Well......suffice it to say that the start of this school year has been rough. This is week three for my girl as she started August 14th. The first three days were great. She loved being back, knew the school, etc.. and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Then that weekend on Sunday my son picked up a virus. Pretty high fever on/off so mid that week I took him to the Dr. to test for strep. Thankfully it was negative, but he still was consistently getting fevers. He's still sick right now and it's day 10. It's moved to his chest and his sinuses and he's been coughing so terribly and still on/off fever. I'm trying everything to help get him some relief like motrin/tylenol and Dr. recommended zar.bees for cough, even zyr.tec to dry things up.....nothing is really knocking it out, but it's managing to give him some relief sometimes. I've even pulled out the rx cough medicine so he can at least sleep and not be woken up every hour with fits of coughing. This is a nasty virus. AND, Im pretty sure he picked it up from one of the play places. Those places make me cringe, but man the kids love them.
So, with my son being pretty sick for what seems like a long time now, my girl's first 3 days were good, but then the second week was the first full week. Towards middle of week things started to go downhill. By wednesday she had decided to completely empty out all the bins and bookshelves in the toyroom so it looked like a tornado went through there. She’s never done anything like that. At the same time she was showing signs of being exhausted (very fussy, only wanted to watch tv, short-tempered). Then by Thursday night she was just done. She was crying, very emotional....she had just had it. So, because I know my kid I said a full week of school right now is just too much for her, it’s enough. I told her she could stay home on Friday and we would have some special time together. She was like, yes!. She initially said she wanted to go just in the morning and I would pick her up at lunch, but in the morning I asked her if she just wanted to stay home all day. I ended up taking a vacation day so I could spend time w/ her and my son, poor sick kid. I took her to a special lunch, then I surprised her by asking if she wanted to go get pedicures for the first time. She jumped up and down for joy and was SO excited. That right there was enough for me to know I had made the right decision. I think the school days are too long for these kids (at least mine) and I think they just need more downtime. They go all day from 8-3:20pm, then come home and do whatever homework is assigned (in second grade!), then they eat dinner and barely have time to relax before it's bedtime and do it all over again. I’ve felt this way since she’s been in all day public school last year.
We both really enjoyed the pedicure. We tried a new place and the ladies were so nice to her since it was her first 'real' one. They gave her a little toy, some cookies, and even painted a teeny tiny flower on her big toes. She loved it. I did too as it gave me time to just be with her, no distractions, and in a relaxing environment. Ahhhhh.
It was good for me too because I have to say, I'm in a bit of a slump. It started with after the surgery I had a bit of a dip from all the medications, which is what I expected. But the physical recovery took a while...I still feel pulling, aching, etc. and it's been over two months. I think emotionally, though, I'm kind of not all back yet. A big reason is that I've been working from home mostly and I do that from my room in my bed. I don't have a dedicated office so when kids are home, it's the quietest place. But, that means I sit cross legged or lie down most of the day and hardly move except to go out and eat lunch. I have started to call my bedroom 'the cave'....because that's how it's been feeling. The walls are closing in a bit, so I just need to go to the office. But, I've been drinking caffeine a lot lately, don't go to sleep until like 1am, then I am so groggy because I've been up a few times w/ a sick kid and then they are up at 6:40am or later if I'm lucky. I feel so tired in the morning that the thought of getting myself ready to go in the office feels overwhelming. Im probably feeling a bit depressed and need to break the cycle and just change it. For those that know how it feels, that is completely easier said than done. Things just feel so heavy.
I think I just have to suck it up and change it up. Part of me keeps rationalizing, though, that I just have to hang in there only for a few more months. See, ive decided I'm going to take the plunge and leave corporate america in January. I’ve thought about this and stewed on this for so long and probably even mentioned it on here for a few years. I think I really have gotten to a point to say I’m ready. There is fear, of course....but I just won’t let it stop me. It’s kind of like taking my safety net/blanket (what I’ve known/done for 16 years) away so it causes me to be a bit anxious. But, the timing is great as my incentives will have all been paid out, and I've been working on my financial plan since having kids so I can have choices. Another big driver other than being burned out by the machine, is that I truly think unless I change something.....nothing will change. From a health perspective I'm the heaviest I've ever been and frankly so tired of being tired and sweaty all the time. I feel like something needs to give in order to free up time for me to focus on me. I haven't figured out a way to do it in the 7 years I've had children and been a single parent. I keep thinking that if I can just take something off my plate for awhile I will have that time to put back into myself.
So, I'm thinking to start out w/ a year. Give myself a year to refocus. I get excited just thinking about it. I can hardly wait......lots of changes come with completely changing my lifestyle....and I need to be sure I'm starting to think through what those challenges might be....will I be lonely? Will I stress about healthcare/insurance? Will I even like it?
More to come but I'm always looking for the what next, and at least as of now....that's my plan!
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Friday, August 16, 2019
Back to School already
It's kinda weird. I felt like we had the whole summer ahead of us, so much time to do all the things we wanted to do and then BAM....back to school really snuck on me. I think it's because a lot happened over this summer...my surgery, first basketball season, getting construction house on the market after a whole year, our nanny quitting, 2 week everyday swimming lessons, a seventh birthday party, using the back up nanny care for two weeks, then finding a new nanny, then school started!
Some great news.....my care ad did result in us hiring a new nanny. I interviewed her a few weeks ago, then I called her references which were glowing, then last Saturday the kids and I met her at a restaurant. My daughter was very taken by her and during our lunch she leaned over and said, "Mom, can she be our nanny?" My son on the other hand, all of this change has been harder on him. He was very shy when our back up nanny came, Pascale was her name. She was from Cameroon originally and was very sweet with the kids. She gave these great big hugs and my son was in them pretty quickly that day, thankfully. She definitely looked after the kids, but I realized that cleaning up their messes wasn't her strong suit. At times there were papers all over, paint on the walls, in the bathroom, glitter everywhere, etc.. But honestly I figured for two weeks, it's fine. Knowing I still needed to find new care it was still a bit stressful for me. I worked from home most of those two weeks which allowed the kids (and me) to feel more comfortable, but was harder for me. Also, since she wasn't allowed to drive, they still had their second week of swimming lessons I took them to everyday.
Anyway, our new nanny started Monday of this week. She is younger, 23 to be exact, and had been a nanny for two years with a family in her hometown. She and her sister decided to move away from home to the 'big city' so that's what brought her here. What I noticed off the bat was she is very mature for her age. After spending time with her I also noticed she is very calm. That is SO good for our house since we all three can get worked up a bit. My son's into hollering right now. About most everything. She is also quite bright. I can tell she has a future when she decides to go back to school.
So, it did take a few days with my son because he had just started to get into a routine w/ Pascale and then she was gone, now a new one. I completely get it. It's been a lot of change over the last month for him. I think now that it is day five, it's gotten much better. He's been hugging on her and she will play endless card games with him, so he's more content.
I will feel more settled once we go through the expectations sheet, etc. and figure out what schedule we actually will follow. She's now working 7-5:30 M-F until my son goes back to school after labor day. Then I have to decide whether I am going to put him in afternoon classes a few days a week and maybe just not have her come until the afternoon for pick up. That would leave me to take them in the morning. I just don't have enough for her to do all day if the kids are in school until the afternoon. I had actually posted for a full time or part time nanny, but I was mostly seeing full time.
