Vegas Mommy

Away nearly a month?!

I am a horrible, horrible blogger. Everytime I sat down to blog, something came up. And I used to blog on my lunch on Wednesdays because my school didn't block Typepad. For some reason, it does now, so I have been forced to sit down and eat. (haha)

The past month has been full of birthday parties, stomach bugs, doctor's appointments, one mini-vacation for Mike and I, gymnastics classes, family visits, bathroom renovations, huge BBQs, and yearly planning for the next school year. I finally sat down with the calendar and rearranged some things to try to make life a little easier. Ainsley got tap shoes in the mail from my mother and it has been difficult to get her to take them off except, of course, when she wants to swim. So, I put gymnastics on hold and enrolled her in swim lessons and dance classes at the Rec. Center until summer is over. Two classes, both of which she is highly interested in, and half the price of gymnastics. Kill two birds with one stone. Then . . . the bathroom redo evolved into the double bathroom remodel. If you remember, we redid our Master bath last year, so we decided to totally overwhelm ourselves this time and do the guest bath AND Ainsley's bathroom. I am surprised that Mike hasn't thrown any large pieces of plumbing out the window, at this point. But . . . one is almost finished and the other should be done by this weekend. I promise pictures will follow . . .

The heat here had us stuck either in the backyard swimming or totally passed out inside for at least a week. The day my inside temperature on the car reached 114, my windshield cracked. Spent a pretty $200 on that because I have money laying around to do that kind of thing. (cough) Our first trip away from Ainsley was a lot of fun, but I had no idea how much I would actually miss her. I ached for her pretty much the entire time. Woke up at 6 am the morning we were driving back and told Mike we needed to grab a coffee and go. We made the 5 hour drive in 3.5 hours and I lathered her with kisses all weekend long. Apparently, she had a blast and didn't miss us one tiny bit. :-)

I also had the chance to take Ainsley to see Up. Maybe my hormones are a little out of whack with the impending massive-amount-of-medication I am getting ready to inject into my body, maybe I am just too sensitive, but I cried throughout most of the movie. It was absolutely . . . beautiful. We are going to go see it again this weekend since Mike missed it. Ainsley was captivated, too.

Okay! So, I am alive. Pictures coming soon. Countdown T-11 school days until I am done teaching this year and a few weeks away from the beginning of my first (and hopefully only) IVF cycle.

P.S. I don't often show pictures of Ainsley on here, for many very personal reasons, but I updated my profile pic to one a dear friend recently took of her. I will probably remove it soon, as I keep her pictures on a password-protected blog. But isn't she beautiful? I take no credit, she looks nothing like me. I always joke it is biology's way of proving Mike is her father. No other explanation! ;)

What's your favorite number? Because mine isn't THREE.

I know you are not going to believe me when I say this, but I got A BOX of formula delivered to my house yesterday. Now I am convinced that someone out there is purposely trying to make me jump off a bridge. Why don't they send Xanax samples in the mail, too?!?!

On a lighter note, I am slowly beginning to wind up my lessons for the year. I have two year-round schools and one nine-month school, so right now I am working Monday-Thursday, with Fridays off. With our upcoming two-day getaway and then a 4th of July BBQ we are hosting, I am thinking the end of July will get here before we know it.

Ainsley is growing like a weed. Her last doctor's appointment had her at about 40 inches tall and weighing in at 32 pounds. She is long and lean, like Mike I used to be before life caught up with us. I celebrated my 32nd birthday Sunday, but Ainsley was sporting a high fever, so we stayed at home, making one quick outing to get a shredded beef taco and pork salad from (Mmmmm . . . ) Cafe Rio. We have recently discovered that three is WORLDS MORE DIFFICULT than two. Who the hell made up the saying, "Terrible Twos" anyway?! I am starting to think that taking the Love and Logic class when Ainsley wasn't yet three was stupid on my part. Now I just want to revisit it.

I have composed a list of some of the things she is displaying below. Give me a shout-out for ways to handle the situations that have worked for you or at least tell me your 3-year old is doing the same things so I don't send her off to boarding school. (haha - kidding.)

