Tag Archives: Madison

The Girl on the Train: not appropriate reading material for a girl named Rachel going through IVF, FYI

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Remember when I was all pumped about my sweet three day reprieve between the ultrasound I had last Wednesday and the one the following Saturday? Right. Well, thank goodness my mom is here, because we made the same trip, even earlier, again on Sunday morning. And I’m headed back down again tomorrow.

Thank goodness my mom is here — the company was so very welcome in the car.

me and mom selfie

My mumsy dearest and I both super dig reading and thought that nice book on tape might be a good way to pass the time in the car. We spent some time on Audible and went with The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins on account of everyone in the world has been raving about it. Seemed like a real good choice.

Except…

The main character in the book is named Rachel. Like me. She wanted to have a family. Like me. So she and her husband did IVF. Like me.

And the IVF fails and she can’t get pregnant and goes into a deep depression, becomes a raging alcoholic, destroys her marriage, loses her job, and spends her time desperately seeking a way back into her ex’s life all the while being talked about as “poor… sad… fat… Rachel.”

Seeeeeeeeriously???

Poor choice.

Three trips down and back and we’re just about done though. Thank goodness. A bit situtationally inappropriate.

 

But back to the issue at hand: an update on this Rachel’s IVF.

On Saturday, Dr. Stanic did my ultrasound and he started by asking how I was doing and quoting Winston Churchill — something about how he could promise only pain and suffering. Groovy. But my follicles are follicling and that’s cool.

The mood lighting helps quite a bit. They always keep the lights down low.
The mood lighting helps quite a bit. They always keep the lights down low.

Today (Sunday), we went back. Another ultrasound and some more blood work… New day, same story. Follicles follicling and estradiol increasing and we’re getting closer to the trigger shot.

So close to the trigger shot, that today, I got my target:

trigger shot target

Sharpie. On my backside. X does NOT mark the spot — just a location finder. Needle goes in the circle. Time for Seth to take the reigns! Like being hazed by the world’s meanest sorority.

 

Unfortunately, no trigger shot quite yet — hopefully tomorrow. I’ve got to be back in Madison for an ultrasound at 8:30 am tomorrow (a whole hour and a half later than today! sweet sweet sleep!!!) and more blood work and hopefully when they call in the afternoon, they’ll schedule my trigger for Monday night and my surgery for Wednesday morning, 36 hours later.

So, other than progress, how’s it going? Well… my abdomen hurts for a thousand and one reasons. I’m kind of miserable. And sooooo so tired.

Tiiiiiired.
Tiiiiiired. Also broken out. These drugs.

My mommy dearest leaves tomorrow, but I’m glad she was here while she was and Seth and Curls are back home to keep me company. Also, everyone seems to really understand how important dresses (minimal touching of the tummy) and ice cream (so delicious) are to me right now, so that’s lovely. Last but not least, we watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and then The SECOND Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Joe Dirt, so I’ve been all kinds of cinematically inspired. Almost there… almost there.

She made it to Madison!!

Silver Linings, , , , , , , ,

Guys! I’m so crazy sad about my sweet puppy girl right now. I mean, I’m happy that she finally made it to Madison and is first up on the schedule for surgery tomorrow morning. That’s a good thing– this is necessary and if there’s even a chance it could fix my Curly girl’s leg, it’ll be totally worth it. But then I think about her down there in Madison without us, not understanding why we left her, and it breaks my heart. I can’t stand the thought of her being sad!