We'll make it work. As I mentioned in my last post, we aren't looking back about old nanny. In a nutshell, I was working w/ her on some behaviors that we struggled w/ for a good long while--the phone and texting was one of them. The kids were telling me she was constantly on her phone ( I saw it too)...my son would tell me she wouldn't play with him at the park anymore and would just sit there on her phone. And when i asked she didn't deny it. She was having so much going on her personal life w/ her daughter and husband--like crazy things involving police since October of last year, that she was also just showing up exhausted, very short w/ the kids, etc... Anyway, I was trying to work w/ her and I think she just felt the heat. Now that the kids were older they were telling me more about what they didn't like. I also told her given all the stuff happening at her house, I didn't want the kids going over there. I also learned she was doing a ton of personal errands and asked her to limit that. There were also other things that just keep adding up. It got to the point where I started looking up 'when is it time to get a new nanny'. So, after a few tough conversations she basically just quit. The way in which she did it said a lot about her, though, because she did it out of spite and anger. Which in turn shocked and hurt my children. There is no excuse for not giving a notice period (which I had even suggested to her before if she felt like things weren't going well and she was unhappy) when you are dealing with a 4 and 6 year old. Can't comprehend after 4 years her leaving like that. On top of all that after she left my daughter happened to mention she saw her pick up phone in car and even text. Completely unacceptable and she was well aware of that. But like I said, the kids have been so much more resilient that I expected and couldn't be more grateful. My son has hardly mentioned her, but my daughter has asked a time or two about her before we got our new nanny. I think with our new routine it will just become a memory soon enough.
And already Wednesday of this week we are back to school. My daughter started second grade. I have a seven year old. We went to meet the teacher this past Monday....and are also trying to survive the heat right now. August in the south is basically stepping into a heated sauna every time you open the door. It's gross. Today was so hot I could hardly stand it. Anyway school.
We are back in the same school we were in last year, public school, and it actually felt nice to 'go back' to somewhere I was already familiar with. Same halls, same procedures, etc.. There's so much less stress when you know what to expect. I think my girl felt the same way because she was hugging some of the staff she knew at meet the teacher night and telling me all about the school. The first three days they allow parents to walk kids to their classrooms so on Wednesday I had nanny drive and I got out w/ my girl. We headed in the school and she was so excited I could hardly keep up w/ her. I finally said I needed to hold her hand so she wouldn't get too far ahead. And lo and behold when we got to the classroom she dropped my hand. My heart broke a little. She settled herself in just fine, gave me hugs (whew I still got those), and off I went.
Last year I walked with her all three days but Wednesday night she comes and says, 'Mom, I may want to walk by myself to class tomorrow'. Outwardly I said, Sure thing...whatever you are comfortable with. On the inside I was crying like a baby. Like wow only one day of walking to class?
Sure enough we dropped her off in the back of school yesterday and today....all by herself. As I looked back and watched her walking in with her emoji backback I did get me some tears.
It's been very tiring for her, but she's hanging in there. Thankfully they didn't give kids homework on the first 3 days.
I am not surprised by her wanting to do it herself. She's been wired since birth to be independent and pretty convicted in what she wants. I am trying my best to be supportive of her, let her know that I will always hold her up, although we may not always agree. Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a 12 year old, not a 7 year old. She still likes having our little birthday parties at our house like before....this year her theme was Poke.mon. It was so fun ordering the plates, etc.. and letting her help pick out the cake this year. Really just so nice and relatively easy.
It really has been a whirlwind of a summer. Not sure I mentioned but we spent 4th of July in a hotel up the road. We had so much fun w/ the kids jumping from bed to bed, watching the fireworks out of the window we could see so many different displays of them. We got to order in pizza, swim in the pool, and eat an awesome continental breakfast. They loved it. in fact my girl talked about it tonight and asked if we could make it a tradition. Sounds like a good one to me!
I have started to organize some before and after pictures of construction house and will put them out here soon enough. Until then, some pics from the birthday and first day of school.
Some great news.....my care ad did result in us hiring a new nanny. I interviewed her a few weeks ago, then I called her references which were glowing, then last Saturday the kids and I met her at a restaurant. My daughter was very taken by her and during our lunch she leaned over and said, "Mom, can she be our nanny?" My son on the other hand, all of this change has been harder on him. He was very shy when our back up nanny came, Pascale was her name. She was from Cameroon originally and was very sweet with the kids. She gave these great big hugs and my son was in them pretty quickly that day, thankfully. She definitely looked after the kids, but I realized that cleaning up their messes wasn't her strong suit. At times there were papers all over, paint on the walls, in the bathroom, glitter everywhere, etc.. But honestly I figured for two weeks, it's fine. Knowing I still needed to find new care it was still a bit stressful for me. I worked from home most of those two weeks which allowed the kids (and me) to feel more comfortable, but was harder for me. Also, since she wasn't allowed to drive, they still had their second week of swimming lessons I took them to everyday.
Anyway, our new nanny started Monday of this week. She is younger, 23 to be exact, and had been a nanny for two years with a family in her hometown. She and her sister decided to move away from home to the 'big city' so that's what brought her here. What I noticed off the bat was she is very mature for her age. After spending time with her I also noticed she is very calm. That is SO good for our house since we all three can get worked up a bit. My son's into hollering right now. About most everything. She is also quite bright. I can tell she has a future when she decides to go back to school.
So, it did take a few days with my son because he had just started to get into a routine w/ Pascale and then she was gone, now a new one. I completely get it. It's been a lot of change over the last month for him. I think now that it is day five, it's gotten much better. He's been hugging on her and she will play endless card games with him, so he's more content.
I will feel more settled once we go through the expectations sheet, etc. and figure out what schedule we actually will follow. She's now working 7-5:30 M-F until my son goes back to school after labor day. Then I have to decide whether I am going to put him in afternoon classes a few days a week and maybe just not have her come until the afternoon for pick up. That would leave me to take them in the morning. I just don't have enough for her to do all day if the kids are in school until the afternoon. I had actually posted for a full time or part time nanny, but I was mostly seeing full time.
We'll make it work. As I mentioned in my last post, we aren't looking back about old nanny. In a nutshell, I was working w/ her on some behaviors that we struggled w/ for a good long while--the phone and texting was one of them. The kids were telling me she was constantly on her phone ( I saw it too)...my son would tell me she wouldn't play with him at the park anymore and would just sit there on her phone. And when i asked she didn't deny it. She was having so much going on her personal life w/ her daughter and husband--like crazy things involving police since October of last year, that she was also just showing up exhausted, very short w/ the kids, etc... Anyway, I was trying to work w/ her and I think she just felt the heat. Now that the kids were older they were telling me more about what they didn't like. I also told her given all the stuff happening at her house, I didn't want the kids going over there. I also learned she was doing a ton of personal errands and asked her to limit that. There were also other things that just keep adding up. It got to the point where I started looking up 'when is it time to get a new nanny'. So, after a few tough conversations she basically just quit. The way in which she did it said a lot about her, though, because she did it out of spite and anger. Which in turn shocked and hurt my children. There is no excuse for not giving a notice period (which I had even suggested to her before if she felt like things weren't going well and she was unhappy) when you are dealing with a 4 and 6 year old. Can't comprehend after 4 years her leaving like that. On top of all that after she left my daughter happened to mention she saw her pick up phone in car and even text. Completely unacceptable and she was well aware of that. But like I said, the kids have been so much more resilient that I expected and couldn't be more grateful. My son has hardly mentioned her, but my daughter has asked a time or two about her before we got our new nanny. I think with our new routine it will just become a memory soon enough.
