Wow!

Tonight I read to the boys from a collection of Disney stories the chapter on "Alice In Wonderland", I had forgotten just what a crazy movie that is! I read it and when I was done Jakey asked, "What in the world is up with that girl's dreams? I'd be terrified, the queen says 'Off with her head!'" I agree, wow, kinda freaky. Anyhow Jakey wants to watch the movie now, I think I should rent it when Kevin's home so we can stifle our laughter together at what drugs the author was smoking when he wrote "Alice In Wonderland". What a crazy story!

Is anyone going to see The Nativity? I told Kevin that when we go out the weekend before Christmas to do our Christmas shopping and have a date that I want to go see that movie...it seems like a good one.

Justin is OBSESSED with the baby Jesus in our nativity. I find him carrying it around with him ALL THE TIME. He's singing to it, rocking it, and he tells me "Shhhh Mommy! Baby Jesus has to grow up so He can be our Savior!" At dinner, he asked me if I had fed Jesus and given him milk so he could grow up and " 'tone for us". NOTHING is cuter than his little baby Jesus obsession, but man, worrying where the little glass Boy has gone makes me crazy! But so far he takes very good care of "Baby Jesus". I don't think it's ever occured to him until this year that we are celebrating the birth of Jesus, or that Jesus was ever even a baby, cause it took me almost two days to convince him that Joseph was NOT Jesus (the clothes I think).

Someone tell me what to do

I have a goiter, um it's like my thyroid is enlarged - other than that I'm no help in defining goiter, ok? So I have a goiter and this was found via cat scan in August. Then an ultrasound, which recommended that I should have the Thyroid swallow test thingy done (You swallow a radioactive pill and they take pics of your thyroid to determine it's function, etc.) BUT, you can't have this test done until 90 days after a test like a CT scan where you have the iodine or whatever it is they use in CT scans injected into your blood stream.

Ok so now it's approx 90 days later right? My family dr was not going to medicate my thyroid but did not really explain why, just that after this test he would. My OB/GYN's opinion was "why the heck not? I'll write the rx myself, you need to have your hormones under control." So I chose to go with my ob/gyn's answer. So I changed family dr's cause I don't really care for the one I was seeing and he says "I agree with your OB/GYN - let him treat it, but I'll go ahead and order that swallow test for you." Never mentions, maybe he didn't realize, although he knew I am taking Synthyroid, that I would have to go off Synthyroid for 1 month before the test.

Now this is not a test you can do while pregnant, so when I got pg I just took it as a sign this would be a test we'd just have to do another time. Now I'm not pregnant. Due to the holidays and my having to get off the Synthyroid for 30 days, I can't have the test done until Jan 3rd. I could TTC (not actively, we're just not going to use birth control this month, of course) and if I got pg just cancel this test....but there is NO WAY I will even ovulate without the synthyroid, not to mention how HORRIBLE I'm going to feel. My hair falls out, I'm tired, I gain weight, my skin is dry, I'm really cold, it's NOT fun. And now that I feel so much better I don't want to go back to feeling like crud!

So now what do I do? I have to stop the Synthyroid on Dec 5th if I'm going to have the test done. I have a dr's appt that day so I might just go ahead and bring it up with him. But I lean towards, why are we doing this? We know my thyroid doesn't work because I'm on thyroid meds. Your thyroid doesn't just start producing TSH, you can have a thyroid that produces too much get better and start producing the right amount, but I simply DO NOT MAKE the hormones, hence the synthetic hormones I am on. Can't we just monitor this thing with u/s? (the goiter) I just don't want to feel that awful ever again.

So what would you do?

How are you?

People, friends, call and ask me this alot. Especially today. And what do I say? "Oh great since my baby died." "Fine." I'm NOT fine. I'm mad. And I'm sad. And I don't care about how I'll "know why this happened later" right now I am just angry. I'm not a willing student in forming my character right now, I just want what I want and for it to work out. I just want a stinking baby. So badly.