1. She is one sassy-girl. She likes to try to argue her way out of things, say "no" or shake her head when we ask her to do something. It doesn't always happen, but it is starting to manifest itself more often.

2. It often takes us telling her to do something multiple times before she finally breaks down to do it. (Example: "Ainsley, could you please put the 400 books you took off the shelf back please?" (insert Ainsley pretending to be deaf) and then rinse and repeat.

3. If she doesn't want to do something, she will throw herself on the floor and whine. There are rarely tears, just general apathy.

4. She wants to do everything herself, but has suddenly decided there are some things she does NOT want to do anymore alone, like get on the potty. ("Mom, put me on the potty please! I have to pee!") ARGH!

5. Bedtime has suddenly become a time to do everything she can to keep us in the room longer. Our routine consists of bath, potty, drink of water, story, 2 songs, and kisses. She likes to include more drinks of water, more potty breaks, back-rubs, and the reassurance there is not a bee in her bed or a man in a yellow suit in her closet. (Don't ask me, I just live here.) I might include that she NEVER gets out of her bed once she is in it, which is lovely. She just calls for us or whines or doesn't. stop.expecting.us.to.come.back.in.

6. She has become whiny. I mentioned this earlier. Good Lord, child! What is with the whining?!? She has great manners when doing it, though, which makes it even more annoying.

7. Time-out still works for her and she hates the prospect of sitting in time out for 3 minutes. But we sometimes take away other things, like her favorite show on television, or her book before bed, and I feel like inside, it is wrong to do that. But I don't know what else to do that will work for her. I feel like time-outs should be for larger infractions. I have starting wondering if I am not doing enough GOOD things to tell her I appreciate her listening ears, her good days at school, etc. Is this a normal feeling?

Her teachers have expressed to me that while she is a great listener and relatively easy, she has her moments where she has a difficult time transitioning from one activity to another. My friend Kim and I were talking about it and I know it goes hand-in-hand with Ainsley's sometimes sensitivity to her environment. (If you don't remember, quick refresher: her need to be swaddled for 5 months, her sensitivity to noise and textures, her need to slowly adapt to a new setting, cannot do it too quickly or else she shuts down, etc.) I have read up on Sensory Integration Disorder and she does display some of those traits, but certainly not all of them.

I feel like I do a pretty decent job as a parent. But lately, Mike and I have been finding ourselves more frustrated at times because we conquer one battle with her and then boom! Onto the next one. Her bedtime comes and we are WORN OUT. And sadly, we aren't even with her all day!

So, I am looking forward to your thoughts. Look for my upcoming post, with pictures, of our bathroom #2 rennovation. Let's just say that someone put shampoo bottles in the windowsill that is above the shower and after months and months of condensation, it leaked down into the tile and  . . . . . mold. Granted, some of the moisture is probably from the previous tenants, but it is a bloody mess. I ripped most of the tile and insulation out yesterday on my own and have it down to framing. Looks like Ainsley is getting a new bathroom. :)

Babies, babies everywhere

One of my dearest friends, Kim, moved to Korea last year to take a position as a speech pathologist on the air force base in Seoul. If you remember me mentioning it before, her daughter Emily was one of Ainsley's BFFs. We have missed them terribly, but were overjoyed when she called to tell us that she would be coming home this summer. Baby #2 is due in July, another sweet girl, and I had already told Ainsley that she would get to see "her Emily" next week. :-)

It turned out that Kim ruptured her membranes this past weekend and they put her on hospital bedrest. After giving her steroids to develop the baby's lungs and medicine to keep her from contracting, her body finally fought back and said it is time to have the baby. She delivered last night at just under 32 weeks and the baby, Rachel Anna, is in the NICU. I haven't talked to Kim yet, but I am patiently waiting for my phone to ring so I can hear all about her new daughter. I hope both are okay.

This weekend, on my 32nd birthday, matter of fact, I am going to a shower for a coworker. She is having her third (and last) son. I think, as much as I want to ball my eyes out every.single.time I go to a shower, it is healthy for me to surround myself with the new joys in people's lives. I know there is a possibility that Ainsley may be our only child and I don't want to lose sight of the fact that she is absolutely the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me.