And already Wednesday of this week we are back to school. My daughter started second grade. I have a seven year old. We went to meet the teacher this past Monday....and are also trying to survive the heat right now. August in the south is basically stepping into a heated sauna every time you open the door. It's gross. Today was so hot I could hardly stand it. Anyway school.
We are back in the same school we were in last year, public school, and it actually felt nice to 'go back' to somewhere I was already familiar with. Same halls, same procedures, etc.. There's so much less stress when you know what to expect. I think my girl felt the same way because she was hugging some of the staff she knew at meet the teacher night and telling me all about the school. The first three days they allow parents to walk kids to their classrooms so on Wednesday I had nanny drive and I got out w/ my girl. We headed in the school and she was so excited I could hardly keep up w/ her. I finally said I needed to hold her hand so she wouldn't get too far ahead. And lo and behold when we got to the classroom she dropped my hand. My heart broke a little. She settled herself in just fine, gave me hugs (whew I still got those), and off I went.
Last year I walked with her all three days but Wednesday night she comes and says, 'Mom, I may want to walk by myself to class tomorrow'. Outwardly I said, Sure thing...whatever you are comfortable with. On the inside I was crying like a baby. Like wow only one day of walking to class?
Sure enough we dropped her off in the back of school yesterday and today....all by herself. As I looked back and watched her walking in with her emoji backback I did get me some tears.
It's been very tiring for her, but she's hanging in there. Thankfully they didn't give kids homework on the first 3 days.
I am not surprised by her wanting to do it herself. She's been wired since birth to be independent and pretty convicted in what she wants. I am trying my best to be supportive of her, let her know that I will always hold her up, although we may not always agree. Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a 12 year old, not a 7 year old. She still likes having our little birthday parties at our house like before....this year her theme was Poke.mon. It was so fun ordering the plates, etc.. and letting her help pick out the cake this year. Really just so nice and relatively easy.
It really has been a whirlwind of a summer. Not sure I mentioned but we spent 4th of July in a hotel up the road. We had so much fun w/ the kids jumping from bed to bed, watching the fireworks out of the window we could see so many different displays of them. We got to order in pizza, swim in the pool, and eat an awesome continental breakfast. They loved it. in fact my girl talked about it tonight and asked if we could make it a tradition. Sounds like a good one to me!
I have started to organize some before and after pictures of construction house and will put them out here soon enough. Until then, some pics from the birthday and first day of school.
Monday, July 29, 2019
Recovery and since then.....
So to sum up two whole posts: I had an incarcerated hernia, ER visit, surgery the next day where they cut out some stuff, sewed things back together and sewed in some mesh, and left me a nice small incision. I stayed two nights in the hospital and went home on Sunday with some pain medication.
Let me just say, "recovery", though, was a bit of crap show. First off, as a single parent to a 4 and 6 year old....there is no down time. Our nanny stayed all day Sunday/Sunday night, but went home Monday at end of work day. Our old nanny didn't come until Wed or Thursday so I still was up and around w/ our regular routine to get the kids to bed. The hardest part I remember was I usually lie w/ my girl in her bed every night. She asked me to do it and I said I'd try....ouch on that one.
They do want you to get up and around and not just lie there but the biggest issue I had was fatigue. My body really just needed me to slow down so it could recover. I have no idea why I couldn't wrap my mind around that. I had major, open, abdominal surgery. Anesthesia, medication, etc....of course it was going to take time.
BUT, so much was going on during those first few weeks out. I wasn't having stabbing pain so I just pushed through. The kids started a new basketball league on Saturdays and I just wasn't going to miss it. Yes, one week post-op I sure went and sat on some really hard bleachers to support my littles. Although I look back and physically, it was just a lot. I was still wearing the burrito wrap. And the kicker is we were assigned a time slot of 7:45am. For the past almost two months we've been lugging ourselves to our games at that time in the morning. WHY do they schedule like that?? They don't tell you up front--that's how they get you--they say oh, the games will start anywhere between 8:00-9:30am. I'm thinking sure, cool. This 7:45 bit is for the birds.
The other thing was this league was a whole new thing for us....it was SO crowded, the kids had never played on a basketball court and didn't really know what they were doing, their main coaches weren't there for some reason...I was really stressed out watching it so much so that I almost started crying. I think physically, mentally, and emotionally I was in a tough place. Thankfully it's gotten much better and they kids have really liked it. I think it's ok. It's just not as structured and based on fundamentals as their soccer seasons were.
In addition to the basketball that Saturday I was also making a final push to get construction house finished to get on the market to rent. There were people in and out and I needed to be there several times to get a lot of things done. One day I spent 4 hours there. All while trying to 'recover'.
The good news is.......it's on the market for rent, but I haven't rented it yet. I'm actually thinking of selling it in order to take those funds and perhaps do another one. Not right now, of course. The only reason I wanted to keep it at all was to let the market catch up so i would at least make some money OR potentially live there. I actually have the opportunity now to go live there and it just doesn't feel right...so will see what happens.
Another crazy thing was when I was discharged from the hospital I had gotten a release from them saying I could go back to work the following Monday so off for a week. I thought that seemed so short, but hey, if that's what they said. I was dreading work that coming Monday and just had no energy for it, but did it anyway (all from my bed, thankfully, since sitting up was not easy) until Wednesday when I had the surgeon follow up visit. That's when they told me ummmm why are you working? You aren't supposed to be released until you see the surgeon, and even then, most people are off for up to a month. They asked me if I had a c-section and I was off for probably 8 weeks with that. So what's crazy to me is why didn't anyone tell me that when I was in the hospital? So I went back out on sick leave until July 8th. Basically I was only out about 2 1/2 weeks.
And the bummer too is that when I was taking the pain meds it was fine, but weaning off of them was not fun...I usually get an emotional dip if i have to take them and sure enough, it got me again.
Overall it's just felt hectic. A lot going on, not a ton of support other than a few days from old nanny, and it took a lot out of me physically and mentally. It took about 3 weeks to even start to think I was getting better....4 weeks slightly better, but I have to say I'm still feeling some effects (some pings/zings, fullness, tenderness) now and I'm 6 weeks out. I am very thankful I went to the Dr., though, and didn't put it off longer. It was pretty serious and needed to be taken care of when it was.
Since then I've struggled a bit....I've been working from home a lot and my sleep has been pretty poor. So then I've been drinking caffeine, which makes my sleep worse, and the cycle continues. Just last week I thought I needed to do something different like perhaps add in Vit B and not take a multi vitamin. It has helped a bit in my energy level.
In case that wasn't enough....another major happening here: Last Thursday my nanny of 4 years decided to quit---just like that. At the end of the day she said she was done. No notice, no nothing. It's a long story and I'm just too tired to type it all out but what I will say is the shock and pain she caused my kids was horrible and inexcusable. I'm trying not to focus on negative feelings because at the end of the day, karma. And, after that tough night on Thursday they haven't been nearly as distraught as I thought they might be.. Honestly they've both been quite content having mama around. So.....onwards. Not looking back on that one.
