Friday, August 28, 2015

Hoping Again

I am having a major sense of Deja-vu. Well, no, I am actually past that point by a little bit. This week, we received, signed, notarized and mailed an update to our embryo adoption contract. We have a preliminary ok, and are waiting for the final word that everything is in order with Embryo Adoption Services of Cedar Park and our contract will be open for another 12 months. I weaned Ellie a week ago, and met with the Reproductive Endocrinologist this week to re-establish care.

It was approximately at this point in 2013 that I did *not* wean Hannah or sign a contract or go back to the RE's office. At that point in time I was nervous about proceeding with another embryo transfer (when  I thought we were going to do one). Right now, I am excited and hopeful. Other than the whole medicated cycle deal, I feel emotionally like I did when we were hoping to conceive 7 odd years ago. I have every reason to believe things will go well, and am looking forward to the process, and it's really hard for me to fathom that I am in this place again. Talk about restoring the time the locusts had stolen!

I am not the person who normally would post this sort of thing. With my previous pregnancies, I barely mentioned them online at all. That was largely because I was coming from a place of loss and self-protectiveness, which was absolutely what I needed at the time. Right now though, I am not in that cocoon mode. I feel very whole, and I am not afraid to chronicle this process as it unfolds, whatever the outcome.

That being said, here's what I know is coming up:

1.) I have to wait until my next period to put 1 full cycle between nursing and transfer prepping.
2.) I am waiting for the final word that the paperwork is complete, and that should come within a month; I'm not expecting any delays on that front.
3.) Once my next cycle starts, I have a script for continuous-dose birth control to start shutting down my ovaries. Last time I was on that for 6 weeks prior to transfer.
4.) I will need to have a hysteroscopy before I'll be cleared by the RE to be placed on a transfer timeline. (This is new, last time it was a sonohysterogram).

After that all clears, I'll get meds ordered and get a schedule for monitoring and transfer! Also, to my great relief, I learned that my RE's office has a satelite 20 minutes from my house so I won't have to make the 5 hour round trip again until the actual embryo transfer.

The girls went with me to the appointment and Hannah got to meet the doctor who put her in my tummy. He was so glad to see them, and I got to be properly mortified that all Hannah wanted to do was flip upside down in the chair and show her bottom side. *sigh* They even had her birth announcement in my chart- what an amazing experience to be in that office without the anxiety and sense of dread I remember from before.

The other highlight of the week was getting Ellie's next clothing size unpacked and discovering that one of the little dresses matches one of Hannah's. It must have been a really popular style, both of them are hand me downs! Here are the little darlings the morning of my RE appointment.


Sunday, August 23, 2015

The Sad Demise of the Fancy Camera

Remember the Fancy Camera? The one we got shortly after Hannah turned 1? The one that takes awesome pictures with almost no effort? It's blinking "ERR" which means... call Nikon and see how much it would take to fix it. But.... I can get the same camera body on Amazon for less than $150 (yes, it's an old model, but I really don't care because I'm not a "photographer" by any means), and it will likely cost at least that much to tinker with the one I have, if not. So I want a new camera but I'm not getting one right now because it's just not happening right now. And the lack of nice pictures has put a damper on my blogging aspirations. I'm just not inspired, haha!

Now I have my phone- still much better than the point and click we replaced with the fancy camera. Plus, it takes video, so that is a plus.

One of the reasons I am not getting a replacement camera body right now is because I have a new sewing machine. This story of the new sewing machine comes with the rest of the story of what we've been up to the last few weeks.

It goes like this:

The girls started preschool at a Montessori school a few weeks ago, which allows me to pick up some extra home health visits for a while. They go 3 days a week, and Ellie takes a nap while she's there. She needed a nap mat. All the affordable ones had Disney princesses or Dora plastered across them, and all the ones I liked were not what I would consider affordable. So I decided to make one from some old sheets, because... it shouldn't be that hard, really.

Now, I like to sew, but my machine is decades old, basic, and quirky. It got progressively worse as I tried to sew these few simple seams, and I was in tears by the third night of what should have been a 3 hour job. So my neighbor gave me her second-hand machine that she didn't want anymore, which was rusty but sewed a seam... but the bobbin winder didn't work. I therefore had to keep 2 machines out, one to wind bobbins and the other to sew seams, and I kept fantasizing in my head about all of the things I've always wanted in a machine and isn't it high time to get a new one?

I finally churned out this (please don't zoom in and examine the seams- it's painful):



Passable, but it could have been much, much better. Then I started researching machines. I checked out Craigslist, but nothing available fit the bill. I looked at Berninas (My mother has one that I learned on), but they are soooooo expensive. I looked at Brothers, but have always been unimpressed with their quality track record and didn't want to sort through which machine might be worth it it and which models were probably junky. I finally visited a local sewing store and found the Babylock. Yes, similar to Brother structurally (but not, I found out, the same company- despite some claims that it is). 

I bit the bullet, and bought the one I wanted new, and I rarely buy things new, but this one was worth it. I sat down the next evening and made Ellie a skirt for her uniform. Do you know nobody makes Khaki skirts or scooters in any size smaller than 3T? Why don't they think 1 year olds want school uniforms too? Really now. So, to sum up, it took me 3 days to sew a silly nap mat with the old machine(s) and 1 evening to tailor a scooter skirt with the new one (and I even modified the pattern to suit my needs). 




Well, Hannah is absolutely loving preschool. Ellie adapted quickly, but Hannah can't wait. Every day she asks me if it's preschool day, and she has been picking "pre-school hair" for me to do on her from my new favorite website Babes in Hairland. Ellie has only had 1 accident for them in the last 2 weeks, so I'd say she's good and potty trained even with a change in location and routine, and that makes me happy too.

Preschool babies!!