When I went to pick up LL yesterday, Natasha stopped in her tracks as soon as she opened the door and just stared at me. She insisted that something was different, that I looked really good, but something was obviously different. I've known Natasha for more than a year, I see her several times a week, and she has never before said something like this to me. She just couldn't figure out exactly what was different. I just shrugged, because I'm not sure what she had noticed.
Surely it couldn't be that she can actually tell that I'm four weeks pregnant.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
18
Conversation with Dr. M at one of my appointments last week:
Dr. M, walking into the exam room: So, this is Cycle Day 18, right?
Me: Yes it is.
Dr. M: Hey, you've got to be impressed that I remembered that it is Cycle Day 18 without even looking at your chart!
Me: Actually, yeah, I am impressed!
Dr. M: See, I have a lot of patients, but I always remember you. With me, you're not just a number!
Me: Um, except that "18" is a number.
In other news, I am still sick. When I realized that LL was totally better, S was obviously on the mend, yet I was still getting worse day by day, I went to see my doctor. Sinus infection. Worst one I've ever had. Hard to describe how awful I feel, especially since I always feel nauseous for several days after trigger shots, so I've got that on top of the cold and sinus infection. Lovely. I have now missed 6 days of work because of this stupid illness, and tomorrow is looking iffy. In the last two weeks, I have made six pots of soup, and I'm still not better. (For the record, they were: broccoli cheese, cabbage borscht, matzo ball, beef barley, split pea, and broccoli cheese again.)
In other other news, I meant to record that LL spoke his first sentence last month, where "sentence" is loosely defined as "two or more words that LL doesn't normally say together, said in a single breath." I was holding him, and he said, "Down, Mama!" Yes, my little boy had to wait 18 months to finally reach the cognitive development point where he could string together the words to turn to me at last and say, "Oh, for goodness sake, Mother, quit smothering me already and put me down!"
Dr. M, walking into the exam room: So, this is Cycle Day 18, right?
Me: Yes it is.
Dr. M: Hey, you've got to be impressed that I remembered that it is Cycle Day 18 without even looking at your chart!
Me: Actually, yeah, I am impressed!
Dr. M: See, I have a lot of patients, but I always remember you. With me, you're not just a number!
Me: Um, except that "18" is a number.
In other news, I am still sick. When I realized that LL was totally better, S was obviously on the mend, yet I was still getting worse day by day, I went to see my doctor. Sinus infection. Worst one I've ever had. Hard to describe how awful I feel, especially since I always feel nauseous for several days after trigger shots, so I've got that on top of the cold and sinus infection. Lovely. I have now missed 6 days of work because of this stupid illness, and tomorrow is looking iffy. In the last two weeks, I have made six pots of soup, and I'm still not better. (For the record, they were: broccoli cheese, cabbage borscht, matzo ball, beef barley, split pea, and broccoli cheese again.)
In other other news, I meant to record that LL spoke his first sentence last month, where "sentence" is loosely defined as "two or more words that LL doesn't normally say together, said in a single breath." I was holding him, and he said, "Down, Mama!" Yes, my little boy had to wait 18 months to finally reach the cognitive development point where he could string together the words to turn to me at last and say, "Oh, for goodness sake, Mother, quit smothering me already and put me down!"
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Goals
Major things that I hope to accomplish between now and the end of 2010, roughly in the order in which I'd like to do them:
1. Get pregnant.
2. Get a job.
3. Defend thesis.
4. Write thesis.
5. Graduate.
6. Travel to visit S's parents.
7. Start new job.
8. Buy new house.
9. Sell old house.
Some of these things need to happen in order:
Both thesis-related tasks need to happen before I can graduate.
I need to graduate before I can start a new job.
I need to start a job before I can buy a new house.
I need to buy a new house before I can sell my old house.
Thus, the general order is: (thesis stuff) --> (job stuff) --> (house stuff)
with the caveat that I should be looking for a new job sooner rather than later, so that part should really overlap the thesis stuff.
The trip to visit S's parents is likely going to happen over the summer, regardless of the state of the other things, but I'd prefer if it were after I defend my thesis but before I start a new job. We haven't seen S's parents since LL's birthday, which was almost 7 months ago, and that's waaaay too long between grandparent visits. If I had my way, LL would see each of his grandparents 3-4 times a year (preferably twice at our place and once at each of their places, with a fourth visit for each set of grandparents left as a wildcard). We hit that goal during LL's first year, but we're not on target to pull it off during year two, and that makes me sad. Admittedly, it hasn't been our fault; S's parents have had to cancel two separate planned trips because of S's dad's bad health (not horrible, nothing life-threatening, just annoying and persistent). But, if they can't travel to us, then we should get off our butts and go see them.
