Oh for the love of…

My last blood draw was when, Thursday before last?  My beta hCG level was at 36 then.  Since it had dropped so fast from the previous test I fully expected that by my next draw I’d be down to <5 and therefore [FINALLY] be considered un-pregnant.

IT’S AT 9!  It’s so effing close, but not low enough that I can be done with all the arm poking.  I go back again next Monday.

They’re going to have to tap an IV line into a box of Target red wine after I’m done with this.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/30 at 09:47 AM
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Pick a card, any card.

You know, it always feels a little bit like theft when I go into Home Depot and pluck a bunch of paint sample cards.  In my head I understand that they’re free, but when you walk out with a one inch stack of them it sort of feels like you’re abusing the display.

I went in yesterday looking for orangey-tones.  We’re finally painting the kitchen!

These projects normally get started in sort of an unscheduled fashion.  I may make a sideways comment to Scott that it’d only take him xyz hours to spackle, sand, and degrease the kitchen before painting it.  He then balks for a few hours, and then he gets over it and makes it happen.  Yesterday he took down the weird shelf things that were over the entryways - visible in this picture from 2005:

They were useless, really.  They weren’t deep enough for any significant amount of storage and not tall enough to display dishes or such in.  So, they’re gone.  Woot.

We hope to pick a color (leaning towards green now) and paint this upcoming weekend.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/29 at 10:25 AM
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Dude.

I detailed our daycare search struggles a lot prior to the great blog archive wipe-out of ‘09.  Since staying home with Rosco full-time I haven’t really had reason to talk about it much.  Well.  Some of you newbie readers may not have read my childcare rants, so here’s our problem in a nutshell: acquiring quality childcare in South Durham is CUTTHROAT.  When I went back to work for a while we had R in the best center that was available, and that place suuuuuuucked.  I steer every mom I know away from the place.  We kept hoping that we’d move up the waitlist somewhere better but for the 14 months I worked after Rosco was born we never got bumped (except for on my last day of work when a center called and told us they had a spot in their two-year-old room, although R wasn’t 2 yet).  We were really hoping that one particular center we were waitlisted at since 2007 would have a place for us.  We were supposedly #1 on the waitlist for the room he needed to go into.

WELL.  Guess who got a letter from that center today?  Yup.  Us.  Guess what it said?

No - think again, they don’t have a space.  That would just be too much like a slap in the face.  Not only do they not have a space, but they do not anticipate having a space for 2009-2010, either.  BUT (!!!) if we stay on the waitlist we may get a spot for fall 2010.

!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t know what to do.  They only do full-time care so it’s pointless for me to stay waitlisted just for R to go to preschool there.  At the same time, if I sell this effing novel this century I’m going to need to have childcare a few hours per day so I can write in peace and quiet full-time (but that’s a bridge I’ll cross should I actually approach it!).

I don’t know what the point of this post is.  I’m just super-annoyed.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/26 at 02:16 PM
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I hope this says what I thought I typed.

Ok. I’m blogging on a teeny tiny iPhone keyboard, so…

Contrary to what I believed, this site dies NOT have wireless Internet. Not only that but it’s also slightly out of AT&T’s 3g network. sigh. Modern conveniences…

Be home late tomorrow. Hope to post pics then.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/24 at 09:11 AM
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You know what’s stupid?

Calling the nurse advise line for your doc at 9 am and listening to a message that tells you that if you call before 4 PM, you’ll get a call back the next day.

What kind of shit is that?

I’m all about standing in line and waiting my turn, but could it kill them to check more than once per day?  Shit.

(ETA: nurse called me back about an hour later.  I guess since my question fell in the purview of “easy answer/good news” it was great to get it out of the way.  My hCG levels are now at 36!  Not doing the running man yet, but I am making “rock on” gestures.)

Anyway, vent over.  The snarky family is going vacationing this week, so my updates will be sparse (and short).  Didn’t want anyone thinking I abandoned the blog.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/22 at 09:17 AM
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Exxxcellent.

I had another blood draw on Friday, but haven’t gotten the stats back yet.  Just out of curiosity I P.O.S.*‘d today just to see what it’d tell me.  The particular “S” I had handy was an O.P.K.**, which apparently works the same way as an H.P.T.***

The thing was negative, yo.  The test line was much lighter than the control, SO that means I’m neither ovulating nor pregnant enough to pass a cheap-ass test (and the cheap-ass ones are actually super-sensitive if they come from Dollar Tree, just FYI).

Cautiously optimistic.  I’m not doing the running man just yet, but after I call and get my results tomorrow if those levels are going down and they give me the go ahead for alcohol - it’s on.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/21 at 05:30 PM
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Walk away for fifteen seconds…

...and the kid prepares to go to war:

He must think he’s Braveheart or something.  Note the symmetry.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/17 at 12:40 PM
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Dry.

This whole “no alcohol” thing is tough.  [I can’t have multi-vitamins containing folic acid or alcohol until my hCG levels go down to zero.]  While I’m certain to lose a few pounds from the lack of beer, it’s odd not having booze.

I’m totally not a lush.  Totally, not.  Seriously.  I mean it.  It would be just as bad if they had told me I couldn’t have caffeine.  At that point I would just lock myself in a dark room until this whole nightmare is over.

As it is I’m probably not going to have booze on our little vacation next week.  I’m hoping that by the time Independence Day rolls around I can celebrate in the way I am accustomed.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/16 at 12:47 PM
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Little people.

