregnant TWO more times??
I’m sure there are even more pros and cons that I’m not thinking of… For any of those out there that have been through this, what decision did you make? How did you decide? And did it work out like you had hoped??
Life by the Day 