Can hardly believe it

I keep waiting for the end of the road. Every day that goes by makes me think I might be one day closer to doom, but it just doesn't seem to come.

I'm 11w5d today. That's almost 12 weeks pregnant, and it's 2 full weeks further than I made it with Grey. I'm not going to make any sweeping statements like "I'm almost there" or anything, but I just can't believe I've made it this far.

I had an u/s yesterday, and I was so relieved that it was scheduled, because I woke up with some brown discharge on my pantyliner. Sorry to be graphic, but I think it may be dried blood from my very, very sore yeast infection rather than anything going on inside (since there was nothing there when I wiped.) After I discovered the discharge, I felt some sharp-ish pains in my very lower abdomen, which had me a little freaked out, but I had heard the little person on the doppler the night before so I knew that it was probably still kicking.

The u/s was fine. Heartbeat was 161, and she found no signs of any bleeding inside that should have caused the discharge. She also said that my cervix is long and closed, which is a relief since I'm a little worried about the possibility of incompetent cervix due to my 3 D&Es. The baby was waving its arms around which was really cool. (It's amazing how little I remember of my ultrasounds with D, but after all, it was almost 3 years ago, and there were FAR fewer ultrasounds with him!)

My symptoms are still kicking, but I feel like my all-day-sickness is getting a little better. It's still there, but eating usually helps now (it didn't always at the beginning). I'm still down about 6 or 8 pounds from where I started because of the nausea, but I have no doubt that I'll make up for that later in the pregnancy. My nipples are still sore, but not as bad, and I've had a couple of days when they were itchy and a little tingly, which I remember from my pregnancy with D, and also from post-partum with him when I was trying to breas.tfeed. I'm still super tired, and looking forward to (hopefully) making it to the fun part of pregnancy when I have energy and appetite again.

Doppler 101

Yes, I bought a Doppler. I think it will be totally worth it in the end, even though I'm sure I'll have a few freak-outs when baby is turned the wrong way and I can't get a good reading. That's one of the down-sides of having too much information at your fingertips.

I got the Doppler a couple of days ago in the mail, and of course waited until D was in bed so I could have plenty of time to mess around with it without interruption. (T was out late that night or I would have waited for him.) I started very low, and found a beat far over to the left. I was using mode 2, and the rate was jumping around all over the place and didn't sound nearly fast enough to me. (The numbers were ranging from the 110's to the 140's.) I was a little nervous that it didn't sound faster, but figured as long as it was beating, I could be content for the night.

I did a little research yesterday online and found some resources on how to use home Dopplers. I read that there is an artery in your abdomen that can be found with a Doppler that makes a "swishing" noise instead of a galloping noise.

Long story a little shorter, last night I started with the probe right around my bellybutton and slowly went down. I rocked it a little, as the directions suggest, and I eventually found some major horse galloping going on down there, just below my bellybutton, and just a tiny bit to the right. It was NOWHERE NEAR where I had heard the swishing the other night (which I assume was that artery I read about.) This was definitely the little person, and the little person is still alive with a nice fast hearbeat. SCORE.

The moral: If you have your own doppler, and are as clueless as I was at trying to find the heartbeat, I hope this helps. If you're finding a slower beat far to the left (or to the right; I found one there too) it's probably not the baby, at least in early pregnancy.

In other news...

I am 9w5d today. Providing I make it through today, I will officially be further along than I made it with any of my miscarriages.

I had a little freak-out on Sunday. I had a minimal amount of brown discharge, and a few veeeeeeery small pink streaks mixed in with my cm when I wiped. I happened to be at my BIL and SIL's house at the time, and it was all I could do to keep my composure until we left, at which point, I of course burst into tears. The answering service at my ob's office told me to go to the ER to get checked out because of my history, and thank goodness, everything was fine. Baby was measuring 9w1d by their u/s, with a heart rate of 180. No real reason for the pink.

I'm still nervous about the pink, but I had another doctor's appointment yesterday and baby was measuring 9w4d with a heartrate of 176. All good. No more pink since Sunday. The doc sent me to get a Rhogam shot just in case (since I'm Rh-).

Remember how disenchanted I was with my last doctor? Can I just tell you how much I LOVE this doctor? "Why don't we see you in two weeks for another u/s, and then we'll do the nuchal scan 2 weeks after that?" He reassured me that they would be checking me all the time throughout the whole pregnancy, which made me feel so much better. I don't want to be the crazy obsessive prego who's running in for an u/s for every little twinge, but frankly, I'M STILL FREAKED OUT. Hard to convince yourself that "everything will be fine" after so many losses.

As a reminder that there are no guarantees, an uber-fertile friend of mine who has three kids (who had one prior blighted ovum in between #2 and #3) just went in for her 18 week u/s with #4 and found out that the baby had stopped growing at 13 weeks. I can't even imagine. I really feel like it must almost feel like a stillbirth to her. I mean, the baby was only 13 weeks, but in her mind, she was almost halfway through the pregnancy. No guarantees, ladies... no matter how "fertile" you may be.

What's going on

Quite simply, a post about what's going on.

First, I want to thank Christa for the beautiful angel wings. We haven't set up our tree yet, but they will have a prominent place when we do.

On the baby front, I really have nothing interesting to report. I have continued to be nauseous on a daily basis, for most of the day. While that totally sucks, it keeps my hope alive that this baby might really make it. My boobs are still super tender and heavy, and I'm tired all the time. I'm also craving salt (when I can stand to eat anything). Those seem to be "my" symptoms.

I have another appointment for an ultrasound next week, and although I haven't had any anxiety type of attacks recently (with the raised heart rate, etc.), I'm still having a hard time convincing myself that everything will be fine at that appointment. I'm finding it hard to imagine that I might make it past 9 weeks, 5 days this time. (Unfortunately, my u/s is at 9w4d, and then my next one will be my 12 week nuchal fold scan.) Do we tell our parents after next week's u/s? Do we wait until Christmas? (I will be 11 weeks on Christmas Day). By then, it will be a couple of weeks since the u/s and something could have happened to the baby in the interim. Right now, it doesn't feel like there will ever be a time when we'll tell our news to people in the same carefree way that we did after we made it through the first trimester with D.

Little sucker is growing

I had another u/s today (the one that was actually scheduled as the follow-up to the first one.) Baby's hb is up to 162 (yay!) and it's measuring right on schedule at 7 weeks, 6 days. Believe it or not, I had an EXTERNAL ultrasound today! (This is my first since the one where I found out about my first m/c). The tech said that it was probably a little early, but there it was. It actually looked a little bigger than 7w6d, more like 8w2d, but she said that variation can be normal because the measurements aren't exact. Something that I find funny is that they have yet to take my weight, blood pressure, or make me pee in a cup. Is that just because most people don't have their first appointment until 8 weeks?

After the u/s, the doctor was like "well, everything looks good, so let's schedule you for the 12 week nuchal fold scan." *Panic ensues* That would be after Christmas, and while I feel like things are going well this time, I just can't bear the thought of waiting four weeks for another ultrasound. I had two of my three miscarriages in that window.

I asked if there was any way I could have another u/s sooner, and the doctor (who I still love) said, "sure, let's schedule one for two weeks." That will still be before the 9 week, 5 day mark when I lost the first one, (my latest loss) but at least there should (hopefully) be an inkling by that time if anything doesn't look right. As of right now, the measurements are great. The embryo and the sac are measuring the same, and right on target (really a little ahead.) The heart rate is right where we want it to be.

I am feeling very, very blessed right now.

Wine glass watcher paranoia

First, a quick thank you to everyone for all the support over the past few weeks. I'm still a little bit of a basketcase, but I haven't had anymore abdominal pain, so I'm feeling much more restful. I'm still nauseous and tired, and have super sore boobs. All good signs of a growing baby.

I'm at a point in the pregnancy where I'm experiencing some major pregnancy paranoia. For instance, my Mom came over today and we got subs. I got a veggie sub to avoid deli meat. She probably thought nothing of it, but I felt the need to tell her that I don't like Subw.ay's turkey as much as D'an.gelo's (which is actually true). This past weekend, we had dinner with my brother's family and my cousin. I played up the idea of being reeeeeeeally tempted to have a margarita, but said that I had a headache so I thought I better not. Every time I'm put in that type of situation, I feel like I need to over-emphasize why I'm not drinking or doing such-and-such. (This morning, I was SO nauseous while my Mom was here, so I didn't have coffee. Then I got really tired and had to tell her it was because of no coffee, which was only partially true!) Mom did tell me today that I look like I've lost weight (haha!) so maybe she hasn't caught on.

T and I haven't even talked about when we might tell our parents and siblings about this pregnancy, assuming that it lasts. I've gone through some changes of heart on the subject. After the first m/c, I didn't tell my parents I was pregnant again until the baby had already died. That kind of sucked, so I decided I would tell them sooner the third time so that at least I would have someone to be happy with, for however long it lasted. That kind of sucked too because it meant having another person worrying about a pregnancy that might not last. (That one was a pretty rocky pregnancy from the start.) This time, I haven't really put a label on when or who or what, with regard to telling, but I just know that I'm not ready yet. I don't want to think too far ahead.

I will say that right now, after Monday's good heartbeat, I'm feeling fairly calm. If the progesterone was the issue, I think we could actually have a baby in July. If the luteal ph.ase defect was the issue, I think we could actually have a baby in July. If something else was the issue, then who knows. But the one thing I know right now is that I'm pregnant right at this moment, and I am very, very grateful for that.