In Blogland, Heather welcomed her twins boys into the world after waiting FOREVER to add to her family. They are early, but seem to be holding their own. Erin is having a girl, which is wonderful news, since she already has three boys at home. Time to get some pink and purple stuff!! Another friend here just found out she is expecting baby #2. Her daughter was born a few days before Ainsley was and I love reading about all that Amelia is going through. (It is almost roughly the same thing Ainsley is going through, just thousands of miles away.) And something tells me I will be getting more pregnancy announcements soon from a few friends. :-)

With all of the impending births and new baby news, I sometimes have a momentary pity party and feel like my chest is on fire. But the world isn't going to stop on the account of one infertile woman. :-) Knowing that I am only a few weeks away from starting treatments that may eventually give us another baby is keeping me anxious, yet strangely calm. Last day of school for the summer: Tuesday, July 21st. Injectibles start sometime that week. And at the end of June, we are escaping for two days, just Mike and I, and taking our first overnight trip without Ainsley. I expect it will be refreshing, but we will probably miss the hell out of her.

Unwanted Mail

Dear Postmaster,

Recently, I have come to the realization that either you (or companies that help promote healthy pregnancies and healthy babies) are trying to kill me. Here is a lowdown of last week's mail:

Monday: power bill, Similac coupons, Babies R Us sale flyer

Tuesday: advertisements, water bill, more Similac coupons, Huggies coupons

Wednesday: Pampers sample diaper, coupon for 1/2 off a pregnancy massage

Thursday: advertisements, dental apt. reminder, envelope full of coupons for "your growing baby!!"

This must stop now or else I fear I will come unglued and begin putting fruit for you in my mailbox so you have a little treat at the end of the 100 degree day.

Sincerely,

Bitter Infertile

After Thursday, I began immediately throwing anything that looked baby-oriented into the recycle bin. Seriously?!?! I mean, I have a three year old!! Is there some weird unspoken law that states that once someone has a toddler, they are automatically registered to begin getting baby mail again because they *probably* are pregnant or have another one already? It is almost as bad as when I registered on one of those baby sites when I was pregnant with the baby-that-never-happened #1 and months after the miscarriage, even after canceling the emails, I would still get, "Today your baby is developing its lungs!" or "Has your morning sickness gone away? Congrats! You might be in the 3rd trimester!" UG.

I guess the best thing for me to do is actually save the coupons for the countless friends I have right now that are pregnant or just had a baby. I am just being pissy.

Playroom Updating

Here are a few pictures of Ainsley's playroom. Originally, the room was purple when we moved in. I really want it to be something I can upgrade as she gets older, as her interests change. And of course I wanted to pick a color that I could work with if we were lucky enough to have a boy. So, we repainted it a cream color with some leftover paint we had. I hung up a valance a while back that has bugs all over it. I still have a few framed pictures I am going to hang up of Ainsley and her friends and I also want to recover the sofa bed that is in there.

I found these shelves for $5 on sale and decided to use them to organize her movies.

 

I grabbed this idea from a combination of sources, but I bought this shower-rod for $9 at Wal-Mart and hung it on the wall. I am hanging Ainsley's artwork from it. :-) I can just unclip them and change it out as she does new ones.

 

On the same line, I found these on sale for $6 and used them to organize her purses, dress-up stuff, etc.

 

I took the doors off of the closet in there because they were bent. I am planning some type of curtain instead, but haven't gotten that far yet. Here is a picture of the newly-organized closet.

 

I will make an attempt here soon to take a wide-angle picture of the entire room so you can see it. :-) In the meantime, here are a few pictures of the old air-conditioner and furnaces . . . . They were seventeen years old. Rusted holes in the bottom, small creatures living inside them, and oil all over the bottom of the furnace. :(

 

 

 

(drum-roll please) And for the new, energy-efficient unit . . . .

Aren't they beautiful?

Unintentional Hiatus

They say people are *better* writers when they are experiencing inner turmoil or sorrow. Lately? I have barely had enough time to ponder my infertility or all that comes with it. Maybe now that we have made the decision on where we are heading, I have been able to let it go.