The first task on the list, getting pregnant, has no prerequisites or dependencies, but you know, I'd like for it to happen as soon as possible. Not that I have a whole lot of control over it. The obvious follow-up goal, giving birth to a baby, has been left off the list because it is no longer possible to do that in a healthy way during 2010. Sigh.
On the plus side, we actually have a viable cycle this month, so at least it's theoretically possible to achieve a pregnancy. My follicle scan this morning showed one follicle measuring at 18, so we did the trigger shot and have an IUI tomorrow morning. Woo hoo! I really don't think that I could have handled a third canceled cycle in a row, and this one wasn't looking that promising earlier in the week. (Today is cycle day 18; my body is slooooow these days at maturing eggs.) But, my right ovary came through in the end, so now we just wait.
Not helping: our entire household is sick. LL started it last Friday, when I got a mid-day call from daycare informing me that he woke up from his nap with a fever, cough, runny nose, lethargy, you name it. By Sunday evening, I was sick, too. S followed Monday morning. Since LL's fever was still going strong yesterday, we finally took him to the doctor, who diagnosed double ear infection, so he is now on his first ever course of antibiotics. S has turned the corner and is starting to feel better, but I'm still feeling more ill each day, and I feel so unbelievably awful that it's kind of hard to believe that I haven't hit bottom yet. Fun times.
I'm going to be home from work tomorrow yet again, after the IUI, then back on track with work next week, I hope.
Nine major life-changing goals, 8.5 months. A girl has to dream.
1. Get pregnant.
2. Get a job.
3. Defend thesis.
4. Write thesis.
5. Graduate.
6. Travel to visit S's parents.
7. Start new job.
8. Buy new house.
9. Sell old house.
Some of these things need to happen in order:
Both thesis-related tasks need to happen before I can graduate.
I need to graduate before I can start a new job.
I need to start a job before I can buy a new house.
I need to buy a new house before I can sell my old house.
Thus, the general order is: (thesis stuff) --> (job stuff) --> (house stuff)
with the caveat that I should be looking for a new job sooner rather than later, so that part should really overlap the thesis stuff.
The trip to visit S's parents is likely going to happen over the summer, regardless of the state of the other things, but I'd prefer if it were after I defend my thesis but before I start a new job. We haven't seen S's parents since LL's birthday, which was almost 7 months ago, and that's waaaay too long between grandparent visits. If I had my way, LL would see each of his grandparents 3-4 times a year (preferably twice at our place and once at each of their places, with a fourth visit for each set of grandparents left as a wildcard). We hit that goal during LL's first year, but we're not on target to pull it off during year two, and that makes me sad. Admittedly, it hasn't been our fault; S's parents have had to cancel two separate planned trips because of S's dad's bad health (not horrible, nothing life-threatening, just annoying and persistent). But, if they can't travel to us, then we should get off our butts and go see them.
The first task on the list, getting pregnant, has no prerequisites or dependencies, but you know, I'd like for it to happen as soon as possible. Not that I have a whole lot of control over it. The obvious follow-up goal, giving birth to a baby, has been left off the list because it is no longer possible to do that in a healthy way during 2010. Sigh.
On the plus side, we actually have a viable cycle this month, so at least it's theoretically possible to achieve a pregnancy. My follicle scan this morning showed one follicle measuring at 18, so we did the trigger shot and have an IUI tomorrow morning. Woo hoo! I really don't think that I could have handled a third canceled cycle in a row, and this one wasn't looking that promising earlier in the week. (Today is cycle day 18; my body is slooooow these days at maturing eggs.) But, my right ovary came through in the end, so now we just wait.
Not helping: our entire household is sick. LL started it last Friday, when I got a mid-day call from daycare informing me that he woke up from his nap with a fever, cough, runny nose, lethargy, you name it. By Sunday evening, I was sick, too. S followed Monday morning. Since LL's fever was still going strong yesterday, we finally took him to the doctor, who diagnosed double ear infection, so he is now on his first ever course of antibiotics. S has turned the corner and is starting to feel better, but I'm still feeling more ill each day, and I feel so unbelievably awful that it's kind of hard to believe that I haven't hit bottom yet. Fun times.
I'm going to be home from work tomorrow yet again, after the IUI, then back on track with work next week, I hope.
