I'm a huge supporter of equal rights. I always have been. Since high school many of my best friends have been gay (not exaggerating). I think part of it is that I really love to flirt. With everyone. And with gay men, there's no threat. They won't take it wrong. They won't try to reciprocate emotions that I really don't feel (hey, its just flirting). Usually they flirt back (making me feel special :-) ), and it's totally harmless. Plus my gay male friends tend to be more honest. More easy going. Its always been easier for me to have friendships with men than women. Women tend to be more intimidating to me. I care more about what they think. Are they judging me? Should I be trying harder? Trying less? Men tend to have less complex/bitchy thoughts. My gay male friends have made our friendships very easy going. I can tell them anything and get an honest answer, without worry or grief. A lot of these friendships have disintegrated over the years, as a lot of my friendships overall have, through no one person's fault. Kinda sad about that.
But I digress. This post is actually partially inspired by the season finale of Modern Family. As much as I love my gay friends, I have always secretly wondered how I would take it if my kids told me they were gay. Don't misunderstand, of course I would be super supportive and would love my kids the same no matter what, but there's one thing that would be different. Grandkids. I've always been a fan of big families. And my only fear in having gay kids was that they wouldn't have their own kids. I now know how stupid that is, but back when, before infertility hit my life, these are things I thought about.
I haven't thought about any of this in years, until I was walking to lunch today. I started thinking about the season finale of Modern Family, and how would I feel if my kids where gay. And I realized I couldn't care less. Gay no longer means you can't have a family, just like infertile doesn't necessarily mean that. Look at Jillian Michaels and her partner, who just recently adopted a baby AND had one biologically (her partner was pregnant). Now there are so many options: surogocy, egg donation, sperm donation, adoption, etc. And although I had always thought of adoption as an option for my hypothetical gay kids, it never felt the same to me. It wasn't biological. Again, now I don't see it that way at all. As people who have seriously discussed adoption ourselves, and in fact still plan on adopting an older child in a few years, I no longer care about biology at all. The love you have for a child makes that child yours. Now I don't really care at all if my children end up gay, straight, or any combination of the two. Now my thoughts are more about what if my future children wouldn't want kids of their own. I still want to be a grandmother one day (and yes, as a infertile I understand how completely hypocritical this line of thinking is, but I still have that nagging feeling in me that I want to be a grandparent one day). But I guess that's another reason to be thankful that hopefully one day I'll be lucky enough to have a few kids. If one chooses a child-free life, I would maybe have a couple others that would want kids. Of course, none of that would mean I'd love my child-free children any less either. If I've learned nothing else, its respect others limitations and love them no matter what.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Moving
So I totally forgot to update you guys on what was the new plan for NJ. We decided that it was ridiculous for me to move out to NJ on my own, trying to handle 2 newborns without having any clue of what I was doing. So new plan is that I stay behind until after the babies are born so my parents can help me.
We went to NYC area a few weeks ago and rented Mr. L a 1 bedroom apartment. I'm actually kind of jealous of it. Its in a great area. A busy neighborhood filled with white collar 20 somethings. There're parks, walking/jogging paths, restaurants, etc. Its only about 25-30 min from his office, so his commute will be super short (now his commute is over an hr). And because he's there and I'm here, he can stay late at work without worrying about me or getting home at a decent hour.
In the meantime, we've rented out our house. The new people move in June 1. We're moving out over Memorial Day weekend. So right now the whole house is filled with boxes. Every weekend minute is filled with us packing and moving stuff around. Its been incredibly tiring. Especially since in my current state, I can't lift much, so my job have become packing clothes and supervising :-/ Talk about feeling useless. I feel that only 1 week away from the move we still have SO much to do. Eek! I'm super thankful for my parents and Mr. L's mom who have been here every weekend helping us pack. Its currently Mr. L's busy time at work, so without them it would all fall on me, and like I said, I can't do much right now.
Where am I moving you might ask? Well, at a ripe old age of 29, I'm moving in with my parents, into my old bedroom. Oh joy. Oh, and lets not forget the 2 large dogs and 2 cats that I'm taking with me. And my husband. His work has allowed him to do 2 weeks here and 2 weeks in NY until January. Boy do I love his work! And even better, they're paying for all of the airfare! I swear, in a super hectic, so much can go wrong situation, everything has fallen together so well. I am incredibly grateful, and don't think I don't realize and appreciate all the help we're getting from everyone. Now Mr. L can work 16 hours a day in NY (don't think he won't, my little workaholic) and not worry about something going wrong with me at home. I can continue working at my job for a little longer. My parents will help me walk my dogs, and they can clean the cat litter since I can't. Plus they'll cook for me, clean for me, go grocery shopping. Its like a dream come true. Of course I will pay them rent. They tried to argue with me, but c'mon, I'm not totally ungrateful, and I do realize what a horrible inconvenience all of this is on them. I am truly lucky to have such wonderful parents. I can only hope to one day be as great a parent to my kids as my parents were to me.
