Flying down on Sunday

T went to check on hotels in town where the baby will be born. Hotels are booking up quick, so we took a leap of faith and booked hotel and flight for Sunday. We were hoping to wait until Friday after N's doctor's appointment to make sure the time was right, but we feared not getting a hotel room so now it's booked.

Now my big fear is that on Friday the doctor will say to wait a few more weeks. Not sure what we'll do then. I guess just postpone the flight and cancel the hotel booking. More fees. I guess it's only money.

Got a newborn sized doll and we've been practicing playing big brother. Henry is doing quite well. He seems interested and patient about it. I'm guessing it won't last, but at least he's happy about it for now.

We lost our heat for 2 days. It's snowing AGAIN for the 3rd time in 2 weeks. I'm looking forward to the warm weather, and I don't even really like summer.

I can't believe this is happening. I'm seriously going to start putting things in suitcases.

Holy crap.

More information

The social worker from the attorney's office talked to N again. She reiterated that she is feeling very sick. She said that she has no intentions of keeping the baby at all.

I feel awful. I hope they don't think we are a$$holes.

I feel so helpless and out of control.

The baby is due in 6 weeks.

Bad day

Today is a bad day.

I have to do a volunteer shift at a co-operative play space we joined and I have no one to look after Henry when I'm working. My mom backed and and the neighbor who was going to help is way too sick to come. It will work out, but it's a bit of a pain. If this was my only issue, I'd get over it fast.

Bdog won't climb the back stairs any more. This means I have to walk him around front to get him back in the house. This creates a huge issue for his going out issues. He won't climb the inside stairs, either. I feel like I am doing Bdog a disservice and I feel like it's untenable for us to keep him. He needs a better home than we can provide for him. This is really depressing me.

H is having sleeping issues. He's waking up early(ish) in the morning (for him, and it interferes with Bdog's walk schedule) and his napping is being weird. It's only 2 days, but I'm concerned. He's never had sleeping issues before and he wouldn't go down for a nap quickly today or yesterday and he woke up in the middle of his nap today, but he did go back to sleep. Now I need to wake him up in 10 minutes so that I can make that shift at the play space.

I have 6 bags of leaves from the back yard waiting to be picked up by the town, but apparently no leaves are collected after December 11th in this town. So how I have 6 bags of leaves until April. I don't have any place to keep them until then. What am I supposed to do?

Writing this, it makes me wonder why I feel as distraught as I do, but I feel distraught. Maybe it's the Bdog thing. I really question my ability to care for him every single day. He is so attached to me, but he won't let anyone else care for him. I just don't know what to do now that it seems I can't simply let him out in the back yard. T doesn't really like Bdog anyway.

I just feel like crying. Today sucks.

Tomorrow morning I"m dropping H off at Grammie and Grampie's for 24 hours. We have T's office holiday party tomorrow night. I hope I can relax a little.

PMS and decisions don't mix

The dog should be coming home with us on Friday. I'm happy and excited and nervous. Bringing home a retired greyhound is different from bringing home other dogs and involves a lot of reading. You can have a glimpse, if you like.

And then today the pottery place called to say that someone dropped the class and they have an opening, but now I don't want to take it any more. It's too much. Getting this dog is enough. When I didn't get into the class, I decided to get the dog. I'm much more interested in walking him and training him than taking pottery now. With the responsibilities of helping the dog adjust, I can't picture myself going during open studio time. I feel awful that I don't want to take the class any more, but alas I don't. Am I crazy? I feel crazy.

T and I have picked a name for the dog, but sometimes I think I like it and sometimes I don't. We wanted a name that was related to his racing name. This is (indirectly) related. I liked it a lot at first, but I'm having second thoughts.

We're also getting the stairs carpeted, and I need to do some sanding/cleaning/painting before they do that. I bought the stuff and got goaded into buying some ridiculously expensive paint that I'm now afraid to use.

And we need to dig up the front yard. I did some digging this past weekend, but it's very difficult and takes a long time.

How do people have energy to do things? I just don't get it. And I really don't get how, after working all day, people can come home and be a parent. I'm so cranky right now I could spit.

