Just for Aliki

Merry Christmas!

It’s a long story.

We interrupt this holiday season

Things have been kinda hectic here at Casa Simpson, what with school orchestra concerts, company parties, visitors and such. Fun, but hectic. The counter-offer was ignored, which is as good as rejected. We’ve had three more showings but no nibbles. Ah well. It is what it is.

I’m hip deep in my first big web design project, putting all of those classes to good use.

Beyond that, there hasn’t been much to report. I have been playing around quite a bit at Lunatic Fringe and you’re welcome to follow along. It’s an addicting thing, being able to freeze those moments.

We’re rounding the bend into the bumpy part of the year; too many anniversaries of things that shouldn’t have been. Year two brings a different flavor of grief, deeper, fewer sharp edges, a slightly more mature vintage. There are still moments that catch in the throat, twist the gut, and make us duck our heads to quietly wipe the tears away. And in a few days we will celebrate the day that brought us our lovely Zoë and sweet Lennox, then remember the days that we said goodbye.  It’s the bitter that makes us appreciate the sweetness of what we have that much more.

I wish everyone a very happy holiday season and send wishes that the new year brings all that you hope for.  As always, we end the year most thankful for the love and support of all of you.  Cheers!

This not so old house

So, the offer we received was pitifully low and would have had us bringing about $16000 to closing. Um, no. That just isn’t going to happen.

We made a counter-offer, agreed to include the refrigerator (which I thought we were already doing) and offered up the washer and dryer. Now, we’re waiting to hear back from them. The general feeling, though, is that they were probably just hoping we were so desperate to get out of our house that we’d jump at any offer and, while we would both like to be done with this process and move back east as soon as possible we’re not going to bankrupt ourselves to do it.

On the other hand, they wanted a closing date of Jan. 8, which would suggest a sense of urgency to their move so maybe they will go for it.

Maybe they’ll surprise us, but I’m not holding my breath.

No way!!!

We got an offer on the house!!!

Thursday, I got a call at 8am that someone was coming to see the house at 9. Shannon and I performed the world’s fastest full house tidy ever. They didn’t leave any feedback and didn’t set up a second showing. We figured it was another pass.

The realtor just sent me an email telling me they made an offer!!! I don’t have any details yet, waiting for her to call, but just knowing that someone out there is interested in buying our house has made me absolutely giddy!

Wouldn’t you know

Apparently, I used my old work email to register my photobucket account. That means I never received any notices that they were about to disable my account since I hadn’t logged on in some time. That also means that I can’t retrieve my password.

I’m trying to jump through their hoops to get the password reset and I’m not above playing on their sympathies since there are some photos of both Lennox and Zoe hosted on that account that I do not have the original files for. In the meantime, bear with the broken links. I will get those fixed in the next day or so, hopefully. I apologize for the ugly.

Update: Photobucket’s support staff was very helpful. After answering enough identifying questions to make me start thinking I was dealing with something far more sensitive than a photo host, they switched my account to my current email address and reset the password so things should look more normal for now. However, I am going to be moving the photos to a different host who will not be likely to disable my account. That means images will be missing all over the place as I get links switched around. It’s a daunting undertaking…I have 737 posts on this site and no idea of how many have pictures! So, pardon the dust. It’s time for a little remodeling.

That Mel…

she always finds such fun toys!

I couldn’t resist creating my own just for a place for the silly spur-of-the-moment things that fill my life. I find myself wanting to document more of them.

http://lunaticfringe.posterous.com/

Mmmm, turkey!

Just a quick note as I stop to catch my breath in the frenzy to wish all my American friends a very happy Thanksgiving!

Wait, wait. I know I’m a week early, but the Our Own Creation crew is setting off on a 20 hour drive on Sunday so we can spend a few days with my family in NC and eat tons of food, drink more than a little booze, and nap whenever we feel like it. If I don’t post something now, I’ll never get it done. My list of things that MUST be done before Sunday morning seems to be getting longer rather than shorter! HELP!

I hope everyone has a wonderful, safe holiday. I look forward to reading everyone’s stories when I get back home.

Much love to and thankfulness for such good internet friends.

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

Four years of blogging. Huh. Imagine that.

I feel like I should write something more meaningful today. Instead, as a tribute to the utterly clueless college students in starbucks last night who alternately entertained and pissed me off, I’m just going to share a lovely bit of poetry. It’s well suited to a grey autumn day when I’m feeling a bit ambivalent, a little unsettled, a smidge incomplete and at odds about life

And, if those college students happen to stumble across this…T.S. Eliot did not write the musical Cats. He wrote Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, which was the basis for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical. For your sakes, I hope you didn’t put that on the test you were studying for.

Now…

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

- “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot

Happy blogoversary Our Own Creation. I promise to try to do better than I have lately.

Ask Allison

Sometimes the search terms that bring people to this blog just seem to demand a response of some sort. And since I have nothing else to write about these days….

Oh, and the usual disclaimer. I AM NOT A DOCTOR!!! I’m just someone who has been going through infertility treatment for four years now. I’ve been around the block a few times. Just keep in mind that each person is different and each treatment protocol is customized to you and you alone. My situation may be very different and you should only use my experiences for the most general of comparisons. ASK YOUR DOCTOR AND NURSE!!! That’s what you are paying them thousands of dollars for.

“Is it ok to bend over after IVF”

Yes. I’m assuming the asker just had her transfer done. Your uterus is not hollow like an inflated balloon. That endometrial lining that you had to keep getting checked until it was nice and thick? It’s “fluffy” and “sticky” and fills your uterus. Those embryos aren’t going to get shaken out. Sneeze, pee, poop, bend over, go up stairs, laugh. Those things aren’t going to prevent implantation.