Nine major life-changing goals, 8.5 months. A girl has to dream.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Things I Learned This Week
Another Passover survived. I got through all of the cooking I had planned, and I approximated the quantities better than normal. (I usually make way too much food, and we eat leftovers all week and I still end up throwing out leftover food. This year, we had enough leftovers to last almost but not quite the entire week, none was thrown out, and we had non-leftovers for a few meals. Woo hoo!) The house was presentable for guests without an unreasonable amount of stashing-junk-in-corners-where-no-one-will-notice. LL was a bit cautious around all the visitors for the first, oh, 30 minutes or so, and then he was like, "Oh, grandparents are FUN! They'll play with me all the time!" LL even stayed awake for both Seders, tried small bites of a few new foods, and clapped along with the songs. A few things that we learned during Passover:
1. LL likes wine. A lot. He has had wine before -- he had some at his bris, and he sucked a few drops off my finger at last year's Seders. This year, at the beginning of the Seder, when everyone drinks the first of four ritual cups of wine, I held up my wine glass to his lips so that he could have a sip as part of the service. He then spent the entire rest of the Seder, and several days afterward, pointing eagerly at wine bottles and plaintively asking, "More? More? More!?!" At first, I thought it was just that he liked the sweet kosher wine, so I switched him to a dry pinot noir for the second sip. Nope, he liked it just as much. I finally had a conversation with him about how some foods and drinks are only eaten on special occasions, so there would be no more wine until next Passover, which actually satisfied him and he hasn't brought it up since. Still... alcoholic toddler.
2. LL loves matzah, too. He eagerly ate it for the first several days before growing sick of it. But honestly, every Jew I know grows sick of it halfway through Passover, so that was expected.
3. I couldn't get LL to try any brisket or gefilte fish or matzah balls, but he did eat a little bit of charoset. And S fed him a little horseradish during the Seder, which I feared would make LL never take food from us ever again, but he actually liked it and asked for a second taste. He also ate beet borscht, which is very yummy but also very very messy. If anybody has advice on getting out beet stains, I'd love to hear it, because so far nothing has worked.
4. LL hates when other people try to sleep in his presence. My father and my uncle were both fairly exhausted from traveling, and kept dozing off on the couch while LL played with my mom and my grandfather. Whenever LL would notice that one of them had fallen asleep, he would walk over and tap them on the leg and insistently hand them toys until they opened their eyes. Then he would clap. Good to know that it's not just me and S who aren't allowed to sleep, ever.
5. We don't know where he picked it up (must be daycare) but LL is suddenly into playing with action figures. My grandfather brought him a little toy dinosaur, and LL immediately "walked" the dinosaur over different surfaces while making little "walking" noises, then paused to make the dinosaur ROAR several times before continuing on his way. It was very very cute. Also, "roar!" is now one of LL's favorite words. Also, "wow!" They sound a lot alike.
6. I work too much around LL. There was one day last week when I had no childcare but needed to pick something up at my office, so I took LL with me. He immediately asked to sit in my office chair, in front of a keyboard, mouse, and large monitor that weren't attached to anything. (Normally they're hooked to a laptop, but the laptop was at home.) I let him touch whatever he wanted, since nothing was hooked up. He spent half an hour (!) typing very purposefully at the keyboard, moving the mouse, scrutinizing the test pattern on the monitor, picking up a pen to jot down notes on a notepad, then returning to his typing. It was all very serious and deliberate, and he was very obviously emulating me. Yikes.
All the out of town visitors have returned home now, so it's back to work. I have no other major distractions between now and graduation, so it's just one continuous uninterrupted climb until my thesis is done. Graduation is in a little over two months, but after talking with AdvisorA and AdvisorB, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is no way I will be able to schedule my defense to occur before graduation. (The delay is because of scheduling issues, not research issues. Getting five professors in the same room for four hours is hard under normal conditions, but when one of the five lives three time zones away and refuses to be at all flexible about her travel schedule... it's a lot harder. Thanks again for all your "help," AdvisorA.) So, I will probably "walk through" my commencement even though I haven't turned in my dissertation, then I will defend later that month, and take part of the summer to finish writing and revising.
As for my plan to finish three thesis chapters by Passover? Derailed a bit. I was almost there, and then I found out from AdvisorB that he'd really prefer to see different chapters than the ones I was working on (specifically, he won't look at anything else until he sees a full draft of the one chapter that I hadn't even started yet) so I had to switch tracks. I have lots of chapters that are part-way done, notably the three that I had been working on and the one that AdvisorB wants, but none that are finished. Ah well, at least it's still progress.
1. LL likes wine. A lot. He has had wine before -- he had some at his bris, and he sucked a few drops off my finger at last year's Seders. This year, at the beginning of the Seder, when everyone drinks the first of four ritual cups of wine, I held up my wine glass to his lips so that he could have a sip as part of the service. He then spent the entire rest of the Seder, and several days afterward, pointing eagerly at wine bottles and plaintively asking, "More? More? More!?!" At first, I thought it was just that he liked the sweet kosher wine, so I switched him to a dry pinot noir for the second sip. Nope, he liked it just as much. I finally had a conversation with him about how some foods and drinks are only eaten on special occasions, so there would be no more wine until next Passover, which actually satisfied him and he hasn't brought it up since. Still... alcoholic toddler.