Unexpected visit to the OB

I went in this morning for an impromptu u/s and quick meeting with a nurse because I was having some abdominal pain Saturday afternoon and Sunday on and off throughout the day. It didn't feel variable like cramping usually does, but it was pretty uncomfortable and completely freaked me out. (I made a lot of panty-liner-check trips to the bathroom yesterday and the day before.) Dr. Google says that cramping and abdominal pain (without bleeding) can be normal during pregnancy, but I'd prefer none, thankyouverymuch. It was just a a dull pain on both sides. Not unbearable, just uncomfortable. I don't remember this from any of my pregnancies that ended in miscarriage, but I also can't remember if it happened when I was pregnant with D. The nurse told me that sometimes if you've had a pregnancy before, your body "knows what to do" and you get round ligament pains earlier than in first pregnancies.

I'm still so tired, and the nausea is fairly constant, although it doesn't seem quite as bad as last week. Oh, and I have a yeast infection (awesome.) I would have to say that it's one of the most uncomfortable things about this pregnancy. The doctor doesn't want me to treat it until after 12 weeks, (and with the progesterone suppositories, treating probably wouldn't do any good) so for now I'll have to just suffer through.

So anyway, the u/s... Baby is fine for now. It's measuring exactly on schedule at 7 w, 3 d. (That's 3 days ahead of what my lmp says it should be.) Heart rate today was 145 today (up from 117 last week), so that's encouraging. The nurse said to keep my appointment for later this week, so I get to (hopefully) see the baby again, and another nice strong heartbeat.

Symptom update

Just a quick symptom update for posterity:

All day sickness is an every day occurrence, but thankfully I'm just nauseous, I don't actually get sick. The smell of coffee (and certain other things) makes me sick, but if I don't have a cup (half decaf, which is what I always drink) I turn into a zombie by 10 am. I've found that the smell is the worst, but drinking the actual coffee is still okay. Same with some other foods. The smells make me nauseous, but when I'm actually eating them, they taste okay or even good.

Boobs are still super tender. Tired all the time.

Because of all this nausea, I've lost 3 pounds in the past couple of weeks. I know you shouldn't lose weight when you're pregnant, but I lost 5 pounds in the first trimester with D because of the all day sickness. Anything about this pregnancy that reminds me of the that pregnancy makes me really happy.

I'm still nervous every day. Today, I had some discomfort in my abdominal region, (which was not cramping) but anything that could "almost be cramping" sends me to places where I don't want my mind to go. I have to keep reminding myself that my bad track record does NOT mean that this pregnancy will turn out badly. That's the hardest part.

Quick update

We've passed our first hurdle!

I love, love, love the new doctor so far, so I'm SO excited about that.

I am exactly 6 weeks today, per my lmp (last menstrual period).

The embryo (just one) is measuring 6 weeks, 1 day, and the sac is measuring right on target at 6 weeks 1 day as well. The size of the yolk was good. (If it's too big, that's a bad thing.) There are no hematomas (YAY).

The heartbeat is only 117, which makes me nervous, but I'm willing to be still cautiously optimistic. The doctor said that anything above 110 has only a 1-2% chance of miscarriage (in a normal person, of course.) He said that he's not worried about it. The hb can be lower in the beginning of pregnancy and significantly rise within a couple of weeks.

I have another ultrasound next week (YAY again!) and we'll be hoping for the heartbeat to be up to 140-150 bpm.

Don't want to be a fool

I'm so worried about posting about all my "symptoms" only to be told on Monday that there's nothin' doin' in there. Is it just me? I don't want to talk about how wonderful the symptoms are and then feel like an idiot later. I don't want to embarrass myself.

I just read back in my blog to see if I had written about symptoms with my last two pregnancies. Really, from what I wrote, it sounds like I didn't have a lot of symptoms at all. (Particularly, the pregnancy that only made it to 6 weeks produced almost no symptoms.)

I know I remember being very, very tired during one of my pregnancies, and having a lot of headaches. That must have been my first miscarriage because it's not in my blog. I remember how angry I was that I still felt like crap when I found out the baby had died almost two weeks earlier.

In the last couple of days I've been having some familiar "all-day sickness" that I remember having through the 4th month when I was pregnant with D. Luckily, I don't vomit, but I feel queasy for most of the day some days. I've also had slight headaches, and my boobs are still really sore.

I'm cautiously optimistic (and I didn't really feel that way last time) about my appointment on Monday. I almost want to whisper it when I say... this pregnancy feels like my pregnancy with D...

Just in case you were wondering...

Although it's not exciting, I decided to post today with a symptom update for two reasons. One, so I'll have a record of what symptoms I had, and when, and Two so that anyone else who reads this looking for "symptoms and when other people experienced them" can hopefully get some answers.

Here's the rundown:

I'm 5 weeks, 2 days today. I've had sore boobs (especially nipples) the whole time (I love this symptom and hope it stays because it calms me.) I have had some nasty heartburn - mostly at night - and indigestion/fullness throughout the day, even when I haven't eaten much. I've had some diarrhea for the last week, off and on. (Sorry ladies, we're brutally honest here, aren't we?) I haven't had any headaches, and I don't feel like I've been overly tired during the day, although I feel like I fall asleep on the couch more easily at night these days. The streak of blood that I had the other day has not reappeared (and honestly, a normal pregnant woman who is not psycho-analyzing her tp probably wouldn't have noticed it.)

By the way, this is not pregnancy related, but I am ALWAYS cold in the winter. I think I need to start a Mr. Rogers routine and keep a cardigan in my coat closet to wear whenever I'm not wearing a coat. (And for the record, I'm wearing a coat now. In my house.)

Feeling better

So, I've had no spotting at all this weekend. Not a touch of blood except for that minuscule streak on the toilet paper yesterday morning. I'm definitely feeling better and trying to remind myself that natural miscarriage is NOT my body's usual m.o.

The blood did make me think of the hematoma that I had the last time I was pregnant. The blood could be a sign that I have developed one this time too. Hopefully that's not the case. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

I have my first ultrasound coming up a week from Monday. I'm not having any bloodwork drawn prior to that. My new doctor (who I haven't met yet) doesn't usually do bloodwork for RPL (recurrent pregnancy loss), as a matter of course, and generally just has people come in for a 6 week u/s. If I had gotten a late positive on an HPT or had any reason to worry that my numbers weren't rising as they should be, I would have insisted, but I really wasn't too worried about that aspect of it and I just prefer to enjoy my two weeks of pregnancy without the stress of waiting all day for beta results.

I thought I was over this freak out business

I thought I had a good handle on my emotions this time (at least relative to the last time.) I've been feeling pretty calm and optimistic since I got my positive test. I've actually NOT been freaking out and running to the bathroom to check my underwear every time I feel that "not so dry feeling" in the nether-regions (because anyone who's been on Prog.esterone suppositories can tell you that it's a fact of life.)

I've had a few days when I've felt almost crampy, but more gassy and bloaty. I consult Dr. Google every. single. time. (As if the answer will change.) Yes, crampy gassy bloaty can be miscarriage, but it can also be totally normal beginning of pregnancy stuff. I've had myself fairly convinced that as long as there's no blood, there's still a baby growing in there.

So of course, this morning when I wiped, there was the teeniest, tiniest streak of red blood. I had a guest here (who is not "in the know") so I couldn't go check my pad every two minutes without looking really odd, so I quietly freaked out for the next half hour or so, making small talk.

I haven't had anything at all since then, but it scared the crap out of me, and it really made me think about this pregnancy. I have often thought to myself when people talk about "giving up" after having a number of miscarriages that I don't think I could do that. I used to think I would do it over and over until it worked, but now I'm not so sure. The fear that this pregnancy might end in a miscarriage has really made me wonder how many more pregnancies I have in me...

Karma **UPDATE**

I did something today that I have literally NEVER in my entire life done before.

I was on my way home from D's playgroup and saw a woman on the side of the highway standing next to her car waving her arms trying to flag down passing cars. I stopped. I have no idea what possessed me. Everything happened very fast, and I guess I thought I could call for help if she didn't have a cell phone. Who knew if there was a medical emergency or something.

It turned out that she and her sister (also standing by the car) had run out of gas, and only had like $1.75 between the two of them. Again, I have no idea what possessed me, but I gave one of the girls a ride to a gas station, gave her a couple of bucks to get more gas ($3.75 total... lol) and drove her back to the car.

I could have been robbed. I could have had my car stolen. Something could have happened to my two year old in the back seat. Who knows? But none of that happened. I went on with my day with nothing but the memory of that little interaction.

I think something told me to stop. I can't explain it...

I guess I figured I can use all the good karma I can get.

**UPDATE** We ordered Chinese food tonight for the first time in several months. My fortune said, "Courtesy pays."

Do you believe in signs?

Just hanging out...

Yup, I'm just hanging out poking my boobs and checking the tp.

Totally normal, right? C'mon, you know you all do it too.

Things are status quo for now, and that's just fine with me.

HPT review, among other things

I've been waiting to be happy. I got a veeeeeeery faint positive on Thursday, and it was after my 10 minutes were up. (It came up faintly positive sometime between about 7 and 20 minutes. I called it an encouraging evaporation line...) I didn't want to post about it because I was afraid of embarrassing myself and having to take it back.

Friday and Saturday, I got veeeeery faint positives on the same kind of test (ba.bywish.es.org cheapie), and they were both within my 10 minutes, and quicker to develop each time. But it was still reallllly faint. I wasn't ready to jump up and down until I saw that line getting darker. I was still thinking chemical pregnancy or early m/c.