A positive thing to come out of it is I've been so exhausted at the end of the day since Fri, Sat, Sun and tonight we've been together all day...I've actually slept.
The new babysitter through my work benefit of backup care starts tomorrow and she will be here to cover for this week and next. In the meantime I've been scrolling through applicants on my care ad. It may take some time, though.
Always something.
Let me just say, "recovery", though, was a bit of crap show. First off, as a single parent to a 4 and 6 year old....there is no down time. Our nanny stayed all day Sunday/Sunday night, but went home Monday at end of work day. Our old nanny didn't come until Wed or Thursday so I still was up and around w/ our regular routine to get the kids to bed. The hardest part I remember was I usually lie w/ my girl in her bed every night. She asked me to do it and I said I'd try....ouch on that one.
They do want you to get up and around and not just lie there but the biggest issue I had was fatigue. My body really just needed me to slow down so it could recover. I have no idea why I couldn't wrap my mind around that. I had major, open, abdominal surgery. Anesthesia, medication, etc....of course it was going to take time.
BUT, so much was going on during those first few weeks out. I wasn't having stabbing pain so I just pushed through. The kids started a new basketball league on Saturdays and I just wasn't going to miss it. Yes, one week post-op I sure went and sat on some really hard bleachers to support my littles. Although I look back and physically, it was just a lot. I was still wearing the burrito wrap. And the kicker is we were assigned a time slot of 7:45am. For the past almost two months we've been lugging ourselves to our games at that time in the morning. WHY do they schedule like that?? They don't tell you up front--that's how they get you--they say oh, the games will start anywhere between 8:00-9:30am. I'm thinking sure, cool. This 7:45 bit is for the birds.
The other thing was this league was a whole new thing for us....it was SO crowded, the kids had never played on a basketball court and didn't really know what they were doing, their main coaches weren't there for some reason...I was really stressed out watching it so much so that I almost started crying. I think physically, mentally, and emotionally I was in a tough place. Thankfully it's gotten much better and they kids have really liked it. I think it's ok. It's just not as structured and based on fundamentals as their soccer seasons were.
In addition to the basketball that Saturday I was also making a final push to get construction house finished to get on the market to rent. There were people in and out and I needed to be there several times to get a lot of things done. One day I spent 4 hours there. All while trying to 'recover'.
The good news is.......it's on the market for rent, but I haven't rented it yet. I'm actually thinking of selling it in order to take those funds and perhaps do another one. Not right now, of course. The only reason I wanted to keep it at all was to let the market catch up so i would at least make some money OR potentially live there. I actually have the opportunity now to go live there and it just doesn't feel right...so will see what happens.
Another crazy thing was when I was discharged from the hospital I had gotten a release from them saying I could go back to work the following Monday so off for a week. I thought that seemed so short, but hey, if that's what they said. I was dreading work that coming Monday and just had no energy for it, but did it anyway (all from my bed, thankfully, since sitting up was not easy) until Wednesday when I had the surgeon follow up visit. That's when they told me ummmm why are you working? You aren't supposed to be released until you see the surgeon, and even then, most people are off for up to a month. They asked me if I had a c-section and I was off for probably 8 weeks with that. So what's crazy to me is why didn't anyone tell me that when I was in the hospital? So I went back out on sick leave until July 8th. Basically I was only out about 2 1/2 weeks.
And the bummer too is that when I was taking the pain meds it was fine, but weaning off of them was not fun...I usually get an emotional dip if i have to take them and sure enough, it got me again.
Overall it's just felt hectic. A lot going on, not a ton of support other than a few days from old nanny, and it took a lot out of me physically and mentally. It took about 3 weeks to even start to think I was getting better....4 weeks slightly better, but I have to say I'm still feeling some effects (some pings/zings, fullness, tenderness) now and I'm 6 weeks out. I am very thankful I went to the Dr., though, and didn't put it off longer. It was pretty serious and needed to be taken care of when it was.
Since then I've struggled a bit....I've been working from home a lot and my sleep has been pretty poor. So then I've been drinking caffeine, which makes my sleep worse, and the cycle continues. Just last week I thought I needed to do something different like perhaps add in Vit B and not take a multi vitamin. It has helped a bit in my energy level.
In case that wasn't enough....another major happening here: Last Thursday my nanny of 4 years decided to quit---just like that. At the end of the day she said she was done. No notice, no nothing. It's a long story and I'm just too tired to type it all out but what I will say is the shock and pain she caused my kids was horrible and inexcusable. I'm trying not to focus on negative feelings because at the end of the day, karma. And, after that tough night on Thursday they haven't been nearly as distraught as I thought they might be.. Honestly they've both been quite content having mama around. So.....onwards. Not looking back on that one.
A positive thing to come out of it is I've been so exhausted at the end of the day since Fri, Sat, Sun and tonight we've been together all day...I've actually slept.
The new babysitter through my work benefit of backup care starts tomorrow and she will be here to cover for this week and next. In the meantime I've been scrolling through applicants on my care ad. It may take some time, though.
Always something.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
ER Part 2
I know when I'm reading a blog and someone goes silent, especially after something major happened, I always just wonder if they are ok. I should have put a post up sooner to say I'm okay. Surgery went ok and recovery....just ok, tougher than I expected.
To back up.....yes, I ended up in the ER much closer to my house. When I arrived there I thought I had made a great choice because there was only one other person in the waiting area. Turns out that they just triage folks faster and have a secondary waiting area once you've been assessed. So once I was in the back I kept wondering what now? I wonder if this is a major thing going on or they will just send me home. I was surprised that it really didn't take too long for them to come get me for labwork/start an IV, then shortly after they came to get me and said I needed to do a CT scan to see what going on. If you've ever had one, you know you get to drink two bottles of this very sweet liquid. Ugh. I chugged it as fast as I could because drinking it slow just made me feel yuck.
Once I was finished I had to wait awhile then the tech came to get me, in the machine I went, and back out to the same waiting area. Now, after I was done....that wait was much longer.
I had gotten up to pace a bit when the Dr. finally came back....it was really strange he just came up close, sort of ushered me forward and said they were going to put me in a room. He was very calm so I just thought, ok sure, I'll head back to a room. Once I got back there I finally asked if everything was ok and he said they need to check out a few things. I asked if I had a problem w/ the hernia and he said it looked to be the case. I'm not usually ok with vagueness, but for some reason I just did as I was told.
Once I got on the gurney the fun began....the Dr. said he was going to push on my stomach to see if he could shove things back where they belong. What the crap?! I'm not kidding when I say he started pushing and it felt like his fingers were pressing through my abdomen to my back. I hollered out a few times. He said the nurse would come and give me some morphine and they would then try again. I kept thinking, oh my gosh....I'm here all by myself and this really hurts.
The nurse came in and gave me a shot of morphine.....and all of a sudden my throat started closing up and things got a bit spacey. I was soon able to breathe better again, but then noticed after she left my arm was turning red. It was traveling up my arm and my shoulder. I sat there a bit not sure what to do since no one had come back to check on me. Finally a nurse walked by and I asked if she could please help me. She came in, looked at my arm, and said oh my goodness. I don't remember exactly what they did to help me but I was able to lay there ok. I had an allergic reaction to it apparently.