Last Tuesday, Mike got violently ill and spiked a crazy-high fever. He almost never gets sick, but when he does, it is insane. The same night, our upstairs air-conditioning unit stopped cooling and wouldn't shut off. I took off Wednesday to deal with the repair people while Mike was completely incapacitated. It turns out the unit is fried and when they crawled up in the attic to check the furnace, both of those were leaking oil everywhere, etc. Our home was built in 1992 and these are the same units that they came with. As much as I didn't want to, we ended up upgrading to new units and furnaces. The cost was scary, but we are hoping that because they are energy-efficient (plus a nice tax credit) that our power bills will be lower. At one point, Mike looked at me and said, "Oh well, I guess we cannot have another baby NOW!" I glared at him just in time to hear his laugh and scream, "JUST KIDDING!" Pretty funny, and funny if you think I have absolutely no control over whether we actually have another baby or not.

Work is busy. I am at three schools and my Friday school is a traditional nine-month school, so I am wrapping up my year there. I will finish out the year at the others, but will be done the third week in July, just in time for IVF. I feel badly that I am on countdown mode until the end of the year, but the kids are completely nuts right now. The fifth graders have bubbling-over, raging hormones. The fourth graders are starting to get a taste of being the big people on the totem pole and the third graders and starting to express their desire to be tougher, more mature students. It is enough to make most people crazy. Just to think I started the year with a little more than half the students I have now. My groups have grown so much.

Mike and I are thinking about escaping for a day or two in June alone. We have never had a vacation without our Ainsley and we are starting to crave a little break, even if it is just for a night away. Ainsley has been going through some todder-drama herself. Lots of sassiness, talking back. Overall, she is the sweetest child, but is asserting her independence all over again. The second I ask myself, "Didn't we JUST go through this?" it usually goes away again. Like a cycle, I guess.

I have those pictures of her playroom that I will download later. In the meantime, I am working on a family photo wall, finishing up last year's scrapbooking, and preparing for the big kitchen-redo this summer. We are going to be installing recycled glass countertops. It is actually made out of recycled beer bottles! It sounds so unattractive, but it is super-beautiful, not to mention the fact that they install them over our ugly, existing countertops, so we are leaving some junk out of the landfills. :-) Trying to be as green as possible . . .

Making Time for Blogging

I haven't had much energy to blog this past week. We did sign the clinical trial paperwork that holds our spot. Basically, what it looks like is I will need to go on the pill at the end of June when that cycle starts up. One month of that, then with July's cycle, we will start monitoring, injections, etc. If my cycle stays on the path it has been on, egg retrieval will be in mid-August. At that time, we will find out if the clinical trial has coded me as a fresh embryo transfer or a frozen, which would mean we have to wait until September. I don't mind waiting for any of this. I have been taking the time to eat well and eat less. I am down almost six pounds already and I would love to lose another 20 before we begin cycling, knowing very well that the medication and fluid retention could lead me to gain. I have begun walking with a friend a few mornings a week and I am doing some yoga in the evenings. I feel good, but I have been tired from the stresses of work.

We thought we had escaped the possible salary reductions for teachers that our news has been discussing. But it looks like we may end up getting a 4% salary cut, which for us is 8%. Mike and I don't pay into the teacher's union, mostly because it is too expensive, but also because I feel like all they have been doing is saying they are going to fight for our salaries and last night, we heard they are bargaining with the governor. Dirty teacher's union. How could someone sleep at night knowing they are bargaining about thousands and thousands of people's salaries? Especially people that come out of pocket thousands of dollars a year for their students?! Originally, we were asked to cut out budgets, and we did. Tons of support staff employees are losing their positions, we are now paying for our retired teacher's medical insurance with a deduction per paycheck. They even decided to staff schools at 97% instead of 100%, which means larger classroom sizes, and technically, less per pupil expenditure. We cut millions of dollars from the district's operating costs and yet, they still want to cut our salaries. If we could just get a statewide lottery here to help combat these costs, no one would have to take salary cuts. But our greedy casino industry won't allow a statewide lottery or powerball because they are afraid they will lose out on money. It just plain sucks, especially since we decided to do IVF, budgeting on our current incomes, and now we may have to cut more away just to afford IVF. Thankfully, Mike applied at a 12-month school for P.E. and got hired on the spot. So, he will be making more money next year and still get his time-out days. Hopefully this will balance out any salary reductions we may end up having.