I was watching Dr. Phil yesterday and he had these twin crack addicts on and the one is pregnant and supposedly sober although the previews for the next show with these two on show her shooting up into her toes, this show did show her smoking. So, how is it fair? How is it that she doesn't suffer from infertility from being a homeless hooker strung out on crack and heroin, but I do? And she doesn't suffer a miscarriage even though she smokes, drinks and does drugs during her pregnancy. It's like, what gives? Then I went to the Dr. Phil website, surely he had done an episode on pregnancy loss or infertility, not really. No one wants to talk about that, it doesn't make good television I'm sure.

My mom wants too far into my business, she wants to take me for my hysteroscopy and I'd rather her not. I don't need her asking my dr questions or hearing his answers to my questions. I just want my cruddy body to remain somewhat my secret, yk? And I know if she drove me she'd want to sit in and hang out and look at my uterus and no thanks, I don't even want Kevin in there staring at my empty uterus, heck I don't want to be in there staring at my empty uterus. It's like we're going to some play where none of the actor's are going to show up, we'll just look at the stage to make sure it's shaped right and looks good for when the actor's actually do get there, but surely this doesn't require an audience right? Most people don't look at their uterus' in this way so I have a hard time exposing mine to everyone for them all to see. But then I might just be getting a bit neurotic in my thinking, like anyone actually cares what my uterus looks like.

I feel like crud. I should have just opted for the surgery just to get this over, but I want to hold out, I want to do this naturally. Mostly though, I just want to not be going through this.

A perfectly formed 6w3d baby with no heartbeat. I'm supposed to be 7 weeks. Apparently this is what I got for Thanksgiving.

My doctor suggests not doing a d&c because of the possible scar tissue that could come from it and that I'd probably have to wait a few cycles after a d&c but not after a natural miscarriage. I go for another ultrasound next Monday to make sure everything has passed and if it has, I'm having a hysteroscopy. My HSG is next Tuesday. I shouldn't have to do any of this. I'm so angry.

So guilty

I have so much guilt. On Friday I spotted a tiny bit after going on a really long hike. On Saturday it had stopped but I didn't really slow down, thinking everything will be ok and I need to have more fun with the boys before we go back, and so I started spotting again. Decided to come home Saturday night when it would not let up, started really bleeding on Sunday. So now I'm going for my ultrasound today, probably to see nothing.

I should have done the ultrasound last week, at least then I could have seen my baby before it died. I wanted to have a nice relaxing Thanksgiving, and I totally over did it, and my baby paid the price. I feel so guilty. I shouldn't have hiked, I shouldn't have picked up Justin or my suitcase. I should have scheduled my ultrasound for last week, I should have done more, been monitored more closely.

And now I'm just sad, and guilty. My ultrasound is at 10:30 and I don't think I can bear to look at an empty uterus.

Please, not first thing in the morning!

It makes me NUTS when the very first thing my boys do with eachother is start fighting. More than anything else, I think that there should be a ban on being mean until like 10 am or something. "he did this" "he did that" is the most ANNOYING thing ever the second your eyes open in the morning.

So, anyone know anything about dogs? Ours has been throwing up? I don't know what to do with it, I've totally had it though! Not only will he not potty outside, now he's gonna puke inside too? Ugh, gross. And he's a tiny little thing, Justin tortures him daily, but yesterday Jakey went to lay on the floor and the dog was about a foot away from him, the dog hopped up ran over and growled in Jakey's face and bit him on the eye area of his face. It scared Jakey more than anything but really irritated me that he did that. And he kinda freaks me out at night by barking at the sprinklers when they come on...sigh, anyhow Kev is gonna have to do something with his dog, I can't handle this potty training refusal much longer...I think we should get him a cat litter box, he's a really small dog and always will be.

Kevin unexpectedly had to go to Arizona yesterday, he should be home by this evening though, so it's not too bad. Tomorrow Justin's going back to the dr for a recheck and then we'll finish getting ready and head out of town to the cabin for Thanksgiving.

Anyhow, most likely I won't get to update again until we get back from the cabin so -

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Remember Me?

Every. Stinking. Time. I log in since switching to the "beta" version of blogger, I have to log in. And Every. Stinking. Time. I click "Remember Me", why is this? Grrrrr.