You know, I think I’ve finally gotten to the point where I see Rosco as his own little person and not just as an accessory of his parents.  You know what I mean.  Up to a certain age little kids really aren’t all that independent, don’t show much personality, and just take what you give them.

There’s some unmarked milestone they reach where they become actual members of the family and not just cute little blobs that get carried around in the crook of your arm.  I figured this out yesterday when I was in Target (forever may it reign) buying Rosco a water bottle.  Normally when we go make outdoor excursions I just fill my water bottle up and share it with him.  But, 2.5-year-old that he is, he wants to hold it himself when he drinks.  My bottle is sort of unwieldy for him when condensation forms on the outside so I thought I should get him a smaller one that he can tote around himself.

So, now he has his own red bottle.  And what struck me was that it’s not a sippy cup or one of those straw cups - it’s a grown-up bottle.  My little boy has a grown-up water bottle. *sniffle*

(Of course it’s BPA-free.)

Posted by Tiffany on 06/15 at 09:20 AM
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Really, now.

Rosco was walking around kind of smelly, so I asked him if he pooped.  After some skirting around the issue he finally admitted that he had.

Then I asked him where poopie goes.

He told me, very matter-of-factly, that it goes in diapers.

*headsmack*

No, poopie does not go in diapers, Mr. 2 1/2-year-old.

More work to do, obviously.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/12 at 07:17 PM
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Hot.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/12 at 12:26 PM
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Awesomesauce.

So, today’s blood draw was a little freaky-deaky.  One doctor told me my levels had only gone down by 8% and was going to prep me for another shot of methotrexate.  Then the little blond doctor I saw last week came by the little corral I was in going “Yay!  They went down!” and from there about five minutes of confusion ensued.  They went and redid the math, and yeah, I was good to go.  Whew!  If the second shot didn’t work I would have had the threat of having my right fallopian tube removed, so I really need last Friday’s dose to get ‘er done.

Oddly, on a semi-related note, I had this vision last night (I’m not one to get visions).  I wouldn’t call it a dream because I wasn’t asleep yet, but it wasn’t directed thought if you catch my drift.  My grandma was there with some guide I didn’t recognize who told me that she hasn’t stopped by because I wouldn’t be able to hear her.  Then my grandma smiled at me in that way that she always did and told me that “the baby would be okay.”  Don’t ask me what it meant, but it had me a bit shuddery for about five minutes before I fell asleep.  Nice to have an image of my grandma smiling in my mind, though.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/11 at 10:50 AM
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“Nononononono.  Stay here and blow BUBBLES!”

I don’t think little kids have all that great of a survival instinct.  They’re loud and indiscreet.  Some of the stuff they do has to be ingrained, but I don’t know what evolutionary function it could possibly serve.  Rosco has never, ever seen another child throw a tantrum when they wanted to stay someplace longer, but he’s figured out how to do that.  Unfortunately I have a mind like a Jedi and that crap doesn’t work on me.  If he starts screaming - that’s fine.  I’ll carrying him out screaming.  Even easier when we’re outdoors where all the kids are loud.

I’m onto you kid.  That stuff may work with Daddy, but not with me.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/10 at 08:37 AM
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Do phlebotomists do housecalls?

Yet another update on the never-ending ectopic pregnancy saga.  (I know - “yay!”, you’re thinkin’.)

This morning’s blood draw showed that my beta hCG has risen 80 points since Friday, which is expected (supposedly).  I’m happy that it was *just* 80 because it relieves my apprehensions that there might have been a viable pregnancy occurring simultaneously due to our preferred method of birth control*.  [Just a little info tidbit - once an embryo implants in the uterus the level of hCG in the bloodstream doubles approximately every 48 hours.  Mine is rising too slow for there to be any speculation about that.]

So, basically today’s blood draw was just so they’d have something to compare Thursday’s result to.  They should just start sending Ana the phlebotomist to the casa de Snark to draw my blood since I see her so much.  By the time this is over she’ll know me so well that she’ll be able to accurately guess how often I comb my hair.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering how I’m faring with having what’s actually chemotherapy drug in my system - it’s all right.  It’s like I took a bunch of sleepy pills, so Rosco didn’t get so much attention from mom this weekend, but otherwise I’m operating at normal efficiency.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/08 at 10:20 AM
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That smarts.

Yeah, so I got the freaking injection.

This week my hCG levels had done even worse than plateauing.  They increased!  By 100!  So, this was obviously a problem that wasn’t going to resolve itself.

I went to the hospital at 8:30 for a blood draw, got my lab results at 9:30, got more blood drawn to check my liver, and then got an intramuscular injection (in one of the fattier parts of muh body) at 12:30.

So, I’m a bit sore.

The drug is supposed to start doing what it does on day 4 (Monday) and I have to go back to the hospital then for them to check me over.  The doc wrote me a prescription for Vicodin when I told her that I don’t tolerate Percoset and Tylenol 3 well (they make me barf), but I doubt I’ll get it filled.  I can’t take ibuprofen because of the methotrexate shot I had today (it does something or other adverse to the function of the injection), so if I get into a really bad state I’m going to have to pull some extra strength Tylenol out of my junk drawer and hope it’s sufficient.

The doc gave me the scuzzy eyeball and a stern lecture about our current birth control method (I’m sure you’ve heard of it - it’s called “marriage”) and told me to lay off the booze for the weekend.

So, that’s about it.  More blood draws next week.  If by next Thursday my hCG levels have gone down 15% then they consider the treatment to be successful and they won’t whisk me back to the operating room.

Looking forward to booze.

Posted by Tiffany on 06/05 at 01:14 PM
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