Two days ago I had lower back pain all night, and yesterday my intestines were doing some funky things (gas, not-quite-thebigD, but close). Those can both be signs of early pregnancy OR miscarriage.

Today I got a positive after about 3 minutes, still pretty faint, but definitely there.

I was tired of the ambiguity and wanted a real-smack-you-in-the-face positive before I was ready to celebrate.

So I brought out the Big Guns.

E.
P.
T.

As the moisture spread across the window, there was already a vertical line. That sucker is BLUE.



I'm still nervous, but I'm ready to be optimistic. The timing was ideal (O on day 14) for a really strong, really cushy lining, and a great start for a little egg.

Hang in there this time baby. Hang on.


*************
HPT review: As far as I'm concerned, the Bab.ywis.hes.org tests are good for early results. They have a sensitivity to 20. However, if you want to get a real strong, obvious result, the brand names still seem to rule.

Same thing, different month

I've been MIA from blog land because that's how I apparently deal with the stress of the 2ww. I was doing really well with emotions and trying not to build up my expectations too much, but I test in a few days, and I'm really nervous about how I'll do if I'm not pregnant.

My husband and I haven't even talked Cl.omid or "next step" since the beginning of the month. My body worked like a freaking rock star this month. LH surge on day 13, negative OPK strip by day 15. That's what I'm TALKING about. This is the first month since my last miscarriage where I feel like we have a really good shot.

I know that even in a perfect month there's not a great probability of getting pregnant, but I'm trying to think really positively. I don't feel any "symptoms" yet, besides slightly sore boobs, but I'm on Prog.esterone, so even if I did have symptoms, they might be phantom symptoms from that.

I'm excited and nervous, and afraid of being really sad if I don't see two lines on that test.

Let each day with hope begin

I've said before in my blog that I'm not a very religious person, though I do believe in God, and I am baptized and confirmed. One complication that I've faced over the past few years is that I'm protestant, and my husband is catholic, so it makes going to church together more of a challenge. That's a story for a different day, but I wanted to share something religious with you all because it makes me smile (and get choked up) every time I read it. These words are actually a children's book called "Give Me Grace" by Cynthia Rylant that I read to my son often. Although it's a religious children's book, I find it to not be overly religious, and I find it incredibly uplifting and thought provoking. (Somehow the words feel very appropriate for those in similar situations to mine, as well.)

Monday
Monday make me good and kind
to all creatures that I find.
Help me love God's whole creation.
Make my life a celebration.

Tuesday
Tuesday teach me faith and caring.
Teach me wisdom, teach me sharing.
Raise me up and make me strong.
Be with me the whole day long.

Wednesday
Wednesday make me full of light.
Guide my heart both day and night.
Give me gladness, give me grace.
Shine your love upon my face.

Thursday
Thursday open up my eyes
to your angels in the skies.
Let me know their wings are near me,
and that they will always hear me.

Friday
Friday keep the ones I love.
Comfort them from up above.
Lift their hearts and hold them dear.
Help them know that you are here.

Saturday
Saturday in early morn,
make me thankful I was born.
Give my spirit peace within.
Let each day with hope begin.

Sunday
Sunday in a quiet time,
bless this little life on mine.
In the wonder of each day,
let me live a holy way.

Amen.

By Cynthia Rylant

Want to be out

After a pretty good day the past couple of days, I'm having a down day.

One of the reasons I really want to be pregnant - VERY pregnant, not just first trimester pregnant - is that I want to tell my story. I'm so tired of not feeling able to open up to people about my miscarriages. I don't want pity. I certainly don't want to be a topic of conversation behind my back (whether good or bad). I just want a baby.

It's not that when / if I get pregnant that I want to say to people, "look, if I did it, you can do it." That's not helpful. It's just annoying.

What I want to be able to say is, "I understand. I'm sorry. However you feel is okay."

I hope that if I do have another baby, I don't lose this passion. There's not enough of it out there.

In the midst of the crap

--my son mentioned--

Right now is that time in my cycle when I don't have anything to do. It's too early to start the OPK. It's way too early to start "trying" and it's waaaaaaaay too early to start worrying about the two week wait or hpts.

Remarkably, this is the time in my cycle when I often feel the most at peace. There's nothing I can do right now. I'm okay with that. For someone who likes to be in control of a situation, that's not bad.

Although there are times when having a two-year-old are very trying (yes, there are a lot of times... like now, when he's having a tantrum on the floor because I would only give him three Cray.ons, not all of them) he's one of the best things that's ever happened to me.

When D is asking to be picked up for the 30th time in a day, I often find myself thinking, "when he's 15, I'll wish I could still pick him up and cuddle him." That thought allows me to step back and remind myself that if dinner is 5 minutes later or a load of laundry doesn't get done right now, it's not a big deal. Those things can wait. D won't. He'll keep getting older before my eyes.

So when he asks for that 30th time, I'll pick him up, snuggle him, smell his hair and give him Eskimo kisses.

I would love to have another baby, (and I still have faith that I will,) but if I never do, I don't want to look back on these two years and wonder where D's childhood went. I want to be the "old woman with no regrets."

I have an amazing life with a wonderful husband and son. Today I'm choosing to focus on that as I wait for whatever comes next.

Not the same

I got an e-mail from a friend of a friend yesterday. She's 11 weeks pregnant, (which I knew, through the friend). We're actually friends too, though not as close as she is to my other friend, if that makes sense.

She told me about the fact that she had a miscarriage in July, (saying, "I'm not sure if 'friend' told you") and I think she probably knows my story through said friend, which is okay. The thing is, I think she was probably trying to open the lines of communication with regard to our shared experiences. She's a great person, and I wouldn't mind talking with her about it, but I just couldn't go there today. She may be sitting there wondering why I didn't just tell her about my miscarriages, but I just can't worry about that now.

The problem is, no matter how much you like someone, retelling the story can be exhausting. Rehashing everything that's months (and even a year in some cases) in the past to someone who isn't "in it" is hard. They want to understand. They try to understand. They even think they understand and that they can be helpful. The truth is, one miscarriage and then getting pregnant again right away is not the same as multiple miscarriages. I know, because I've worn those shoes.

One miscarriage is devastating. It feels like the world is crashing down when it first happens. But. (And this is a big "but.") There is still hope. There's the knowledge that "lots of women have miscarriages." It probably won't happen again. All things seem possible.

The truth is, I hardly remember the second miscarriage. It was so quick. I never got bloodwork drawn. I just called when I was 7 weeks pregnant, and made an appointment for 8 weeks. At that appointment, I found out that the baby had died at 6 weeks. I do remember that it started to get very real after that second one. Nothing seemed rosy anymore. The hope was diminishing, and I was starting to really understand what it was like to be infertile.

I kind of feel like a jerk. I feel like I'm comparing my pain with hers. I feel like I should be "sharing" with my friend, because maybe she's scared, and maybe she needs reassurance, but I'm just feeling like I want to curl up in a ball and be selfish, and like I'm probably not the person to be reassuring anyone.


If you feel so moved, please light a candle at 7 PM and keep it burning for an hour on October 15. It is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. You can check out Cara's blog for more information and healing.

Deja Vu

I was glad to finally get my period.

I was (of course) hoping to be pregnant and not get my period at all, but the longer my more-than-two-week-wait went on without a positive pregnancy test, the more I knew the pregnancy would be doomed anyway, so I was hoping for my period to break through the progesterone.

That didn't happen this time. (It happened before, but my dosage was lower.)

This weekend, after a couple of pink streaks on the toilet paper and a (well, multiple) negative HPTs, I made the decision to stop the Progester.one, and my period finally arrived in full force two days after getting off the Pro.gesterone. It's hard to believe it's only been 5 weeks since my last period. Those extra days that were drawn out by the proges.terone felt like at least two extra weeks.

Now I'm faced with a difficult choice. I was planning to take Cl.omid this cycle, but I'm thinking I may not. My due date (if I were to get pregnant this cycle) would be the day between my son's birthday and the due date of my second miscarriage. Hard to say whether that's a good omen or a bad omen because there's so much good and so much bad associated with that time. (Really, there's much more good than bad, though.) As you can infer, I had to make this choice LAST year too - about whether I cared if my due date was close to D's birthday. The truth is, I DO care. I'd prefer to have them spaced out a little but it looks like it's definitely not my choice anymore.

The sucky thing is, I. Don't. Want. To. Wait. Those of us who are in it know, it's not "just another month." It's wasted time, and a wasted chance, and getting older, and possibly being newly pregnant and having to hide it through the holidays, and for me, putting more and more space in between my kiddos.

I haven't talked to T about it yet, but I'm thinking about not doing Clo.mid this month and seeing when I ovulate with the OPK. If I ovulate around day 14 or 15, we'll try, and if I ovulate later, maybe we'll take it as a sign and wait for next month. (In truth, I'd prefer to avoid using Clom.id at all, if my body would just cooperate and ovulate like a normal person.)

Great miscarriage news story

This is an awesome story from 2007 about miscarriage. I had no idea that Meredith Viera had four miscarriages. Did you?

Click here to watch the video.

Things unsaid

Do you ever think about things you wish you could say on your blog, but feel are too personal even for an anonymous-ish space like this?

As an homage to things unsaid, how about another round of "things I can't post as my status on Facebook." Feel free to join in on the fun!

"Lucky is scared."

"Lucky wishes there were more people in the world who "got it."

"Lucky is grateful for her blog buddies."

"Lucky wishes she could be content with just one." ("Isn't one enough?")