2. LL loves matzah, too. He eagerly ate it for the first several days before growing sick of it. But honestly, every Jew I know grows sick of it halfway through Passover, so that was expected.
3. I couldn't get LL to try any brisket or gefilte fish or matzah balls, but he did eat a little bit of charoset. And S fed him a little horseradish during the Seder, which I feared would make LL never take food from us ever again, but he actually liked it and asked for a second taste. He also ate beet borscht, which is very yummy but also very very messy. If anybody has advice on getting out beet stains, I'd love to hear it, because so far nothing has worked.
4. LL hates when other people try to sleep in his presence. My father and my uncle were both fairly exhausted from traveling, and kept dozing off on the couch while LL played with my mom and my grandfather. Whenever LL would notice that one of them had fallen asleep, he would walk over and tap them on the leg and insistently hand them toys until they opened their eyes. Then he would clap. Good to know that it's not just me and S who aren't allowed to sleep, ever.
5. We don't know where he picked it up (must be daycare) but LL is suddenly into playing with action figures. My grandfather brought him a little toy dinosaur, and LL immediately "walked" the dinosaur over different surfaces while making little "walking" noises, then paused to make the dinosaur ROAR several times before continuing on his way. It was very very cute. Also, "roar!" is now one of LL's favorite words. Also, "wow!" They sound a lot alike.
6. I work too much around LL. There was one day last week when I had no childcare but needed to pick something up at my office, so I took LL with me. He immediately asked to sit in my office chair, in front of a keyboard, mouse, and large monitor that weren't attached to anything. (Normally they're hooked to a laptop, but the laptop was at home.) I let him touch whatever he wanted, since nothing was hooked up. He spent half an hour (!) typing very purposefully at the keyboard, moving the mouse, scrutinizing the test pattern on the monitor, picking up a pen to jot down notes on a notepad, then returning to his typing. It was all very serious and deliberate, and he was very obviously emulating me. Yikes.
All the out of town visitors have returned home now, so it's back to work. I have no other major distractions between now and graduation, so it's just one continuous uninterrupted climb until my thesis is done. Graduation is in a little over two months, but after talking with AdvisorA and AdvisorB, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is no way I will be able to schedule my defense to occur before graduation. (The delay is because of scheduling issues, not research issues. Getting five professors in the same room for four hours is hard under normal conditions, but when one of the five lives three time zones away and refuses to be at all flexible about her travel schedule... it's a lot harder. Thanks again for all your "help," AdvisorA.) So, I will probably "walk through" my commencement even though I haven't turned in my dissertation, then I will defend later that month, and take part of the summer to finish writing and revising.
As for my plan to finish three thesis chapters by Passover? Derailed a bit. I was almost there, and then I found out from AdvisorB that he'd really prefer to see different chapters than the ones I was working on (specifically, he won't look at anything else until he sees a full draft of the one chapter that I hadn't even started yet) so I had to switch tracks. I have lots of chapters that are part-way done, notably the three that I had been working on and the one that AdvisorB wants, but none that are finished. Ah well, at least it's still progress.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Uh Oh!
I'm falling back on bulleted lists again, because argh! I'm really busy again.
- LL had his 18-month appointment. He is holding steady around the 30th percentile for height and weight, and above the 80th percentile for head size. He almost always wears baggy shirts because the shirts that actually fit his arms and torso properly will not slip over his gigantic head.
- Inspired by K, I made a list of LL's spoken words: mama, daddy, all done, this, up, down, bear, ball, cheese, keys, no, yes (actually, he says "da", which is "yes" in Russian; thank you Natasha), uh oh, more ("moo"), moo ("mmmm", cow sound; is it weird that he says "moo" for "more" but refuses to pronounce it like "moo" for an actual cow?), arf (dog sound), hsss (snake sound), vroom (car sound), puff (rice puffs), spoon. There is some debate about whether to also include "wee!" which is what he squeals when he's doing something fun, like going down a slide. Also, he only said spoon for one day, and has refused to say it again since, so that one is kind of iffy. The rest are all heard almost every day. You gotta love a kid that manages to fit that entire set of words into conversation every single day.
- I'm told that most toddlers learn "no" long before they learn "yes", so we're rather grateful that the Russian "da" is so easy for him to say. It makes him quite agreeable, and he always says it with a little smile. Natasha asks him yes-no questions all day long because she is so charmed that he answers in Russian. And this morning, he started saying "nyet" instead of no, which somehow makes me want to cast him in a 1980s James Bond film.