I waited and waited for the Dr. to come back and try again, but he just wasn't coming.
The nurse had stopped back and I asked her what was going on and she said she thought she heard Dr. say I was going to be admitted. Ah crap. I laid there a bit longer and finally Dr. came back and said that I was going to be admitted for surgery the next day. He said he consulted with the surgeon and surgeon said they couldn't manually fix the issue--turns out it was an incarcerated hernia which basically means things came out and got stuck, which is not good.
So, off I was wheeled up to the surgical floor.
Then the scrambling came in.....this honestly is one of my worst fears as a single parent. Me being out of commission, having to have surgery, not knowing what exactly to do. I have no local family and I learned from last time being in a hospital, it just isn't a great place to be all by yourself. So, I checked in with the three closest friends I have here. Turns out, all of them were out of town--one already out, one heading out of the country, and the other one heading out too. One of them was my realtor friend who happened to be the same one who came to the ER to be with me when I had the blod clot as 6 weeks pregnant with my daughter. I have to say I kind of panicked a bit. I texted my sister across the country as she was on a trip to Arizona and while I knew she couldn't get here, I could at least check w/ her. And wouldn't you know she didn't text/call back until much later.
Old nanny was 5 hours away but unless she drove through the middle of the night she wouldn't make the 8 am surgery the next day. We did talk and she thought it would probably be better for her to come a few days after surgery so she could help take care of me/kids.
I can say I haven't felt that alone in well.....I can't even say. I didn't want nanny to come by because she would have to bring kids and that just wasn't an option to me. The nurses kept asking if I had anyone coming and my answer was always no. Speaking of nanny, I had to work hard to convince her she didn't need to go to her second job the following night. She was trying to see if her daughter (the one she is having major issues with) could watch the kids so she could go. Not no, but hell no. Finally I told her I would write a note or call her other job if I had to in order for her to be able to stay with the kids. She finally agreed. Once I got that sorted I did feel some sort of relief.
I basically just accepted that I would be having surgery by myself and that was that. They kept a lot of medication in my system so I did sleep alot anyway...I would say by the time I was admitted (maybe around 6 pm on the Friday) I had surgery already first thing the next morning by 8. It all happened really fast from Dr. appointment, to ER, to admitting, to surgery....all in less than 24 hours.
Since I missed the dinner window in the hospital they said they couldn't let me order anything from cafeteria. And I was hungry, darn it. So, what does a person do when they are hungry? Order pizza. They told me I wasn't restricted w/ my food and just don't eat after midnight. Ok then. Of course in hindsight this was not a great idea because your digestion pretty much stops w/ all the medications and anesthesia.
On Saturday they wheeled me down and again asked if someone was waiting for me. Felt about the same as when I had a prenatal check up and they kept asking where my husband was. Surgery in general went well, I had about a 4 inch incision above my belly button and was wrapped in a abdominal compression garment.
This is turning out to be a long post so I will continue with Part 3, and don't plan to wait another month to finish!
To back up.....yes, I ended up in the ER much closer to my house. When I arrived there I thought I had made a great choice because there was only one other person in the waiting area. Turns out that they just triage folks faster and have a secondary waiting area once you've been assessed. So once I was in the back I kept wondering what now? I wonder if this is a major thing going on or they will just send me home. I was surprised that it really didn't take too long for them to come get me for labwork/start an IV, then shortly after they came to get me and said I needed to do a CT scan to see what going on. If you've ever had one, you know you get to drink two bottles of this very sweet liquid. Ugh. I chugged it as fast as I could because drinking it slow just made me feel yuck.
Once I was finished I had to wait awhile then the tech came to get me, in the machine I went, and back out to the same waiting area. Now, after I was done....that wait was much longer.
I had gotten up to pace a bit when the Dr. finally came back....it was really strange he just came up close, sort of ushered me forward and said they were going to put me in a room. He was very calm so I just thought, ok sure, I'll head back to a room. Once I got back there I finally asked if everything was ok and he said they need to check out a few things. I asked if I had a problem w/ the hernia and he said it looked to be the case. I'm not usually ok with vagueness, but for some reason I just did as I was told.
Once I got on the gurney the fun began....the Dr. said he was going to push on my stomach to see if he could shove things back where they belong. What the crap?! I'm not kidding when I say he started pushing and it felt like his fingers were pressing through my abdomen to my back. I hollered out a few times. He said the nurse would come and give me some morphine and they would then try again. I kept thinking, oh my gosh....I'm here all by myself and this really hurts.
The nurse came in and gave me a shot of morphine.....and all of a sudden my throat started closing up and things got a bit spacey. I was soon able to breathe better again, but then noticed after she left my arm was turning red. It was traveling up my arm and my shoulder. I sat there a bit not sure what to do since no one had come back to check on me. Finally a nurse walked by and I asked if she could please help me. She came in, looked at my arm, and said oh my goodness. I don't remember exactly what they did to help me but I was able to lay there ok. I had an allergic reaction to it apparently.
I waited and waited for the Dr. to come back and try again, but he just wasn't coming.
The nurse had stopped back and I asked her what was going on and she said she thought she heard Dr. say I was going to be admitted. Ah crap. I laid there a bit longer and finally Dr. came back and said that I was going to be admitted for surgery the next day. He said he consulted with the surgeon and surgeon said they couldn't manually fix the issue--turns out it was an incarcerated hernia which basically means things came out and got stuck, which is not good.
So, off I was wheeled up to the surgical floor.
Then the scrambling came in.....this honestly is one of my worst fears as a single parent. Me being out of commission, having to have surgery, not knowing what exactly to do. I have no local family and I learned from last time being in a hospital, it just isn't a great place to be all by yourself. So, I checked in with the three closest friends I have here. Turns out, all of them were out of town--one already out, one heading out of the country, and the other one heading out too. One of them was my realtor friend who happened to be the same one who came to the ER to be with me when I had the blod clot as 6 weeks pregnant with my daughter. I have to say I kind of panicked a bit. I texted my sister across the country as she was on a trip to Arizona and while I knew she couldn't get here, I could at least check w/ her. And wouldn't you know she didn't text/call back until much later.
Old nanny was 5 hours away but unless she drove through the middle of the night she wouldn't make the 8 am surgery the next day. We did talk and she thought it would probably be better for her to come a few days after surgery so she could help take care of me/kids.
I can say I haven't felt that alone in well.....I can't even say. I didn't want nanny to come by because she would have to bring kids and that just wasn't an option to me. The nurses kept asking if I had anyone coming and my answer was always no. Speaking of nanny, I had to work hard to convince her she didn't need to go to her second job the following night. She was trying to see if her daughter (the one she is having major issues with) could watch the kids so she could go. Not no, but hell no. Finally I told her I would write a note or call her other job if I had to in order for her to be able to stay with the kids. She finally agreed. Once I got that sorted I did feel some sort of relief.
I basically just accepted that I would be having surgery by myself and that was that. They kept a lot of medication in my system so I did sleep alot anyway...I would say by the time I was admitted (maybe around 6 pm on the Friday) I had surgery already first thing the next morning by 8. It all happened really fast from Dr. appointment, to ER, to admitting, to surgery....all in less than 24 hours.
