Take with a grain of salt

Every day we go out for our family run.  There's a park and a 7 mile trail just a mile from our house so we run to the park and run whatever distance on the trail.  My husband runs with the jogging stroller so he takes off and I close up the house and am usually 5 minutes or so behind him.  So we don't always see the same stuff on our run.  Unfortunately we do usually both see the dead deer since animal control here for dead animals is a hands off policy, or more accurately, "let the vultures deal with it."  There's a ranch that abuts the trail so occasionally we see longhorn cattle and sometimes deer.  So when my daughter gets home from the run I always ask her what she saw.  Today my husband says "tell her the funny thing we saw" and proceeds to tell me they saw a turkey chasing a three legged dog.  Remember, this is the man who was chased by wild turkeys and thought they were ostriches.  He also thought he saw a dead beaver on the trail once (possum).  So god only knows what they actually saw.  

Here's a funny for today's thing that doesn't suck.  I love Martin Short.  

It's that time of year again...so soon?

So all infertiles know that it's infertility awareness week.  Based on my own experiences, here's some helpful guidance if someone you know (or don't know) is dealing with infertility.

Things that don't help.

1. Complaining about how tough of a time you've had getting pregnant.  I know, that one IUI cycle you did (that got you pregnant) and that clomid you used for 2 months (that got you pregnant again) were pretty stressful but the two women you are complaining to just had miscarriages and it took them YEARS to have their only child.  So um, shut up.
2. Upon hearing the news that I had a non-viable pregnancy, telling me that your friend who was separated but not quite divorced and got pregnant by her married boyfriend because both of them were too lazy to use birth control and had an abortion said "the bleeding wasn't that bad."  Not the same.  Not the same at all. 
3. Having the Walgreens clerk look at the two boxes of pregnancy tests I am buying for my latest IVF cycle and smirk and say "Trying, or just making sure?"  
4. Having Target clerk look at my daughter in the cart and ask how many children I have.  When I reply "one" tell me that I should have more, because I don't want an only child.  
5. Don't tell an infertile person you "know" that they'll have a baby.  Sometimes they don't.  

Things that do help.

1. Having your friend call to find out the results of your beta and finding out it's negative, having her say "I'm so sorry, that just SUCKS" and knowing by her voice that she really means it.
2. Having a mom who gets it.  One who cries with you and tells you that you don't deserve anything that's happened.  And when you're finally lucky to have a baby, one that tells you every chance she gets that you're a good mother.
3. Having a friend who gets it.  Doesn't even have to be an infertile friend.  I have a super fertile friend who knew that I'd recently had a miscarriage.  She called me to tell me she was pregnant before she told our book club.  She said she felt guilty because it was easy for her to get pregnant and she has friends who struggle with it and she wanted to be sensitive to my feelings.  
4. Hearing a hard luck success story.  Yes, the 7 IVFs story makes me hopeful.  
5. Vodka.  Chocolate chip cookies.  Running.  Maybe that's just me though.  

Oh my god we're all going to die

There is one smug member of our family secretly enjoying the swine flu outbreak as it justifies his barrel of hand sanitizer purchase from Costco.  I'm already bored with the coverage and the imagination free graphics pickers, really how many pictures of people in surgical masks do we need to see?  It's nice that we've been distracted from the usual "The economy...it sucks" lead stories but I'm not all that freaked out by swine flu.  Because really, there are so many other freaky things to fear.  Here's my top 5

1.  The brain eating amoeba.  I did a triathlon last summer in a lake that was pretty warm.  After the race I went home and spent the next 2 weeks waiting for my brain to ooze out my ears.  It didn't, but still, this thing is SCARY.

2.  Getting trapped underwater in my car.  Every time it rains here, they have many warnings about not driving on roads covered with water because inevitably someone is swept away.  I have one of those hammer things in each car to break the car windows and I mentally rehearse getting my daughter out of her car seat should this happen to us.  Which is unlikely because Mr. Hand Sanitizer likes us to stay at home when it rains, just in case (he was perhaps raised in a large inflatable bubble, I have yet to confirm).

