Well that was weird

I was blocked by the ML Bull all day yesterday from EBay, BlogSpot, and Chatzy. There was some filter program run that even told me WHY I was blocked and that the site in question may have content that is inconsistent with the ML electronic communications policy. But, today, it's all back?!?!?! I don't know how long the access will last, but I'm gonna enjoy it while it lasts.

PS - One of my coworkers gave me a hint that might circumvent the blocking of sites - she said to type www . SECURE.whatever-site-is-blocked

booboo

Last night, Steve took Stef upstairs to change diaper and get jammers on. I was on the phone with my mom downstairs. I heard her running "the circle" (hallway to bedroom to bathroom and repeat). There was giggling, "catch me Daddy", then THUMP. I waited for it .... 5 4 3 2 SCREAMING! She had run full force into the edge of the open bathroom door. No blood or anything but she has a nice red stripe from her forehead to her cheek, across her left eye. Poor little thing. After all the crying was over, all she wanted to do was sit down and read our bedtime book. Actually, she didn't even make it all the way thru Polar Express. She closed the book and said "The End". Okay - off to bed. She even talked about it this morning. I know that one hurt like heck.

This morning, I heard her playing in the hallway while I was getting ready for work. She was saying something about being a teacher. I asked her if she was a teacher today and she said "No Mommy. It's me. Stefanie!" ROFLMTO!! Like I didn't recognize her!!!

Pictures - just for Elisa!

because I think everybody else has seen them (oops - except Meredith)

She survived

Aunt Ruth Ann said Stef was an absolute angel for her yesterday. I'm glad they had fun together! Stef is with my mom today and Friday, then Aunt Von Monday, and my mom again Tuesday. Then I think we're finally back to an almost reasonably normal sitter schedule.

I'm pretty pissed at my supervisor at the moment for the way he spoke to me yesterday regarding the time off I'll need for the IVF. We'll just have to wait and see what he comes back to me with after he checks the schedule and sees that one person is off that whole week, another if off the Monday, and another is off that Wed-Fri. Plus my counterpart in his office will be off Wed-Fri. As she often tells me, anybody can do anything for a few days. I just hope bossman doesn't give me too hard of a time about it. I don't anybody to make it any harder than this already is.

Stef update

Ever since the fever broke at 2:30 am Sunday night, she's been back to her normal sweet two year old self.

She normally counts like this: 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 1
but surprised me this morning by counting the beads on my sweater 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 6 9 10 11 12 ( i guess she doesn't care for the number 8). She was just counting with Steve last night along with Sesame Street, so maybe it sort of just clicked for her. I remember that math suddenly just clicked for me one day, but that was in 4th grade. Ah, my sweet amazing little girl!!

Please say a prayer for my Godmother (Aunt Ruth Ann). She's watching Stef today. She is one of the sweetest gentlest kindest ladies I've ever known and I was afraid Stef would chew her up and spit her out. When I approached her about it, she said "Now, honey, I can be stern when I have to be" LMTO! Apparently, she really can be because she scolded me sternly for trying to pay her for babysitting today.

I may not be around much today as my supervisor will be in the office very shortly.

Well, it took freakin forever, but that's because their machine broke and they had to send the blood samples out somewhere.

Worth the wait though, because I passed the test this time!!! My levels are all good. I take out the NuvaRing on Thanksgiving, then start the injections. Follistim twice a day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Friday morning is bloodwork and ultrasound. Right after the bloodwork I take another Follistim. Then we'll go from there, but we're looking at an egg retrieval later in the week of Dec 4!!

WooHoo!!!!!

Opinion expressed

We took Stef to church Sunday morning. Just as Pastor Jeff started with the scripture reading, Stef started projectile puking all over the pew. I guess she didn't want to hear what the Romans had to say. She'd had choc milk with breakfast, so at least it didn't smell too bad. When she was finished (rather on the wooden pew than on the carpet in the aisle), I scooped her up and ran her to the bathroom. Mr Rich offered to help, so I sent him to help Steve with some paper towels.

Poor Stef. It scared the crap out of her. In the bathroom, she was just worried about her pretty little dress. "Muddy all over my dress. Muddy all over Mommy. Oh no!" I took off her jacket and coat, cleaned up her tights as best as I could and exited the bathroom. I was going to take her home, but she seemed to be perfectly happy as long as I cuddled her, so we went back for the last 10 minutes of the service. I checked her temp after the service and she was 101.3.

