Losers with lice

So...I thought "dirty" people got lice.  Wrong!

The other day DD came up to me and said her head was itchy.  I almost brushed it off to mosquito bites as we had been outside the night before and all of us had been feasted on.  So I lifted her hair and exclaimed, "What the heck are those brown dots?"  About 3 seconds later I figured it out.  After we both freaked out for about 10 minutes I decided to wake the baby up and get to Walgreen's to buy some lice stuff.  I had no clue what to buy.  I bought Rid and did both of us.  The problem with doing yourself is that I couldn't use that special brush.  Anyway, I spent 3+ hours on DD's hair (the whole time asking her if I could just cut it really short - in which she replied "I would rather not look like a boy Mom.") 

The rest of that day was spent washing, vacuuming, washing more, and trying not to freak out.  We had a picnic and a birthday party to attend, neither of which either one of us got too close to anyone.  The next day, I spent another few hours in her hair, finding tiny eggs....shudder....and the day went on, more laundry, vacuuming, etc.  LAter in the evening I felt an itch.  On my scalp.  I thought I had avoided it....nope.  Must have some in my hair from all the laundry...:(  Freaked out again, called a friend, and she spent the evening and the whole next day helping me out with my hair and the house. 

Lice are no joke.  Hoping that we don't have a re-infestation.  Especially since I have to work...don't want to introduce them there...but I bet I already have, unknowingly. 

I think I am going home tonight after work and dousing my head with olive oil. 

Couldn't stay gone long.

Broken record, so please skip over this blog entry if you are sick of my SIF madness posts...I will be the first to admit that I struggle almost daily with thoughts about infertility (or loss, preemies, or general mom stuff), thankfully I have beat IF twice, but my whole life has been affected by PCOS. 

So I had made up my mind to take a break.  A break from FB, a break from this blog, a break from all things online.  Well, it really didn't happen.  I made it 18 hours and reactivated my FB account!  But those 18 hours?  I didn't sit and wonder about what was going on in FB-land, I had more time to clean around the house, more time to hang with my little dude, my DD,and DH, and I had more time to cook <-- which I don't do a lot of, regretfully.     

During the break (and times I am not glued to the screen) I did a lot of thinking and I am still torn.  I have been extremely lucky in life (luck, chance, blessed, etc) and I am thankful for the miracles that I have sleeping soundly in their beds at night.  But alas...there is that feeling that I thought would completely subside once I held baby #2 in my arms (I now think once an IF-er always an IF-er), I have the feeling that my family *might* not yet be complete (which if I were "normal " would have been complete years ago).  With that feeling come a lot of other emotions, along with the thoughts of another miscarriage, multiple gestations (gladly welcomed but not by my fertility doctor), the IVF drug protocol (with TI) not working this time and having to make that decision - IVF or be happy with not feeling our family is complete.  I gladly welcome the weight gain from the drugs (although I still have 15+ pounds to drop before I go back to the RE), I welcome the crazy emotional rollercoaster that comes with Lupron, BCP, Gonal-f, trigger, and progesterone (I thought Clomid was bad - these drugs definitely take the cake), I welcome the feeling that I am pregnant once I start progesterone, but I am not sure about the rest of what could happen.

DD was a completely normal pregnancy, minus the changing my EDD by 3 weeks thing (should have been a hint that there might be something wrong - not going with a midwife again after my issues), but with Trey things were different.  That little 3 pounder changed me, changed the way that I look at life, changed the way that I look at my kids, heck - the whole experience changed me.  I fear pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome, but I have hope.  Hope that a different drug protocol with help to keep those things from happening again, hope that I will be with a much different doctor (you are fired Mr. OB that doesn't believe anything I say whether it be IF/SIF or that there is something wrong in my pregnancy), hope that I will have a viable pregnancy and it won't take yet another 5 years.

How will I "know"?  That is my dilemma.  I don't "know" if my family is complete.  I mean why would I stop trying once I know what has a huge possibility of getting me another miracle? 

On that note, DH and I have to have a discussion about all of this.  Now that T. is out of his crazy preemie stage I think DH will be ok to talk about our future and if adding to our family again is something we can both agree on. 

Break.

Things are going great, T is a wonderful almost 5 month old little boy, my career couldn't be better, my marriage is wonderful, DD is about to start 1st grade, etc.  But other things in my life are wearing me down, it is looking like I have been portraying myself in a way that I wasn't meaning to.  I am really not bitter, at least not now, now I see things differently.  My journey has made me into who I am, not just my TTC journey, but every experience in my adult life has had an effect and I have learned a lot.   

I am taking a break, not just from here, but from message boards also.  This blog has been an outstanding outlet for me, I have gotten a lot of things out there that were having an effect on my life.  If things work out to where DH and I go back to the RE, I will definitely be coming back to post regularly.   

August...already?

I can't believe it is already August.  I had told myself we would go back to the IF doc in July....nope.  I think we will wait at least until after the new year, give my body time to get semi-normal again.  We are still deciding as a family what we want to do, hard decision as with 2 small kids at home I am not sure I can work at all.  Although I work at a place that has been extremely flexible with my hours lately.

I will make Trey's 6 month appointment in the next few weeks, hoping that we will be able to start solids after that appointment.  And this time it will all be homemade (minus the occasional jar of organic food on-the-go).  I plan to start making foods and freezing then right after his appointment.  I also think I want to try to make his rice cereal (I will be using brown rice though). 

I may even start up a new blog.  We'll see. 

A much needed break.

Aaaah.  Vacation is over.  Military 2 week duty is over.  Took a much needed leave from FB (occasionally checked things out though).  Back to the grind.