3.  Bears.  I don't even live in bear country and yet the thought of them totally freaks me out.  Especially since there's no consensus on whether you should run away or play dead if you encounter one.  

4.  Bats.  Bats are big here.  And bats are the biggest carriers of rabies.  Did you know that you need to have rabies shots if a bat is found in a room where you've been sleeping because you can get bit in your sleep and not realize it?  This happened to my former nanny.  So I keep thinking that a bat might be in my bedroom, hiding and biting me.  And I'll realize it too late to get rabies shots.

5.  The WaterPik.  I do not have the requisite skills to operate this machinery.  I just spray water all over the bathroom.  I even sprayed water directly in my eye.  And that really hurt.  They really should put a safety goggle warning in the directions.

I have my limits

On the mommy anal retention scale I'd put myself squarely between Kate (of Jon&Kate+8 fame) who doesn't let her children get messy or eat a cupcake and ruin their lunch on their BIRTHDAY and my neighbor who has 6 children who look like Dickens street urchins 99% of the time.  We use playdough, paint, markers, crayons, and I let my child eat a messy cupcake now and then.  But today I discovered where I draw the line.  GLITTER.  

We went to a birthday party, Tinkerbell themed.  Apparently, Tinkerbell is awash in glitter.  And so was my child when we left.  The host mom was telling somebody how the glitter was no big deal, her kids were playing with it yesterday and she just threw it on the floor and vacuumed it all up.  So yeah, she didn't transport her child in the car seat with it covering her legs and have that child immediately run into the house and roll on the couch and the carpeting.  Our couch, carpet, and dog are teeming with glitter now.  Glitter is insidious.  Worse than termites or bedbugs.  You cannot escape a glitter infestation unless you burn your house down and flee the state.  I was beginning to think that health care is my most pressing concern right now but I'm changing priorities.  Eradicating glitter and confetti from the earth shall be my life's work henceforth. 

So today's thing that doesn't suck is super awesome.  I mentioned that my post-FET failure hormonal frenzy resulted in me buying a bounce house for my daughter.  Well it arrived yesterday.  Coincidentally we were having a playdate with 10 kids.  Best $280 I've ever spent.  My child jumped like a circus performer for well over an hour and only emerged (covered in sweat) to demand a cupcake.  One of the kids was the older brother of a playmate and he was around 7 and even he loved it.  So for the cost of half a trimester of progesterone I will hopefully get years of jumping entertainment and a much less of a sore ass from this thing.  Money well spent.  

Life goes on

It's pretty hard to wallow in sadness when you have a baby dictator barking out requests every 5 minutes "mommy.  sit there. color. go outside. now." So we've been moving on.  And watching more Elmo than is necessary.  The kid has been a bit under the weather and so we've acceded to the "ELMOELMOELMO" request pretty frequently the past few days.  

I was reading an article about Paul Rudd yesterday in GQ (ironic that a 42 year old man who wears exclusively concert t-shirts and workout clothes would get a men's fashion magazine then not being influenced one iota by its content, isn't it?)  Anywhoo, the article mentioned an out-take from Role Models, which I haven't yet seen, where everyone was sitting around in a group talking about things they loved (some happy crappy up with people type thing) and Paul Rudd's character says "I love it when hunters shoot each other."  And I laughed out loud.  There's joy in unexpected places people.  And it's not Zac Efron in GQ, I am not swayed to the charm of Zac, then again I am not 12 years old.  

It's been far to long since I gave you something that doesn't suck.  If you are a museum person like me, you will love this*.  I bought it at my hometown museum a few months before my daughter was born.  It's an I Spy book called I Spy, An Alphabet in Art. Lately my daughter has gotten very into it and I love that she's getting a bit of exposure to something not red and furry, yes Elmo, I'm talkin to you. 