At least we did everything we could to make her last couple days before surgery awesome. She had three extra long walks yesterday (with a sling, of course) and got to play in some fresh snow (thanks, Wisconsin). Plus, Seth brought her down and picked up a surprise guest in Mosinee on the way down to Madison– his dad. And Curly loves her grandpa more than anyone else, so I’m sure she was absolutely thrilled about that. (Plus, I was super glad Seth had company for the drive.) I was so sad to leave her and go to work this morning, though. I made her hug me for like 10 minutes. (She hugs on command, btw, it’s so cute.) I’m pretty sure she thought we were having a battle, but I’m ok with that. Felt like a hug with growling to me 😉

No one was here to greet me at the door when I came home, there was no little nose fiercely sniffing up at my bowl of chili as I carried it to the table, and my house is so so quiet– so squeaking, no chewing, no pitter pattering, just me. My Curly girl is gone for now, but when she returns this weekend, she’ll basically be a robot. At least that’s what I envision the fixator is going to look like. I like robots… and I love Curly, so I can only imagine that this is going to be awesome. Just a couple of days.

Sigh. I can’t even imagine having to do all of this with a human child. There are some really amazing parents in this world! Parents to humans, I mean. Like my friend Aimie, but we’ve talked about that before.

 

Crazy news: Seth just got home. Apparently, the surgeons practiced Curly’s surgery last week on a cadaver. I guess that extra week may have actually been a good thing. You can never have enough practice. Especially when it’s my pup in your hands. Always a silver lining.

New thought: silver linings are kind of like brief glimpses at the top side of the tapestry, don’t you think? I truly believe that everything, even the things that seem super duper crappy at the time, has a silver lining. Recognizing the silver lining is like getting a brief and amazing glimpse at the way the threads all come together to make that tapestry I named this blog after. Remember that? Am I mixing too many metaphors here?

Silver Linings

 

And if not a silver lining, a silver platter at the very least, eh, Chim Lee???

 

Surgery #4 — Postponed. Again.

Recurring Themes, , , , , , , , ,

My pup. Seriously. If it can go wrong, it will.

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Seth was in Miami on a business trip (not to be pissy about it, but it did snow here THREE times while he was there. Just saying.) and it was my job today to get Curls to the vet in Madison by 4 pm. No problem. I took a half day off of work and made plans to get together with my cousin and her little family (meeting a new baby, yay!) for dinner.

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Except I made it almost to Coloma, which is truly the middle of n-o-w-h-e-r-e Wisconsin, when the vet’s office called to cancel Curly’s surgery.

Nothing like a 4 hour road trip to nowhere!

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We’re rescheduled for next Thursday. Thursdays are better than Fridays because if emergencies happen on Thursdays, Thursday surgeries get pushed to Friday and Friday surgeries are canceled. Now we know.

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I was a little ticked, of course, definitely frustrated, but I’ve got to admit– there were a lot of oks about the day after all.

It was absolutely gorgeous out– warm and sunny. A good day for a drive, even if it ended up getting me nowhere.

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I’ll have another road trip in the near future to finish listening to the excellent Dean Koontz audio book I checked out at the library. (Fear Nothing– really good so far, but I’m a huge DK fan. Huge.)

I got home around 3:30, which gave me enough time before Seth got home to finish up some work I’ve been promising to get done all week (sorry, Sassy!).

And last, but definitely the best, Curly was home when her dad got home and she couldn’t have been any happier. Not only that, but her pup cousin Zoe came to stay with us too and Curls is beside herself with excitement.

Sadly, I had to cancel my dinner with Beth and co, but next time, maybe Seth can come too! Even better!

For now, we’re all home, safe and sound, everyone with at least 2 (if not 3!) good legs for walking on. Not too shabby, really. And Curls will still get her surgery… we just have to wait a little while longer. A week isn’t going to hurt anything. Perhaps by then all the snow will be melted. Maybe.

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In other news, my brother talked me into downloading snapchat on my phone. I’ve never felt so old in my entire life. Ever. But he coerced me with promises of pictures of my niece next weekend. How could I resist that?!!

 

I hope you all have wonderful, wonderful weekends!

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Sweet potatoes– she loves them!

 

PS: Did you see that I tagged this as a recurring theme?! Clever, right?! Because Curly has surgery a lot and bad things always happen. Ha ha ha!