- "Uh oh" is a very recent addition. LL learned to say it, and a few days later he said it to a police officer who was writing S a traffic ticket. ("What's the problem, officer?" "I'm sorry, sir, but I pulled you over for speeding." (loudly from the back seat) "UH OH!") Sadly, the officer was not as charmed by LL's sense of humor as I was, and he still gave S the ticket.
- All of the kids I know who are around LL's age seem to have several times the vocabulary that he does. Tons more words, says their own name and the names of other kids, stuff like that. LL's exposure to three different languages (English, Russian, and Spanish) on a regular basis is probably slowing him down a bit, as is his early adoption of the word "this", which seemed to convince him that he didn't need to know any more nouns. Still, I was concerned enough that I asked Dr. K about it. She says that she only gets concerned at this age if a kid has fewer than 10 words or fails the M-CHAT (test for early autism). So we're fine.
- I did answer one question "wrong" on the M-CHAT, but I'm convinced that it's just a bad question. "Does your child sometimes stare at nothing or wander with no purpose?" I said "yes" because although he doesn't stare at nothing, he does wander with no purpose, all the time. So do most kids I know. Dr. K informed me that there is a difference between "wandering with no purpose" and "wandering with a specific purpose that only LL understands." She had no answer for me, though, on how I was supposed to distinguish those things. Apparently the question is meant to identify disengagement with the world, and not whether your child has the heart of an explorer but doesn't always submit a flight plan with his parents.
- Ever since we returned from our trip, LL keeps getting his snow pants out of the closet, putting them in his sled, filling the sled with stuffed animals (usually Winnie the Pooh), and dragging the sled around the house. And now I just feel bad that he's not around snow more often.
- LL has also learned how to sweep. Which is odd, because I rarely sweep, so I'm not sure who taught him this behavior. He gets out the broom, runs it over the floor of the kitchen, gets a dust pan, bangs the dust pan on the floor several times, then puts both the broom and the dust pan back where they belong. Carefully putting them back is the part that kills me.
- My parents, uncle, and grandfather are arriving for Passover in less than a week. Despite LL's attempts to clean the kitchen, our house is a gigantic mess, and I'm a bit panicked about whipping it into shape before they get here. I finally made the seder menu this weekend, did my first round of grocery shopping, and roasted two briskets to freeze until next week. The rest of the cooking will happen next weekend. I'm excited about the menu -- there's an apricot chicken recipe that I only make for Passover, and I didn't make it for the past two years (first because I was pregnant and had a huge aversion to chicken, and last year because the recipe is rather involved and messy and I didn't want to try it with a newborn in my arms). I love this recipe, and I'm excited to have it again.
- Our Passover plans are a bit more scaled back than recent years, mostly because S's family decided not to come this year. First seder will have just 7 people, and second seder currently stands at 22. (For comparison, last year it was 10 and 28; I don't remember the last time second seder fell below 24 people.) For any Jewish readers who are curious about why second seder is bigger: it's a tradition that I accidentally started back in college when I hated the seders run by my campus Hillel and invited three friends to do second seder in my dorm room instead. That first year, I stole most of the seder foods from the cafeteria earlier in the day, and had to take two different forms of public transportation to get to a store that sold kosher wine. None of my friends had a corkscrew, and we had to decant the wine after shredding the cork trying to open it with a pocket knife. After that, I started hosting second seder every year, and it kept growing and growing. By my count, this is my 14th year doing it. It's nice because most people have somewhere to go for first seder, but everyone we invite is generally free for second seder.
- I'm having serious senioritis lately, which is bad because I have a thesis to finish writing and a defense to schedule. In an effort to motivate myself, I'm going to announce some public concrete milestones: by the time my parents arrive on Sunday, I will have decent drafts (ie, good enough that I'd be willing to show them to people) of three (3) full chapters. Possibly without figures, but with full text. One of those chapters might be an appendix, but only if I wuss out midweek. You heard it here first. Check back next week.
- LL had his 18-month appointment. He is holding steady around the 30th percentile for height and weight, and above the 80th percentile for head size. He almost always wears baggy shirts because the shirts that actually fit his arms and torso properly will not slip over his gigantic head.
- Inspired by K, I made a list of LL's spoken words: mama, daddy, all done, this, up, down, bear, ball, cheese, keys, no, yes (actually, he says "da", which is "yes" in Russian; thank you Natasha), uh oh, more ("moo"), moo ("mmmm", cow sound; is it weird that he says "moo" for "more" but refuses to pronounce it like "moo" for an actual cow?), arf (dog sound), hsss (snake sound), vroom (car sound), puff (rice puffs), spoon. There is some debate about whether to also include "wee!" which is what he squeals when he's doing something fun, like going down a slide. Also, he only said spoon for one day, and has refused to say it again since, so that one is kind of iffy. The rest are all heard almost every day. You gotta love a kid that manages to fit that entire set of words into conversation every single day.
