Neugeborenen blues und bewegen woes oder newborn blues and moving woes

Wow, life with a newborn is rough.

I've been keeping up with the blogs of others who are still in the trenches. I've been refraining from commenting, "Don't do it! It's a trap! Save yourself before you DO get pregnant and it's too late!", but just by a hair. I remember being there not that long ago and anyone who would've told me that would've been on my shit list.

But, it's been rough. Bee seems to be a mostly angry baby. There have been many several hour stretches of crying (hers and mine) and desperation to get her to sleep and get her on some kind of a schedule. Yesterday was a glimpse though of what life might be like if we can understand her better. She slept eight hours through the night and then took two or three naps during the day. In between she was alert and interactive. She seemed to even enjoy life. Last night though, DH thought she was hungry at about two, when he heard her making noises. I hadn't heard her, but I figured I was just tired and so got up and tried to feed her. After 50 minutes of bobbing on and off, we figured she was still tired and had just been making those noises babies do in her sleep. We took turns until I got up with her for the day about seven this morning. She slept a little during that time, but not much. It was a long, long night.

Also, we are moving this week. The Army, in all it's wisdom, has decided that we need to move about an hour away because DH's job is moving to a new location. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it's only up the autobahn a ways, but it still involves having everything packed up and unpacked and sleeping on the floor and no dishes to cook with and all the other things involved in moving. The Army is dictating this move, so they will be packing us, but there's still lots to do, and it's really hard to do things with a screaming newborn in your arms.

By this time next week, all of our stuff should be in the new place. Bee will be four weeks old and hopefully we can start settling into a routine. Maybe there will even be some sleep between now and then, for all of us.

Happy New Year!

Kopf nach unten und bewegen Belastungen oder head down and moving stresses

I meant to get to this earlier in the week, but it didn't happen. Fortunately (for you) I cannot sleep, so I'll write this post now!

Last week at my 37 week appointment spawnette was breech. Dr. H didn't have any suggestions as to what might help, so I talked to my doula and she gave me several suggestions. Monday night, I only slept about 3 hours in total. Tuesday I tried to get moxibustion (more on this later), but they were just doing acupuncture at the hospital. I did get in the chiropractor on Tuesday. I was also doing inversions, as suggested by my doula. And playing classical music in my pants (which DH thought was hilarious). And using a hot pack down low and an ice pack up high. And pushing on spawnette's head. And talking to her. Basically whatever I could come up with that was safe. Or, relatively.

Tuesday night I actually got some sleep, which was great after feeling like a zombie all day the day before. I woke up Wednesday feeling kind of crappy and weird, but went on with my day. I was able to get ahold of the midwives at my hospital on Wednesday morning and schedule the moxibustion. I can't find a good link for this, but if you google it, you'll find some descriptions. Basically, the practitioner takes an incense stick the size of a cigar of mugwort, gets it good and glowing, and holds it at the outside corner of your pinkie toe at your bladder 67 point. I did this while on my elbows and knees with a midwife at my hospital. After ten minutes, the midwife did a check with palpation and said the baby had turned. Then I sat on the heartbeat monitor for 20 minutes. Usually spawnette is very active, but she seemed to be tired and taking a nap. It was good enough for the midwives though.

Monday I went in for another appointment and Dr. H checked via ultrasound, and she had turned! I was so relieved. Now I'm a tiny bit paranoid that she'll decide to turn back, but I think it will be pretty hard for her to accomplish at this point.

This week has been very busy. I've been working since last week on getting food put away in the freezer for when spawnette arrives since we will be on our own. Monday I did some more cooking and was on my feet most of the day. Tuesday, I did acupuncture and my last appointment with the chiropractor until after the birth, as well as cleaning and then a murder mystery dinner with friends that night. I didn't sleep much Tuesday night because of what was coming on Wednesday.