Since I missed the dinner window in the hospital they said they couldn't let me order anything from cafeteria. And I was hungry, darn it. So, what does a person do when they are hungry? Order pizza. They told me I wasn't restricted w/ my food and just don't eat after midnight. Ok then. Of course in hindsight this was not a great idea because your digestion pretty much stops w/ all the medications and anesthesia.
On Saturday they wheeled me down and again asked if someone was waiting for me. Felt about the same as when I had a prenatal check up and they kept asking where my husband was. Surgery in general went well, I had about a 4 inch incision above my belly button and was wrapped in a abdominal compression garment.
This is turning out to be a long post so I will continue with Part 3, and don't plan to wait another month to finish!
Sunday, June 16, 2019
ER Part 1
Well....I’m writing this post in my hospital bed at 5:43am. Between when next set of medicine starts to kick in so hopefully this will all make
Ive suspected I had a hernia in my upper stomach for awhile but it didn’t cause me too much issue so never really got it tested. However when I was having all that trouble back in March with fertility meds and had ct scan it was officially diagnosed then.
Well Wednesday of this week I noticed my upper stomach area at the hernia area was really starting to hurt. It felt like maybe I hit it on something and movement and walking was causing it to be pretty sore. I was having to hold on to it after getting up and it took my breath away a few times. Then I noticed the skin on top of it was turning pinkish in color and knew that wasn’t normal.
I called that afternoon for an appointment with my GI doc for soonest and they made appt Thursday with the Really sweet older lady physician assistant I saw last time.
Here’s where I prioritized construction house over that appointment because we were making final push to get it totally finished. I had been spending a few hours a day there everyday since last Friday. I called and rescheduled the appointment to Friday this week-2 days ago.
I went to appointment on Friday and she had me tell her what I was feeling and to get up on table to look. Sweet lady she remembered to ask me how the fertility treatment turned out.
Anyway when she stated poking around who-eee it hurt. She was noticing something a bit odd/ hard-like so she said she wanted to bring doctor in to take a look. This Dr I’ve seen in past so it was nice to see a familiar face, he also manipulated the area and said yes, it needs to get checked out. I said ok where to make an appointment and he said no, I need to go to the emergency room.
The blood drained from my head at that moment and I got a good dose of fear hormone coursing through my body. I couldn’t remember what word he used about what was happening but he said he was going to call the ER tell them I’m on my way.
After he left I asked the PA was that really necessary? My mind kept going to cost and was this really an emergency? The PA said the dr sometimes is quick to send to ER so maybe call an urgent care or something. She said at least walk over to ER and see what wait was going to be first.
Why I questioned him I’m not really sure.
I walked over to the adjacent ER from his medical building and can I just tell you how nuts/busy/full/ and crazy it seemed in there. Omg. I went to check in lady and asked about the wait and she basically gave me a look like...look around. She was nice about it but said they were full in back and 31 people to process through already. I thanked her and said I’d look elsewhere.
Went back to my car and called an affiliate urgent care/emergency center tied to this hospital system and after I explained situation she said I could come there but if they discovered I needed surgery they would have to transport me by ambulance to hospital.
Well that didn’t make sense either so I decided to go the the affiliate hospital directly much closer to my area of town and home such that if I did need admitted I’d be there.
I am so proud of myself for thinking ahead. I decided to stop by my house in the way and take a bag with me for chargers, changed to comfy clothes, toothbrush, mouthwash, my daily medicine.
Off I went to the new ER.
I’m going to have to finish this in a bit with part 2. I can tell I need to take a break here.
Ive suspected I had a hernia in my upper stomach for awhile but it didn’t cause me too much issue so never really got it tested. However when I was having all that trouble back in March with fertility meds and had ct scan it was officially diagnosed then.
Well Wednesday of this week I noticed my upper stomach area at the hernia area was really starting to hurt. It felt like maybe I hit it on something and movement and walking was causing it to be pretty sore. I was having to hold on to it after getting up and it took my breath away a few times. Then I noticed the skin on top of it was turning pinkish in color and knew that wasn’t normal.
I called that afternoon for an appointment with my GI doc for soonest and they made appt Thursday with the Really sweet older lady physician assistant I saw last time.
Here’s where I prioritized construction house over that appointment because we were making final push to get it totally finished. I had been spending a few hours a day there everyday since last Friday. I called and rescheduled the appointment to Friday this week-2 days ago.
I went to appointment on Friday and she had me tell her what I was feeling and to get up on table to look. Sweet lady she remembered to ask me how the fertility treatment turned out.
Anyway when she stated poking around who-eee it hurt. She was noticing something a bit odd/ hard-like so she said she wanted to bring doctor in to take a look. This Dr I’ve seen in past so it was nice to see a familiar face, he also manipulated the area and said yes, it needs to get checked out. I said ok where to make an appointment and he said no, I need to go to the emergency room.
The blood drained from my head at that moment and I got a good dose of fear hormone coursing through my body. I couldn’t remember what word he used about what was happening but he said he was going to call the ER tell them I’m on my way.
After he left I asked the PA was that really necessary? My mind kept going to cost and was this really an emergency? The PA said the dr sometimes is quick to send to ER so maybe call an urgent care or something. She said at least walk over to ER and see what wait was going to be first.
Why I questioned him I’m not really sure.
I walked over to the adjacent ER from his medical building and can I just tell you how nuts/busy/full/ and crazy it seemed in there. Omg. I went to check in lady and asked about the wait and she basically gave me a look like...look around. She was nice about it but said they were full in back and 31 people to process through already. I thanked her and said I’d look elsewhere.
Went back to my car and called an affiliate urgent care/emergency center tied to this hospital system and after I explained situation she said I could come there but if they discovered I needed surgery they would have to transport me by ambulance to hospital.
Well that didn’t make sense either so I decided to go the the affiliate hospital directly much closer to my area of town and home such that if I did need admitted I’d be there.
I am so proud of myself for thinking ahead. I decided to stop by my house in the way and take a bag with me for chargers, changed to comfy clothes, toothbrush, mouthwash, my daily medicine.
Off I went to the new ER.
I’m going to have to finish this in a bit with part 2. I can tell I need to take a break here.
Thursday, June 6, 2019
And here we are
It’s summer!!!!!!! Kids are out of school and I kind of wish I was home for the summer too. It’s been a few weeks now and I’m finding my girl has just been able to decompress. I think she’s just not so mentally exhausted which has allowed her to be in a much better mood. I wish I could say the same for my son. For the past 2-3 weeks he has been really really whiny in the evenings. It starts around 5:30 until bed around 8.
One of his new obsessions, though, is watching wheel of F. He pretends to be vanna and puts on my shoes and finds some sparkly shirt. He touches the tv to ‘turn’ the letters. I’m having fun with it because I grew up loving that show. I even tried making my own wheel out of cardboard and sticks. My mom got me a wheel board game for Christmas one year and even an ornament too. Ahhh, now the next generation obsession begins. My girl tolerates it I think. She keeps asking if this is going to be our forever show now.
This post may be brain dump because I also wanted to capture a few things. First is that my son calls my girl by her name now. As long as he’s been able to talk he would call her sissy (not my term of endearment nanny started that one)....but over the last few weeks he all of a sudden just started calling her by her name. It seems such a small shift, but it just makes him seem like such a big boy now. He’s no longer closer to toddler and much closer to kindergartner. Sigh.
Plus after not hearing him say her name much for a few years it’s so strange to hear him say it.