*If you are like my husband and practice speed tourism, you will hate it.  What is speed tourism? That's when you go to a museum to say you went there but go through it so goddamned fast your wife vows to never go to Paris with you ever. again.  45 minutes for the WHOLE Louvre people.  

A brand new day

I went for the blood test at 8:00 yesterday morning.  I still had not heard anything by 5:00 so I paged the on-call nurse who called me a half hour later.  This was what she said "the result was negative, which means less than 2, so stop taking all the medication you are on and call our office as you see fit. bye."  Seriously?  That's it??  At my old clinic when I got a negative the doctor called me and talked through our options for next steps.  Today I did have a voice mail from the doctor saying he wanted to check on us but nothing was mentioned about where we go from here.  Which I suppose is fine, since I don't quite know where we go from here.  

I think I get an "A" in coping skills though.  Here's what I've done since getting the news:

1. Had a martini, and drank it even though I used some martini mixer from Target that tasted like cherry cough syrup.  Thought about having a nyquil martini but discovered we don't have any nyquil.  Nixed Listerine martini idea.  
2. Had fitful sleep (see above, martini) and had a dream in which I invented a new breakfast cereal based on Truman Capote.  I hadn't quite decided whether to call it Truman Capote Crisp or Truman Capote Crunch.  Both sound pretty good.  The actual cereal was designed to be replicas of his round face.
3. Went for a run this morning.
4. Went to brunch.  Ate migas and bacon.*
5. Decided that the probably only child is going to get a kick-ass birthday party with the $600 I would have spent on progesterone.  
6. Rented pony for birthday party.
7. Bought bounce house for birthday party and general merriment.  
8. Started working up plans for billion dollar ponzi scheme.  Decided I can probably keep it going for 20 years or so.  
9. Colored with the delightful wonderful child I already have.  Decided it was ok to simultaneously be very thankful for what I have and a bit pissed about what I don't. 
10. Determined that my friend who sent me an email announcing the arrival of her new baby yesterday has the worst timing ever.  The day she called to tell me she was pregnant was when I found out my last pregnancy wasn't viable.  She must be my bizarro world twin. 

* I have been a vegetarian for 15 years, in large part for ethical reasons.  Decided virtuous life gets you nowhere.

Negative

So yeah, today sucks. 

10dp3dt

Ugh negative again.  And to Maya, thank you for being a Pollyanna.  I have been here before and I know all hope is not lost, it's just a crappy place to be.  I am a rational scientific person and yet, I ignore the facts in front of me.  Like I always have low betas.  My first pregnancy which resulted in miscarriage I had a beta of 26.  My second pregnancy which was successful, I had a beta of 63.  And on the day before and the day of that beta I got a negative with a First Response Early test which supposedly has a sensitivity of 25.  

It's just that if it's negative I don't know what we do.  

9dp3dt

Two digital tests say NOT PREGNANT.  I know I could still have a positive beta since it's happened to me before but still, a positive would have been nice.  Hey lama how about a little something for the effort?

Shut your piehole Jenny

I caught Jenny McCarthy on Ellen yesterday.  Yes, the Jenny McCarthy who can cure autism. Now she knows the secret to curing everything and preventing cancer.  Hyperbaric oxygen treatment.  You know, the oxygen chamber of Michael Jackson acclaim.  I would say it's dangerous for people to spout nonsensical medical claims but then again, I hardly think anyone's taking her seriously.  I think there's an inverse correlation with the relationship of someone's appearance naked in Playboy to their ability to cure cancer.  

I hope I'm not the only loser watching Real Housewives of NY.  I am however the only loser who hasn't developed a skincare line.  First the not very bright teenage daughter of the not very bright Lauri on Real Housewives of OC develops a skincare line.  Now Ramona from RHNY.  Because god knows one thing this world needs more of is facial moisturizers.  Again though, it's not like this is distracting either of them from curing cancer.  It's really just serving as a distraction from the time they spend playing with a ball of string in the corner or being transfixed by shiny objects.  