Wednesday, DH and I drove up to the place we will be moving to at the beginning of February. We have to find housing there, and the sooner the better. The only snag is that with us not moving for a couple of months landlords, understandably, can be hesitant about waiting to get a place filled until then. I only got about five hours of sleep Wednesday night, broken into two segments. We left home at 7 am and returned about 4:30 pm. We looked at three places. None of them are as big as the place we are in now, but there were a couple that could work. The first place had an especially good location and parking spaces for two cars, which is a luxury in town. We asked about that place and the gal at the housing office called the landlady. She said she would have to talk it over with her husband. The second bedroom in that place is very small, but will work well for an infant. My hope is that they understand that and will be willing to wait for us. We are supposed to hear back tomorrow. Otherwise, we will possibly drive back up on Friday to see another place. I had really hoped Friday would be a day to relax. We'll see.

So, with the stress of that, I slept last night from 10 until about 2 this morning. At 2:30, I turned on my light and read for about 45 minutes. (DH and I are in separate beds until spawnette arrives. It's just too crowded with all the pillows I am using, and I move around way too much.) Then I tried to sleep for another 45 minutes. No dice. So, now I'm up writing this. It's about 5 am now. At 1 pm, we will have somewhere between 10 and 12 adults coming for Thanksgiving along with 4 or so babies and at least one kid. I am not cooking the turkey, thank heavens. I do have some things to make today, but I'm hoping everyone will be out of here by 6 pm.

So, that's been the last week or so. Sorry about the novel. I'm stressed by the moving situation and needed to get it out. I would like something to be resolved there so that I can get a good night's sleep before I have real reason to be up at all hours.

To my American friends, Happy Thanksgiving!

Socken und Graduierung oder socks and graduation

Sometime during my last two week wait, I was catching up on some blogs when I stumbled across this post by Cristy. It suggested a sock exchange. I signed up and Lou at Syringe Sisters was assigned to send socks to me, and I sent socks to babysocks2008. Last week, DH came home with a package from Lou. This is what was in it. (Except for the flowers. Those don't ship well from the States.) So cute! The card made me tear up and I have been wearing the socks around the house.

Today the long socks came with me on my last appointment with Herr Doktor. He checked everything out. I'm still spotting, but he said that's okay and just to come in if there's any problem before I get under OB care. The blob is 10.7 mm now.

I have officially graduated. I wish I had a mortarboard to throw! Now I  start jumping through the hoops with Tricare to start my OB care. These are hoops that I'm glad to be jumping through.

The journey to now, part one, oder Reise zum Teil jetzt zwei

If you didn't read the first part, you can find it here.

It was so frustrating....

On 11 May, we flew with our suitcases and our cats and, at least for me, without enthusiasm or patience. I didn't want to be back in Germany. I wanted to be close to home, to Mom and Dad, because I expected to be getting pregnant soon and wanted to be close enough for my parents to get to be grandparents.

We landed on 12 May. It was beautiful weather, and in some ways I relaxed a little bit. Our house in Colorado still hadn't sold, and we would have to establish ourselves in this new community, but at least we were here and could begin the process. On the way from the airport to the new base, I could hear Shadow yowling from the luggage compartment under the bus. Poor thing.

Imagine this, but smaller with less chairs.

When you get to a new place with the military, they put you in a hotel until you can find housing. In our room, there was a bed, a desk, a dresser, and one chair. It was DH and I and the two cats in that room for a month. The cats don't get along that well, so we ended up putting the luggage rack in one corner with a suitcase on top so that Shadow could sleep on there and Moo could sleep on the bed with us.

We went about getting settled. When you move overseas, there are a lot of things to do to establish normal life in your new location. There are driver's licenses, some basic language classes, finding a home, getting put into the medical system at the new MTF. Lots to do. We moved into our house (the only one that we had been able to look at) in the middle of June. At the end of June, I finally got in to see the OB/GYN on post. This was the next step in the referral process.

This doctor seemed nice enough, but he was dismissive of what I had been doing to try to help things along. We hadn't been trying quite a year at that point, so he seemed hesitant to work with us, but since I had been diagnosed with PCOS he deigned to give us his expertise. I'll call him Dr. Insensitive.

Dr. Insensitive told me to stop charting, that that didn't do anything anyway. He didn't seem to like that I was on Metformin, but refilled the prescription since I had already been taking it for six months. He prescribed Clomid at 50 mg, told me to get a blood test on CD 21, and we would go from there. He was very sure that I would be able to get pregnant, no problem.

