Laughing with Sarah

Three months...and twelve days... (April 8, 2017) Four months (April 28, 2017) Once again, two months have flown by in the blink of an eye. All of the sudden, my little newborn is not so little anymore. Eleanor, you are bright-eyed, curious, emotive, sweet, smiley, easygoing, and feeling so much older than just your short four months on this earth. On the health front, you are doing great. At your four month check-up last week, you checked in as a long skinny baby who is pretty darn ahead of the curve when it comes to developmental milestones. It was nice to be at the doctor and have only good news. Earlier in March, you had a weird vomiting episode that sent us back up to the St. Mary's emergency department to get checked out. The good news is that everything was fine, inside-belly-wise (you tackled the repeat upper GI test like a pro!). The bad news is that you had sprouted an incisional hernia under your previous incision (a little soft lump poking out of your belly)...

When Eleanor was born, I was totally shocked that we'd had a girl, since I'd been convinced we were having a boy. As I was processing the happy news of our little girl, I had a strange thought: "Hm. Since it's a girl, she can't have hypospadias like Sam did, so yay for not having to worry about surgery in the first year of this new baby's life!" I'm pretty sure I said this out loud to Matt. I'm pretty sure I jinxed everything. Eleanor and I came home from the hospital on Saturday, December 31, just in time for New Year's. All was well. In her first few days home, she didn't so much love sleeping at night - hated being on her back, and was awake every 45 minutes or so, which meant a lot of bleary-eyed days for us parents, and at least a couple nights of sitting up with her and sleeping on the couch. But other than that, all was normal. We went in for a weight check on Monday, January 2, and she had gained a great amount of weight, and the ...

Because Owlet's c-section was a scheduled one, and because it was scheduled for December 27, the only way that I was going to spend Christmas with my family was if they all came here, which they did. My mom came in time for Christmas Eve, and then everybody else came in Christmas Day or the 26th. Christmas Eve was a lazy morning of breakfast out (per tradition), and then gearing up for three evening worship services. After the first of those three services, both of my legs blew up like balloons. It hit me, then and there, that despite all of my anxiety about the c-section procedure, I was so very ready to be done with this pregnancy. I was tired. My legs were puffy. I had crazy heartburn. I'd slept on the couch more nights than in my bed over the last couple weeks because I couldn't get comfortable. I drank lots of water the rest of the evening, and came home between services to put on pj's and put my feet up. I committed myself to sit through worship except when I ...

It's been a heck of a week and a half, so apologies for the tardiness of this post! Here are some pictures for you. 39 weeks - December 23, 2016 - My last regular weekly belly shot! December 27, 2016, 5:00 a.m. - The very last belly shot before heading to the hospital for baby day! December 27, 2016, 8:00 a.m. - Welcome to the world, Eleanor Ann! A cute, chubby-cheeked GIRL, born 8lbs 8oz and 21 inches long. Our beautiful sweetheart. December 27, late morning - Mama gets back from recovery and gets her first real snuggles with Eleanor December 27, evening - Sam gets to hang out with his baby sister. He is immediately smitten. Enjoy the pictures for now. There's a lot more to the story! Still to come are a write-up of Eleanor's birth story (boring for her, a little more exciting for me), and then an account of the last couple days, which have found us up at Mayo Clinic with a sick baby needing emergency surgery at a tender nine days old. We're still...

Two doctor's appointments have taken place since my last entry. The first one was quick and unsettling. It was a busy day and the clinic was running late, which wasn't a big deal for me, but seemed to up the anxiety of everybody around me. Weight was up a small but normal amount. Blood pressure still hovering in the 130s/80s. It was one of those half-naked appointments (fun times), to do the Group B strep swabs and a quick check for any progress whatsoever. Turns out this baby is hanging high, and there are absolutely no markers that (s)he is going anywhere anytime soon. Dr. Locke and I had another quick blood pressure chat, and even though I could tell that neither of us liked my numbers, he also said that, rationally, there was no reason to be worried. He said that, as a doctor, if he hadn't known my history, my BP numbers wouldn't cause him any concern. And so to be fair and reasoned with me as a professional, there was no sense in getting anxious. He also said tha...

Wednesday morning was transfer day. We left Sam with an early morning babysitter when we left the house at 5:00 a.m. to make it to Rochester for our 6:30 a.m. report time. We went up to the same floor as last Friday. The same pod of rooms. A couple of the same nurses. Our room had only chairs this time, not a bed, and the gown they gave me was easily twice the size of the one I wore on Friday. I couldn't keep the thing up over my shoulders! Thank goodness for the robe, which was more normal-sized, that I kept tied tightly around me. They took my medical history down (yet again) and gave me a small dose of Valium (which I really didn't want to do, but they assured me it was standard practice, that it would relax me, but more, that it would relax all of the lady parts that they'd be messing with, and if that would help our chances, then Valium it was). Then onto the wheely bed and down to pre-op. I was really glad when I figured out that the Valium wasn't making me a...