"Lucky would like to unfriend about half of her FB friends, but would have guilt about it, and she's not even Catholic."

Chicken soup

I'm making chicken soup for dinner. There's something so soothing about making chicken soup from scratch. Hell, I may even make some bread.

I don't really want to talk about chicken soup, though. I want to talk about TMI. What's the deal with prefacing blog posts with "TMI?" I mean, aren't we all in essence writing about pretty personal stuff? What's the big deal with saying you have a yeast infection or you have to shove progesterone up your wazoo? I mean really... When it comes right down to it, we're ALL doing strange stuff to try to get pregnant. We're checking our cervical mucous. (Really?) We're checking the toilet paper for the slightest hint of pink like I talked about in this post. (And yes, I was guilty of calling it "Major TMI.") Some of us are shooting ourselves in the ass or the stomach on a regular basis. Some of us are getting some from the dildo-cam on a regular basis. Is it really TMI, or is it the reason other people are actually reading our blogs? The way I see it, people want to read something they can relate to. They want to know that they're not in this game alone.

That's just one of those random things that I find odd.

I have some major TMI to share with y'all, but maybe another day.

For now, how about some chicken soup?

Learning more than I ever wanted to know

Sometimes I make the mistake of assuming that since my readers are fellow IFers, they'll know what I'm talking about when I casually refer to "lingo" of the IF (infertility) world. Because I'm most comfortable when I'm in control and know what's going on, I've done lots of research every time I find out something new that might be relevant to my situation. I know waaaaay more than I ever wanted to know about miscarriage causes, symptoms, etc. I just have to remind myself that not everyone's situation is the same as my situation, and not everyone will have a clue what I'm talking about when I talk IF lingo (any more than I understand IVF lingo like the types of drugs and when they're used, whether they're injectible or oral, etc.)

Therefore, I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the things that I've talked about recently to clarify.

1. This doens't have to do with IF, but it's something that was brought up with regard to my last post. Re: the Dr. B.rown's Bo.ttles, unfortunately, I've already done the research on them, and YES they were made with BPA, a substance that is potentially harmful to babies. (The company that makes them maintains that they're "safe" even though they have BPA, and I used them until D went to the sippy cup, but with all the new things in the news about BPA, I don't want to take chances.) Just the bottles themselves were made with BPA though, so I kept the vents and all the rest of the parts. I want to br.eastfeed if I can the next time around, but if I can't I'll have lots of extra vents to use, which is nice because they're the most annoying part of those bottles to clean!

2. Lute.al Ph.ase Defe.ct: The way I understand this is as follows. Your lu.teal ph.ase is the timeframe between ovulation and when you get your period. For most people it's about 14 days long, (because you ideally ovulate right in the middle of your cycle.) When you ovulate later than day 14 - and more specifically, when you ovulate less than 10 days before you get your period, you're said to have a lut.eal ph.ase def.ect. From what I've read, the big problem with this is that your uterus is ready on day 14 or thereabouts to accept the egg and allow for implantation. When you have a lut.eal ph.ase de.fect, you're shooting the egg into a less than optimal environment because the ut.erine lining has already received a signal from the body that it won't be needed this month, so it doesn't continue to thicken in preparation for the egg to implant. This can increase the risk of miscarriage. That's the reason that pro.gesterone and clo.mid are often used to treat LPD. The C.lomid helps you to ovulate at the right time and kick your progesterone production in at the right time, and the pro.gesterone helps to pick up whatever slack your body leaves.

3. OPK is an Ovulation Predictor Kit. Along with baby aspirin and progesterone, this is one of the first things that doctors seem to recommend to people who are having trouble conceiving or experiencing pregnancy loss. (My doctor recommends starting prog.esterone 3 days after ovulation, so the OPK is necessary to pinpoint ovulation.)

I would add some more information about Klinef.elter Syndro.me, but since we've established that neither my husband NOR my last baby had it, it's a moot point. :-P

Recycling update

Today I'm cleaning my basement out a bit, and I'm recycling ....hmmm... probably about $50 worth of Dr. Brow.n's bottle.s which happen to have been made before the big B.PA uproar.

Just had to share my disgust.

Self-diagnosis

I'm calling lute.al pha.se de.fect.

This cycle, I waited and waited. CD 19 and the OPK finally shows up positive. And yes, my cycle is usually 28 days. Hmmmm...

Now, I know I don't always ovulate late, because I've done (I think) three or four rounds of OPKs and I've been closer to the middle before, but I also know that I've ovulated late before.

So, while I'm in this mood of self diagnosing, I might as well self medicate too.

If I don't get pregnant this cycle, I think I'm going to take the Clo.mid next cycle (that Dr. N prescribed.) From what I'm reading, doctors use Clo.mid to treat lute.al pha.se de.fect, and really, what's the worst that could happen? I have another miscarriage? There's a big chance of that anyway. So what the hell, right?

Feeling positive

For the first time in a long time, I'm feeling a little more grounded and like I'm where I belong.

I've spent the last several business days (Thursday, Friday, Monday and today) Googling different doctors and hospitals. After my last appointment with Dr. G I realized that I need to suck it up and find a doctor closer to me. The stress of driving through lots of traffic...not being sure if I'll make it to the appointment on time...not being sure exactly where I'm going sometimes... That needs to end.

I like the idea of delivering again at the bigfamoushospitalinthebigcity, but in the end, I'm not high risk (as far as I know) and tons of people deliver babies outside of the city. EVERY. DAY. I can too.

So I found a PCP with lots of good reviews who's very close to my house. She also happens to have a specialty in dermatology, so I can have her look at the little pink bump on my arm that probably isn't skin cancer (because the last doctor said don't worry) but that I still wonder about. Bonus. I meet her next week just for a "new patient appointment" (read: appointment where nothing is accomplished except for taking my history, which they should do at your physical, except if they did they would only get one $20 co-pay instead of two.)

I'm feeling good about her. Really good. Crazy, huh? Don't let me down, lady.

Resume medical records transfer hell.

[As a side note, Dr. G's office can only release their OWN records of my history to me, not the records that I paid $18.58 to have mailed to them. So, I had to call the medical records people back at Dr. N's practice and BEG them not to charge me another $18.58 to have another set of records mailed to me. Homegirl on the phone (after much begging and politely asking to talk to her superior) says, "okay, we'll waive the fee, but make sure you make a copy before you give them to the next doctor." I tell her that if she sends me these records, I will absolutely make a copy, and I promise I will NEVER call her again. She thinks I'm kidding and laughs. I'm not kidding. Really. Not. Kidding.]

The first OB I called (young, female, great online reviews) isn't accepting new patients.

Finally I broke down and called the office of another OB whose name I have heard overandoverandoverandoverandover from tons of people. The best. Loved by everyone. But OMG... He's male. That weirds me out a little bit, but I decided that it might be a sign that people KEEP SAYING HIS NAME. I was able to talk to a nurse right away on the phone to ask my 20 questions. She was nice and patient, and I got good vibes from her and the receptionist.

So ladies, it's official. I've cut my ties with Dr. N and the medical-records-hell that has been my life for the past two months.

Moving on, moving up, moving out.

You won't believe it when I tell you

I'm embarrassed to be writing this post. When I was seeing the old fertility doctor (Dr. N) for 7 months, I felt confident that he knew what he was doing. I live in a state with amazing medical resources, and Dr. N is affiliated with one of the best hospitals in the country. I was hesitant to change doctors because his office delivers babies at said large, famous hospital, where my first son was born. I had a great experience and I wanted to go back. I defended Dr. N when he probably didn't deserve to have my benefit of the doubt. In retrospect, I feel like I should have changed doctors sooner, (which is why I'm kind of embarrassed) but who knew?

If you remember, I began to get the feeling that this doctor and his staff weren't paying enough attention to me as a person and as a set of symptoms. (Honestly, I don't care if you see me as a set of symptoms as long as you tell me wtf is wrong with me.) That's when I started to look into getting second opinions and changing doctors.

Well, the genetic counselor we met with last week called me this morning to tell me that she got a copy of the chromosomal analysis from the last embryo I miscarried. (She actually followed up and called me when she said she would. What a breath of fresh air!)

The embryo did NOT have Kline.felter Syndrome.

It had Triploidy. That means that it had 69 chromosomes instead of 46. That's a whole extra set from one parent. She said that either the egg was fertilized by two sperm, or the egg didn't divide as it should so that all of its chromosomes were transferred instead of half. She thinks the reason that Dr. N said Klinef.elter is because Triploidy is XXY, as is Klinef.elter. It's just that Triploidy is 69 XXY, and Klinef.elter is 47 XXY. Which means... Dr. N wasn't paying enough attention.

The good news is that Triploidy IS a reason for the m/c, (whereas Klinef.elter alone, is not.) It is a random event, and there is no reason to think that it's related to T's XYY Karyotype, nor, most likely, will it ever happen to us again.

If I had to take a guess right now, I'm betting on luteal phase defect or progesterone deficiency (probably both), and the only way to find out is to keep playing the game.

Resigned... for now

Sometimes things happen, and no explanation can be found.

I had my follow-up appointment with the RE today. There is no chromosomal or blood related (that they've tested for) reason.

I'm not giving up hope that a cause may be found for my miscarriages, but for now, we're going to try again and hope that we hit the jackpot again. Although that idea really worries me, I know that with each subsequent loss, no matter how painful, we'll hopefully be able to find out a little more, and eventually we will succeed.

