Struggling

That pretty much sums up my life right now! Wow, it's been forever since I have written anything. I say that a lot. Oh well. I'm struggling with a lot of things... the never ending stress my AZ house causes, my out of control body (although things are definately getting better these days), my desire to want to move somewhere new (again), and most importantly, Dawson. I love that child to pieces. He is my whole world. He is also 2 1/2 years old lol. He is constantly testing us these days. It wouldn't be as bad if I felt more normal. These days, I really feel bad when I get upset with him; when I lose my patience with him. How many times do you really need to tell them to stop doing something before they actually stop?! All I really think about is my friend who recently lost her little girl, literally out of no where. I think about how she would give anything to be upset about stupid things, like refusing a diaper change or repetitive banging on the table. I feel bad when I get stern with Dawson, thinking, "what if this is the last night I get with him"? It's an incredible power struggle. I find it hard not to give in these days. I was most definately a sucker before... and Dawson is most definately spoiled rotten... but I love every minute of it. I don't think he is spoiled into being a brat. He definately has boundaries, however, my battles with him are much weaker since this experience. It makes me feel like a bad parent sometimes. I suppose I will adjust and get back into the swing of things as time goes on, but for now, it's a struggle.

I realize I am just rambling... but I felt I needed a place to vent. I should make more time to blog. I feel better when I do, but I just don't have the time... or at least don't make the time. Once Dawson goes to bed, I just want to veg on the couch! Or, right now, I suppose I am working on something a little more productive, which is his scrapbook. I was inspired to finish and keep up with it after this whole experience. I am glad I have it started and I really do enjoy working on it... it's just that scrapbooking takes a lot of time and a lot of mess! Maybe I will turn our spare bedroom into a place to leave my stuff out... hrmmm......

moving day is coming!

Gah! I can't believe that we can start moving into our new place in less than a week! I am not going to lie. I am going to miss living up here, but where we are going isn't *that* far away lol. Here is a list of all the things I am super excited about! (I won't bother with what I hate about moving... I am sure everyone feels the same way!)

• Dawson will finally have a room to himself. It was never a big deal when he was a baby, but I am so excited to decorate a little! I will post pictures when we are moved in, but basketball and tractors will most certainly be present :) I am keeping everything simple... no overboard crazy stuff. We also plan to keep most of his toys out of his room so he doesn't play instead of sleep.
• We plan to transition D to a toddler bed. His crib converts, so we don't have to buy anything, but this step is long overdue. I think he will love it!
• We will have an office! We so desperately need space for our computers and my sewing machine. Plus, we just have stuff that doesn't belong in the living area! Yay for organization!
• We'll have a fenced in yard! I love that we have a small yard here in our townhome, but the back isn't fenced, so it's practically useless to Dawson. Our new place has a deck and a yard. The sucky part is that the majority of the yard has brick pavers down, which is a major negative... but we can plant grass on the side yard. That will be a project to undertake very soon. The owners are also leaving their kids play house! Dawson will have a blast this summer!!
• The garage is not a tandem! I loathe our tandem garage. Enough said :)
• The master bath has a soaking tub. Again, enough said!
• There is a half bath downstairs. What a concept! No more running upstairs to pee lol. This will also help with trying to potty train Dawson. I plan to try the 3 day marathon once we get settled.
• We will also have a small front yard with grass and a covered porch. This excites me :)

Aside from the pavers in the back yard and the location being out of Issaquah, there really aren't many negatives to this house. I am not super excited about the laundry room being downstairs. Who wants to lug their stuff up and down the stairs? The master bath also doesn't have a door. This is how it was in my AZ house, too, but this house has a huge window. That window is going to let in a lot of light when I want to sleep during the day! We'll have to come up with a solution for that, as well as the huge bay windows in the bedroom. I may find myself sleeping in the spare bedroom when I work lol.

I'll update with pictures once we get settled! We have 10 days to get moved in, so hopefully we don't end up with a big mess. This should be an easy move. I hope.