- I'm told that most toddlers learn "no" long before they learn "yes", so we're rather grateful that the Russian "da" is so easy for him to say. It makes him quite agreeable, and he always says it with a little smile. Natasha asks him yes-no questions all day long because she is so charmed that he answers in Russian. And this morning, he started saying "nyet" instead of no, which somehow makes me want to cast him in a 1980s James Bond film.
- "Uh oh" is a very recent addition. LL learned to say it, and a few days later he said it to a police officer who was writing S a traffic ticket. ("What's the problem, officer?" "I'm sorry, sir, but I pulled you over for speeding." (loudly from the back seat) "UH OH!") Sadly, the officer was not as charmed by LL's sense of humor as I was, and he still gave S the ticket.
- All of the kids I know who are around LL's age seem to have several times the vocabulary that he does. Tons more words, says their own name and the names of other kids, stuff like that. LL's exposure to three different languages (English, Russian, and Spanish) on a regular basis is probably slowing him down a bit, as is his early adoption of the word "this", which seemed to convince him that he didn't need to know any more nouns. Still, I was concerned enough that I asked Dr. K about it. She says that she only gets concerned at this age if a kid has fewer than 10 words or fails the M-CHAT (test for early autism). So we're fine.
- I did answer one question "wrong" on the M-CHAT, but I'm convinced that it's just a bad question. "Does your child sometimes stare at nothing or wander with no purpose?" I said "yes" because although he doesn't stare at nothing, he does wander with no purpose, all the time. So do most kids I know. Dr. K informed me that there is a difference between "wandering with no purpose" and "wandering with a specific purpose that only LL understands." She had no answer for me, though, on how I was supposed to distinguish those things. Apparently the question is meant to identify disengagement with the world, and not whether your child has the heart of an explorer but doesn't always submit a flight plan with his parents.
- Ever since we returned from our trip, LL keeps getting his snow pants out of the closet, putting them in his sled, filling the sled with stuffed animals (usually Winnie the Pooh), and dragging the sled around the house. And now I just feel bad that he's not around snow more often.
- LL has also learned how to sweep. Which is odd, because I rarely sweep, so I'm not sure who taught him this behavior. He gets out the broom, runs it over the floor of the kitchen, gets a dust pan, bangs the dust pan on the floor several times, then puts both the broom and the dust pan back where they belong. Carefully putting them back is the part that kills me.
- My parents, uncle, and grandfather are arriving for Passover in less than a week. Despite LL's attempts to clean the kitchen, our house is a gigantic mess, and I'm a bit panicked about whipping it into shape before they get here. I finally made the seder menu this weekend, did my first round of grocery shopping, and roasted two briskets to freeze until next week. The rest of the cooking will happen next weekend. I'm excited about the menu -- there's an apricot chicken recipe that I only make for Passover, and I didn't make it for the past two years (first because I was pregnant and had a huge aversion to chicken, and last year because the recipe is rather involved and messy and I didn't want to try it with a newborn in my arms). I love this recipe, and I'm excited to have it again.
- Our Passover plans are a bit more scaled back than recent years, mostly because S's family decided not to come this year. First seder will have just 7 people, and second seder currently stands at 22. (For comparison, last year it was 10 and 28; I don't remember the last time second seder fell below 24 people.) For any Jewish readers who are curious about why second seder is bigger: it's a tradition that I accidentally started back in college when I hated the seders run by my campus Hillel and invited three friends to do second seder in my dorm room instead. That first year, I stole most of the seder foods from the cafeteria earlier in the day, and had to take two different forms of public transportation to get to a store that sold kosher wine. None of my friends had a corkscrew, and we had to decant the wine after shredding the cork trying to open it with a pocket knife. After that, I started hosting second seder every year, and it kept growing and growing. By my count, this is my 14th year doing it. It's nice because most people have somewhere to go for first seder, but everyone we invite is generally free for second seder.
- I'm having serious senioritis lately, which is bad because I have a thesis to finish writing and a defense to schedule. In an effort to motivate myself, I'm going to announce some public concrete milestones: by the time my parents arrive on Sunday, I will have decent drafts (ie, good enough that I'd be willing to show them to people) of three (3) full chapters. Possibly without figures, but with full text. One of those chapters might be an appendix, but only if I wuss out midweek. You heard it here first. Check back next week.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Mountains and Follicles and Passover, Oh My!
We are back from our long weekend away with friends, and it was fantastic. Just what I needed.