Here's the before and after shot from last Friday's egg retrieval. I love how the main difference in the two pictures is the presence of toast (or lack thereof). I guess this is your visual proof that my retrieval was uneventful and that I tolerated the sedation well. :) We left the house before 6:00 a.m., dropping Sam off at a friend's house (who would take him to daycare when it opened) on our way out. Our check-in time was 7:30 a.m. We got there just fine, checked in, and went up to the outpatient surgery floor, where I got all gowned up and IV-ed. We were all ready to go by about 8:20 a.m. And then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, around 9:30 a.m., they came to get me. I hopped up onto a wheely-bed, and they took me down to pre-surgery, where some nice nurses and a nice anesthesiologist all came to check in with me. And then more waiting. I was there about half an hour, during which time I did one of those "doze off and feel like I'm fal...

To follow the whole story, begin here: Tuesday, November 19 Wednesday, November 20 I think that it was about 4am when the decision was made to start the pitocin, regardless of my slow cervix. Part of me was happy that we'd be making more progress soon, and part of me was just. so. tired. They started the drip in my left arm, and I did start to feel a few small contractions. They did repeat labs to check on my enzyme level and all that jazz. It was when those results came back that things moved into quick motion. As it turns out, my platelets had tanked overnight. Dropping from something like 140 to 78. And it's not that 78 is a dangerous number, though it's low, but the concern was for how quickly my preeclampsia had progressed. Dr. Locke commented that even with the pitocin, it'd be at least another 12 hours before we delivered, and he didn't want to risk my platelets continuing to drop. So we were back in "get this baby out as soon as possible" ...

Ready to go! (IV in right hand...sad band-aid on left hand...) Nope. Didn't keep up tracking my meds here this time. It was a quick cycle and I was busy. Having upped my dosages to speed things up, my estrogen level was up to 4000 by this past Tuesday morning, which (according to Dr. Google) is on the high side of normal. So this probably why my doctor had me trigger Tuesday night for a Thursday morning retrieval. Yesterday's retrieval went well. Well, mostly.  They had trouble getting my IV in, so yeah, that wasn't great. A nurse was digging around in my left hand and I am so surprised that I didn't faint. Yuck. But try two on my other hand went quickly and easily. I wore my lucky socks yesterday - socks that I had started knitting during our first IVF cycle but didn't finish - and the last thing I remember as I drifted off in the procedure room was explaining the socks after being complimented on them. I woke up easily and felt good but sore. ...

Today was our frozen embryo transfer!  Both frozen blasts thawed well and expanded like they were supposed to, so both of them were good for being transferred. All ready to go! Beauty and the Astronaut Unlike last time, I drank a NORMAL amount of water instead of a HUGE amount of water (the procedure is ultrasound guided so you need a full bladder...fun times).  And since I wasn't in pain/feeling like I was going to explode during the procedure, I actually paid a little more attention to what was going on.  Two thoughts: First, that no matter what you do, the transfer isn't a comfortable  thing.  Lots of poking and prodding.  Second, that there is absolutely no shame when it comes to a procedure like this.  You're pretty darn on display for the doctor and nurses and embryologist.  Ah, the things we do to try to have babies... I've spent all afternoon on the couch, resting and keeping my feet up.  Even though most doctors thes...

Just shy of three weeks ago we were here: So many meds! Needles... And vials, and a sharps container... And an injection pen... And then this morning... Matt looks like an astronaut... And we are all smiley as we head in for our embryo transfer!! So this morning, we transferred two day-five blastocysts, both having come through their preimplantation genetic diagnosis looking great! And then a third blast also came through PGD looking great, so that one is all set to be frozen for a future cycle, and there is one other blast that they sent off for testing this morning, and if that one looks good, they'll freeze that one as well! Beyond that, there are two iffy embryos that don't look promising, but that are still growing, so my RE will keep an eye on them as well. This news was a huge relief after last night, when I got an email from Dr. Morris telling me that three embryos had reached blastocyst stage and were sent off for genetic testing, but t...

Saturday morning went great. We arrived at 900 North Michigan Ave. in Chicago right on time, bright and early at 5:30 a.m. I'm very familiar with the 900 North building - there is a whole beautiful mall/shopping center there that my family would visit during our annual pre-Christmas Chicago day, where we would walk Michigan Avenue, visit the Christmas tree and windows at Marshall Field's, and head to the 900 North Michigan shops, mostly to see the large Christmas tree and huge wreath...and to visit the Jessica McClintock boutique, where we girls would ooh and aah over all of the dresses. I had no idea that 900 North also housed a surgery center! Anyway, we were one of a handful of couples slated for the earliest surgery slots, and very quickly after arriving, we'd filled out all of our paperwork and were ushered to a small room that would serve as both pre-op and recovery for me. This is me, waiting. I look far happier than I actually felt! I changed into a hos...