Too pee or not to pee

I'm so clever, I'm sure I'm the first infertility blogger to think that up.  But I am seriously thinking about doing a little (or a lot) of peeing on a stick.  My history in this area is not so good.  I got a negative 2 days before, 1 day before, and the day of my positive beta and my only successful pregnancy.  I got a positive (or 5 or 6) HPT when I got pregnant last year on my own and that crashed and burned.  But I don't like suspense.  At least I know the whole "I know someone who got a negative HPT and positive beta on the same day" urban legend is true since it actually happened to me.  So I know that a negative doesn't kill all hope.  Just enough to make you want to drink a giant jug of vodka.  

Something that sucks and something that doesn't

I will start off by saying that I am very very lucky to have had health insurance that covered some of our infertility treatment.  When we first started out I had United Health Care and they were awesome.  They had a $10,000 maximum but they didn't include the cost of drugs in that amount so the $10,000 paid for a decent amount of our 3 IUIs (2 medicated) and 3 IVFs.  When I was pregnant, United wasn't an option anymore so I switched to Aetna.  And that is who I currently have my insurance though since I have COBRA.  Aetna has a $5,000 maximum for infertility so we figured since we're paying nearly $450 a month for the insurance might as well do the FET and get it covered.  Ha,ha,ha.  That was before I knew that Aetna is apparently run by satan's minions.  First they have some rule that you have to "register" with their infertility services.  My RE's office told me to do that and when I called them the customer service person I talked to told me I didn't need to.  Oh and I checked my online access with them and no mention of this.  Then the day after my FET my RE's office is trying to submit everything and they are told Aetna wouldn't accept anything because I hadn't registered.  So again I called to register.  I was then grilled by the customer service person about why we did a FET and that Aetna's policy is to do the lesser cost treatment first.  Now I have to rustle up all my old cycle sheets to send to Aetna so a nurse can review and see if that FET is REALLY necessary.  It gets better, I called to refill my progesterone since I am 40 my dosage is twice what it was previously so a bottle of the stuff lasts 5 days.  I get a message from the pharmacy that my prescription is delayed because of my insurance company, they are reviewing it.  I finally called back today (after 4 days) to see what's up and the pharmacy says they don't know since Aetna won't even cover progesterone anyway.  They are serious morons.

The irony here is that Aetna turned me down for an individual health insurance policy which wouldn't have covered maternity benefits or any fertility treatment.  So I went with COBRA which covers both. And now, even if I don't get pregnant they probably are going to end up paying way more than they would have if they just issued me the bare bones individual policy.  

Moving on.  Here's something that doesn't suck.  A super easy yummy dessert.  If you have a peanut allergy then you probably want to pass, unless you have a death wish.

Peanut Butter Pie

1 (3 oz) pkg of cream cheese softened

1 cup powdered sugar

1/3 cup + 2T peanut butter

1/2 cup milk

1 carton of whipped topping (9-10 oz)

1 graham cracker or chocolate cookie pie shell 

Chocolate sauce

Whip the cream cheese at low speed until soft and fluffy.  Beat in powdered sugar and peanut butter at medium speed.  Slowly add the milk.  Fold whipped topping into peanut butter.  Turn into pie shell and freeze until firm.  Serve with chocolate sauce if desired.   

Sorry, Easter Candy has strings attached

The thing I really love about my daughter's age (not quite 2) is that we can make up arbitrary rules and lie about stuff and she doesn't question it.  "Oh you want easter candy? You have to poop on the toilet first."  "What's that, you'd like to watch The Wiggles? Oh, this is their nap time so we can't watch them right now."  