Confirmed Ovarian Ectopic

Just like the title says, my OB confirmed today that there was pregnancy tissue in what they sent to pathology. Because there was no disruption of my tubes, they have concluded it was an ovarian pregnancy. In case you don't know, you have a 0.15-3% chance of having one of those. Whoo-hoo. Don't I feel special! I already fell in the bottom 3% with my miscarriage. My OB is fairly certain the 2 events were unrelated. Because of that, we'll proceed with caution and try again in a few months after I have a couple of normal cycles. Once I get a positive test, we will test my hcg to make sure it's rising appropriately and we will do an early ultrasound to confirm an intrauterine pregnancy. We will pray the next time yields a baby! If not, I get the whole work up... Something I hope never needs to happen.

hot mess part 3

After going to the lab, we went out to lunch. I was still pretty crampy but felt well enough to eat something. After lunch, we went home and I went to bed while Dawson napped. Kyle had to coach his soccer team at 1 and had to work all night after that. I prayed the sleep would make me feel better. I woke up at 2:30, tried to use the restroom, and nearly passed out. I had to lay on the floor. Thankfully Kyle came home soon after to change... Only I had him take me to the ER instead. I knew something wasn't right.

They did all the normal things when I first got there; drew some blood. Then, they ordered the ultrasound. I tried to watch the tech, but it was hard to see. She seemed to focus in my ovaries a lot. I saw areas of bleeding, but I didn't know if that was normal or not. I got the vibe that something was wrong.... She seemed antsy. Soon after she left, the Dr broke the news. There was a lot of blood in my abdomen. He made it a point to tell me it went up to my liver (ie. " a lot"). Because of the bleeding and because I was so early (only 5 weeks), it was hard to tell if there was an ectopic or not. Because of all the bleeding, they were making that assumption.

I was scared to death. I couldn't show that, because if I didn't keep my cool, Kyle was going I lose it. I have always been afraid of surgery. I'm sure most people are, but I just know too much. They worked on getting my IVs in and calling in the OR team. We were ready to go about an hour later. I woke up in recovery. I felt pretty good... In a little pain but not too much. I wanted to see Kyle. The nurses told me that my tubes were intact! There was no 'obvious' ectopic, but I had bilateral ruptured cysts. One was 2cm and one was 4cm. They sent off stuff to pathology to see if anything had fetal tissue. He explained that it could have been an ectopic that blew out of the end of the tube. Until pathology came back, there was no way to know for sure.

After surgery the tested my hcg levels. The next day they went down by half and down another half the day after. Either it was ectopic or I had miscarried with all the stress. I stated in the hospital for 3 nights. I learned more about surgery than I ever wanted to know. Moving sucks, referred air pain is the worst pain I have ever experienced- put me in tears and made it hard to breathe, foley caths hurt like a SOB coming out, pain meds are awesome for pain and for sleeping, and being on bed rest for 2 weeks sucks. My OB told us we needed to wait 3 months before trying again. I don't know I I'll be able to do that. I hope we get more answers.

I never had a history of cysts. I had no risk factors for an ectopic. Have 2 cysts rupture at the same time is rare; 2 cysts during pregnancy would indicate twins; I have one set of twins in my entire family. If there was an ectopic, what are the odds of having a cyst rupture in the other side? I was really early for an ectopic to rupture. My hcg levels fell fast like an ectopic would... Or maybe being so early they fall fast too? Am I at risk of having cysts now? I know your risk I ectopic goes up by a lot; are my tubes ok I there was an ectopic? Should we test to find out? I was worried about miscarrying everything if that's what was happening... I started my period, but it's been on the lighter side. Not like I would expect a m/c I be. I took a pregnancy test this morning, which was very very faint, so that gives me hope that my levels are near zero.

So many questions. So little answers. All I wanted was a baby... Thank God I have Dawson.

hot mess part 2

To better predict when you ovulate, they make these test strips called OPKs (ovulation predictor kit). They detect the LH (lutenizing hormone) surge that happens up to 48 hours before ovulation. If you get a positive, which is a line that is darker than the control line, you can almost be sure you'll ovulate in the next 48 hours. Some people always have trace amounts of LH in their system, do you have to make sure the test line is darker. The LH surge can be really short. I think it's typically 12 hours, but can be as little as 4! For this reason, many people will test twice a day and some people will miss the surge no matter what. I was able to detect a surge testing twice a day, but those positives were hardly darker than the control.

Enjoying the book and patho lesson yet?! The reason I'm telling you is so that you'll understand why I ever took a pregnancy test. Last Tuesday night at work I had to step out of my patients' room because I thought I was going to throw up. It was strange. Nothing brought it on and I wasn't nauseous. I just thought I was going to hurl! Thankfully I didn't. I felt fine until driving home. I decided to stop for breakfast, which made me feel better. Of course pregnancy is the first thing to pop up, but I was only on CD10 (that's cycle day 10, which is 10 days from the start of my period). When I got home, I decided to take my first OPK. The test line was really dark. I found it a little strange that the first time I peed on one it would be so dark! Because I'm such a nosy, impatient person with little self control, I decided to also pee on a pregnancy test. From what I've read, LH is a lot like hcg, do when there is a large amount of hcg, an OPK can be used as a pregnancy test. I absolutely couldn't believe my eyes when I realized it was positive! I was super excited and scared to death all at the same time.

