I Love You

Yesterday LC said “I love you” to me. I had waited 17 months and 9 days to hear those words. I do not care that he repeats almost anything you say to him and that he was just likely repeating me, and therefore had no idea what he said. He absolutely melts my heart.

Sippy Cup Randomness

Because we are first time parents and because neither of us had really been around children I don’t think we realize how lucky we are when it comes to our little man. LC never really had an addiction to a pacifier. We (more me) decided at 6 months that he was done with the pacifier. I knew that when he moved up to the bigger baby classroom at his daycare he wouldn’t be allowed to have it, so I told them to just not give it to him starting at 6 months. He never really took to anyway, so that was not a hard thing for him to give up. Honestly, the reaction to him giving up the pacifier was my biggest fear in even giving him a pacifier to begin with, because I HATE seeing older toddlers who are still attached to their “binkies”.

When he turned one, I wanted him off the bottle. Unfortunately for me, his daycare at the time wouldn’t server breast milk in a sippy cup, so he had to keep taking a bottle at daycare. But, he only got it at daycare and only for his milk. Any other time, and all other liquids were given in a sippy cup. He never refused to take a sippy cup. In fact the only problem we had with sippy cups was that the liquid would come out too fast and it would choke him. As soon as we switched to his current school at 13 months, the bottle was gone!

When I weaned him and switched him to rice milk, he was fine. I didn’t even mix the rice milk with my breast milk, I just gave him a cup of rice milk. No issues! I didn’t realized until today that there are some babies who will refuse to drink certain liquids out of their sippy cups, or that they will only take milk out a certain type of sippy cup. I knew we had gotten lucky with the pacifier, and the bottle, but I didn’t realize how laid back of child we must really have.

While I am talking about sippy cups, I have to rave about the Tommy Tippee. I had heard parents rave about Tommy Tippee from the time LC was born. They would go on and on about how great these bottles were and how that was all their little one would take. I thought they were overrated and overpriced. While I hated washing all the parts of the Dr. Brown bottles, that is all I would use.

Since we have moved to the sippy cup, I have realized that spill proof doesn’t really mean spill proof. Up until this past weekend we had three types of sippy cup. Dr. Browns soft spout, and two different Nuks. I really liked the Dr. Brown sippy, but I felt that LC was ready to move on to something for an older toddler than the soft spout. The Nuk with the straw was okay but it sometimes leaked. The other Nuk, I don’t know what it’s called, but it became a daycare only cup for water. I refused to put breast milk in it because I knew the cup would leak and I wasn’t wasting my liquid gold.

Finally this past weekend I decided that we needed some new sippy cups. I gave into the hype and bought two Tommy Tippee truly spill proof drink cups, and I love them! They really are spill proof. It’s amazing! My only gripe is that I didn’t jump on the band wagon sooner.

CD 11 - First Monitoring Appt

I had my monitoring appointment this morning and all seems to be going well. Today is CD 11 for me and this morning at my appointment I had three good size follies, one at 16mm and two at 17mm. Dr. S said that if my E2 comes back good, then I will trigger tomorrow. I am super excited about this. I don’t know why, but I’m really optimistic about this cycle. I just have a really good feeling about this.

When I did my IUIs in the past, I never felt really good about them. I did three with this same practice before, but I never felt like they were timed right. My first one was the only one I felt was timed right. I did the clomid, then the follistim, triggered, and then had my IUIs the two following days. The second IUI cycle they triggered me on CD 13, and I O’d on CD 14. I’m pretty sure that I O’d on my own and then I had the inseminations on CD 14, and 15. I didn’t think that was timed very well. Our 3^rd IUI cycle, I O’d the day of trigger and they only did one insemination the day after. I’m sure it was pointless at that point.

I just never got a good feeling in any of my previous cycles like I have now.  Plus, we were always using frozen sperm because they believed Mr. P had a low count. His count was low when it was last tested, but it’s not abnormally low and it obviously works because we have fertilized four eggs on our own.

With My Sister it Always Just Gets Better and Better

In a funny turn of events, my sister S called me last night. She was calling to apologize to me because she didn’t realize how much she had hurt me when I was pregnant. She said something about how she sees things differently now because she is going through the same thing. I guess she isn’t getting called as much as she thinks she should be by her friends or my other sisters and me. Well…. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that she’s a selfish bitch. Just because you are now pregnant and your life is good, doesn’t erase all the bad things that you did.