At home, she had one shot of diarhea, messed her next outfit, then took a 2-1/2 hr nap, during which time, her fever broke. She got up, ate 2 cups of Jello, begged for more choc milk, and played quietly while I cleaned. A couple hours later, she was 99.6, so more tylenol. She was cool at bed time. BUT at O'dark:30 (12:30am for you civilians) she came out of her room and said "I want my mommy" in the most pitiful voice I've heard from her yet. She was burning up again. Motrin this time but then she had a had time settling back down. Around 2am, she said she had to pee potty, so I took her over. She was cold without her pj's so I hugged/cuddled her while she pee'd. After that, she was able to settle down and get back to sleep. Not so easy for me. I guess I kept waiting for her to come get me again.

I was probably also anxious/nervous about today's bloodtest. I'm still waiting on the phone call to tell me if I flunk or pass this one. There was a cyst on the right ovary but the tech didn't seem too concerned.

I'll update later when I get the phone call....

Twas the week before Thanksgiving

and all thru the town, Christmas decorations and Christmas music were everywhere to be found.

Okay, it doesn't quite rhyme, but so what. Santa is coming to one of the malls this weekend!There are Christmas street decorations up already and the radio is playing all Christmas music already. In case anybody wants to join in the fun, here is the link so you can listen too www.roseradio.com I'm all for the Christmas spirit and all, but it just feels too soon. Can I please get thru Thanksgiving first?

Ready to fire

Steve is ready to fire both moms from watching Stef. MIL keeps coming up with more and more dates that they want her to work, which is to be expected for somebody that fills in vacation/sick time for other people, especially this time of the year. My mom's already started her annual winter-long "not feeling well" spree. So far, she's not been too sick to take care of Stef.

I'm the one that has to scramble to find back-up care, so I don't quite understand why he's the one that is so upset???

I know it would be best for Stef to have consistent care with a consistent schedule. I also know it would break his mom's heart if we pulled Stef from her completely. She has 3 granddaughters but will never ever get to see the other 2, so she's heavily invested in Stef.

MIL insists that the extra working days will come to a schreeching halt after the first of the year, so I'm willing to deal with the coverage scramble for now.

Stef was SO funny last night in the car on the way home. She was pretending that I was a kitty and kept feeding me "milk". She had a pinch of air that she kept putting in the palm of my hand. After about 4 servings, I told her that mommy kitty was full. "Full?" Yes, my belly is full of milk. No more room. "no more room? how about my room?" I'm pretty sure she thought we were talking about bedrooms, not available space in my belly. ROFLMTO!! I love the way her mind works!

IF

I heard from the RE late yesterday. I'm scheduled for bloodwork(with the Nuvaring still in) and ultrasound on 11/20 (2 Mondays from now). IF everything is within acceptable levels, we are good to go for a December retrieval!!! She was saying the week of Dec 4, more specifically, Dec 6-9, depending on follicle growth.

If my levels are not good, we'll probably supplement with Lupron and be stuck with the last week of January for retrieval.

Steffy story - I put a cute little denim jumper and tshirt on her this morning. She proclaimed "Steffy princess!" I'm thinking that any flowy article of clothing makes her feel like a princess. LMTO

School

Stef was so stinkin cute yesterday. MIL took her to B&N for story time and saw a cute little Disney Princess backpack for sale. She thought Stef might like it for Christmas and showed it to her. Well, Stef LOVES that little backpack. She was walking all around B&N telling people "Steffy going to school. Steffy going to school" I guess she sees the big kids at the bus stop with their backpacks and put 2 and 2 together. The next problem was that MIL never takes her purse along in to story time. So she had to pry the backpack from Stef's little grasp so they could go to the car and get her wallet. Enter bloody fit. It didn't last long, only til they went back in to pay for the thing. I told MIL to hide it during Stef's nap or she'd never get it back. When I got there to pick her up, Stef was still sleeping, so I snuck in MIL's bedroom to check out the backpack. I showed it to Steve when he got there (to scrape off some foam stuff from the day before). When Stef woke up, MIL just HAD to get the backpack out to show us how cute Stef is with it. Steve tried to play his usual "mine!" game with her but she wasn't having any parts of it with backpack. Then as I was getting her ready to go vote with me, we were all surprised that Stef just left the backpack go.

I knew Stef wasn't understanding that were going to Vote and not Boat. At the polling station, she asked "Where da water?" LOL She was so incredibly good while we waited in line, then wanted to help me push the buttons on the new electronic voting machine. It was so cute.

Another one bites the dust

This cycle is a bust. My estradiol level on Sunday was still 74. Since they want to give me the best possible chance of getting pg, we're not proceeding this month. They don't normally have IVF week in December because too many other things are going on, BUT they are trying to see if the embryologist team will be available for a special one just for me. They should be getting back to me by the end of the week to let me know.