In other news, I told my boss about the pregnancy, and the move. He was super duper supportive. He knew about the IVF (had to explain my many dr appointments) so he knew how much we've wanted this. I'm supposed to be slowly giving away my work to other people, and even though I haven't really given anything away yet, I already feel motivationally out of it. I still have so much work, but right now I'm just not into doing it. Aw well. Will try to give my stuff away sooner than later. Twin books I'm reading, and people I'm talking so, suggest going on leave before 30 week, and Mr. L would prefer I just stop working now, silly man. So I figure the sooner I can give away my stuff and still be there to help people get used to my clients, the better the transition will be.
Anyway, parents are on their way over to continue helping us pack, so I'm out. I'm adding a Belly Pic page to show you the massive growth that is a twin pregnancy.
We went to NYC area a few weeks ago and rented Mr. L a 1 bedroom apartment. I'm actually kind of jealous of it. Its in a great area. A busy neighborhood filled with white collar 20 somethings. There're parks, walking/jogging paths, restaurants, etc. Its only about 25-30 min from his office, so his commute will be super short (now his commute is over an hr). And because he's there and I'm here, he can stay late at work without worrying about me or getting home at a decent hour.
In the meantime, we've rented out our house. The new people move in June 1. We're moving out over Memorial Day weekend. So right now the whole house is filled with boxes. Every weekend minute is filled with us packing and moving stuff around. Its been incredibly tiring. Especially since in my current state, I can't lift much, so my job have become packing clothes and supervising :-/ Talk about feeling useless. I feel that only 1 week away from the move we still have SO much to do. Eek! I'm super thankful for my parents and Mr. L's mom who have been here every weekend helping us pack. Its currently Mr. L's busy time at work, so without them it would all fall on me, and like I said, I can't do much right now.
Where am I moving you might ask? Well, at a ripe old age of 29, I'm moving in with my parents, into my old bedroom. Oh joy. Oh, and lets not forget the 2 large dogs and 2 cats that I'm taking with me. And my husband. His work has allowed him to do 2 weeks here and 2 weeks in NY until January. Boy do I love his work! And even better, they're paying for all of the airfare! I swear, in a super hectic, so much can go wrong situation, everything has fallen together so well. I am incredibly grateful, and don't think I don't realize and appreciate all the help we're getting from everyone. Now Mr. L can work 16 hours a day in NY (don't think he won't, my little workaholic) and not worry about something going wrong with me at home. I can continue working at my job for a little longer. My parents will help me walk my dogs, and they can clean the cat litter since I can't. Plus they'll cook for me, clean for me, go grocery shopping. Its like a dream come true. Of course I will pay them rent. They tried to argue with me, but c'mon, I'm not totally ungrateful, and I do realize what a horrible inconvenience all of this is on them. I am truly lucky to have such wonderful parents. I can only hope to one day be as great a parent to my kids as my parents were to me.
In other news, I told my boss about the pregnancy, and the move. He was super duper supportive. He knew about the IVF (had to explain my many dr appointments) so he knew how much we've wanted this. I'm supposed to be slowly giving away my work to other people, and even though I haven't really given anything away yet, I already feel motivationally out of it. I still have so much work, but right now I'm just not into doing it. Aw well. Will try to give my stuff away sooner than later. Twin books I'm reading, and people I'm talking so, suggest going on leave before 30 week, and Mr. L would prefer I just stop working now, silly man. So I figure the sooner I can give away my stuff and still be there to help people get used to my clients, the better the transition will be.
Anyway, parents are on their way over to continue helping us pack, so I'm out. I'm adding a Belly Pic page to show you the massive growth that is a twin pregnancy.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Update
So I haven't updated in a looong while. I've been struggling with what I want to do with this blog. I started it to be an IF blog. I know that I'm still IF, and I will always be, but right now I have nothing IF to say. I want to try to focus on my little miracles and not have to think about next time around, or even the past 2 years worth of tears, fights, and heartbreak. I don't want to call this a pregnancy blog now, but this will be a blog about my life. In the meantime, I'll also include pregnancy info and pics, because I hope that one day my children can read it and know what we went through to have them. And be there every step of the way.