When some friends were visiting recently we all trekked up to our neighborhood park which has a sand volleyball area.  I really love sand because my child likes to eat it (yeah, she's too old for that and yet persists), it gets into every crevice of her shoes, and she throws it and the toddler aim sucks so most of it gets in her hair.  There was some planning involved in the park however because there's a little water spray/shower thing to rinse off your feet.  And once I thought the button to turn it on was too difficult for my child to maneuver only to find out 10 seconds later when she was dripping wet, that was not the case.  So when we were at the park with our friends my daughter ran over to the shower thing and I told her it was broken and we moved on.  About 30 seconds later one of our visitors presses the button and shouts "Hey, it's not broken!"  Hey thanks a lot, I'd like to keep this house of cards I've got here going for a little while longer.  

Time flies when you're transferring embryos and stuff

A few months ago two of my friends decided they would come visit me and we'd all do a 1/2 marathon.  Then it looked like our whole frozen embryo cycle timing would make it so I couldn't do the race so I held off registering.  And to be honest, training.  One of my friends went skiing a month ago and tore her ACL and had to have surgery so she was out.  And the other one sprained her ankle, so I thought well, good thing I haven't been doing any long runs because it looks like we aren't doing that race.  Turns out sprained ankle friend is also "I really need some motivation to jump start my running" friend so the race was still on.  So the past few Sundays I did 10 mile runs and hoped that I wouldn't finish the race in a pool of my own vomit.  The only redeeming factor would be that since my knee injury friend couldn't get her money back, I was running as her so it wouldn't be my identity I would be tarnishing.   I'm happy to say I finished in an ok time (2:09) and vomit free!  And that night as a reward I got to start the PIO injections in anticipation of the FET on the following Tuesday.  

Out of 3 frozen embryos, 2 survived the thaw.  One looked good and one looked ok so they transferred both.  Oy do I love my RE.  Seriously, there is no one better suited to their line of work than him.   Beta is in a week.  I'm feeling pretty indifferent about the whole thing, my luck is so crappy that I don't even get my hopes up anymore which is fine because as luck would have it my mom was visiting and she had enough optimism for all of us.  Do not underestimate the power of positive thinking of a grandma who has waited in her words "FOR-EVER" for grandchildren.  Grandma left yesterday so she also requested that we pretend yesterday was Easter so she could participate in the easter egg hunt.  Since she bought all the candy and toys and eggs and I am the person who (instead of going to church) dropped my friend off at church on Palm Sunday, we consented.  

The easter bunny also brought an easel from IKEA, even he knows a good scandinavian deal when he sees it.  So that's today's thing that doesn't suck, because as you can see, the toddler liked it.  She also liked using the dry erase marker to write on the wood of the easel, something that instead of admonishing grandma laughed at.  Kindly refrain from pointing out that the toddler is not wearing pants.  That's because for some insane reason when she goes to the bathroom she insists on taking off her underwear, rubber pants, pants, shoes, and socks.  And do you know how many times an almost 2 year old goes to the bathroom?  So by the end of the day we've pretty much ditched pants.  We need more dresses.  

Gun show

So I guess Michelle decided not to show the queen her two tickets to the gun show.  She probably wouldn't have been interested anyway, since she's turned into the incredible shrinking monarch.  Seriously, is the queen a lilliputian or are our president and the first lady like big freaking giants?  If they move in any closer for that picture they are going to crush poor Lillibet.  If Queen Elizabeth is anything like my grandmother in that purse she's got some wadded up kleenex, 10,000 pennies, and a few Brach's butterscotch candies.  Hardly worth lugging around in your own house.

Today's thing that doesn't suck is something the queen wouldn't be caught dead in, but hey, I don't prance about my house with a handbag either so we're even.  I've been looking for a cute skort as an alternative to shorts for our hot summer days that will probably be starting in about 2 weeks.  And while my daughter appears to be a big believer in showing everyone her underwear, me - not so much so I had to rule out skirts.  I finally found a skort  that I like.  It's a good length, the fabric is like a microfiber/nylon type so it doesn't wrinkle and would be great for travel.  It doesn't go so well with a crown and scepter but you can't have everything.