DEAD HORSE

I know you are sick to death of the now infamously dubbed Octomom, but I just have to get this off my chest. She told Dr. Phil (who I also think is a raving dipshit) that she went through this most recent cycle because after having six children, she wanted “just one more”.

Because having the seventh child would have completed her and filled some empty bullshit void in her life that for whatever reason the other six had not.

And then there’s this:

She claims that she had six embryos transferred each time with the octuplets supposedly the result of a FET, right?

Then there are the six other kids at home and from what I understand that means that she went through five other successful cycles (since one cycle produced twins).

She couldn’t have possibly done five fresh cycles, transferring six embryos each time which resulted in pregnancies of singletons and then completed a frozen with the left overs and produced eight babies…could she have?

This doesn’t even account for the possibility, a very, very real one, that she had other transfers (fresh and frozen) that were not successful.

So I’m confused. It doesn’t help that she’s a pathological liar, or at least perceived as one. I’m just trying to figure out how she could have done so many fresh IVFs and then ended up with only six frozen for one last final hurrah – if you will.

I’d give anything to be able to snoop through her medical records from that clinic. I would even love to know what her cause for infertility was, even though I’ve read she couldn’t have children because of ovarian cancer.

Which of course leads me to ask, “What the feck?” I mean, if she had ovarian cancer and she was rendered infertile from the treatment (whether it was nuclear meds or radiation therapy or surgery), she wouldn’t be able to use her own eggs, right, since they would have been destroyed?

Oh, wait, you mean she lied about that, too?

Anyone care to take a shot at the questions, which I will bullet out to make it simple:

What is the cause of her infertility?

How many fresh IVFs did she do?

How many eggs were retrieved with each fresh IVF?

How many frozen embryo transfers did she do?

How many embryos were transferred with each FET?

And just what kind of magical glue or caulk did her doctor use to directly implant these frozen embryos? I’m thinking that if we ever did a FET with Pokey, I might want to see if my clinic can get my hands on it since clearly we would end up with at least two babies.

JUDO CHOP

Last night, Mr. DD went into her room to get the eye drops for ZGirl’s pink eye. He calls out to the living room where I’m feeding her, “where’s the medicine?” I don’t answer because hell, it’s right on top of her changing table, he just needs to look.

A couple minutes later he comes out with a bottle of medicine in his hand. I hold ZGirl, face up, who is now asleep so Mr. DD can administer the drops. He opens her eye, squeezes the bottle, and when the first drop comes out and hits her eye, I gave a shout. ZGirl wakes instantly and starts screaming. It wasn’t her eye drops, but peroxide for ear wax removal and he had just put it in her eye. I knew by the appearance of the clear drops that he didn’t have the right stuff. Her medicine is milky white.

We called poison control who told us to flush her eye out with a  continuous gentle stream of warm water for 15 minutes. We took turns holding her over the kitchen sink doing so while she cried and cried and cried.

I wanted to punch Jerry right in the neck after that. How damn hard would it have been to make sure that the bottle was for eye drops? Jeezus.

ETA: I sent this as an email to my sister who replied that she’s heard of this kind of stuff happening before: an easy mistake. It doesn’t make me want to smack Mr. DD any less, I’ll tell you that much right now.

I LIKE/DON’T LIKE

When I finally ended up purchasing a diaper pail, I ended up with one of those filtered ones (First Years CleanAir). I’m still not sure what to think about it.

1) Why is it so damn small? I mean, it barely holds a dozen diapers, and they’re not BIG diapers.

2) The lid is a PITRA (Pain In The Royal Ass). If you don’t lift the lid ALL the way up, the mechanism that drops the diaper down inside doesn’t work right.

3) Inexperienced users end up shutting it off when they try to use it the first (or second and third) time – like our babysitter and grandma, because the power button is easily mistaken as a release for the lid.

I can’t recommend it, but we’ll keep it.

One of my favorite purchases is the mesh bumper on the crib. With ZGirl being a tummy sleeper, it’s more likely for her to smoosh her face into the bumper, and it has happened. The mesh bumpers aren’t just mesh, either. They are actually padded so while she may be mooshing her face, at least she’s not imprinting the slats of the crib into her head. My only complaint witht them is their limited color palette: white, yellow, baby blue and pale pink. Blah.