Clomid, the crazy maker

I didn't stop charting, mostly because it's one of the very few things that makes me feel like I have some control over this process. Round one of Clomid was determined to be non-ovulatory by blood test. I was given another round at 50 mg. Same result. The next round was 100 mg, and that was determined to be a proper dosage, due to the bloodwork. That was August. I did another 100 mg cycle in September during which I know that I ovulated late, but Dr. Insensitive had stopped ordering blood tests since one came back positive at 100 mg.

Early September of 2011, my mom had had surgery on her stomach to repair some lingering problems from childhood. The surgery didn't go well and she had another one three weeks later. After I heard about the second surgery being scheduled, I went ahead and got a ticket back home. I left in early October and returned in early November. Those cycles I did not take Clomid; October, because DH stayed in Germany and November because I didn't have access to the medication early enough in my cycle.

In December, I called Dr. Insensitive's office. I hadn't seen him since June and I wanted to have a change in prescription or blood work done to verify ovulation (or lack thereof) or something to move this process along. The receptionist went ahead and scheduled an appointment with the doctor for the week after Christmas. At this point, I felt so discouraged and broken down. We had passed the year mark and the officially infertile status rang loudly in my head.

At our appointment, Dr. Insensitive was, well, insensitive. I told him that the Clomid wasn't working, that I wasn't ovulating. He said that the blood work proved otherwise. I tried to show him my charts and he told me that those were useless and that I really shouldn't bother with them. He asked if I wanted to keep going on Clomid. I said no, but I wouldn't mind trying Femara. He harrumphed at that, and told me to go get an HSG done, and after that, he would put in the referral. His parting words were, "Maybe you won't even need the referral. You could be pregnant by then." His false confidence made me break down. I needed some real hope, not placating words.

DH and I went over to the lab. They used to do HSGs, but didn't any longer because the community that we are in is in the process of shutting down. I had to go to Landstuhl, the big military hospital over here, to get the HSG done. I called them and they said that I should call on CD 1 of my next cycle to schedule the HSG. I was on CD 3, but it couldn't be scheduled for that cycle due to New Year's being in just a couple of days. I had to wait out another cycle.

February came around, and with it, the chance to do the HSG. I called the lab and scheduled the test. I had to get a blood test done for pregnancy beforehand, which is kind of crappy. Dr. Insensitive had put the order in wrong, but the people at Landstuhl were able to work it out. (I got a call the next week, asking if I was going to be in the next day for my HSG. Dr. Insensitive was apparently having some major problems with getting the orders in correctly.)

Ouch

The HSG was painful. I wouldn't call it excruciating, but I would rather not to have to do it again. I had been researching HSGs as soon as I heard about them, so I pretty much knew what was going to happen. There were four people in the room, six including DH and I. I have gotten to the point that I really don't care who is doing or seeing things, if it's going to help get me pregnant. One tube had some adhesions, but the radiology doc managed to get it to open up and the dye spilled through on both sides. I was uncomfortable for about half an hour afterwards and took it easy for the rest of the day, but was fully recovered very shortly.

After the HSG was done, I called and got the ball rolling on getting the referral the rest of the way through. At the end of February, I finally had my referral in hand. I saw Herr Doktor for the first time on February 27th, 2012.

It's been a long road getting here. I've learned that I need to be my own advocate, that no one else is going to push things as much as I will. I've learned that research can be my best friend. Knowing what the next step typically is is very helpful for me. I can anticipate what is coming next and ask about the next step if the doctor doesn't mention it. I've learned that you have to know the system to be able to use it. Checking and double checking is okay.

Through all of this, I have tried to hold on to hope. Hope is the most elusive, slippery, crazy thing that I've found on this journey. The ups and downs of each cycle and the hope that keeps me going despite so much heartbreak. I hope to get pregnant. I hope to have a healthy baby. I hope to be a mother.

CD 22, 9 dp trigger

Schönes Wochenende or have a nice weekend!

Normally the Army has something called "family time". It is supposed to be one day a week when soldiers get off of work a couple of hours early and they are supposed to go home and spend time with their families. I don't know how well this has worked for other people, but DH has never been in a job where he gets any family time. He always ends up working until the normal end of work day or later.

Now, whatever general is in charge of DH's work has decided on a different policy. This general has done away with family time in favor of giving everyone a four day weekend once a month. I think this is a much better way to do it.