Oh, and I was walking around the office and the pregnant lady came out of an office and my former boss who I was walking with started talking about the baby (who though yet unborn she already called by name) and my boss started rubbing this woman's belly and they started talking about a baby pool for when the baby is going to be born and I did not know how to extricate myself. I was standing there freaking out, wanting to bolt but wanting to make an excuse. I tried to smile and say, "See ya!" and walk off and I think that's what I did, but I'm not sure. I can't even remember how it ended because I was so panicked.

PMS sucks.

I wish I could feel confident in t

Crazed

I feel crazed. I'm not even sure a lot of stuff is going on, but I feel like it is.

Our cats had dental work done yesterday and we have to give them medication and feed them wet food, which they refuse to eat. I tried soaking the dry food, and only one of them will eat that. This, though minor, is feeling kind of big.

I finally called the pediatricians. I didn't get through to one, and the secretary of the other one said he would call me tonight after 5pm, but it's 6pm now and no call so far. And I didn't drive my carpoolee home because I didn't want to talk to a pediatrician about the questions I had with her in the car, but now that is for naught so I kind of feel bad.

I have therapy tomorrow morning and am working 10-6. I'll call the doctor who was supposed to call tonight in the morning to see what happened. I think I may try to call the other pediatrician too, while I'm at it.

I had a conversation with the woman who deals with birth parents from our adoption agency today about my dear BM letter. It's good and only need a very small amount of tweaking. I tried to send them our photo booklet via the web but they couldn't handle the technicality of it and they couldn't see it so I had to mail them a CD. I'm very concerned that they won't be able to see the file on the CD either.

The person who is the hiring manager for the job I interviewed for might be quitting.

T is having some crazy shit going on at work with people leaving or thinking about leaving and other chaotic stuff that just make life incredibly difficult.

Did I leave anything out?

Things get better (not)

On Friday, which was 4dpo I went to have a blood test to check my luteal progesterone level. I called on Monday to find out the results. The Midwives place called me back but didn't give a result -- only a phone number to call back. I didn't call for a couple of days, but I called again today to get the result. I asked that they leave the actual results and whether it was normal or not as the message.

After a frustrating day at work where I had a very animated discussion with my carpoolers about politics and taking a test at work that I felt like I didn't do very well on, they left the message.

Apparently, my progesterone level is low and I should be taking supplements. My level on 4 dpo was 9.5. Does anybody know anything about this? I don't normally have a short luteal phase.

I have some progesterone from my cycles, which though it is starting to get old still has not expired. And I can get a new prescription from them. But starting on 9dpo with the progesterone is just too late. It should be earlier.

How did we not test this until now? We have been having fertility problems for two and a half years, people. I have had FOUR miscarriages including one with non-genetically problematic sperm. Why did we not know this? To say that I am incredibly frustrated by this is an understatement.

You know how some things just make you want to lie down and just completely give up? That is how I'm feeling today. I'm just so exhausted by all of this stuff. Could this be the straw that breaks the camel's back? We still have 2 more vials of donor sperm and we still will use them up. And next time I will start the progesterone immediately. I will pee on a stick on Friday. But what the hell. Sometimes I just feel like we cannot get a break of any kind.

How things sorted out

Our Mac died on Sunday, so I've been away from blogs for a few days.

I had the dIUI on Monday. I told my manager that I had a last minute doctor's appointment and I went and then came back to work. I had my meeting later in the afternoon where I told her from time to time I will have a last minute doctor's appointment. She said okay, but that I should go tell HR so it will be on record that I let them know. She proceeded to tell me what a great job I am doing and that I am clearly "the cream of the crop" in my department.

The next day I made an informal meeting with HR and when the phones were slow and it was convenient for the HR person, I went over to talk to her. I let her know about the last minute doctor's appointment and she told me next time I should get a note on the doctor's letterhead from the doctor saying that these appointments have to be last minute.

To me I'm thinking, well there goes my confidentiality. I purposefully didn't want to tell them what doctor I was seeing and why, but this is going to be letterhead from a Midwives office, so they'll know something and it probably won't be the right thing. So I found that really frustrating. And then I sent an email to my manager saying I went to go talk to the woman in HR and she lightly reprimanded me for going to an "unscheduled meeting." How annoying! I'm an adult and I know when it's appropriate for me to go to a short 10 minute meeting. She knows I have really high production (she told me so in my meeting) and it makes me feel like a child to have to get permission like that. So, overall it was frustrating.