Anyhow, my ultrasound is next Monday at 10:30. I decided that I wanted to have a good holiday and not be upset by any bad news or whatever, so I made the appointment for after Thanksgiving. Last night I woke up twice with Charley Horses....ouch!

So this weekend I bought Justin some Spiderman slippers. This morning he finally put them on and the dog starts attacking the big Spiderman head at the top of his toes. It was HILARIOUS, the dog growling and barking and biting Justin's slippers and Justin was SO UPSET that the dog was attacking his feet! Finally the dog pushed Justin to the ground and wrestled his slippers off of his feet and ran off with them. Justin was NOT happy! I was laughing so hard I was crying...LOL When I pulled it together I went and got the slippers from the dog for him, but man it was so funny!

Yesterday we went to my friend's baby's baptism at their church (Catholic). My boys were obsessed with the little kneeling thingy attached to the pew in front of us. And were just staring at the priest and everyone around them who kept saying the other part of the service. They both got scared when people started crossing themselves. Jakey did notice however that during the actual baptism they say almost the exact same words as we do. It was good for him I think cause he said, "this church is only part right." EXACTLY. All those FHE's are finally paying off!

In other noninteresting news....a friend asked me to babysit today while she went to her 6 week checkup...and so I said I would. And I got up and started cleaning my house because babysitting and her coming over here highly motivated me, and then an hour into my cleaning she calls and tells me school was cancelled at the high school her husband works at so he's going to keep the kids, while I'm glad because her kids are a handful (most are) I wish she had waited one more hour to tell me so my house would have been that much cleaner - because now I am not motivated at all!!! Sigh, but I do want to come home to a clean house when we get home from the cabin, so I better clean. And I have a ton of laundry to do....sigh.

Well guess what....

I threw up! Isn't that great? Still nothing has happened...I'm just waiting for my u/s and I have refused further bloodwork...so it was a waiting game...and I definately "feel" better about things now. (Well in actuality I feel like crud, but that's ok, I'll take it!) When my dr called I told him how I felt and that there had been no bleeding and he said "hmm, maybe there were two and one didn't make it or something to explain those numbers?" So maybe that's it? I really don't know, but so far so good, now to get to the u/s and see a hb!

I have a question....

If you go to a non-members house for dinner, do you bless your food? (Assuming they're not religious and don't bless their food)

Finally Friday

Yesterday I took Justin to the dr about his excessive eating and drinking, his urine looks good so the dr thinks that he got into a habit of eating/drinking a certain amount during a growth spurt and now he's just used to that and we need to just retrain him to eat acceptable amounts at acceptable times of the day.

Last night, some friends and I went to the Taste Of Home Cooking Show. It was alot of fun, except my one friend insisted on bringing her 9 month old, and he was NOT a fan. He really was just too old to be expected to sit in his stroller like a little baby and not make noise during something like this....he should have been left with the sitter like his 3 year old brother was. Drove me nuts, can you tell? Cause we told her that would happen, and she didn't listen...sigh....anyhow so we ended up not going out to eat afterwards because her son was driving us all nuts by that point. But I did get some really good ideas for some meals that don't look too incredibly expensive or difficult.

Today I'm taking Justin to the park. Jakey and Kevin are going to go run errands while Justin and I relax at the park with our friends. Then this afternoon I have to make 5 boxes of instant mashed potatoes for the ward dinner. And figure out some kind of dessert.

Anyhow, fun stuff...huh? LOL I feel like I totally don't have much to say right now....I'm just moving through every day. I chose not to have Betas done this week and while I know I"m much less stressed I'm still worried...but so far...I have not lost the baby physically. And I am supposed to get a phone call today to tell me when the radiology place can get me in for a u/s next week. I would have liked Friday but with Thanksgiving and going out of town that's not possible...so, I'll just have to hope that anything after 6 weeks is going to show something on the screen....

Well better go get dressed for the park...I know it's not cold to some, but today it's only going to be in the upper 60's and that is SUPER cold to me! So I need to go wash my sweater....

Totally random but...