So now I need your opinion. I’m looking for a convertible carseat to replace our infant carrier. I want something that will work from infant to 60+ pounds. I’ve already checked consumer reports, but their data is rather dated. What have you heard or had success with and why?

WHEN PINK ISN’T SO PRETTY

The community daycare. They have great hours, sure, but they are also a pestilence party ground.

Let’s review:

The end of ZGirl’s first week at day care, she came home with her first cold.

Her first and only  cold.

Because it’s lasted – oh, what – four motherfucking months?

Well, there was that time off for the double ear infection.

Let’s not forget the bronchiolitis and RSV.

Sure, other than that, ZGirl’s been the picture of baby health!

We’re not counting the dropping-the-baby-on-her-head event, are we?

And then…

There was today. Phone call from the day care director. ZGirl’s running a fever. She’s not herself. Can you come early?

Of course.

I arrive with the plan to take her home, give some cuddling and hope for a better tomorrow.

I arrive and SEE that the rest of my week is not going to be fun. At all.

Red-rimmed eyes. No, she hasn’t been crying.

I hauled ass to the nearest convenient clinic and got my suspicions confirmed:

Pinkfuckingeye.

Times two.

Day cares. Gotta love’em.

And just a “funny” little anecdote to end this post. After Mr. DD arrived home late with the eye drops and bactrim (she also has a nasty cough), we ended up having to wake ZGirl up. We administered the eye drops while she was still pretty much asleep, but the bactrim? I need to learn how to install a nasal feeding tube.

So, she’s pissed and I’m walking around with her to get her to calm down and go back to sleep. I had just stepped from the living room into the kitchen (from carpet to tile) when she started to cough. And gag. Annnnnnd  majorly throw up, projectile style. All over me, herself, and the floor.

I called for Mr. DD who had just went in to wish XBoy goodnight. I handed her off and stripped down to my bra and underwear right then and there, throwing my clothes onto the vomited formula and walked to the bedroom and put on clean clothes. The only thing going through my mind was gratitude:

Thank GOD she didn’t vomit on the carpet.

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IT’S YOUR FAULT

Yes, it is.

It’s your fault that ZGirl is still not eating solids regularly. You told me not to stress about it when I tried it back when she had her four month check up and at that time, I couldn’t even get her to take a bottle, much less get a spoon past those bionic, toothless gums of hers. That’s when you all said, “don’t worry!” “it can wait!” “try again later!”. Stink eye to all of you.

We’ll manage to get a couple of spoonfuls of cereal in her mouth before she closes the mouth factory without so much as a second chance. Regardless of how many stupid ass faces we make like little birds in hopes that she will mimic us, we end up looking quite ridiculous and she ends up looking at us like we are Nadja Suleman incarnates.

Oh, now, don’t think it’s because she’s not interested in what’s going on at the dinner table.

One day as she was playing in her bouncer and I was sitting on the floor next to her eating a chocolate chip cookie, she suddenly stopped her manic dance and without blinking, watched as the cookie went to my mouth and back down again. “You want a taste?” I asked, and held the cookie to her mouth. She licked. She liked, and she licked some more.

I quickly finished the cookie. I’m not one to share my sweets.

I have purchased those silly puff things that come in different flavors, including peach and sweet potato. I tried the sweet potato and while she tolerated it, she didn’t go all out. I then tried the peach, just to see if it was the texture of the flavor that she didn’t care for. It’s not the texture.

Guess who has a sweet tooth (teeth, since she has two now)?

Yup.

XBoy was finishing off big jars of baby food at her age, which is now just a few days out of seven whole months.

By the way, while ZGirl isn’t loving the solids, you should see the little shit pull herself up to a standing position.

*help*

POKEY

Recently I have found myself thinking a lot about Pokey.

Pokey was embryo number four out of four that we got through our donor egg cycle which ended up on ice, all by his lonesome. He was also a little late dividing and I suspect he is not of Best of Show quality and more than likely a bit of a mouth-breather.

When it comes to left-over frozen embryos, there are three options that families face (I say “families” since it would be only logical to assume that only patients who have already had a successful transfer would have the three options):

• Destroy
• Transfer
• Donate

Now for my conundrum.