My friend E recommended that I get a note from my PCP, which I think it is a great idea. So that was a helpful suggestion. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. We only have 2 more of these IUIs left before I leave them behind forever.

The IUI itself was fine. Unfortunately T was not able to be there with me. That's the first time that happened. That was sad, but I guess any change might be a lucky one.

When I was walking into the room, a visibly pregnant midwife said to me cheerfully, "Congratulations!" I looked at her confused and said, "For what?"

Then they had me undress and get ready. When the midwife came in she said 'congratulations' again and I said 'for what' again, she said, "For ovulating." I told her she must not know my history because ovulation isn't the problem for me. I told her my whole history and I saw her eyes get wider and wider. She clearly didn't know how to react to me. That was a huge difference between going there and going to the RE's office. She said she hoped that her fertility (and pointed to her belly) would rub off on me. She was very nice, but it was a little strange to have a pregnant lady injecting some stranger's sperm into my uterus. What an odd scenario, eh?

Luckily I'm doing so much better around pregnant people and the sight of her didn't make me want to cry. There was a bulletin board in the room with tons of pictures of babies which kind of bummed me out after staring at it for 40 minutes or so before, during and after the procedure. But otherwise it was fine. The midwife said I had tons of fertile cervical mucus, so that is good too. I think the timing was spot on. So nothing to do but wait.

I'm drinking beer during this 2ww, though. At least for the first week.

So things are basically ok. We have a lot of stuff going on that is making me feel a bit stressed an crazy, but being busy makes the time go by easily, so that is a good thing. I'm trying to employ my new found ability to go zen -- just breathe and accept that this is the way things are. I'm doing okay. Nothing is horrible. Things are moving forward, slowly. It's okay. One step at a time.

Stress

I'm trying really hard to not stress myself out.  It's not my forte.  I had been doing pretty well because I really thought my LH surge would happen today, we could to the dIUI at the Midwife place and it wouldn't interfere with work at all.  But of course, that's not what happened.  I have yet to surge.  I'm expecting it to happen tomorrow, but who knows at this point.

I haven't yet told my boss about my 'medical' issue.  I have a meeting with her on Monday (which has been delayed for 2 weeks) where I have planned to tell her.  I thought I would be able to get the talk in on time, but now it looks like I may fall short.  I'm going to have to talk to her first thing on Monday because I may have to miss our meeting depending on when the IUI is scheduled.

At the Midwife place, I have to call the morning of my surge between 9 and 9:30 to schedule the IUI (I assume for the following day) except on the weekends when you call the day of the IUI and page the midwife so that she can schedule something with you.  I guess if you surge on a Sunday that you call on Monday between 9 and 9:30 for an appointment that day.  So if I do surge tomorrow, I'll have to do that.

So I'm stressed that this won't work out somehow.  And I don't know if T will be able to be there with me, which sucks.  And my work is getting stricter and stricter about things, and since I want to apply to a new job and get out of the call center asap, missing random hours randomly due to some unexplained 'medical' issue doesn't look so great.  So I'm stressed about that to.  And of course, stress delays ovulation.  Hurray.

I'm trying really hard to just breathe through all of this.  I am.  I have definitely been better at not stressing about things, lately, but this minutiae is driving me crazy!  At least at my RE's office I knew I could call in the afternoon to schedule for the next day.  Not here.  So I have to use the OPK first thing in the morning, which I don't like to do.  I think it throws the timing off.  I hope it's positive tomorrow in the afternoon and I can just call on Monday morning and have it that day.  Of course that may throw off my work meeting and the going away party we're having for one of my co-workers, but we'll see.

Plus I carpool with two people and I'll have to hide the vial of sperm in the back of my car and make sure it doesn't topple over.  I guess I'll have to use towels or something.

Sigh.  I'm really trying hard to not stress out about this.  It will all work out.  It's not big deal.  If worse came to worst, T and I could try on our own and this vial could just go into the freezer and we could try next month.  It wouldn't be the end of the world.  Breathe.  Breathe.