If they can't get the embryologists, the next IVF week is the week of Jan 22nd or 29th - I'm not sure which - all she said was 'the last week of Jan'

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it's back to the nuvaring for me tonight. They plan to monitor my levels throughout the month, both with and without the ring in, so they can see if I need Lupron injections to help the ring get me under control.

I'm bummed but glad they are willing to go to such lengths to help me out.

If I just tried a little.....

I could probably make myself feel even more inadequate than I already do right now.

All the fussing and wrestling with Stef and her Omnicef (Steve even helped this morning - HA, he thought I was exaggerating) and MIL gets it in her. I know it's probably just a different location, different person, different approach thing, but BLAST IT! Like I don't already feel bad enough handing her over every day!

She got her medicine. That's the important thing. I'll just have to get over the rest on my own.

Comments from yesterday

It's a bloody fit because that's what my mom always called a major meltdown super duper fit. It's her fault.

We use kid's toothpaste now, just a small dab, and I'm pretty sure it has fluoride. Try a CrestSpinBrush - Stef loves hers.

Meredith - LMTO about the slug. YUCK!

more later.....

ps - I still can't get in Linda's blog!!!!!!

Bloody fits (bloody in the British sense of the word)

Stef has been having major meltdown bloody fits lately. The omnicef didn't fly this morning. My fragrance dujour is Cherry omnicef. I tasted the stuff. It's GOOD! I have one last hope in fooling her. I put red food coloring in it to make it pink like Amoxicillan and I'll give it to her upstairs rather than downstairs. If that doesn't work, I'm asking for a pill form that I can shove down her throat like I do with Ellie's pills twice a day every day.

Last night's bloody fit was horrible. It started after her teeth were brushed. I gave her a little water in a cup to rinse, just like always. She put the pouty face on and put her chin down on the edge of the sink. I waited about 20 seconds and asked if she was going to rinse. She gently backhanded the cup into the sink. Fine, no rinsing, let's go to bed. As soon as her door was shut the crying/screaming began. "I want it! I want it!!" I told her too bad, she had her chance to rinse. After about 20 minutes of solid bloody fit, she started to calm down and quietly said "I want it" so we went back to the bathroom only to repeat the earlier scene. "That's it. You're done. Bed" And so the screaming/crying started again. I was headbutted in the mouth and that little noggin is HARD! I basically just had to hold her until she exhausted herself and finally fell asleep.

I'm re-reading 1-2-3 Magic, but I better start reading MUCH faster.

House of germs

Steve has some kind of flu bug. He came home from a 16 hr shift at Kellogg's feeling punky - body aches, throat on fire, sinus congestion/pain, chills. He spent most of Sunday in bed (except for dragging his butt to the photo session at Sears, poor man) and woke up this morning feeling a lot better. His side of the bed is SOAKED! He must have sweat it out.

Stef is still very snotty, sneezy, coughing. And I can NOT get that antibotic in her. I've hidden it in OJ, choc milk, pink milk, applesauce, etc. I've tried just squirting it in her mouth and making her swallow it, but it always just comes back out, usually all over me. I think she's gotten a total of maybe 2-1/2 doses out of the 6 I tried giving her. So I called the pedi and they're going to call in Omnicef, which is supposed to taste good.

I still have sinus congestion/pain like crazy and my throat's fire comes and goes. I was actually feeling body-achey this morning, but not so much now. I can't have any more sick days this year anyway, or I'll get a verbal warning!

MIL pissed me off pretty good this morning. I was supposed to be meeting her at the doctor's office for the Stef hand-off because she had a lab appt. I swear she said the appt was at 8:30, so I show up at 8:20. She's not there. She's not answering either phone. The front desk says her appt is not until 8:45. Finally at 8:35 she shows up. Dammit woman! I'm supposed to be at the post office at 8:30! She holds me up and makes me later just about every single day. It's funny that I can be on time on the days Stef goes to my mom's. Grrrr. Okay, vent over.

Still infected.

Stef's left ear is still infected, even though it was her right ear she was complaining about. The pedi said kids sometimes have a hard time locating the exact source of pain. So she's on Cefprozil for 14 days. I gave her the first dose this morning. After she sucked about half of it out of the syringe, she threw the rest into the sink and said "Thatsucky" ROFLMTO!!! I think she meant to say that's yucky. I'm gonna have to hide it in her choc milk or applesauce or something for the next dose or else administer it like I would to the dogs.