So, tomorrow DH and I are headed out for the weekend. We'll be back on Monday. I'll post again when I get back.

Schönes Wochenende everyone!

CD 19, 6 dp trigger

Leben einer Hausfrau oder life of a housewife

I am making this exact face
right now.

Yesterday, I started losing my mind a bit. I called and scheduled a pregnancy test with the doctor for the 26th. It was that or the 23rd, and I have a ball (ugh, balls) that my husband is dragging me to that night. And the next day, I have a class an hour away. So, I thought that the next Monday would be better since they do their testing at 7 a.m. Of course, as soon as I hung up the phone, I started second guessing myself. I was thinking myself down all of these alleyways and back roads of my mind that didn't even need to be considered. So, I went and did something productive.

I don't know if you can tell, but I don't work. Well, you know, it's that old saw that I work, but I don't get paid for it. Whatever. I don't work. I volunteer a few hours a week at the library and I try to keep my house reasonably clean and I cook dinner. The library has been good because I kept thinking about getting a job, but didn't want to because I was worried I would get pregnant right away and then want to quit. Plus, after a couple of hours there, I really have "worked" enough.  A friend of mine keeps bugging me about going to school and getting my bachelor's, but I haven't wanted to start that because of the possibility of pregnancy on the horizon and also because it costs a fair amount of money and I don't see using a degree. Because I don't work.

Imagine this, but without makeup.
Not a pretty picture.

I have worked in the past. Not very much though, I'll be honest. I worked when we first got married for a while. I can't remember how long. Maybe six months? It was as a hostess at a pie restaurant. The pay and the hours were crap, but I got a discount on pie. (Come to think of it, maybe that's part of the reason I started packing on the pounds after getting married.) After a couple of moves, I got fed up with being home and got a job in August of 2005 and kept it until the next April. That one was as a cafeteria lady. I got to wear a hairnet and everything. The height of glamour. Eventually, I quit because DH was deploying and I wanted to travel with him before he left. Then I had a job filling in as church secretary for a month. The only thing that did was manage to royally screw up our taxes, the consequences of which I was still dealing with five years later.

After another couple of moves, I was in eastern Washington. I got a job while I was there, at a quilt shop, for all of fifteen months. I loved that job and would have stayed forever if I could have, but in September of 2008, DH came back from his latest deployment and we went to Colorado. While in Colorado I had an unsuccessful business out of the house. Just when I had started building a decent client base, we got the orders that we were coming back to Germany.

I am a little jealous of women that have jobs. I see DH's coworkers and they seem so successful and happy with what they do. I read blogs of women that are working and it seems glamorous somehow. As though they are living in a fast-paced world where they are up against challenges daily and always overcome. They are important and needed. It makes my life seem small.

This is what I look like most days.
 Especially the high heels and apron.

On the other hand, I like to be able to travel whenever I want. I don't enjoy being overly busy. I like cooking dinner and being able to spend the day going for a run in the middle of the afternoon or sewing for a couple of hours or reading. I feel like I have a small life, but for the most part, it's a good life. And at some point, I will add mothering to my hausfrau duties. This is a cliché, but I believe that raising children is the most important work that a person can do. 


Plus, I still don't have to change out of my pj's. 


CD 16, 3 dp trigger

The journey to now, part one, oder Reise zum Teil jetzt ein

I started writing this post last Monday before my first appointment with Herr Doktor. It's a bit long, so I'm going to break it down into two posts. Here is the first part.

------------

It's been a long time getting to today. In about an hour I am heading over to the Women's Clinic in my town to see the professor of reproductive endocrinology and gynecology. Also, today marks the start of a new cycle.

Thinking in earnest about having a baby started a little over two years ago. My husband was deployed, but we had decided it was finally time. I went off birth control. I started taking over the counter prenatal vitamins. I started paying attention to things that I had never, ever even considered like where my cervix was sitting and what was coming out of it. Things were going well. In June of 2010, I started charting. DH came home for R&R and we gave it a go. It was only two weeks and the timing was off, so it didn't happen. No big deal.