DH and I have been thinking about things.  He asked if we should really try for a 3rd, like can we handle it?  I really should keep working, so the fact of the matter is, can DH handle a 1.5 year old and a newborn (or possible more than one with the chances I have at multiples on injectables) at night without me at home with him? 

A friend told me that I would have that longing for a 3rd.  I feel so lucky just to have Trey, but I think there is a slight longing....a lot of it has to do with the fact that it took us so long to get to where we are now with 2 kids, we now know what it takes to get pregnant...so why not? 

You’re a Mom, you’re not infertile anymore!

Ummm...yea.  A total myth.  Now I know we all have our own opinions about so many things in life, but secondary infertility is a real thing.  Sure, I know what it feels like to have a baby, but that doesn't mean that SIF doesn't affect me...heck, I have suffered from both primary IF and SIF and both suck.  What got me thinking about this?  A blog.  Yea, I let it get to me.  This is the 2nd time that I have read a blog about this subject.  I stopped following more than a few blogs because of how I have been feeling about this.

I have run into this on a few infertility blogs that I frequent, I don’t comment as I will probably just upset someone (although I did comment on one blog after I saw someone bashing women like me, women that can't get pregnant naturally and my post never showed up). Secondary infertility is a real thing. And you know what? It ain’t any better the 2nd time around as I suffered from primary IF also.


So many times I heard the stories…you know the ones. Stories about couples that “gave up trying” and ended up pregnant. Or the couple that was about to have IVF and found out they were pregnant. Or how about the one of a couple that tried Clomid and it didn’t work, only to fall pregnant shortly after stopping treatment. And my FAV – the couple that was in the process of adopting or had a new adopted baby in the home and then they got pregnant. Yea, totally not me.

I think that IF is different for everyone. One couple may struggle for a year, another couple may struggle for 10 years, I think that IF is IF. We all have our struggles and I can’t say that I know exactly how one of my bloggie IF friends feels, just as they can’t say the same about me. IF, loss, cycle failures…all infertiles experience so many things in IF-land...

So if I have to resort to extreme measures that isn't infertility?  Eh. 

Infertility is not cured, it is not a disease, it is something that is permanent. Eight years after being told I would never have kids I saw those 2 lines…and my life changed forever. But when I went to a new OB after TTC for a few years after DD was born, that OB told me I just needed time, and he had no clue what secondary infertility was. So many people (obviously even doctors) think that a woman can’t be infertile if they already have a child…a few years after my OB agreed to refer me to an RE, and then I was diagnosed with secondary infertility. 

Yep, I am a mom, became one for the first time almost 6 years ago. I count myself lucky as I was told for years that I would never get pregnant, and 8 years later I ended up pregnant with DD. So then I was finally a mom. But then what? I can’t be infertile as I have a child, right? So was my infertility behind me?  So many doctors and nurses tried to tell me that I would be the most fertile after DD weas born...Ahhh...no, not so much.  I will always be an infertile, and nope, my infertility is not behind me. It has already started and Trey is 3 months old…no AF in sight (nope, not breastfeeding, no milk here!)…headed back to the RE soon to see what our options are. He will be changing my meds due to the severe preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome and I am pretty curious as to what the next steps will be.

Infertility has permanently changed the person that I am. No matter what, infertility hurts and for me that hurt will never go away. I can’t have that conversation and know that IF won’t be a HUGE factor…you know the one, the one that goes like this “How many kids do you want to have, and when are you going to start trying?” So many people I know would answer that with “We are DONE!” Or “DH is having a vasectomy!” Or “We want to wait until baby is XX months old so we can have them spaced out perfectly.” GAG! To have that luxury…

It has been extremely hard for me to have “normal” conversations with friends. Well, I can’t. I sit and nod in agreement, but in all honesty I don’t have many people I can have an IF conversation with. No IRL friends. I have unloaded on so many people IRL, and thankfully they are good listeners as I really needed someone to listen to me. Sure, there are many people my age that struggle to get pregnant a 2nd time, but it doesn’t help me to hear that it took so-and-so 7 months and so-and-so almost a year to get pregnant with her 2nd. It isn’t IF until it has been a year of TTC. I have a few bloggy friends and message board friends that can relate to this IF journey. So many of my IRL friends don’t know about the 3 shots a day I was taking, the busted blood vessels from those darn needles, they don’t know about the hot flashes from being in menopause, or the hopeful look on the nurses face the first time I actually had follies growing, and then the utter disappointment to find that I had overstimulated, what about the fact that if we had to go a step further and go for more expensive treatments? We couldn’t afford it. But we would have done it anyway.

So...on that note...Once an infertile, always an infertile.

Rant over.  Won't write about this again as it would be a waste of my time.  I will comment on comments though...I welcome the comments...how do you feel about this?

Catching up...

Well, things have been great.  I sit and wonder how I fit it all in every day though.  Well...I don't I guess. 
We need a maid, and someone to mow the grass.  Why, you ask?  We are working opposite shifts.  Need I say more?  :)

So, little man is still waking every 3 or so hours (the only time he sleeps longer than this is when I fall asleep with him on the recliner which I know I shouldn't do but at 3am I tend to pass out in the recliner).  We have started cloth diapers, I have a large variety of them - prefolds and Thirsties covers, gdiapers, Best Bottom hybrid diaper (fav so far), and a few different kinds of pocket diapers.  Honestly, I have enough diapers to diaper that kid for a week without washing...so I am going to sell some of them.  That is a pretty cool thing about cloth, if I don't like it, someone out there will buy it!