Now, if you just had your egg retrieval it may be painful to bend over. My ovaries were huge after both of my retrievals and just standing up was a real effort. So you might not WANT to bend over. The way I see it, I go through weeks of shots and all that discomfort AND surgery…my husband can do the bending over for a few days. I even make him put my shoes on for me.

“How long to take pio after f”

That one got cut off, but I assume that last word was FET. Well, after the FET that resulted in the twins, I had to take PIO injections daily until my progesterone level reached 15 after a night without an injection. We started testing at 9 weeks and I finally reached that point at 11 weeks.

“How many days of gonal f before ganirelix”
I don’t know if I’m a good basis for comparison because I respond REALLY well to stims. I’ll give you my stats from my one follistim/ganirelix IVF cycle and maybe others will chime in in the comments. It really depends on your particular condition, dose, age, and possibly the phase of the moon and the time of year for all I know. I did 7 days of follistim before I started the ganirelix, then I did three days of follistim AND ganirelix, then one more day of just ganirelix. If you want to see the summary of that entire cycle, you can find it here.

“how do you feel day 2 taking stims for i”
Again, that one got cut off so it’s either IVF or IUI. Either way, I don’t think I felt much on day 2 of taking stims. I mean, according to Dr. N, I respond to stims like someone 10 years younger, but I don’t remember anything that fast! Now, lupron starts to give me headaches pretty early on, but two days of stims isn’t really enough to get those eggs poppin’. That said, if you ARE feeling bad, funny, or just different and you aren’t sure…call your nurse and just ask if what you are feeling is normal. Trust me, they’ve been asked stranger questions. Probably by me.

“Shake baby into position during NT scan”
Ok, I had to read that one a couple of times, then realized what you meant. That was awful! I’m pretty sure Zoe was playing hard to get at our NT scan and simply would not turn the right way for the peri to take the measurement. So, using the external ultrasound wand thingy, he bounced those babies around! HARD! I mean, I was afraid I was going to fall off the bed and if you watch the video you’d get seasick! Scared me half to death. But, those scans have a small window in which they can be done and so they try really hard to get them in the right position. Finally, I had to climb on and off the bed a few times to try to shift them.

“What is estradiol test”
It’s a blood test to check your E2 level. The way I’ve explained it to myself is that first your estrogen level has to be low enough to indicate that your ovaries have been fully suppressed so that the doctor can take control of them with the medications. Then, your estrogen level has to be increased to the level of just-before-ovulation (that’s when you trigger and have your retrieval). It’s used in conjuction with sonograms to monitor how you are responding to suppression meds and stims. They’ll draw a vial of blood from the veins on the inside of your elbow, it gets tested and, at least at my clinic, they usually have the results in 2-4 hours at which time they call and tell me how to adjust or alter my medications.

“how many doses in follistim 300iu cartridge”
Well, that depends on what dosage your doctor puts you on. Yes, they do overfill the cartridges, but there’s no guarantee of how much extra is in them. So, if your daily dose is 150iu, count on two injections from a 300iu cartridge and you’ll probably be able to get at least a partial dose from it as well, but don’t rely on that.

“what has more inertia prune juice carro”
Wow, I’d love to see the rest of that search! Um. I have no idea. The last physics class I took was in 1990 and it was “Physics of Sound and Music” so I have no idea about the inertia of prune juice or carrot juice. Good luck with that.

“low beta successful pregnancy fet”
First, I’m so very sorry. I know EXACTLY how much stress you’re feeling right now and I hope your subsequent betas show a significant increase. In the meantime, back away from the internet. Just stop googling right now. I promise you, nothing you find will make you feel any better and all of it will raise more questions, concerns and worries than it will answer or prevent. Good luck to you.

“pio shots and itching”
Ok, good. Someone else seems to be experiencing this. I actually have two different issues with PIO. PIO in oil, after a while makes me itch like a rashy, insect bite kind of itch. I found that using progesterone in ethyl oleate not only took care of that itch, it also seems to inject faster. The other issues I have, and it may be my fault, is that the areas where we inject the PIO, which I numb with ice packs prior to injection seem to have reduced skin sensation now. I’m wondering if literally freezing my ass has damaged the nerves a bit because I get this weird numb/itchy feeling from time to time. I’m just so damn scared of that needle that I can’t bring myself NOT to ice first. But, if you’re getting itching after each injection, ask your doctor if you can switch to the ethyl oleate. Can’t hurt, might help and as far as I know the cost is the same and every pharmacy I’ve used carries it.

Last one for the day…

“Metallic taste in mouth with methotrexate”
Yep. It’s like sucking on aluminum foil and nothing covers it up. I only had the one injection of it and the bad taste lasted just a day or two if I remember correctly (you’ll excuse me for trying to forget as much of THAT experience as possible) but when I googled it, I found multiple mentions of it in forum postings of cancer patients. I think I got past it with a tin of chocolate covered cinnamon altoids.

National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day

Please take a moment to remember the little ones who aren’t here and the families who deal every day with the loss. Whether a pregnancy lasted only days or went to full term, whether a baby was stillborn, never made it out of the NICU or went home for a time, chances are everyone reading this has experienced or knows someone who has experienced the loss of a pregnancy or an infant. And no matter how long it has been, they still remember.

Please, visit The March of Dimes’ Website to see what you can do to help prevent prematurity. Visit Resolve, the National Infertility Association’s website to see what you can do to help advance infertility research.

Prematurity has been escalating steadily and alarmingly over the past two decades. One out of eight babies is born prematurely in the United States. Preterm delivery can happen to any pregnant woman.

The information is from the March of Dimes, the emphasis is mine.