I'll be honest with you. During the time leading up to R&R, I had been paying attention to the length of my cycles and there was a hiccup on the horizon. My cycle was going to involve me being on my period when my husband was home. My period at that time usually lasted for a week. Out of two weeks. I know some people don't mind having sex when they are bleeding, but I'm a little more squeamish. It seems icky to me. (Or did then.) So, I took the pill for one cycle to try and control when the bleeding would happen. I waited until a week into my cycle and then started the pill. It didn't really work, but I think that's where things started to go wonky.

The two weeks of R&R were over much to quickly. DH left, and I went back to real life. I started running in July of 2010. I ran my first 5k in September at an embarrassingly slow time (56:35). I bought a dress for my husband's homecoming. I ran another 5k, at a better time. (Not sure what that time was because I didn't have a watch and the race wasn't timed.) November 6, 2010 DH came home from his fourth deployment. It was wonderful to see him. We started trying for realsies.

Meanwhile, between June and November, something strange had happened to my cycles. When I first came off birth control, they were "normal" (But we all know there is no such thing. Only average.) But in June, they shifted. Changed. They were longer. Much longer. My charting showed mountains and valleys instead of the plateaus and buttes I was expecting. The cycles were maddening because I couldn't figure out what was going on. My longest cycle so far was 59 days. June 2010 to August 2010.

Anyway, back to DH and trying. A return from a deployment or long term separation from my husband always institutes a kind of honeymoon period for us. We weren't getting anyway closer to making a baby, but we sure were having fun in the process! (Let me tell you, the process is less fun now.) In November of 2010 I had a 17 day cycle. The next cycle was 57 days. I went to the doctor for my annual pap smear in January 2011. I told him how crazy things had been. He listened. I now realize that this is somewhat of a miracle in a military treatment facility. The doctor put me on Metformin, told me that I needed to take some blood tests and get an ultrasound. All of that got done. DH got a semen analysis. He results were great. Then we got the not so good news. I had PCOS.

You have to know something about me. I am a researcher. If there is something that I am interested in, I will find any information available and use it. I read books, blogs, articles, reviews. Thoroughly. When DH and I were getting ready to buy a house, I did my research. I knew neighborhoods, school districts, and average days on market. I took every piece of information available to me and used it. I'm the same way with TTC.

I had read about PCOS, back when things were hunky-dory, and I had thought, "Thank goodness I don't have that! That must be terrible!" Ah the naivety.

There I am, diagnosed. But, I was on Metformin. That should help things. DH and I went back in to talk with the doctor. He said that he would like to give me a referral to a fertility specialist. This freaked me out a bit. I asked what the steps were on the fertility spectrum. He said for PCOS patients usually the first step is Metformin, then adding Clomid to the mix, followed by birth control pills for a few months to regulate cycles and a few months off of them, trying. After that, artificial insemination and then IVF. This scared me. Lots of pills I could deal with, but going straight from that to physical medical intervention seemed like a big jump in level of care. But, we were a long way from that, so I wasn't really worried.

March 10, 2011 was our 10th anniversary. We got married young (18 for me, 20 for him), but things have worked out and we have a good marriage. We like each other. We get along. We like spending time together, and we like spending time apart. For the 10th anniversary, we went to a very ritzy hotel for the weekend. We had room service, which was a first. We ate breakfast overlooking the lake and the golf course. We spent Saturday in the spa, enjoying the different rooms. It was great.

Around that same time, we were waiting for the next assignment. We had hoped to be in Colorado for at least five years, but the Army had other plans. When DH contacted his branch manager (A kind of a career manager for the Army. They work with assigning you to your next job/location.) about the next step in his career, the branch manager thought that we had just moved in December. So, out of the thirty-two months we were in Colorado, five months were "extra".

Anyway, we were hoping to be in the States somewhere and hopefully close-ish to family. That did not happen. Instead, we got the assignment to Germany with less than sixty days notice from orders being given to the day we would fly. Not only did this throw a wrench into our everyday lives, but it put a hold on further progress with TTC. I got a call about a week before we flew out in May letting me know that I had finally gotten the approval to see an OB/GYN on post, but I couldn't go because by that time my medical records were already cleared and I was officially off their books. It was so frustrating.

------------

I think that's enough for now. I will continue this story sometime. Tomorrow is my second u/s for this cycle. I'm looking forward to see how much further along those follicles are! Grow, follicles, grow!

CD 9