I couldn't find my shoe, Buddy always takes my shoes and runs around the house with them (doesn't chew them up, just takes them). So today I can't find my shoe, I ask Justin, "Have you seen my shoe?" He runs over to Buddy and he says "Dang it dog! What'd you do with Mama's shoe!!??!!" Hands on hips, staring at the dog....LOL....um yeah....he might be a little like me. Then he throws his hands in the air and says (very exasperated at this point) "Ugh, now I have to look for it! Wait a minute, can't go til we find it...ugh!" Hmmm...yep that's pretty much exactly what I say everyday because Buddy takes me shoe every day.

2 Year Olds

I think Justin's trying to make me crazy. He's at this phase where it's like "what in the world do I do with you?" If you give him a nap he won't go to bed at night, if you don't give him a nap he falls asleep by 6:00 pm wakes up at 9:00 pm and won't go back to bed til midnight. So what do you do then?

He asks for food ALL DAY LONG. I make him two eggs for breakfast, then he says he wants more so I make him two more....he eats those and says he wants more, two more - he says more! Surely a 2 year old cannot eat more than 6 eggs, well we found out today - in fact, they can, 7 is his max. My child eats more than a half a dozen eggs for breakfast...does that seem excessive to you?

He asks for drinks all day long - and pees like CRAZY. We had to put him back in diapers because he was so stressed out with going pee like 30 times during the day. At night he started peeing through his diaper even about every two hours. And I hate to give him more to drink so he can just pee more but he's literally screaming all the time for a drink. So what do you do?

I buy him clothes, he outgrows them before they've even been washed! I swear it's true! He completely skips some sizes in shoes and clothes cause he grows that fast over night. On Sunday he was standing next to the kids who will be Sunbeams in January and he's taller then every single one of them, and not by like an inch, by like SEVERAL inches.

I've survived this phase before, with Jakey, but I don't remember it ever being like this....maybe it's just wishful thinking but really, I don't remember him going through this phase when he was 2. He was also alot shorter than Justin and weighed a ton less than Justin at 2. And when he PT'ed he never went back, I had to with Justin for my sanity - the amount of peeing is insane.

Any advice? Anyone else got a two year old going through these same things? It just seems - extreme, to me. I called the dr's office even cause it just seems REALLY excessive in all areas - but the nurse hasn't called me back yet. Anyone else's 2 year old eat 7 eggs for breakfast, drink 1/2 gal of milk, 2 gals of water, and 2 cups of juice per day? Or go through 10-15 diapers a day? This kid is killing me, and I just want to know if it's normal.

I think I know what to say now!

From now on when old ladies drone on and on and on about my needing to have another baby I'm going to say "I'm so glad you brought this up! We're having infertility issues! What do you want to talk about first - my uterine lining, my latest procedure, the amount of shots I give myself daily, or Kevin's sperm count?"

Well maybe not, but I should!

Sigh, anyways, in happier news...a few weeks ago I was released from my calling as the 2nd counselor in Primary, and then a week later I was recalled to 1st counselor in Primary....big change...LOL Well it is a new president so that's different, I'm just glad I wasn't called to be Primary President! LOL But I'm still over achievement days and our AD leader is moving so I'm going to be actually doing AD for a bit, but I think it'll be fun, it's my favorite part of my calling - cause we know sharing time and finding someone to go into nursery when the nursery leader doesn't show up is not up there on that list! LOL

Jakey's teacher is coming over for her quarterly grading visit in a few minutes...we were only enrolled for like 2 days of the quarter and didn't have our curriculum yet so I have some worksheets we did during those two days and we're just going to hope for the best....

Anyhow, better get Justin back in bed...(see I am in a better mood now...somewhat...)

Sigh...

I could post some of the happy stuff going on in my life, and there are things that are happy, trust me, but today I just wanna blog about the not happy, ok?

Saturday was our ward's Super Saturday. I did my projects and my friend who just had a baby was struggling with juggling the baby and finishing hers so I sat by her and picked him up and held him for a bit while she worked on her projects. That's when it started....

"Dawn, you know, holding babies will give you that 'itch', now you're going to want one!"

"You are a little behind, aren't ya hon? You only have the two right?"

"How old's your youngest? Almost 3? He's not even a baby anymore! Time for you to have another one!"