At one time, back when I was an IVF newbie, I referred to my embryos as “embies” and I experienced quite a mental fuck when my first and only FET attempt was cancelled when all three of said “embies” arrested the morning of my transfer. To help myself get over that, and because I grew up just a bit, they simply are now called Embryos.

Even though I have tried to keep myself emotionally distant from any embryos we had created since then, Pokey is something special because he has a sister who I cannot, not even for a second, imagine my life without. Even Mr. DD walked a minefield by stating, “If we hadn’t gone through all the shit, we wouldn’t have ZGirl.” Refer to this post on how I feel about that kind of talk.

It’s with knowing the potential that I find myself very opposed to destroying Pokey.

Why not transfer then, you ask?

Such a simple solution except with one minor problem: Mr. DD does NOT want to go through any more treatment, even a rather uncomplicated FET. Not only that, but he does NOT want another baby; even though the likelihood we were to get pregnant with Pokey would be a one in a million shot. However, see THIS post about what happens when you put one egg in your basket and run though a forest on five-inch heels. In other words, stranger things have happened, even though they can (and did) end badly. Very badly.

As a couple who seriously considered donor embryos, I am more than willing to donate Pokey. But would any agency want to bother with a lonely embryo, and of suspect quality? I don’t have proof that Pokey is pokey. I only remember when they called with the fertilization report on Day 2 that Pokey had fertilized late and was slower in dividing, hence “Pokey”. I should have transferred all four since even with the three good-quality embryos transferred, my pregnancy never was more than a strong singleton (thank god).

I guess that’s why if I was a betting woman, I would say that Pokey doesn’t stand a chance, even in the best of wombs. Yet, knowing this, I still am not able to consider just destroying the little slacker.

I ask you, what would YOU do if you had a sub-par, single embryo on ice that no one other than you would want and your Significant Other doesn’t want to do another cycle, much less have another baby? If you say destroy it, how do you get over the sentiments attached to it when you know how beautiful and funny and endearing that baby would be because you are raising its sibling?

(Pardon the links down memory lane. That was a whole lot more painful then I expected it to be.)

PRESENTING MR & MRS JEKYLL-HYDE

Imagine a costume party where the theme was, “Dress Up as Your Favorite Brilliant Doctor Who Has An Evil Alter-Ego” and you shall know what things have been like around here.

Jekylls and Hydes are running amok.

Where shall I start? Howz about with the littlest J&H.

ZGirl’s ear infection was never quite resolved with the antibiotics and when it finally dawned on me that the head-shaking was not early indication of her brilliance in mimicking those around her saying “no-no”, but actually her trying to shake away the pain in her sweet little head, I felt about this *-* big. One parenting ego squelched very effectively, thank you.

Not only that, but because I have a fear of universal retribution, I didn’t bother bragging it up how just a few weeks ago ZGirl was sleeping almost 12 hours a night, straight through. Sweet, sweet, bliss. I didn’t say anything because, duh, once a parent openly brags about sleeping patterns, said sleeping patterns always hit the shitter. Unfortunately, in my case, it didn’t matter. Her illness has set us back months since even with the crib inclined, it’s only rest for a few hours before the pressure in her head wakes her and the resulting screaming wakes every one else.

So yes, she’s my Little Miss Jekyll during daylight, but sweet Moses, once the sun sets and we have a wee Miss Hyde in our midst.

XBoy? After almost a month of him on ADHD meds, he’s transformed into Jekyll.

For the few few weeks, we tried going without the meds on the weekend. At first, it didn’t seem to affect him. But the more his chemistry adjusted to the patch during the week, the harder his fall on the weekends; the more belligerent and spacey and, well, he was more of an asshole for those two short days.

He’s changed, but only in such a way that makes him more fun to hang out when playing cards or reading or simply sitting down to eat, yet he is still very much XBoy with his funny observations and goofiness. He is without a doubt, ZGirl’s favorite person in the whole, wide world.