The other thing I have been thinking about is Mother's Day. I am so blessed to be a mother, especially to such an amazing girl. Ainsley has been the best gift I have ever received. I try to make a conscious effort to do special things with her that a mother and daughter can share, just as Mike does the same. Our one-on-one time is very sacred to me and I love to see the smile on her face when I tell her it is Mommy-Ainsley night. I think that so much of the reason that this is important to me is because my relationship with my own mother is so strained. We haven't spoken in months, since her last visit. I haven't blogged about it much, but what it comes down to is me standing up for my family. I refuse to let anyone tell me what I should be doing differently when raising my child. (Her comments centralized around Ainsley's complete and utter hatred for meat.) I am not making Ainsley a vegetarian by any means. She is just incredibly sensitive to textures and I have increased the calcium and protein in her diet to combat her lack of meat or fish. She eats yogurt and cheese and loves beans of any kind. Apparently, this is not good enough for my mother, amongst other things. Ridiculing me in front of my family or during every single phone conversation became too much to bear, so I asked her to refrain. She has, and in turn, she has opted not to communicate with me. It is sad because the one that suffers is Ainsley. She loves my father and his wife, and also loves my mother and her husband. She doesn't know Mike's family because they live so far away.

I want my relationship with Ainsley to weather time, especially those tough teenage years. I hope she always knows how hard I try to make a conscious effort to change the cyclical pattern in my family with women. (My Mom and I, my grandmother and my mother, and so on . . . ) I won't talk about some of the other unhealthy things that have gone on there. I just hope that Ainsley and I can have the mother-daughter relationship I never have had.

I will post pictures later of my creative genius. I redid Ainsley's playroom for under $25 and it is beautiful. :-)

IVF, here we come!

We are signing the paperwork to hold our spot in the clinical trial tomorrow. More discussion around these parts has come to the conclusion that we are both on the same page about trying IVF. In the meantime, I am losing weight, eating better, and focusing more on my family.

When I was in grad school, we had to write a children's book, complete with illustrations. At that time, I was struggling with the news of my latest miscarriage and I had started to think we may not have children without drastic measures. I tried to think about something worse than infertility and for some reason, the only thing I could come up with was secondary infertility. Having one child and never being able to have another seemed like the worst prospect to me, at that time. You know what you would be missing out on and before Ainsley, I could never seem to put a face on the babies I lost or the one that I wanted so badly. So, I wrote this lovely little story about a boy who wanted a brother or sister. His mother ended up adopting a baby, in my book, and explained to him as he grew older than even though his baby sister didn't come from his Mommy's belly, she was still his sister.

The day we read our stories, I remember listening to the others and watching the tears, the laughter, and the smiles all around the room. One friend made a picture book about her daughter, another wrote about abuse, and yet another wrote a comic book about school. When I stook up to read mine, I cried through the entire thing. Everyone knew of my battles, some of them having been through the same thing, and after the story was over, everyone had tears in their eyes, including the teacher. I felt good sharing my story and even better for having been given the opportunity to express myself in a unique way.

In retrospect, now I have a daughter. I remember that heartache of wanting a child so badly and this pain now is something quite different. I wouldn't say it is worse than it was originally, before Ainsley. Sometimes, actually, it feels very similar, like a deep ache that I can't reach. And this morning in the waiting room at Ainsley's three year checkup, we watched four families, each with two children, all leave the office. I caught Mike looking at me out of the corner of my eye and I smiled. I knew he was thinking what I was thinking at that exact moment, how great it would be to have another little baby to love and watch Ainsley interact with. One more family walked in as we were leaving, a family of three, and you could just tell they were so happy. Maybe the mother was pregnant, maybe they only wanted one child, or maybe they themselves were struggling with infertility. All I knew is looking at them, I saw our family. Small, but sweet. I am so excited about the possibility of adding one more to our threesome. But three is still better than two. :-)

Contemplating . . . but smiling

I have been absent . . . for many good reasons, I suppose. After I was approved for IVF, I took Ainsley to Mike's school carnival on Friday. I don't know how to explain it, but I felt so, so happy. Just knowing that this was a prospect for us and that we never thought it could happen . . .  made me happy. Thinking that I was possibly going to be able to increase my chances of having another baby made me feel peaceful and calm and I felt zoned in on my life. I wanted to wait until Ainsley was asleep that night before I even talked to Mike about it and I am glad I waited . . . because it was a long, LOOONG weekend.