Just when you thought you knew what was going on

Remember how we just found out that T has Kline.felter Syndrome? Well, it turns out that he DOESN'T have it after all. We met with the genetic counselor today, who was awesome. (She's at the hospital with the NEW doctor, so that's good.)

So here's the deal: We were told last week by T's doctor and by my doctor's office that T has an extra chromosome, and when I said "Kline.felter Syndrome" the nurse at my doctor's office confirmed it. (I didn't witness the call from T's doctor, but T said he "mentioned" Kline.felter.) From those two sources, I assumed that was what we were dealing with.

It turns out that T has an extra Y chromosome, not an extra X chromosome, which is completely different, and is NOT a reason for miscarriage or infertility. In fact, the only implication it has at all, according to the genetic counselor, is that people with XYY Karyotype tend to be tall, which T is. No research has shown it to be passed on to future generations, so the last embryo that had XXY is back to being a complete fluke.

The genetic counselor said that they did not get a copy of the chromosomal report on the embryo, so she offered to call to get a copy. (Thank you jesus. No more phone calls to that office, please.) She wants to look at it because she said that "XXY alone is not a reason for miscarriage."

Where are we now? T is effectively out of the equation again, and we're back to having no idea what's causing the miscarriages. I have a follow-up appointment with Dr. G tomorrow, during which I expect her to say that she has no idea what's going on and we have to try again and see what happens.

I'm so relieved for T because I think he was pretty weirded out at the thought of being diagnosed with this strange "syndrome" as an adult that hadn't affected him at all throughout his life. However, I'm frustrated that we thought we had at least an answer and maybe a plan, and now we're back to square one.

Priceless

After all of this sh*t and this sh*t, all of my blood results are in (and normal, including anti-cardiolipin) EXCEPT for my Karyotype, which my primary care is now saying they have NO RECORD of ever drawing.

Un-f*cking-believable.

UPDATE: My awesome nurse (at the new doctor's office) called directly into the lab and they DID have the results, and my chromosomes are normal. 46.

I'm not feeling lucky

The longer this process of conceiving a second live baby goes on, the more I wonder if I've got it all wrong. Maybe instead of being UN-lucky, we're actually incredibly LUCKY.

Now that we know that T has Klinefe.lter, we know that his chance of being fertile AT ALL was only between 1 and 5%. On our first try, we conceived a perfect little person, and feel so incredibly blessed to have him. It's pretty amazing.

But here's the problem. I don't feel lucky. I mean, I feel SO lucky to have D, but my overall feeling is not that I'm lucky. I feel petty and insensitive (to those still waiting for their first) and I feel greedy... The thought that we're lucky to have one nags in the back of my head and makes me feel like a horrible b*tch. I feel like a child who only got one present on Christmas and her parents are telling her to suck it up. "That's all you get. Live with it." Sure, I love my one present, but why can't I just be like a lot of the other kids who get as many presents as they want?

I want to be the little Mary Sunshine who feels lucky for what she has, but I'm not. I'm sad for me and for T that things aren't easier. I'm not proud of it, but that's the way it is.

I found a great article on secondary infertility that I wanted to share with you guys, both for those who are going through it too, as well as those who might want to step into a "secondary infertile's" head for a minute. One line that really expresses the way that I think a lot of secondary infertiles probably feel is this: "Typically we feel guilty that our one, always beloved, child 'is not enough’; we feel frustrated at our own bodies and relationships because something we achieved once cannot be repeated." The article is very well written, and very similar to the way I'm feeling.

P.S. Loved the comments on my last "Faceb.ook" post. I might have to make that a weekly post... :)

What if Face.book updates were how we REALLY feel?

LuckyOnce is freaking out about what the future may bring.

LuckyOnce if effing glad that she got her period today.

LuckyOnce is thinking about getting s**tfaced.

LuckyOnce doesn't feel lucky at all.

Not what we were expecting

I have some results back from the genetics testing, and they're not at all what I was expecting. We're being referred to a genetics counselor because as it turns out, my husband's sperm might be the problem.

It turns out that he has an extra X chromosome. If you remember my post about the chromosomal testing on the last embryo I miscarried, the embryo had Kli.nefelter's Syndr.ome.

We just found out that my husband does too.

Now what's strange about this is that he doesn't have almost any of the normal Klin.efelter's symptoms except that he is taller than his father and brother, and clearly, there may be an issue with his sperm. What's really weird is that he is NOT infertile (as evidenced by our two year old.) But that's a biggie in Klinefe.lter's. Between 95 and 99% of males with Klinef.elter's are infertile.

However, from everything I've read, Klinef.elter's is NOT hereditary, so it's apparently a total coincidence that our last embryo had it?

I'm going to be very interested to see what the genetics counselor has to say. I'm guessing that our next step is probably selecting sperm. And IVF...

Random musings

Have I ever told you that I like to cook? Well, this weather (cool and beautiful, for those of you out of the area) is making me want to cook and bake and generally make a big mess out of my kitchen. Yesterday I made a big vat of homemade spaghetti sauce, pizza from scratch (including the dough) with my sauce, fresh mozzarella, caramelized onions and basil from my garden. Also made some yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting for my hubby to take into work. (Well, except for the few that got lost in the fridge.)

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This is too much info, and it should NEVER come directly after cupcakes, but I think my ye.ast inf.ection is coming back. (And it has nothing to do with the pizza dough. Eeeeeeeww. Did I just say that?) It's only the second one I've had in my life. It was PERFECT timing, if you know what I mean, and now I'm on Progesterone which isn't helping matters. I thought it was gone but I'm afraid it's about to rear its ugly head again.

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I'm afraid I might want to break up with my therapist already. Last week I arrived on time to the waiting room and her office door was open, but I didn't want to just waltz in without being invited. I waited in the waiting room for several minutes with thoughts of what to do and how long to wait running through my head (HELLOOOOOOO, I have anxiety! You need to come get me when you're ready for me.) When I finally walked towards the door and called "hello" she nonchalantly said to come in. I wasted several minutes of my appointment because she didn't come into the waiting room to tell me she was ready for me, and when I explained that I had been waiting for her to come get me, she didn't seem fazed. Plus, I'm not sure she's going to be very helpful to me.

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For those of you who are not in the States, Mich.elle Dugg.ar (from my last post) is on a reality show, and she and her husband have 18 children. They're now pregnant with #19 and they hope to have more. In their defense, they are able to support their children on their own, and they genuinely seem to love them all, but COME ON PEOPLE. God loves children, but he's seen enough of yours.

19 kids and counting

Michelle Duggar is pregnant with her 19th child.

That is all.

Spa la Cell Fone

Not too much happening here...

It's been hot and humid, and this is the first day of Oh.My.God.Gorgeous weather. It's not humid and it's in the low 70's. Heaven.

I had a spa day with some of my girlfriends this past weekend, and while I was getting my manicure, there was a girl sitting in the waiting area (right next to the manicure tables) talking on her cell phone. For like 20 minutes. Really. In a spa.

Anyway, the conversation was with her mother, and she was talking about her newborn. Then she said that she "already knows what we're going to name the next one." I guess her mom must have said something like, "you're not planning to have another right away, right?" to which she replied, "Oh no. Three years. Two or three years."

Now, this conversation bothered me on multiple levels. The foremost reason is that it's not appropriate to have a 20 minute conversation on your cell phone in a spa, and even if it were, this is a very personal conversation, and one not appropriate for a public place.

The second reason that it was annoying to me was because hearing other people talking about babies in public is starting to bother me. Just a little bit... But I hate that. I don't want to be someone who's bothered by those kind of conversations. In the past, they didn't really phase me. Even after my first or second miscarriage they didn't phase me, but now, the notion that this girl thought she could "plan" when she was going to have her second baby seemed ludicrous to me. I know that's the reality for a lot of people, but I guess I'm getting really jaded.

I feel like I'm starting to turn into someone I don't recognize and don't want to be. And it scares me.

I have a terrible confession

Remember yesterday's post? See, I told you it wouldn't last...

Not that I don't love all of the lovely ladies who read my blog who have babies or are pregnant. I really do. Especially because I have a two year old, I know what that's like, and I enjoy reading about babies growing in and out of the womb. Sometimes.

And I don't mind hearing about how hard it is to have an infant, because it IS. People should be able to complain about it a little without feeling guilty about the people who would kill to be in their shoes.

But lately I've been trying to find some new blogs to read where people are still in the trenches. I feel like I need at least an equal share of fertiles and infertiles. I'm sure you all remember... When you're not pregnant, people who "have been there in the past" just aren't quite as comforting as those who are there now.

I'm quickly approaching the anniversary of the date last year when I found out that I had miscarried the first time. At that time, I never imagined that I would still be waiting for my turn a year later. (I guess no one really starts ttc thinking that it will take that long.)

I'm back in elementary school and I'm the last person picked for kickball in gym class.

I'm left behind. The odd man out. Singled out for who knows what reason.

A sentence. (about my son)

My baby.

The one who wasn't really talking at 20 months. The one who did Ear.ly Interve.ntion because he was behind in his expressive (spoken) language score. The one who got ear tubes at 20 months because he had constantly had fluid in his ears for months. The one who said his first real word three days after the ear tubes went in and hasn't looked back since.

My baby said his first real, spontaneous sentence today. "I like strawberries."

And suddenly everything that I've been going through over the last few weeks doesn't seem as important. I know this feeling won't last forever, but for tonight, things are pretty dang good.

Not sure

I'm nervous.

We have no new answers.

We have no chrom.osomal test results.

We have no new "plan" besides, "try again and hopefully you won't miscarry."