My OB wanted me to track my hcg and progesterone with my next pregnancy. With that, I called to let her know. I had my first check on Thursday and was to repeat it on Saturday. I woke up early on Saturday feeling a bit off. Around 8am, I got out of bed and started cramping. Bad. It wasn't normal come and go cramping either. I felt like my uterus was clamped into a tiny ball and wouldn't let up. This was different from typical uterine cramping. I eventually called the on call OB who was less than helpful. He basically said it was too early to tell what was happening. I'm sure he was right; I'm not saying he did anything wrong... But I didn't get any answers over the phone. Since I was going to the lab for a second blood draw, he had me leave a urine specimen in case I had a bladder infection.

The last piece to the puzzle will be in the next post.

hot mess

That's exactly what I am, apparently. Where do I even begin? Ever since we made the conscious decision to have another baby, I've been longing for one. Perhaps that's why it's not going right. I'm too impatient. I never imagined I'd lose a baby. Especially not at 10 weeks. Especially not after seeing it on ultrasound. Talk about beating the odds. Up until last night I assumed our baby died because of a chromosomal abnormality. Now I'm starting to wonder. Great.

I can't remember when, exactly, but I know this happened after that ultrasound. I woke up feeling icky. I thought that I was finally feeling the effects of pregnancy I had so graciously skirted! Only, this wasn't just nausea. I was doubled over in pain. Kyle was out of town and I could barely get off the floor. I managed to care for Dawson that morning. After a long afternoon nap ( thanks bud bud), I kinda felt better. That day came and went and I never thought much about it again. Until now. Exactly one week later, we were on a plane bound for Phoenix and I started spotting. You know the rest of that story.

My OB looked at my ovaries during that pregnancy, as well as at my follow up appointment. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Almost all women have cysts on their ovaries that may rupture. We just never know about them. Or, we have a bad menstrual cycle here and there. Some people get huge cysts all the time. Rarely do they cause a problem. From all the research I can dig up on my phone, it seems as though I had a ruptured corpus luteum cyst. Well, 2 of them. One in each ovary. One was 2cm, the other was 4cm. Not crazy huge like some, but obviously hemorrhagic.

Since many of you may not know, I'll explain what a corpus luteum is. When you ovulate, a cyst ruptures and releases an egg. When that egg is fertilized, that cyst becomes the corpus luteum. Hcg ( the pregnancy hormone) is what keeps the corpus luteum going. In return, the corpus luteum produces progesterone, which is vital in sustaining a pregnancy. I read that some women with large cysts or ruptured, non-surgical cysts are placed on progesterone supplements. This is to ensure a viable pregnancy. I already knew that low progesterone can be a cause of recurrent pregnancy loss, but never realized ovarian cysts could be a culprit.

Basically what all that means is that I was pregnant again. I'm not gonna lie and say we weren't trying, but we weren't actively trying. Our plan was to try after my first cycle (aka period). To maximize our success, I started charting temperatures, mucus and when we you know what-ed. I wanted to get back in the habit, so I started right away. This was the only reason I knew when I conceived. On to that... The website I use to track my temps predicted ovulation on March 9. No other signs pointed to ovulation so I didn't exactly believe that I had. There was also only one day that would have allowed us to conceive. My period showed up 9 days later. Right on time. 4 weeks after my miscarriage. I had never been so happy to see aunt flow! We were planning to try that cycle for a Christmas baby. Not an ideal birthday, but we didn't care.

I'll continue this journey in the next post.

first few a success!

My prefolds arrived yesterday. All 200 of them! They are super nice and soft. I am glad they are organic too, as I think it will be a selling plus... especially if I don't charge extra.
It's going to take a little while before I get good at sewing a blanket, but adding the embellishment to the prefolds is super easy! Yay! The worst part is measuring and ironing the fabric.

Anyways, here are the ones I got done last night:

I hope to get a bunch more done as soon as Dawson goes to sleep. I may launch my Etsy store by this weekend! If you are interested before then, just let me know!