Because ZGirl’s sleep pattern has been anything but in a pattern, I’ve been a raging bitch, to be frank. If I was still working at the hospital, I would have called in sick a couple days or maybe even come in an hour or so later just so I could catch up on some shut eye. With my new employer, that level of comfort is not yet there. That and the fact I must leave my home almost 30 minutes earlier has taken a considerable chunk out of my nighty-night time.

It’s no surprise then that yesterday evening, after a long week and lost sleep, that I ripped poor Mr. DD a new one solely because he couldn’t hear me say something. Even though he had gone to the grocery store and cooked a surprise supper. I has such a hag to him that instead of eating with us, he cleaned up the kitchen and disappeared into our bedroom and we barely said three words to each other all evening. When I finally apologized and thanked him for supper, he just mumbled, “leave me alone”.

Yep. I screwed up and now we were both pissed off. It would seem to be a running theme in my life, wouldn’t it? Happily, we’ve sorted things out.

So, that was an example how my Hyde turned my husband’s Jekyll into another Hyde, which then reversed my Jekyll back into Hyde. Good times.

Today, so far, we’ve all been pretty level headed group of Jekylls. It’s been good. My husband even made a music video from photos of me with XBoy or ZGirl or himself for Valentine’s Day that was totally sweet, especially considering I only got him a kit that turns a Diet Coke bottle and Mentos into a rocket that hopefully won’t shoot out any one’s eye.

Man, we are a goofy bunch, aren’t we?

B.M.

The B does not stand for Bowel, but there is certainly Movement.

Let me just say this: I have ducktape and I’m not afraid to use it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before any one thinks about siccing CPS on me, this is not ZGirl, OK? Plus, I wouldn’t tape her to my walls. It’d ruin my paint.

QUADS THE NATURAL WAY

My brother and his wife raise some sheep on their farm. Last Monday, my SIL (not the one I rant about) called me with exciting news: the first birth of the season was to quads.

The ewes of this particular breed of ship very commonly throw twins, so multiples aren’t unusual. But four? All healthy? A lovely way for them to start the birthing season.

This weekend we went to go see them. It’s amazing how they have grown in a week. Keep in mind that ewes only have two teats. That poor ewe is probably sleeping on her feet, literally, since bottle feeding hasn’t been necessary. My brother and his wife also are feeding her twice what other ewes get.

I had forgotten until I saw them how damn cute lambs are.

IS IT A COINCIDENCE THAT “CRAFT” SOUNDS A LOT LIKE “CRAP”?

I’m kinda crafty. Did you know that? But, I hate complicated directions and measuring and if I think a project will take me longer than one afternoon to finish? Forget it.

Imagine if Martha Stewart and the Cable Guy had a love child. That’s me in the crafting department.

An example: I did not waste money this time around with matchy-matchy bedding and wallpaper and deco for ZGirl’s room. XBoy had all that and wow, what a waste of cash that was considering it could have been spent on formula or diapers. His $300 set included a crib skirt and what a pain in the ass it was. I figured I could whip one up for ZGirl, but it had to meet two important criteria: cheap and easy. Because that’s how I roll.

Let me show you just how cheap and easy it was.

First I needed some fabric. To figure how much you need, just measure the side(s) of the crib you want a skirt on and either double or triple the length, depending on how much “ruffle” you want. I only wanted it on the front and I used double.

Also, since we are talking cheap, I took into account that most bolts of fabric are 54 inches wide. If I was to cut it in half, it would be plenty long enough to reach from the bottom of the mattress to the floor. So, in my case, I bought 1 1/3 yards of fabric. About eight bucks.

Starting at top left: (Fig. 1) a before shot of the front of ZGirl’s crib. I keep a roll of trash liners and a storage bin under her crib. Not attractive. (Fig’s. 2-3) here’s the fabric  (54″ long x 48″ wide) before and after cutting. Once cut in a two, I put the right sides together and sewed a seam (Fig. 4).

Next is where my one-afternoon-project plan went to crap.

(Fig. 5) is a close up of the sewing foot lock that I broke when I went to replace the button foot with the regular foot. Why did I break it? See Fig. 6. (Fig. 6) shows that to release the foot, I’m to push IN the lever, not DOWN. It helps to read instructions if in doubt.