This is where it actually gets even funnier, so I admitted that it really did hurt and I told her how I felt like she never acknowledged my son. Her response…. We’ve talked about that before so she doesn’t understand how I feel like that. REALLY??? Aren’t you going through the same thing? Didn’t you just tell me that your friend isn’t all excited and asking questions about your pregnancy and yet you don’t understand why I feel that way? Well here’s a clue dumbass…during this conversation, you have YET to ask me about my son. In fact, she didn’t ask about him during the conversation at all.

I feel like the point of her call was a passive aggressive attempt to get me to call and be all excited for her pregnancy. Look, I’m happy for her and her life, but when you don’t give two shits about my life, why the fuck do I need to be your cheerleader?

The funniest thing about this whole conversation though, is that S didn’t even come to this “realization” about how much she had hurt me until my sister T pointed it out to her. S was actually complaining to T about this first and T kindly reminded her that she had done the same thing to me. S is so damn self-absorbed!

On a brighter note: I started my follistim today!! I have my ultrasound on Monday and I'm hoping for some great growing follies!!

My FSH Meds Came Today

I am pretty excited about this because now everything is set to go. My REs office got everything taken care of in regards to my insurance on Tuesday, and then yesterday I got a call from the pharmacy to say that they got everything from the docs office, got my insurance stuff squared away, and they were ready to place the order.

This is the part where I almost shit a brick, she tells me how much my insurance covered and then gave me my remaining balance….$39! I about died! I cannot believe that my insurance covered the cost of the injectable meds. I thought I had remembered that Tri.care would cover the cost for TI cycles, and I was praying it was true, and I guess it actually is! I am over the moon with joy about this.

Today, my meds arrive because the pharmacy overnights them, and I open the box, and I don’t have enough FSH! Dr. S had told me that I would be on 150 units of the Follistim for 4 days. I only got a 300 unit pen. So, I had to call the office and ask what was going on. Dr. S explained that he had told me 150, but decided to do 100 instead, but that the nurse was confused and ordered the wrong amount anyway. So, long story short they had to order me more meds.

I asked Dr. S if he was sure that I didn’t need the 150 and he said yes. He said the is hoping that I get 2-3 mature follicles based on my age. When we did the IUIs back in 2009 we only had 1-2 mature per cycle. So the increase in Follistim from 75 (back in 2009) to 100 now he believes will do the trick. Then he said sometimes the first stim cycle is kinda like a guessing game. I had to let him know that I only planned on doing this once!

 I actually feel better about doing a TI cycle than I ever did about doing an IUI. I know that’s weird, but it’s true. Even with the small hiccups with this cycle I am still feeling really good about it. I don’t know if it’s that I am more relaxed this time around, that I like how Dr. S has handled most things so far, or what, but I feel better. With my IUIs I felt that they were poorly timed. I didn’t like doing them the day of and the day after O. I always wanted them done the day before and the day of. I think doing the TI makes me feel better because I kinda feel like we have a little bit of control. Who knows. All I know is that I’m hopeful that this is going to work out this month!

So, the rest of my meds should arrive tomorrow and then I have my first US on Monday.

After 17 months of EBF

After 17 months of being EBF, I am now done nursing my little man. We had our last nursing session Sunday night and this morning he finished off the rest of my freezer stash. Right around when LC turned one I stopped pumping at work. Honestly I hated doing it, and I had a pretty good freezer stash going anyway. Once he started sleeping through the night around 13 months, that is when we went down to two nursing sessions a day, morning and night, and I supplemented with my freezer stash. About three weeks ago I decided it was time to cut out the morning session and introduce cows milk.

Cutting out the morning session went fine, but introducing the cows milk did not. We noticed blood in his poop again so we had to eliminate obvious dairy for him.  I am glad that I was able to nurse him so long, but also sad that we are done. To me this was the last bridge for him to cross from being my little baby to being my toddler. I thought it was going to be hard on him, but he doesn’t seem to care less. He has taken to the rice milk and  appears to have forgotten all about mama’s milk.

I also feel somewhat guilty that I am weaning him now because part of the reason is that I am going to be on a mediated cycle this month to TTC#2. I know that 17months is a long time, but I really wanted to go 18months. But, at the same time, I always felt like breastfeeding had a part to play in my miscarriages. Like my body was drained enough trying to support LC, and I and it couldn’t sustain a pregnancy also. I don’t know, my ob/gyn says that the two aren’t related but I wonder if that’s true or not in my case.

I am just so hopeful for this cycle. I truly feel in my heart that this cycle is going to be it. I feel like I’m finally going to get my 2^nd baby.

Good to Go

Dr. S’s nurse just called back and I am at least good to start my clomid today! I am supposed to start my FSH on CD 9 and then come in for a check on CD 10 or 11. I don’t know if everything will be good to go to start the FSH on time, but for today, all systems are a go!