We had eight adults and four toddlers, and we rented a five-bedroom cabin in the mountains. LL loved having all the people around, and he loved sledding and playing outside in the snow. (For comparison: two of the other kids screamed bloody murder every time we went outside, and the third one took half an hour to get used to the weather every single time we went out. While the other children were fairly miserable in the cold weather and thin air, LL ran circles around them and kept trying to hand them snowballs. The other kids spent a lot of time inside the cabin.) One of my friends is hyper-organized, and thanks to all of her pre-planning, all of the logistics went smoothly. We all drove to the cabin more or less together, we stopped together for lunch, we stopped again to play at a park to give the kids a break, we checked into the cabin without a hitch, we each brought a small collection of groceries such that all of our meals were planned and ready to go... it was wonderful.
I was most worried about whether LL would sleep in the cabin, since he usually doesn't sleep well in a pack'n'play, but it actually wasn't too bad. He went to sleep well each night. He then woke up around 1am, and we just brought him into bed with us and he went back to sleep (after flopping around for a bit). In the past, whenever we've attempted to co-sleep, none of the three of us got much sleep. I don't know if all the heavy playing wore LL out, or if he's just older and more adaptable, but this weekend it wasn't so bad. And the cabin was a bit cold at night, so I actually appreciated the hot little body in footie pajamas that insisted on sleeping on top of me.
Best of all, since we were all staying in the same cabin, we weren't constantly needing to leave in order to get kids home to nap or eat or whatever. We all got some adults-only time each day during naptime, and again at night after the kiddos were all asleep. And we traded off subsets of adults playing with all the kids, so we each got a fair amount of time during the day to put our feet up, have a drink, and chat with other adults. Heavenly.
And now... back to reality. I had another follicle scan, which showed that my one and only little follicle had been reabsorbed back into my ovary. It didn't grow, it didn't shrink, it definitely didn't release an egg (if it had, the corpus luteum would have been visible on the ultrasound). Instead, it just faded away. Since I'm already at cycle day 20+, Dr. M gave me a progesterone shot to quickly end the cycle, so we can move on to the next one. We're going to try one more cycle with 200mg of clomid.
In the mean time, I need to turn my attention to more pressing matters. Like the fact that my entire family is arriving for Passover in less than two weeks, and I have done none of my normal pre-holiday prep. Passover seders for 30 people don't just plan themselves. Also, I'm theoretically graduating in less than 90 days, and my thesis isn't going to write itself.
We had eight adults and four toddlers, and we rented a five-bedroom cabin in the mountains. LL loved having all the people around, and he loved sledding and playing outside in the snow. (For comparison: two of the other kids screamed bloody murder every time we went outside, and the third one took half an hour to get used to the weather every single time we went out. While the other children were fairly miserable in the cold weather and thin air, LL ran circles around them and kept trying to hand them snowballs. The other kids spent a lot of time inside the cabin.) One of my friends is hyper-organized, and thanks to all of her pre-planning, all of the logistics went smoothly. We all drove to the cabin more or less together, we stopped together for lunch, we stopped again to play at a park to give the kids a break, we checked into the cabin without a hitch, we each brought a small collection of groceries such that all of our meals were planned and ready to go... it was wonderful.
I was most worried about whether LL would sleep in the cabin, since he usually doesn't sleep well in a pack'n'play, but it actually wasn't too bad. He went to sleep well each night. He then woke up around 1am, and we just brought him into bed with us and he went back to sleep (after flopping around for a bit). In the past, whenever we've attempted to co-sleep, none of the three of us got much sleep. I don't know if all the heavy playing wore LL out, or if he's just older and more adaptable, but this weekend it wasn't so bad. And the cabin was a bit cold at night, so I actually appreciated the hot little body in footie pajamas that insisted on sleeping on top of me.
Best of all, since we were all staying in the same cabin, we weren't constantly needing to leave in order to get kids home to nap or eat or whatever. We all got some adults-only time each day during naptime, and again at night after the kiddos were all asleep. And we traded off subsets of adults playing with all the kids, so we each got a fair amount of time during the day to put our feet up, have a drink, and chat with other adults. Heavenly.
And now... back to reality. I had another follicle scan, which showed that my one and only little follicle had been reabsorbed back into my ovary. It didn't grow, it didn't shrink, it definitely didn't release an egg (if it had, the corpus luteum would have been visible on the ultrasound). Instead, it just faded away. Since I'm already at cycle day 20+, Dr. M gave me a progesterone shot to quickly end the cycle, so we can move on to the next one. We're going to try one more cycle with 200mg of clomid.