The second one: as much as my girl thinks and acts like 6 going on 16, she still says ‘Alvin and the chickmunks”. I don’t correct her.
She’s already planning her birthday party in August. She starts months in advance, this one. She’s decided she wants an emoji birthday. Although it was poke.mon last week. We’ve been looking at her emoji pajamas and asking each other which ones we like best during our before bed talks. She’s trying to figure out which one she wants on her cake. That’s kind of our birthday tradition. You get to pick the theme and we do cake, presents, and have small group at house. I like the way we do it and it seems the kids do too. That may change when they go to the over the top parties, so I’m just happy where we are with it. Thus is s big birthday because I’ve told her for years when she turns 7 she can chew gum. Why I picked 7 I don’t know. So I told her all about Hubba bubba and she can’t wait.
We’ve also had some interesting conversations about secrets. Some of her ‘girlfriends’ at school were sharing secrets and she said her friend June told her something but she promised not to tell.
At first I felt like we shouldn’t have secrets at all, said as much, and she still didn’t want to share. So, I went researching to find out how to handle the best way. I came across several articles that say it’s normal development in child friendship building and what’s important is to help them understand difference between safe and unsafe secrets. She may be a bit young, but I kind of liked the idea. I’m certainly not going to be able to force her to share everything with me (as much as I want her to) and I think if I push too hard that will start a wall. So, the thought of saying that if she’s uncomfortable with anything or someone’s not safe, those secrets have to be shared with mom.
In some ways I’m an uber-protective mom and want to start early giving her words/tools to use. For the both of them really.—we all already talk about privates and no one touches them except themselves, mommy, or dr. I’ll have to see how the guidance on secrets works. Apparently it’s not an issue over the summer, my girl says, because she’s not at school. Okay then.
I’m in therapy with my sister again. I told her we need it. Turns out my sister didn’t end up back in the hospital-but was delayed even getting in touch with dr because they were closed. I just couldn’t understand how she thought the state she was in was ok. What I learned after talking to her during our therapy was that emotionally she’s not in good place. I think her dr had made some changes with her medicine that sent things wrong way. That became very clear to me in the session, as well as her therapist. Therapist suggested that just she and my sister meet for awhile which I couldn’t agree more. I think my sister needs her energy to focus on herself. We are scheduled to talk in therapy again mid next week and haven’t really been communicating much at all. I miss talking.
On the family building side...I did hear back from my known donor. He was quite open to donating now so I could try for a biological child. What I’ve learned since connecting with him and understanding more from drs office is that using a known donor is more complicated-well it is in my situation. More forms to sign, coordinating whether he would fly in to my drs office, how would I compensate him, etc. it’s so much more to think about besides just calling 1-800 ship.
It had me thinking more about things. I took a couple weeks to just soak on it. He had asked to see the language in the donor form so I did send that finally last week.
I’m not sure where this one will land. I’m kind of waiting to see his response and will decide from there. It just seems tricky to navigate these waters. Not impossible but it’s much more involved.
However, it’s not a decision I can sit on for long.
In what I think is good news (hopefully) is that my beast of a one year renovation project might finally be done beginning of next week. I’ve continued to have delays with the new contractor, pieces and parts of things missing, the ceiling beams not turning out right, landscaping turning out crappy etc. but I just keep pushing along to get it done. My realtor called a few weeks ago and asked if I wanted to sell because she might have a buyer. I initially thought about it, but given the sweat and tears and money in this thing, I couldn’t imagine just selling it to break even. Considering all the things I dealt with along the way, the fact that I can even break even is something. But, if I hold and rent it a few years I know I could actually make some money on it. Or even live in it! That plan is unlikely because even though I love the feel of it and how it’s turning out, my financial planning didn’t involve living in an expensive house and the schools are still city schools and are still slowly turning around. I just think renting it gives me time to think about it.
I’m ready to call this one done. I’ll have to post some before and after. The inside transformation is amazing. The outside still fits in the neighborhood because I left the original brick. It was beautiful and I couldn’t imagine painting or covering it. What’s crazy is that house has much better storage than my current house AND a dedicated office. I’m a bit envious.
Onwards to summer! Swimming lessons and Saturday basketball here we come.
One of his new obsessions, though, is watching wheel of F. He pretends to be vanna and puts on my shoes and finds some sparkly shirt. He touches the tv to ‘turn’ the letters. I’m having fun with it because I grew up loving that show. I even tried making my own wheel out of cardboard and sticks. My mom got me a wheel board game for Christmas one year and even an ornament too. Ahhh, now the next generation obsession begins. My girl tolerates it I think. She keeps asking if this is going to be our forever show now.
This post may be brain dump because I also wanted to capture a few things. First is that my son calls my girl by her name now. As long as he’s been able to talk he would call her sissy (not my term of endearment nanny started that one)....but over the last few weeks he all of a sudden just started calling her by her name. It seems such a small shift, but it just makes him seem like such a big boy now. He’s no longer closer to toddler and much closer to kindergartner. Sigh.
Plus after not hearing him say her name much for a few years it’s so strange to hear him say it.
The second one: as much as my girl thinks and acts like 6 going on 16, she still says ‘Alvin and the chickmunks”. I don’t correct her.
She’s already planning her birthday party in August. She starts months in advance, this one. She’s decided she wants an emoji birthday. Although it was poke.mon last week. We’ve been looking at her emoji pajamas and asking each other which ones we like best during our before bed talks. She’s trying to figure out which one she wants on her cake. That’s kind of our birthday tradition. You get to pick the theme and we do cake, presents, and have small group at house. I like the way we do it and it seems the kids do too. That may change when they go to the over the top parties, so I’m just happy where we are with it. Thus is s big birthday because I’ve told her for years when she turns 7 she can chew gum. Why I picked 7 I don’t know. So I told her all about Hubba bubba and she can’t wait.
We’ve also had some interesting conversations about secrets. Some of her ‘girlfriends’ at school were sharing secrets and she said her friend June told her something but she promised not to tell.
At first I felt like we shouldn’t have secrets at all, said as much, and she still didn’t want to share. So, I went researching to find out how to handle the best way. I came across several articles that say it’s normal development in child friendship building and what’s important is to help them understand difference between safe and unsafe secrets. She may be a bit young, but I kind of liked the idea. I’m certainly not going to be able to force her to share everything with me (as much as I want her to) and I think if I push too hard that will start a wall. So, the thought of saying that if she’s uncomfortable with anything or someone’s not safe, those secrets have to be shared with mom.
In some ways I’m an uber-protective mom and want to start early giving her words/tools to use. For the both of them really.—we all already talk about privates and no one touches them except themselves, mommy, or dr. I’ll have to see how the guidance on secrets works. Apparently it’s not an issue over the summer, my girl says, because she’s not at school. Okay then.
I’m in therapy with my sister again. I told her we need it. Turns out my sister didn’t end up back in the hospital-but was delayed even getting in touch with dr because they were closed. I just couldn’t understand how she thought the state she was in was ok. What I learned after talking to her during our therapy was that emotionally she’s not in good place. I think her dr had made some changes with her medicine that sent things wrong way. That became very clear to me in the session, as well as her therapist. Therapist suggested that just she and my sister meet for awhile which I couldn’t agree more. I think my sister needs her energy to focus on herself. We are scheduled to talk in therapy again mid next week and haven’t really been communicating much at all. I miss talking.