I'm not sure if I want to try this cycle (before we get the results of the Chrom.osome tests).

And it's creeping up on me very fast.

Hmmm.

Positive

I wish.

No, I don't mean a positive test. I mean a positive (for the most part) meeting with the therapist. We didn't really get into more than the tip of the iceberg about a lot of things that I want to eventually talk about, but she seemed to get it.

The one thing that I'm not really excited about (and I'm probably the exception rather than the rule) was that she suggested that I might want to think about asking my doctor for a prescription for Zo.loft. She said that it would help with the anxiety. I may need that at some point, (like when/if I get pregnant) but for now, I really just want to talk.

I'm not sure if I feel happy that she thinks I'm messed up enough to need an anti-depressant (meaning that I'm really not crazy, and someone else thinks that I'm sadder than a normal person should be) or if I'm a little put off by the fact that she's almost trying to throw drugs at me to even me out and make her job easier.

So, anyone have any experience with Zo.loft or other anti-depressants? Any thoughts? (You can send me a private e-mail at wheresmywhitepicketfence@hotmail.com if you'd rather not talk about it in the comments.)

So Glad

If you're feeling like all I've been doing lately is whining, you're right. I've had a really sh*tty last week and a half.

I'm very, very glad that I have my first meeting with the therapist coming up. I'm feeling really down, and completely defeated today.

Dr. G's office called the lab this morning to tell them which test to run, and the lab is STILL working on it because they said that there are consent forms that go along with this type of test. (This is the karyotype test to check my chromosomes, so it's the really important one.)

The lab (at my regular practice) then told me that it was going to a problem because I'm no longer a patient of Dr. N. "Excuse me?" Well since I asked to have my records transferred and got a referral to Dr. G, they assumed that I was changing practices. (Mind you, my primary care is still in the same building, and part of the same practice.)

Just kill me now.

It's now three hours later and I'm still waiting for a call back to find out if this has been resolved and whether I can go back to have my freaking blood drawn.

Six o'clock can't come soon enough. Hope the therapist has riot gear.

Maybe I'll have just one more glass

After my afternoon/evening, I decided to have one more cocktail to kick off my alcohol-free baby making time.

After my morning (see below), here's my afternoon:

Step 1. Call Dr. G's office to confirm that I can go to any lab to get my bloodwork drawn.

Step 2. Call insurance company to make sure that my out-of-state bloodwork prescription (from Dr. G) will not cause problems and will not be rejected for payment for any reason.

Step 3. Go online to check when BigNameDiagnostics lab closes.

Step 4. Pack D into car to get to BigNameDiagnostics lab 30 minutes before closing.

Step 5. Strike out at BigNameDiagnostics lab because they don't know which test Dr. G was referring to on a few of the things on the prescription, and Dr. G's office is already closed.

Step 6. Go home. Feed D dinner. Go online to check what time the lab at Dr. N's office (much further away than BigNameDiagnotics lab) closes. 8 PM.

Step 7. Call lab and confirm that they know what all of the tests are and that I won't go there for nothing. Yes. No problem.

Step 8. Load D back into the car. Drive through rush hour traffic. Get to the lab and wait while two clinicians confer about the tests needed.

Step 9. Agree to having all of the tests "except for this one" done because they don't know which one the doctor meant.

Step 10. Drive home, put D to bed, pour cocktail.

Step 11. Plan when I will be able to go BACK to get another blood draw.

Fertility Doc round-up

As I took a left out of the end of my road this morning, not two minutes from my house, I hit a detour. (They're repaving a piece of the street that been in ruins for the entire two years I've lived here. Two years.) I called my husband and said, "do you think that it's a bad omen that I'm only two minutes from home and I already hit a detour?"

Luckily, the rest of the ride was uneventful and the doctor's appointment wasn't all bad.

Two major things came out of the appointment today: I'm NOT taking Clomid after all, and I'm going to try to stop drinking during the months when I'm TTC. That goes completely against my rule of "I refuse to put my life completely on hold" but the doctor suggested that although occasional drinking while TTC doesn't increase the odds of miscarriage, there are some studies that show that drinking even while trying to conceive can adversely affect the baby.

Here's how it went down. The doctor never did get my medical record. It's probably going to show up in their mail today. Thanks a lot you useless-piece-of-crap medical records person who "put it in the mail" on Wednesday of last week. It could have made it there by pony by now.

I basically paid a whole lot of money out of pocket for the doctor to order the chromosomal testing for T and I that Dr. N probably should have ordered.

See, having a normal baby doesn't necessarily rule out chromosomal issues for T and I as I understood Dr. N to say. (Maybe I misunderstood him, but either way, he didn't order the tests.) Dr. G. ordered those labs, which I'm really happy about, and the results will be available in a few weeks.

Now for the Clomid. I'm sure that Dr. N has reasons / a good track record with the use of Clomid for people like me. However, when I told Dr. G that I was being prescribed Clomid (and I'm supposed to start taking it today if I'm going to take it) she couldn't understand why he was suggesting Clomid since I don't have trouble getting pregnant. In fact, she said that 20% of the time, Clomid causes the endometrial lining to be thinner, which I definitely don't need to add to my list of things to worry about. I explained that Dr. N wanted to help my body to produce progesterone on its own, and she didn't seem to agree, but she kept her opinion to herself.

My impression of Dr. G is a tough call. She absolutely knows her stuff. She's very, very smart, but she also talked fast and "above my head" for much of the time. In the end, I think I preferred that to the feeling that I get with Dr. N, that he (and his staff) are not paying enough attention. Dr. G is being proactive and ordering more tests. Dr. N's suggestion was to just "see what happens."

The plan: Chromosomal testing for T and me, try to get pregnant this month (yay!) and start taking progesterone three days after LH surge. Baby aspirin is up to me, and she said to go ahead and start taking it now if I want to. (It sounded like she didn't think it made a difference.)

TMI-FYI

(Too much information, for your information) I stole this from Yaya, because it is fitting for this news.

Well ladies, the crimson bitch has ridden into town.

5 weeks 2 days post D & E. Not too bad.

When do the candid cameras come in?

Well, things didn't really get better, (in fact, I would venture to say that they've gotten progressively worse) but I think I've adjusted to the suckage of everything and am trying to roll with it.

We're keeping the appointment on Monday even though we'll have to pay for it out of pocket (holy crap is it expensive!) because the freaking PCP's BigHugeCorporation won't give an out of state referral, even though the doctor ALSO practices in state. (I may have mentioned that a few. dozen. times.)

I'm a serious type-A personality. I hate when things aren't organized, and I hate having to flip through things to find something. A few weeks ago I channeled my heartbreak and anger into a five page single spaced medical history detailing my entire history of illness (not much) and pregnancy/pregnancy loss. We're talking exact dates, here, even down to periods I missed in 1999 and 2000. It took hours. Now, whenever a doctor asks me a question about my family's medical issues, my own medical issues in terms of what/when/where, I'll be able to find it at my fingertips.

It's looking like a mighty good thing that I'm so anal right about now, because it looks like that might be all the doctor has to go by on Monday. Believe it or not, they still haven't received my medical history in the mail (and the mail already came today.) There's a chance that it will show up in Saturday's mail, but I'm not holding my breath. For some reason, I'm not feeling particularly lucky right now.

Please, please, please, let the doctor tell me that she thinks she can figure this thing out, and that she has a better answer than, "roll the dice again..."

You HAVE to be effing kidding me

So much for my list of things to be grateful about. (I mean, I'm still grateful for those things but am currently moving on to the new sh*t being slung my way.)

I made an appointment with that specialist I was telling you all about in July. She works out of BigHospital in BigCitySortOfNearMe. She also works one day a week in SmallHospital MuchCloserToMeButInTheNextState.

Let's put it this way. This has not been a good week.

Getting my records sent to the new doctor has been a NIGHTMARE. I think I'm up to somewhere around 15 phone calls (maybe more). Finally the new doctor's office called the medical record office of my normal doctor and THEY asked for the records to be sent. (Miraculously, when a doctor's office calls, it doesn't take "10-14 days" for records to be forwarded.) So that was the horror of Monday.

That was just round one. Today was the TKO. (Technical knock out, for those who don't know boxing lingo.)

I'm new to this "choose your own doctor" business. When I called BigHospital in BigCitySortOfNearMe and they told me that the specialist also has office hours in SmallHospital MuchCloserToMeButInTheNextState, I said, "cool!" and I scheduled my appointment there (in the next state).

I've been calling my PCP's office since Monday to get the referral. Today, I got a call from the new specialist's office making sure that I was working on getting the referral. I was waiting for a phone call back from someone at my OB's office, but the specialist's nurse told me I needed it from my PCP (whose office had told me to call the OB on Monday.)

Are you dizzy yet?

Long story short, when I finally spoke with the person in medical records, she said that they can't give me a referral because they don't do out of state referrals. (It would have been nice if the person who originally told me that I could see the doctor in the next state had TOLD me that a referral might be problematic.)

F**K.

The good news is that I had already called on Monday to make an appointment with a therapist and I'm seeing her next week. The bad news is that I REALLY need it now because I'm pretty sure I'm going to go insane.

What I'm grateful for

No, I haven't called about the therapy yet, and this isn't the first step of my "program." :) I just decided that I wanted to remind myself (and tell all of you so you don't think I'm miserable all the time) that I really have so much to be thankful for. Here's my list for the day.