In the mean time, I need to turn my attention to more pressing matters. Like the fact that my entire family is arriving for Passover in less than two weeks, and I have done none of my normal pre-holiday prep. Passover seders for 30 people don't just plan themselves. Also, I'm theoretically graduating in less than 90 days, and my thesis isn't going to write itself.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Double Fail
My one and only follicle on Tuesday measured in at 14mm, below the minimum 18mm needed to proceed with an IUI. They typically grow 1-2mm per day, so we gave it three days and came back today to check again. Know how big it was today? 14mm.
Stupid follicle. Stupid lazy ovary. Did I mention how much this sucks?
So, two possibilities. Either I actually ovulated yesterday, and the follicle grew really fast and then shrank again (unlikely, but Dr. M held it out there as a possibility) or the follicle just isn't growing (probably a bad egg). (And now I want to go rent The Bad Seed.) (My mind works in weird ways.) I'm going back for another ultrasound on Tuesday so that he can check whether it has grown (unlikely), shrunk (also unlikely), or just stayed approximately the same (that's where my money is). Based on how it looks, we'll figure out where to go next. Dr. M thinks that I could probably do one more clomid cycle, at the same dosage, based on the belief that everybody has bad cycles sometimes. He also mentioned maybe trying a cycle or two of femara instead, to see if I respond better. Or perhaps it's just time to move on to injectibles.
My hesitation with injectibles, by the way, isn't a fear of needles. S is scared of needles, but I'm not. I know that S won't be able to help me with injections, but I think that I'll be able to handle it myself just fine. I am a little annoyed with the added expense, but our insurance isn't too bad. My bigger concern is that I'll need to switch doctors. Dr. M is my ob/gyn; he's not an RE, though he does handle a lot of fertility patients for his practice. I've never doubted that I was in good hands with him, and I like him a lot. He helped us to have LL, in only three cycles. But, his office is not equipped to do the extra monitoring that's necessary with injectibles. They have too many patients to be able to handle all the extra monitoring appointments, and too few people with the expertise to make the little day-to-day adjustments that are common with injectibles. So Dr. M will be referring me elsewhere if we need to try a completely different treatment.
My biggest concern with injectibles is all that extra monitoring, especially since the appointments would have to be at a doctors office that is much further away. More frequent appointments that are far from both my home and my office? Not exactly what I want to be doing while finishing my thesis and looking for a job. If that's what it takes, then I'll do it. But I was hoping not to have to. Given today's news, though, it looks like that's where we're heading.
On the bright side (yeah, I'm stretching here to find a bright side), since we won't be doing an IUI tomorrow morning, we'll be able to leave on-time for our trip, so no need to come up with an excuse to tell our friends. I had a good one all figured out, too....
Stupid follicle. Stupid lazy ovary. Did I mention how much this sucks?
So, two possibilities. Either I actually ovulated yesterday, and the follicle grew really fast and then shrank again (unlikely, but Dr. M held it out there as a possibility) or the follicle just isn't growing (probably a bad egg). (And now I want to go rent The Bad Seed.) (My mind works in weird ways.) I'm going back for another ultrasound on Tuesday so that he can check whether it has grown (unlikely), shrunk (also unlikely), or just stayed approximately the same (that's where my money is). Based on how it looks, we'll figure out where to go next. Dr. M thinks that I could probably do one more clomid cycle, at the same dosage, based on the belief that everybody has bad cycles sometimes. He also mentioned maybe trying a cycle or two of femara instead, to see if I respond better. Or perhaps it's just time to move on to injectibles.
My hesitation with injectibles, by the way, isn't a fear of needles. S is scared of needles, but I'm not. I know that S won't be able to help me with injections, but I think that I'll be able to handle it myself just fine. I am a little annoyed with the added expense, but our insurance isn't too bad. My bigger concern is that I'll need to switch doctors. Dr. M is my ob/gyn; he's not an RE, though he does handle a lot of fertility patients for his practice. I've never doubted that I was in good hands with him, and I like him a lot. He helped us to have LL, in only three cycles. But, his office is not equipped to do the extra monitoring that's necessary with injectibles. They have too many patients to be able to handle all the extra monitoring appointments, and too few people with the expertise to make the little day-to-day adjustments that are common with injectibles. So Dr. M will be referring me elsewhere if we need to try a completely different treatment.
My biggest concern with injectibles is all that extra monitoring, especially since the appointments would have to be at a doctors office that is much further away. More frequent appointments that are far from both my home and my office? Not exactly what I want to be doing while finishing my thesis and looking for a job. If that's what it takes, then I'll do it. But I was hoping not to have to. Given today's news, though, it looks like that's where we're heading.
On the bright side (yeah, I'm stretching here to find a bright side), since we won't be doing an IUI tomorrow morning, we'll be able to leave on-time for our trip, so no need to come up with an excuse to tell our friends. I had a good one all figured out, too....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