On the family building side...I did hear back from my known donor. He was quite open to donating now so I could try for a biological child. What I’ve learned since connecting with him and understanding more from drs office is that using a known donor is more complicated-well it is in my situation. More forms to sign, coordinating whether he would fly in to my drs office, how would I compensate him, etc. it’s so much more to think about besides just calling 1-800 ship.
It had me thinking more about things. I took a couple weeks to just soak on it. He had asked to see the language in the donor form so I did send that finally last week.
I’m not sure where this one will land. I’m kind of waiting to see his response and will decide from there. It just seems tricky to navigate these waters. Not impossible but it’s much more involved.
However, it’s not a decision I can sit on for long.
In what I think is good news (hopefully) is that my beast of a one year renovation project might finally be done beginning of next week. I’ve continued to have delays with the new contractor, pieces and parts of things missing, the ceiling beams not turning out right, landscaping turning out crappy etc. but I just keep pushing along to get it done. My realtor called a few weeks ago and asked if I wanted to sell because she might have a buyer. I initially thought about it, but given the sweat and tears and money in this thing, I couldn’t imagine just selling it to break even. Considering all the things I dealt with along the way, the fact that I can even break even is something. But, if I hold and rent it a few years I know I could actually make some money on it. Or even live in it! That plan is unlikely because even though I love the feel of it and how it’s turning out, my financial planning didn’t involve living in an expensive house and the schools are still city schools and are still slowly turning around. I just think renting it gives me time to think about it.
I’m ready to call this one done. I’ll have to post some before and after. The inside transformation is amazing. The outside still fits in the neighborhood because I left the original brick. It was beautiful and I couldn’t imagine painting or covering it. What’s crazy is that house has much better storage than my current house AND a dedicated office. I’m a bit envious.
Onwards to summer! Swimming lessons and Saturday basketball here we come.
Thursday, May 2, 2019
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i Can’t believe we only have a few weeks left this school year. My son will finish his pre-k 3 year and my girl will finish first grade. When did this happen?! Physically these kids have both stretched out so much this year and just look like ‘big kids’ now. I looked at my son tonight and I swear he just grew before my eyes. I fully expect both of them to be tall as that is on both sides. It’s not just physically there’s been a big change intellectually with both of them. I really love our dinner conversations and they are practicing what I do. My girl will randomly say ‘mom, what was the favorite part of your day?’. Then my son might throw in ‘what was the hardest part of your day?’ The thing I’m just loving right now is I’m truly enjoying hanging out with my kids. Of course more the moments between arguing, fussing, back talking etc. but it’s so fun to have conversations and see what they’re interested in, what friend misbehaved at school, what ‘naughty’ words are. Recently my son out of the complete blue said the F word. I didn’t hear it from me! (I don’t think anyway I’m pretty careful about that around them). He insists he doesn’t know where he heard it. Turkey.
I had my son’s patent teacher conference and it went great. They said such positive things like he goes with the flow, such a good helper, listens really well, and redirects if needed. That’s just the kind of kid he is and it made me proud that they love having him in class. Makes me feel like we’re doing some things right over here.
What I’ve spent a good week doing is gathering more information about my fertility. After the first follow up with my dr I was feeling encouraged, even though I didn’t have a plan yet about next steps. Then, after the coordinator emailed she offered for his colleague to call me to talk further about process, etc. in a nutshell, I walked away from that conversation totally deflated. She started out by asking what did I want to hear, what would make me feel positive. Ummm well, just be open. So she then shared that due to my age, even though my amh tested well, my age is a big factor in quality. If they get a good embryo chances are high, however trying to get a good embryo is the key. She threw out on high side 10% chance, more like 3-5%. Oof. Like really? Those odds not so good.
I told her I still wanted to see what the financial piece would look like so she sent me to coordinator and that was that.
Then, the biggest kicker of all—I have a known donor who donated at a bank years ago. It occurred to me that I should call to see if there was any supply left because if I couldn’t make a biological sibling that would be a deal breaker for me. And I found out the bank closed. Like permanently closed!! My stomach actually sank when I found that out online. Of course my mind raced to—well, the supply had to go somewhere, right? Long story short I reached out to the parent organization, got bounced around a few times, but learned that anything they had went to a ‘holding’ facility and even if it was there or not, laws would prevent them from distribution. Like crap. Double crap.
My only option would be to reach out directly and ask if he would donate some way somehow now. So much more complicated.
So after all that I decided you know what? Rather than just calling it quits I decided I needed to have another follow up with my dr. for my own peace of mind. I wanted to see what he had to say about his colleague’s info, my donor situation, the cost sheet, the protocol, etc.
So, I’m so glad I met him again. When I verbatim told him what his colleague told me that a) in her 3 years they haven’t had any success with own eggs at my age, and some have tried even older and b) the percentages of probable success he basically said no, no,no. He said most of the older women had age plus diminished ovarian reserve like 0.3 AMH that you can’t easily compare. Plus he’s known my history, we’ve had success, and he thinks it’s reasonable to try. I also asked him I don’t mean any disrespect but if I were to pursue, could he confirm that he would be calling the shots and he said yes, he would be. He also said working with a donor is not hard and they have protocols for that. I said sure, the hard part is trying to see if he would donate.
So yeah, if I were cynical (which I’m not) I could say he’s just trying to make money. However, since I’ve known him 13 years, we’ve been successful, and I trust his professionalism, I don’t think that’s the case. In addition, when I showed him the cost sheet that they had discounted some, he said they could work with me more on that since I’ve done so many procedures with them. Don’t know what that looks like but I sent off a note to the coordinator.
And, I emailed my donor.
I’m a firm believer data can only help. Once I know if I have any options I can decide from there. The bank certainly threw me for a loop but I’ll just see. I told the dr that I’m not sure what it is but I thought I’d be fine if the last transfer didn’t work. There’s something inner pushing me this direction so I’m just listening right now. At the end, I may not have a choice due to the donor, but again, will just see.
Besides all that, once again I was getting frustrated with my sister for not reaching out. I wanted to see how long it would take if I didn’t call her. And it had been a week so I finally called today and come to find out, she’s not been doing well. I can always tell when she’s taken some medicine and I started asking questions. Apparently she’s been falling again and passing out. For like a week now. It took awhile to get it out of her but she finally told me she fell in her bathroom last night, was bleeding, and didn’t know how long she had been that way. WTF.
I didn’t want to come on too strong because she would shut down but in my mind I was screaming oh my god what the heck, did you call the dr?? She said she hadn’t called DR even. WTF again. She should be in the hospital not her couch. Something is clearly wrong. I made her promise to call the Dr in the morning and I would call her after. She said she would call my dad for a ride. After we hung up I even called my dad and said he needs to check in her in the morning. He at least said she had called him.
I don’t even know what to think of the situation. She’s had some really rough issues lately and they seem to be more frequent. It’s very concerning. She lives by herself, which isn’t good, and I asked her if she’s been eating and she said no food in house, she was eating applesauce. Omg.
She’s just not thinking clearly if she hadn’t even called her Dr.
I am just hoping I hear from her tomorrow that she’s on her way to the hospital with my dad.
She just continues to struggle with her chronic illnesses.
Oy vey. I’m mentally tired now. I guess that’s enough update for today.
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