"Don't drink the water the rest of these ladies are drinking, they're all getting pregnant left and right around here!"

and finally the true Salt In The Wound remark, "Did you not hear the part about being fruitful? You guys need to work on that, only 2 kids!"

My friend sat there wincing with me at every comment, tossing me sideways glances, occasionally stopping to lean over and whisper in my ear, "are you going to be ok?" I felt like I had been whipped, by 10 old ladies making a craft, Merry Christmas to me. And what did I do? Nothing....respect your elders and all, I did NOTHING. I excused myself when Christian had fallen asleep and put him in his carseat and ran to the bathroom and bawled.

It's so hard. I just want to scream, "Shut up! You're hurting me!" But I don't, I just sit there. I don't want one more person to sit there and feel sorry for me, I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me, but especially not these little old ladies, I just want them to think for just one second - MAYBE SHE CAN'T HAVE MORE CHILDREN. What a thought. I don't ask ANYONE when they're going to have another child anymore, ever. It's rude, it's none of my business, and it can be the most hurtful question ever to an infertile couple.

Anyhow, I'll end my rant now, I'm just in so much pain...I just let myself think it for one second - one thought of "next July I'll have a baby..." and poof! it was gone, the hope, the dream, the baby, all of it. And it's just NOT fair.

My numbers aren't doubling, they aren't high, and the pregnancy is likely not going to make it. I have a u/s in two weeks, if I haven't started to bleed by then, and call the dr if I start bleeding between now and then to schedule more testing...now he's starting to wonder about my uterus as an explaination for my infertility and trouble staying pregnant.

I knew I shouldn't hope too much for this, it was "too good to be true."

So far...

....this morning, the dr called, then later the nurse called, and then later the receptionist called....they were all super excited to see my results! Um, me too. LOL But I'm still very cautious about getting overly excited - hearing the excitement in their voices helped me to feel very excited. And then of course reading the responses from you all (thanks :) ) made me a bit more excited and then hearing my lab results and taking another HPT and seeing two lines, the second getting more and more dark, made me a little more excited. I think the only thing that would excite me more is seeing a heartbeat on a u/s screen.

They changed my appt on Friday from an appt with the dr to an appt with the nurse to do my initial OB paperwork...stinks but it gets ya the free OB care from my insurance company, so what can you do. At least it's private, last time I was pregnant it was a group class and you had to learn stupid stuff that after baby #1 you already know - not to take out the cat litter box, etc.

Whew!

Homeschooling has been occupying a ton of our time! It's kind of like going back to work, full time. I spend a few hours at night reviewing his lessons and gathering the materials for the next day, then I teach him for 4-6 hours a day. But, we're very happy with this. Justin loves having his brother around all day, and Jakey likes that we're going at his pace, not anyone else's and seems to be learning so much!

The other day we were at an impass, I could not teach him to spell 8. I would have him repeat the letters over and over and over again and then spell any other word, then back to 8 again and he would spell it E-T. I was ready to just strangle him LOL, what in the world could I do to teach him to spell E-I-G-H-T????? Finally, it came to me! I had him roll out clay and form each letter of the word E-I-G-H-T and voila! Now he can spell 8 on command! That success, getting to see him learn something from beginning to finish, is why this is so awesome!

The other fun thing is teaching him inflection in his voice based on punctuation of the sentences he's reading. It's so fun! His favorite is the exclamation point, he likes to make everything sound excited LOL. (I guess it's mine too....based on how I type.)

Justin has been pretty good about coloring, drawing, doing worksheets, playing with Clay, building with legos, doing puzzles, or file folder games while we do Math and English and he really gets into the Science, History, Art, and Music classes. We did history today and Justin can correctly identify North America on the globe - yay!

In other news, I'm pregnant, for now....I'm very cautiously optomistic. I am scheduled for a hysteroscopy on Friday and I'm keeping the appt because it can either be my first OB appt or my hysteroscopy appt if something happens between now and then. I'm kind of at the point where I'll believe I'm having a baby in July when I'm holding baby in July. Kevin says I should just enjoy it, I'm too scared to enjoy it.

Anyhow, that's about it for an update from us...things are good here. How about the rest of you? (That still read.... ;) )