I need to walk down the farmer's market today. I'm out of cucumbers and celery. They have the best prices and the freshest produce! (usually anyway)

Final answer

My supervisor was here in the office yesterday (all day long!) He double checked with our official time-off keeper and I do indeed have 4 sick occurances this year. There was a day in July that I didn't write down and she'd completed out my timesheet before I could update it. So, what it boils down to is that it would normally be considered sick time for IVF week. But since I have 4 occurences already, that would be a bad mark on my record to take any more sick time. We also reviewed how much time off I have left and I was surprised to learn that I actually have 5 days, not 3. Apparently I can't multiply 5 x 3 = 15, not 14! So there's a vacation day I wasn't counting. Plus we get a floating holiday this year that I totally forgot about. It's because New Year's Day was on a Sunday and the market was open on the Monday.

Anyway, 5 days left will cover me no problem. In any case, if I need it, the RE will sign me out for the whole 5 days as medical leave (like short term disability) then it won't count as an occurence and it won't suck up my 5 days off either! Is that being greedy to want the medical leave?

Stef news - her snotty nose has now morphed into a snotty nose and barky cough. Jeni's kids just got over a barky cough. Great! She passed it to us over the phone! LOL. I guess I will call the pedi to see if there's anything else I should be doing.

I have to smile everytime I look at my hands today. They are covered with Halloween stickers (THANK YOU AUNT ANGELA!!) that Stef insisted were for Mommy. She's so sweet. I miss her so much.

Another cold

Stef was sneezing an awful lot yesterday. I just kept an eye on her all day, but by evening I was sure she had another cold. She's barely over the first one! She was awake at 2am because she couldn't breathe, poor little thing. I had to wait til 3am to give her the next dose of decongestant. Almost as soon as she swallowed it, she was able to get back to sleep. She is very very clingy today and made me about 30 minutes late for work! I really wanted to stay home with her but still don't know the status of my IVF time off, so just left her with Omi.

Stef doesn't seem bothered by the ear infection at all, but loves the Amoxycillan! Apparently the puss in the ear is a normal ear infection.

I finished Sarah's homecoming dress Friday night and she looked absolutely stunning! We took pix Saturday on her way to the dance too. I called my sister Sunday and asked if Sarah had gotten beaten up for being the prettiest girl there with the best dress. She was actually bummed because no boys asked her to dance, but then decided she had a good time anyway.

I found the source of the bug infestation.....the extra corn for more corn bags! I was cleaning up in the sewing room and saw a bunch of little holes in the bottom of the un-opened bag of corn. There was a lot of corn dust under it too. And the little buggers were just all over that area. I still think its weird though. That corn has been sitting there since before Thanksgiving last year! Oh well, I guess they just decided to hatch last month. Yuck yuck yuck! Since I got rid of the corn, we've still seen some of the bugs but not nearly so many.

One of my co-workers just got a new puppy (another Shiztu, I think) and she brought him in to meet the office today. What a doll of a puppy!! I got to puppy sit him while she used the facilities and he just cuddled and nuzzled and I can still smell his sweet oniony puppy breath! I just love puppies!!! I'm gonna have to go puppy sit during my lunch break too.

First time for everything...

Stef has her very first ear infection. She'd been complaining on and off that her ear hurt since about Friday. She's also still got green snot and said her peepee hurt when I wiped her yesterday am. So that bought her a trip to the pediatrician. The left ear has puss in it. I don't know if that's an ordinary ei or a bad one (somebody help me out there please?). She still doesn't seem bothered by it, maybe just a little punky, but mostly normal. Doc doesn't see any signs of a sinus infection and thinks the cold may just be lingering. Didn't see anything wrong with her peepee. I mentioned that she's also been (TMI alert!) digging her finger in her tooshy hole and saying it itches whenever I change her diaper. He said to check her first thing in the morning, before she gets out of bed, for pin worms. They're very common, but YUCK anyway! I didn't get to her before she climbed out of bed this morning, so there was no checking today.

She's with my mom today. I got a phone call that Stef had just streaked the neighborhood! Omi was right outside the back door and somehow Stef figured out how to open the front door. She was trying to come in thru the front gate when she saw that Omi saw her. So she squealed with delight and ran back to the front door, couldn't figure out how to open it from the outside, and started running up the sidewalk. The front door is now latched where Stef can't reach it. TG Omi lives on a very seldom travelled road. I think I have her sufficiently scared of cars that she wouldn't venture into the street alone anyway. Besides the fear thing, I can't help but giggle at the sight of her little bare bottom running up the sidewalk! She sure is a character!!