In the meantime, have some info from our lives. Tuesday was our NT first trimester scan and all that to test for Downs. It was an ultrasound and then some bloodwork. It was amazing. We got to see the babies dance around the screen in great detail for about an hour. I was beyond stoked. I'm going to post the ultrasound pics as soon as I figure out how to crop all my personal info out of them. We get the results sometime next week, but from the ultrasound the tech said everything looked good. She found the nasal bone in both babies (the absence of which can sometimes indicate Downs) and the skin thickness behind the neck was 1.0 and 1.4. Anything 3.5 and above can be an indicator of Downs. So based on that everything looked good. But we still need to wait for the official blood results for the actual risks and such.
If everything comes back being low risk for Downs, we decided we are not doing an amnio. As much as doctors keeping telling us the risks of miscarriage are low, I personally know 2 people who have had bad experiences. 1 lost her baby after an amnio complication. And another person I know had the needle puncture the sac. She leaked for the rest of her pregnancy. She was on months of on and off bedrest. And then when the baby was born the baby needed surgery. They blame all this on the amnio. So no, if I don't need to, I prefer not to take the risk. But we'll know more next week I guess.
In the meantime, have some info from our lives. Tuesday was our NT first trimester scan and all that to test for Downs. It was an ultrasound and then some bloodwork. It was amazing. We got to see the babies dance around the screen in great detail for about an hour. I was beyond stoked. I'm going to post the ultrasound pics as soon as I figure out how to crop all my personal info out of them. We get the results sometime next week, but from the ultrasound the tech said everything looked good. She found the nasal bone in both babies (the absence of which can sometimes indicate Downs) and the skin thickness behind the neck was 1.0 and 1.4. Anything 3.5 and above can be an indicator of Downs. So based on that everything looked good. But we still need to wait for the official blood results for the actual risks and such.
If everything comes back being low risk for Downs, we decided we are not doing an amnio. As much as doctors keeping telling us the risks of miscarriage are low, I personally know 2 people who have had bad experiences. 1 lost her baby after an amnio complication. And another person I know had the needle puncture the sac. She leaked for the rest of her pregnancy. She was on months of on and off bedrest. And then when the baby was born the baby needed surgery. They blame all this on the amnio. So no, if I don't need to, I prefer not to take the risk. But we'll know more next week I guess.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Rethinking New York
Last night we had a huge Pesach dinner at my parents' house. My brother and sister in law were there with their baby, and my cousin was there with her kids (ages 5, 3 and 11 months). Watching the kids interact with each other, and watching the kids interact with the grandparents, really really made me sad that we're moving. We have no family or friends in New York. Not only will my kids be isolated from other people, but they'll be isolated from their family. Plus, its just going to be me and the kids, all day, every day. With no help and no me time. I just don't see how this is going to end well.
Mr. L and I aren't the greatest at making friends. We generally keep to ourselves. I mean, I love people. Don't get me wrong, we're not hermits. But it usually takes us a while to warm up and be comfortable with people, so making new friends for us is often difficult. So I ask you, how do people make friends in a new city? We can't go to bars or clubs, so we can't do the young professional mixers. I'd probably rely on the whole newly pregnant angle. So are there clubs or groups for people who are pregnant? How does one find these kind of groups? This whole no family, no friends thing is seriously on my mind all the time. It scares me half to death. Suggestions on how adults make friends greatly welcome.
Mr. L and I aren't the greatest at making friends. We generally keep to ourselves. I mean, I love people. Don't get me wrong, we're not hermits. But it usually takes us a while to warm up and be comfortable with people, so making new friends for us is often difficult. So I ask you, how do people make friends in a new city? We can't go to bars or clubs, so we can't do the young professional mixers. I'd probably rely on the whole newly pregnant angle. So are there clubs or groups for people who are pregnant? How does one find these kind of groups? This whole no family, no friends thing is seriously on my mind all the time. It scares me half to death. Suggestions on how adults make friends greatly welcome.
Friday, April 6, 2012
7 Weeks
I had my 7 week ultrasound on Tuesday. I was exactly 7 weeks. Everything still seemed good. Still 2 babies. Baby A is still smaller, measuring 6 weeks 4 days with a heartbeat at 132bpm. Baby B is measuring at 6 weeks 6 days at 128bpm. The nurse said there's usually a +/- 4 day allotment without getting concerned, so everything is fine.