1. T. Sometimes I wonder if he's the only one who would put up with my BS. I know that I can be difficult sometimes (and opinionated) and he just rolls with the punches. (Then again, he has his own fair share of BS that I put up with, so I guess we're pretty even.) If soul mates exist, he really is mine.

2. D. He's such a gift. Especially now that I know how hard it could have been to have my first baby, I hug him a little tighter and love him a little bit more. (He says 'I love you' now, although it sounds more like, 'oh-wah-doo.' Totally gets me every time.)

3. The ability to be a stay-at-home Mom. I know not everyone can afford to do it, and it's not for everyone either, but I love it. We've had to make some sacrifices and cut some things out of our budget to afford it, and although there are days I'd rather be at work, I really wouldn't trade it for anything.

4. Although I've complained some about friends and family who aren't terribly supportive, I know I'm not alone. (That is, I know that almost all women who have IF issues or have had miscarriages feel like their friends and family don't fully get it, either.) I also have to say that I'm very lucky to have a few friends who do get it - in some cases not the ones I expected to, and talking to those people always makes me feel better.

5. So thankful that I live in a state that mandates that insurances cover infertility treatments and that I don't have to wait months to see doctors.

6. I'm very grateful for the fact that although my anxiety is annoying, it isn't debilitating. I still do all the things that give me anxiety, I just have anxiety before I do them and have to push through it. I know things could be much worse.

7. I was going to stop at six, but I had one more that I really wanted to include. I feel so lucky that music moves me. A friend of mine told me the other day that her husband just doesn't feel the same way about music as she does. I guess it never really occurred to me before that not everyone has the same emotional response to music.
Music can cheer me up, pump me up, make me laugh, make me cry, make my chest tighten in anticipation of the next note... For me, it's an amazing gift.

Another one

So, another person in my "real life" announced that she was pregnant the other day. 8 weeks. With her third.

Now, I'm being totally honest when I say that I'm okay with it (I really am) but it got me thinking again about how people think that miscarriage can't happen to them. I mean, I was sort of there before my first miscarriage. I never took pregnancy for granted the first time around, (and we certainly didn't announce to the world until the second trimester) but I went through it figuring that things were fine unless I was told otherwise.

Announcing when she's eight weeks to acquaintances? Her neighbor? I dunno. It just seems so early. I mean, I could have announced at (what I thought was) eight weeks the last three times. Perhaps not a good idea.

I've been thinking about going back to therapy. I went for just a few sessions last year (before any of my miscarriages), and I wouldn't go back to the same person, but I think I might need someone to talk to right now. I've been feeling pretty anxious lately. The other day, D woke up really early and I left him in his crib for a little while and he eventually fell back asleep. He still wasn't awake by 8:30 and I honestly ended up having to go in and wake him up because I was worried that he might have strangled himself with his blanket. I mean... really people. He's two. If he starts cutting off his own air supply, odds are he'll be able to adjust his sleeping position with no problem.

But I've been thinking about that recently - especially with regard to T and D. I've been worrying (fleeting thoughts usually) that something is wrong with them/something has happened to them. I have this crazy irrational fear that they're going to be taken away from me. (I was starting to go on, but I'm going to just cut myself off on that one so that you people don't think I'm too crazy.)

There are other things I have anxiety about too. New situations. Driving to new places. Being late for things. Meeting new people. Feeling like I'm not feeling the "right way" about my losses or about the reasons for them.

Prior to my OB appointments, (like hours prior when I start thinking about it) my heart starts beating fast and I have to get myself to calm down. Maybe that's a little more understandable.

So here's what this all boils down to.

I guess the reason I'm thinking therapy might be a good idea is that I don't think I'm prepared for another pregnancy in my current mental state. Wait, that's not exactly right. I'm SO ready for another pregnancy. I guess what I mean is that I would like to be better equipped to deal with the stresses I'm up against this time around.

Bleh. I hope I get my period soon. We're not trying right away, but I'd like to know about when I can expect my period the NEXT time around so there's something else to look forward to.

Chromosomal Testing results

I had my doctor's appointment today with Dr. N (the regular fertility guy, as opposed to the new one I'm seeing in two weeks.)

The chromosomal tests from the embryo are back, and the winner is...

Kleinfelter's syndrome. This is a rare chromosomal abnormality where there are 47 chromosomes instead of 46 - so, an extra X chromosome (so the embryo was an XXY rather than an XX or XY.) In case anyone is interested and knows a little more about this stuff, this is an extra chromosome, rather than a broken chromosome, which bodes better for our chances in the future.

Fetuses with Kleinfelter's syndrome can go to full term and lead (relatively) normal lives. However, it is a sex chromosome disorder and as such, it would have meant that the baby would not only have had some female characteristics as it went through puberty, but the syndrome almost always causes infertility. It's hard enough to be a kid in the world without being "different," but infertility on top of that - (obviously not an issue until much later in life) is something I would never wish on anyone.

That being said, even though I'm still sad to have miscarried, I'm definitely comforted by the thought that this particular miscarriage occurred because it was supposed to happen. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but I still believe that the human body in general miscarries babies because they were not formed correctly. (No disrespect to people who have different beliefs.)

The good news is that according to Dr. N, this was a fluke occurrence. Apparently, Kleinfelter's syndrome is not hereditary so he sees no reason for us not to just "try again." He seems to think that we have just been really unlucky in rolling the dice. I'm not completely satisfied with that answer, but as far as he is concerned, we (my husband and I) should not have any chromosomal issues ourselves because if we did, we wouldn't have produced a normal child the first time.

So on we go to the new specialist in a couple of weeks. Now that we have the chromosomal tests back, I'll have much more interesting information to chat about with her. I'm really looking forward to getting a fresh perspective and seeing if the new doctor might see something that my current doctor might be missing.

Oh, and one thing that might be of interest to anyone taking a calcium supplement: I read in that book I was talking about a couple of weeks ago that Vitamins A and D can accumulate in your system and can contribute to miscarriage. Many calcium supplements have Vitamin D added to them, so if you're taking calcium, you should look for one without the added Vitamin D.

Next steps: Dr. G in two weeks, and then Clomid for our next cycle.

Identity and anonymity

Something that I've struggled with the whole time that I've been writing this blog is the feeling of censoring my thoughts out of fear that I might be "discovered." I think it would be a lot more interesting if I wrote about all the little things that get to me that have nothing to do with IF. See, I have several friends and acquaintances who are also dealing with different IF issues. It's amazing to me how common it is. (And I'm not talking about single miscarriages here. I'm talking about multiple miscarriages or multiple years of trying.) I can think of four people just off the top of my head who are either dealing with or have dealt with IF (who I didn't meet through IF) that I'm close enough to so I could call them right now for a chat and they wouldn't think it was weird. So anyway, there's certainly potential for people to accidentally find me without my knowing.

About a week ago when I was surfing around in blog-land looking for more blogs to which I could relate, I accidentally stumbled upon the blog of someone I know quite well. It was one of those unlikely scenarios where I went through someone's blogroll to another blog, and then clicked through to her blog from THAT person's blogroll (I think.) I honestly wasn't even sure how exactly I got there. At any rate, I knew she was struggling with IF but didn't know she had a blog.

When I found it, I really wished I could go back and un-find it. I felt like it was an unintentional invasion of her privacy. I know she put it out there in blog land, but my blog is out there too, and I know I'd rather not have anyone I know reading it unless I have expressly given them the address and invited them to do so.

I felt really guilty, and I decided to e-mail her and let her know that I had found it and ask her if she minded if I kept up with her story. (She didn't know about my miscarriages, so I told her about them too, obviously.) Luckily, she wasn't completely freaked out (well, maybe a little at first :) ) and we ended up having an awesome e-mail exchange, and then an even more awesome lunch date a few days later. In the end, I'm so glad I found her blog because it opened up a dialogue with someone I know in my real life who is going through some of the same emotions as I am and who can relate. She invited me to keep up with her blog, and I invited her to do the same. Hopefully we'll be helpful to eachother as we continue on our journeys.

All that being said, finding her blog has reinforced even more the need to keep my innermost thoughts private unless they're thoughts that I'm okay with people I know finding. Can anyone else relate? It would be really fun to post pictures and talk about my family and stuff, but I feel like it's too much of a risk for me, you know?

Hate this part

There's so much waiting involved in the TTC journey, and I feel like there's not much of interest to say during the waiting part.

I've been totally emotional lately, which I've attributed to, well, just having a miscarriage, but also to the hormone drop after a miscarriage as well as (maybe) PMSing? It would be strange for me to have PMS already since I'm only 3 weeks post D&E, but I've read that the timing of when your period comes back relies a lot on where you were (would have been ) in your regular cycle when you miscarried (or in my case, when I had the D & E.) You know I'll keep y'all updated as to when the crimson bitch rides into town, whether you like it or not. ;)

In other random news, I've noticed that the post that gets the most "search engine traffic" on my blog is the "I don't know how to pee on a stick" post. I thought you'd like to know that you can all pat yourselves on the back because people are stopping by my blog to get your advice on how to pee on a stick. Yeah, baby! (Coincidentally, that also happens to be the post where I talk about the "coffee ground discharge" I was told to expect with the Crin.one Progesterone gel. Those internet searchers are sure getting more than they bargained for huh?)

Message from Cary

I like my new digital camera except for one thing. It doesn't have a hole to look through to frame your picture. Usually that's okay except when you're outside in the bright sun.

Today I went outside to release a balloon with a message for Cary into the sky. I took pictures like I did last time for Grey, but I really couldn't see anything because of the sunlight, so I had to wait until I got back inside to see what I had actually captured.