Most of his reaction was what I expected, but some of it was rather strange. Not that every man is all about jumping on board and spending thousands of dollars for children. And when we were trying to get pregnant with Ainsley, we avoided the IVF discussion whenever it came up. I think it is partly being uneducated about what it entails and partly the cost, which is something two teachers are weary about, to say the least.

He never said, "No, we are NOT doing this." He never said, "Yes, we SHOULD do this." But rather, he was frustrated because he said, "I thought we weren't going to think about anything until summertime! And here we are discussing it again!" It hurt my feelings and I cried, trying to explain to him that the cycle wouldn't even be until July anyway, so I was mostly holding my end of the bargain up. I tried explaining to him how I feel a void, an empty spot, and while I don't think about it every second of every day, I know that it is something I have a hard time getting away from. Good or bad.

It finally got to the point where he just looked at me and said, "I don't even know why I am upset!" I cried and laughed, and if it was possible, I saw multiple emotions in his eyes at that very moment: frustration, worry, sadness, hope,  and confusion. For some people, this all may sound rather strange. But I do think, to some degree, it is hard to conceptulize having to spend the money and go through the treatment when we had Ainsley naturally, by charting and timing my cycle and taking progesterone supplementation, but certainly not without three prior losses and heartaches.

The money is, as one of my best friends said, just money. You can't take it with you when you leave. We could afford the monthly payment and it wouldn't hurt our lifestyle or savings. Sure, cutting back never hurt anyone. I have found cheaper homeowners and auto insurance, cancelled some movie channels, and put solar screens on the house this month. Maybe this will help combat the cost. I know it is a lot of money. But can we really put a value on our children?

Sunday afternoon, Mike brought it up completely on his own. He said he wanted to mill over it for a few days. He said he is fine with doing it, but expressed his fears. We are afraid I will overstimulate and end up in the hospital, which is a viable concern because I overstimmed with the last IUI and because I have weird polycystic-like ovaries. The "What if it doesn't work and we have no embryos that were frozen?" debate comes into play, too. I went ahead and made an appointment for next Monday, to sign the paperwork that holds our spot in the clinical trial. I am pretty sure we are going to go through with it, but it doesn't mean we aren't scared.

Your comments and emails helped so much this week. We are confident we have the right doctor. We want another baby. What both of us also discussed is that if this doesn't work and we exhaust all of our frozen embryo transfers, if any, then we are done. Maybe not done just trying on our own to "see what happens", but done with medical intervention. By the time Ainsley is ready to go to school, if we haven't had another child, we will accept that she was given to us as an only child for a reason and is a precious gift. We should be content, at that point, knowing we did what we could and that obviously we are meant to be parents to one child. After talking to another friend who happens to be any only child, I think it will be okay, either way. I didn't feel that way after the last IUI because I knew there was still ONE more thing we could potentially do (IVF) that might work. Now? I feel like if we decide to do this, it will be the last stop for us. And it will be okay, no matter what happens.

What to do, what to do?????

Okay . . . . so after I just posted a few hours ago, I decided to just give it a shot and apply for the medical financing for IVF. You know, just to see. Because I knew that we would get denied.

And, um, according to the approvals, we are 100% covered.

So . . . I called Dr. D and the high-responder study is still open. Which would mean they cover all but 2 of my medications, and then I have to pay for those out of pocket. Not sure how much that will be. And it also covers as many free thaw cycles as I may need (or as my eggs allow) if the first try doesn't work.

What do I do? The monthly payment on the medical financing is painful, but it could be done. I have goosebumps and feel sick to my stomach.