I won't get another ultrasound until I'm 9 weeks exactly, which is when I'll have my exit interview. That's right, like I'm leaving a job. The best part is I get 10 minutes with my elusive, unicorn of an RE. I say unicorn because since June (when we had our initial consult) I have only seen this man twice. Once was the initial consult, when he basically showed us power point slides about IVF (having been on twitter for about a month, I already knew everything his power point slides had to offer anyway). And again we met him at our WTF appointment, when he showed us spreadsheets basically telling us he didn't know what went wrong. Even the procedure for my 2 IVFs (the retrievals and the transfers) were done by other doctors. My monitoring appointments are done by an ultrasound tech. The follow up calls are done by my nurse. I'd like to know what he's doing. I've already expressed on twitter repeatedly how I'm not thrilled with my clinic. Next IVF will probably be in Jersey. Gonna have to transfer the frosties over there I think.
Speaking of Jersey, we still don't have a realtor we're working with. I'm working on it, I swear. I've looked at rentals online myself, but we really need someone experienced in the area. I have a few numbers, just haven't had a chance to call. The 2 or 3 people I have emailed so far haven't responded. Classy. I still haven't told my boss. I'm waiting for things to calm down at work, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Might have to wait until tax season is over. At this point that's next week. So right now next Friday is my goal.
Last summer the roots of the tree next to our house grew into the pipe taking water from our house to the street. The pipe got backed up and flooded our laundry room (which is on the 2nd floor, not sure how that plumbing system works). Anyway, we had to remove tile in the laundry room to check the damage. Now that we're moving, we're working on redoing the laundry room since its not right of us to rent the house like this. So we've had construction going on for 2 days and counting. I moved my dogs and myself to my parents house to escape the noise (and the lack of water since it got turned off). I'm back tonight, but tomorrow will be more construction. Not sure where to go. Its going to be loud, and with my current daily extreme headaches, I don't want to be around. I might take the dogs back to my parents tomorrow. Sucks cuz I have so much stuff to do around the house. Now that I basically go to bed right after dinner, I haven't gotten anything done. I've been looking forward to catching up over the weekend. Looks like that's going to be a no go, too.
Oh, and happy Pesach to my Jewish readers, and happy Easter to my Christian readers. Hope you fill your bellies right :-)
I won't get another ultrasound until I'm 9 weeks exactly, which is when I'll have my exit interview. That's right, like I'm leaving a job. The best part is I get 10 minutes with my elusive, unicorn of an RE. I say unicorn because since June (when we had our initial consult) I have only seen this man twice. Once was the initial consult, when he basically showed us power point slides about IVF (having been on twitter for about a month, I already knew everything his power point slides had to offer anyway). And again we met him at our WTF appointment, when he showed us spreadsheets basically telling us he didn't know what went wrong. Even the procedure for my 2 IVFs (the retrievals and the transfers) were done by other doctors. My monitoring appointments are done by an ultrasound tech. The follow up calls are done by my nurse. I'd like to know what he's doing. I've already expressed on twitter repeatedly how I'm not thrilled with my clinic. Next IVF will probably be in Jersey. Gonna have to transfer the frosties over there I think.
Speaking of Jersey, we still don't have a realtor we're working with. I'm working on it, I swear. I've looked at rentals online myself, but we really need someone experienced in the area. I have a few numbers, just haven't had a chance to call. The 2 or 3 people I have emailed so far haven't responded. Classy. I still haven't told my boss. I'm waiting for things to calm down at work, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Might have to wait until tax season is over. At this point that's next week. So right now next Friday is my goal.
Last summer the roots of the tree next to our house grew into the pipe taking water from our house to the street. The pipe got backed up and flooded our laundry room (which is on the 2nd floor, not sure how that plumbing system works). Anyway, we had to remove tile in the laundry room to check the damage. Now that we're moving, we're working on redoing the laundry room since its not right of us to rent the house like this. So we've had construction going on for 2 days and counting. I moved my dogs and myself to my parents house to escape the noise (and the lack of water since it got turned off). I'm back tonight, but tomorrow will be more construction. Not sure where to go. Its going to be loud, and with my current daily extreme headaches, I don't want to be around. I might take the dogs back to my parents tomorrow. Sucks cuz I have so much stuff to do around the house. Now that I basically go to bed right after dinner, I haven't gotten anything done. I've been looking forward to catching up over the weekend. Looks like that's going to be a no go, too.
Oh, and happy Pesach to my Jewish readers, and happy Easter to my Christian readers. Hope you fill your bellies right :-)
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