When I got back inside, I was amazed to find...







A rainbow...

Bittersweet

**Child Mentioned**

I'm busily getting ready for my son's second birthday party which is tomorrow. It's hard to believe that it's been two years since he was born. I have to confess that I don't remember every single detail. (Truthfully, the first three months are a bit of a blur!) I remember that my husband was watching the British Open on t.v. for most of my hospital stay. Kind of funny the random things you remember.

D amazes me on a daily basis. He was lagging behind on his speech because he had fluid behind his ear drums (and couldn't hear well) for several months. He got ear tubes in March, and his vocabulary has exploded over the past few months. He's smart, and funny, and sweet, even thoughtful. I'm so lucky to have been blessed with him. I can't believe he's two. (Well, tomorrow he will be.)

The weekend will be bittersweet for me, though. We'll be celebrating with family and enjoying watching D play with his cousins, but in the back of my mind will be one little thing.

Monday is Cary's due date.

I'll still enjoy the party, and I'll still be so excited to watch D enjoy the day.

It will just be very lonely to know that I should be 9 months pregnant, and I should have a huge baby belly, and not one person will remember that but me. To me, Cary was a person and a hope, and a possibility.

But in the midst of my sadness, I'll be celebrating my good fortune. Every day I thank God for giving me D (and T too.) In spite of the difficult past year, I'm really so lucky - and I need to remember that.

Happy Birthday, D.

Decisions, Decisions

One of my coping mechanisms is planning ahead to the next step.

I've already said that I want to start TTC again right away.

However.

Now I'm getting cold feet. There are so many factors. One is waiting for my period. There's no telling when it will show up. From experience, it's been just under 5 weeks and just under 6 weeks. Another (connected with when my period shows up) is the doctor's appointments I have scheduled.

My appointment with Dr. N is the last week of July, and Dr G (the new specialist) is the second full week of August. I almost definitely won't have gotten my period by the time I see Dr. N, but I may well get it before my appointment with Dr. G.

I'm planning to start Clomid during the next cycle when we TTC. The complicated part is that we need to decide by day 3 of my cycle if we're going to start the Clomid or not (as all of you Clomid veterans know.) The biggest problem with that is that I don't know if Dr. G is going to want to run any tests that require my body to be clean of all those awesome hormones.

I'm not good at waiting. Then again, I'd definitely prefer to have a baby one month later than lose another one because of something that turns out to be treatable if I had just waited one more month.

So I look to you, oh wise bloggers... What would you do? Any insight on tests they might run and whether I will have to be drug free for them to work?

The new persona

I decided to create a new e-mail address so that I could make my e-mail public. That way if anyone wants to e-mail with me without having to post their e-mail on my comments, they can. The new e-mail is Wheresmywhitepicketfence@Hotmail.com. I changed my name to "LuckyOnce" so in case you were wondering, I'm the crazy lady who's commenting on your blog like I know you. :)

Doctors and such

Hmmm... Well, I asked someone I know has gone through infertility and IVF to give me the names of some doctors that she researched and found to be highly regarded. (She definitely does her homework so I feel confident in her research.) She gave me two names. One of them is someone who I have already initiated a new appointment with (more on that later) and the second is Dr. N, MY DOCTOR.

She didn't know he was my doctor when she recommended him, so there was no bias. So, for what it's worth, he's apparently good enough so that his name is out there in the community and he's regarded as knowing what he's talking about. That's comforting in many ways.

I'm still planning to see Dr. N (current fertility doctor) for my follow-up and results of the chromosomal testing at the end of July. Then I have an appointment with the new doctor, Dr. G, in August. According to the person I know, she's "as good as they get in terms of a recurrent miscarriage specialist" and " if there's some sort of chromosomal issue, she'll be able to figure it out."

Here's to hoping that's the case.

I forgot to thank you

I couldn't believe it when I cam back from vacation and found a bunch of comments from people that found me through LFCA. I don't know who posted about me on there, but I really appreciate it. I can't really express how touched I was. Thank you.

Back from vacation

Well, it was a good week, all in all. We had rain on Tuesday and Wednesday, but other than that the weather was nice. I was able to relax in the sun, go to the beach one afternoon with D and do some reading. D also got a chance to play with his younger cousin all week, which he really enjoyed. (They both did.)

One of the books I was reading is called "Miscarriage, Medicine, and Miracles." It's a very informative book written by an OBGYN in New York. I've been taking extensive notes throughout it and will be asking my doctor some questions about what I have and have not yet been tested for. I like the fact that the author uses medical terms but also gives the definition of these terms in boxes within the text. Very helpful, especially for flipping back to look something up again.

My bleeding has basically stopped. (I'm writing this mostly as a note for myself.) It's been a fairly uneventful follow-up to the D & E. No fevers, no clotting (yet) and no major cramps or pain. I would say this is the best that my body has handled a D & E so far. There's a possibility that I may still have some bleeding left to do, but if I remember correctly from the last two times, the clotting was about a week after the D & E, and I'm already 10 days past.

In other random news, I was struck by something that Wifey said in a post a few days ago. She just had her sixth miscarriage, and as she put it: "this time around, nobody gets it." That's just how I feel... When you have your first or second miscarriage, the people who know about it send you flowers and cards or at least call or e-mail. They check on you once or twice just to see how you're doing. Have another one? It's like they don't know what to do or say. The first or second time they can try to be comforting. They can say things like, "I bet this was just a fluke" or "I know it will happen for you soon." Not anymore. No one is optimistic anymore. They don't send flowers. They don't send cards. They don't really say anything. I'm not angry about these things, and I don't mean to sound angry. I'm not expecting cards and flowers by any means, but I feel like people might be going by my apparent lack of emotion (no, I'm not bawling in public) and assuming that I'm "okay this time." It's no big deal because it's the third. *sigh*

(**Just to clarify, I'm talking about people in my real life, not in blog land. You guys have been great.**)

In more "I've been gone for a week so I have a lot to say" news, I'm finally going to start looking into other doctors. I'm not making any guarantees that I'll switch, but I'm tired of not feeling 100% confident that they're paying enough attention to my chart.

Lastly, I know it's stupid to do this and I'll probably just end up disappointed again, but I'm ready to put all of my eggs in the Clomid basket (pun intended.) I'm giving my complete confidence to Clomid-the-wonder-drug next time around and hoping that it will do its job and tell my body to make its own Progesterone and ovulate in the middle of my cycle when it's supposed to, without making me a breakthrough in multiple births.

Vacation

I'm heading off tomorrow for a week's vacation. (Good timing, right?)

I didn't mention this before, but my husband's grandmother died on Thursday as well (the same day as my D & E) so it's been a pretty shitty week all in all. We're really ready to get away.

I'm not sure how "restful" our vacation will be, but at least T will be with D an I, and not at work. That's always nice. D adores it when T is around all day, so this will be fun.

I hope everyone has a great week. Thank you again for all your concern. I'm doing okay, and as I know from prior experience, only time can really help with healing. I'll talk to you all next week.

Made it

Thank you all so, so much for your wonderful comments. It makes it a little easier to know that there are other people out there thinking of me who "get it."

The good news is that I made it to the D & E. The doctor actually opened his schedule to include me today instead of my having to wait over the weekend. I'm so grateful. Last night the cramp (it was really just one constant cramp for the whole afternoon) kind of subsided before bed. Then I woke up at 1 am with a crampy feeling again and was so worried that the miscarriage was starting then.

Luckily, nothing happened last night (except for me lying awake for two hours between 1 and 3.) When I used the bathroom right before my procedure this morning, I got my first brown spotting. Thank God I made it. The tissue will be sent for testing and hopefully it will help us to figure out why I have one perfectly healthy baby but can't seem to have any more.

Bad news

Well, I had my ultrasound today and it would appear that I can now call myself a "Real" infertile. Yes, that's right. My body has successfully killed off its third child in one year.

I had some cramping feelings over the weekend last weekend. I was pretty freaked out, but I was also feeling gassy and bloated, ended up having some gastro-intestinal issues (yes, you know what I mean) and was hoping it was just first trimester bloat.

The ultrasound today showed that the baby had died at 8 weeks (so, over the weekend). Guess the major stomach upset all makes sense now.

The good news is that my insurance will cover chromosomal testing this time because it's a third miscarriage. The bad news is that I'm having cramps right now and I'm so afraid that I'm going to miscarry naturally before tomorrow's D&E. If I do miscarry naturally, no chromosomal testing.

We did learn something new and interesting today. The doctor thinks that they WILL find something through the chromosomal testing. The baby was measuring 8 weeks, but the gestational sac was only measuring something like 6 weeks 4 days. I asked him about the last miscarriage, and he said it was the opposite story. Baby was smaller than the gestational sac. Ideally (in a healthy pregnancy) the sac and the baby should measure the same. That could mean that we have chromosomal issues to deal with which is much scarier than low Progesterone.

Maybe little D is our one miracle baby and he's all there is for us...

Bleh

I'm having a "bleh" day. It's probably hard for you to believe, but I'm usually a pretty cheery person in real life. You get to see all my "bleh" thoughts that I don't always talk about to my friends. I guess you won't be surprised by this...

But oh. my. God. I am having SUCH a bleh day. I brought D to an indoor playspace and he had a blast, but I just felt like I was not being a good conversationalist (my friend was also there with her kids) and I really just want to be anti-social and sit in a corner until the sun comes out.

Have I mentioned that it's been raining for like... oh, I don't know... six days straight, or something??

BLEH.