(Fig. 7) New lock is in place. Sewn seam is now ironed flat. Next my bottom hem is sewn. (Fig. 8). Since I have plenty of fabric  went with  pretty heavy hem – 3″. But here’s where my pension for not measuring stuff comes into play. Since I didn’t “square” my fabric, I just used the pattern itself as my guide. (Fig. 9) this shows how I used the brown flowers in the pattern to make a straight hem across the bottom.

We’re in the home stretch now. (Fig. 10) I need a large pocket for Fig. 11 (big enough to run small plumbing tubing through), so I just used a Sharpie to mark my guide on the sewing machine, again using the pattern as a guide. (Fig. 11) is a picture of left-over tubing that I cut to equal the width of the front of my crib. If you’re doing three sides, it’s flexible enough for that as well.

Finally, (Fig. 12), after feeding the tube through the second hem I had sewn in Fig. 10, I simply used masked tape on each end to keep it from slipping off. Note that I didn’t bother hemming the sides.

Now, all I had to do was stuff the fabric covered tubing under the crib mattress.

The results? Well, I have to say, I think it looks pretty damn good considering that my out of pocket expenses were less than $8 (not taking into consideration the $20 for the broken lock) and time was under 45 minutes (again, not counting the day lost to aforementioned broken lock).

The beauty of this project is that you don’t even need a sewing machine. You can use fabric glue or the ironing strips or hell, you can even use an old table runner and safety pin it…

Granted, this post has nothing on Music Mondays or Wordless Wednesdays or Photo Phridays, but hey, it’s more family friendly than me calling someone the C-bomb or threatening violence, right?

YOU (T)OR US (GET IT? UTERUS!)

Amid the chaos that is Nadja Suleman and the man formerly known as “her doctor” (once they find out who the hell s/he was) and Mom Logic’s decision to let someone ILLogical  spout off about how women who are pro-choice are hypocrites for mourning a miscarriage, I’m feeling a bit owly.

Everyone has a right to their opinion. I’m all about having my own opinion even if, and especially, if they aren’t necessarily popular opinions.

I was asked what I thought about Suleman by a friend tonight and I told her how I was pretty outraged by the whole thing. She said that it was completely irresponsible for a woman of already six children to have eight more when she clearly could not afford them. I had to defend Suleman on that point. There are hundreds of thousands of women who cannot “afford” to have any more children, or even the one(s) they have. Just look at our country’s overburdened welfare system and you will know it’s true. Let’s not even talk about the number of women  who prostitute themselves to feed their drug habit instead of investing in birth control or clean clothes and food for the babies that result. We can not enforce regulations fairly on moral beliefs.

Who is to say that Suleman now has TOO many babies? Some think two is too many. Take a look at what China was doing in the late 70’s as part of their population control policies. If that makes you wince, even just a little, then you would have to agree that no one has any business telling anyone else – regardless of their obvious level of CRAZY – that they are not allowed to have more than X number of children.

As for Gina’s post at Mom Logic. Besides an obvious ploy for increasing their technorati ranking, Gina’s statements are nothing more than an attempt to incite readers, to get a couple hundred of commenters expressing their outrage (or not). Again, Gina is entitled to her opinion and I won’t even give Mom Logic the benefit of a link. But I will tell you this: if Gina was someone I knew in real life and she said to my face,

If you are going to defend the right to abort babies, you don’t have the right to be upset when yours dies.

I’d punch that cunt right in the fucking face.

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UP THE WALL

After one of the nebulizer treatments ZGirl is getting due to her bronchiolitis, my husband asked,

“Should we ducktape a couple of forks to her hands and let her climb the walls?”

He figures since she obviously does it figuratively in response to the albuterol, she might as well do it literally, too.

IT’S A WRAP

I’m tying up some lose ends and one of them was the 3rd Annual Holiday Card Exchange. Here’s a couple of pictures of just a few of the cards we got this year from y’all.

 

Thank you to those who participated. It’s a simple little thing really, but I do get much joy from it and the trips to my mailbox over the month of December were full of anticipation as to not only who we would get a card from, but WHERE.

Of course, there will be a 4th Annual. Maybe this next time I’ll try to divvy the list out for those who are willing to do a mass exchange instead of me reaping all the rewards. Remember, it’s only 11 months away!