Thursday, June 17, 2010

Yard of the Month/week with my neice/cycle update


blueberry pickin

worn out after pickin

posin it up!

eating her "treat" after peeing on the potty

reading "el arbol generoso", the giving tree (she loves me to read in spanish!)

This is my first official week of vacation (full week anyway) and I have been busier now that when at work! I have had my neice every day aside from today, and have thoroughly enjoyed every minute with her. Her parents both work, and her babysitter is on vacation this week so I offered to keep her. She is so happy and precious and brings such joy to everyone around her. After each of my m/c and surgeries, I always ask my mom to please pick up GiGi on her way so I could have those chubby sweet arms around my neck to console me.

Last week the town's garden club knocked on our door and asked if we would accept the yard of the month award. Are you kidding me!!!??? Gladly! I love that we have an older home we have been fixing up and not in the flashiest neighborhood in town. There are half a million dollar homes all over this town with landscape to boot, but the lady said she had been driving around town all day and loves that our house always has something in bloom and there was none that looked better this month. We are insanely proud. Yes, my DH has a lawn business but the flowers beds are all me :)We also got the award last August and so now we are batting 2 for 10 months! LOL!! We are remodeling bit by bit, and the house looks so great! I will post a finished pic as the door was just hung today and the sign is in the yard.

This week while G napped, I washed walls, doors, blinds, and baseboards. I cleaned out closets, got stuff together to give the the SHL Missions, have gotten up early every morning to work out (I have lost 10 lbs in 3 months :) We have played tea party every afternoon then walk to see what flowers have bloomed. G loves to water the plants. She is not quite 2 but already very well potty trained which posed a problem yesterday.

SEW and G and I went to pick blueberries at a local blueberry farm and it was insanely hot. It was only 10 in the morning, but I had sweat dripping in places I have never had drip before. I was worried about SEW, but she is one trooper of a pregnant gal. She didn't stop and she and G ate more than they picked I think! G had to go to the bathroom and all they had to use were port a johns. I did not want her to use that germ infested hole, so I put on her little swimmers and she kept walking around saying, "DD I go poo poo on potty", which means she needs to pee. I know the poor thing was confused and needed to sit on the toilet, but none where available. Her face was beet red and I didn't bring a sippy cup for her. We had to leave, and I felt bad b/c Sew only had a half a bucket picked! She was red as a beet and I was worried about her and baby Sew too. But we left, soaking wet, and went to my mom's to swim for the afternoon. Sew gave her some little colored rubber ducks, and she was trying to find them at our tea party later. I only found one - I think the others are in the pool still!

I asked Sew's opinion - honest opinion about what I should do this month. The docs gave us the go ahead to ttc, but I am nervous obviously. They basically described my losses as unexplained and I am just to blindly dive in again. She suggested seeing her Napro doc and getting total results of P tests and estrogen as well. Of course I am hard headed and ready, so we have been ttc this week. She said that telling me not to try is like telling rice not to be white! I am hoping like mad the herbal tea, acupuncture, yoga, and general relaxing will be our ticket this time. I used ovulation sticks and got an almost same color, but not quite reading on CD 12 then have gotten lighter from there. I have been taking my temp in the am too, and is has been rising this whole week. So....here we go, maybe.

Tomorrow, Blake and I are heading the Little Rock to see my best friendm her husband, and her son - our Godson! I can't wait. Then we are getting up early to head to a house on the White River with my entire family. 4 siblings, their spouses, mom and dad, and 6 neices and nephews. We were supposed to go the the beach, but with the oil spill, well, we had to cancel. This place is going to be awesome though! Trout fishing, laying on the dock reading and relaxing, playing with the kids, watching movies (the house has a 12 person mini theater!) and just being with family. I can't wait. Blake has to leave early :( due to work so half the week I will be without him which I hate, but the medical bills are rolling in including his $1000 bill for the ER when he was stung last week and swelled up like a puffer fish. I will post pics of the fam vacay next week, but until then, adios y hasta luego!!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Why a mother never forgets

Anyone who has miscarried, will find such peace from this article below. I found it on a comment from a fellow miscarrier on hannahsprayer website.

Women carry cells from every child they ever conceive, it stated. That seemed like science fiction to me so I began to contact the researchers involved and to read the research documents. Suddenly I understood why women who have abortions and who miscarry never forget the lost children.

The phenomena is called “human microchimerism”. Early in the pregnancy an exchange of cells begins between mother and child. We are not positive what the means of cellular exchange is, but we know it happens. At the time that the child leaves the mother’s body, whether as the result of an abortion, a miscarriage, a cesearean section or a vaginal delivery, even more cells are sent to the mother. It also seems that if the pregnancy ends early, an even greater number is transferred.

These cells seem to be some type of stem cell and are stored in the medulla of the mother’s brain: where instinct lies, but also throughout her body. They have been found even 37 years later so they appear to be replacing themselves. The current research on the cells is focusing on the fact that in many cases they seem to be reparative cells of some kind. In an early case, a woman with thyroid disease had her thyroid removed. The doctors discovered that the thyroid seemed to be repairing itself and they found that the repaired part were cells of her son.

If we carry cells the rest of our lives, we are truly linked to our children in a biological way!

I don't know about some of you, but I feel good knowing I am still linked in some crazy medical way to our babies as well as spiritually :)

Saturday, June 5, 2010

TCM and acupuncture please work!

School is out! Now I have to figure out a way to be calm about not working for 2 months and try to relax. There are a million things I need to do this summer, but I am going to try to do as little as possible to create a stressfree reproductive system and allow our next chance of pregnancy every possible chance to make it. Our family beach vacation has been cancelled due to the oil spill and all I have on my agenda is keeping my joy of a neice next week for a few days and helping the Missionaries of Charity inner city youth camp for 3 weeks in July which I am very excited about especially because most of the children are hispanics.

I went for my progesterone test 2 weeks ago and talked to the nurse about TCM, traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture which the clinic endorses and allows a TCM doctor to have free consults at their clinic. I have researched and read tons of supportive evidence not only for IVF success, but for rpl success as well. I met with Dr. X and he diagnosed what I had already diagnosed myself with after reading "the infertility cure" by Randine Lewis. I have Kidney Yang, Kidney Chi, a weak spleen, and my liver does not function well because of the kindney yang. What does all this mean? Basically what I already knew myself. I have a hard time relaxed, enjoying down time, am restless, and I have a cold uterus. What? Cold Uterus? He said he is not surprised I cannot keep a pregnancy in this state. He recommended twice weekly session and an herbal tea concotion. So I went yesterday for my first acupuncture treatment which I was pretty freaked out about but it was very relaxing! I barely felt the needles and he put ALOT of them all around my uterus, lower knees, upper middle arms and put me under a heat lamp to reduce stagantion and coldness of the uterus. I flipped over about 30 minutes later and more needles in the back, lower legs and another 30 minutes under the lamp. Chinese music was flowing and it was a very very relaxing experience. I checked out for a whopping $170 with 7 bags of herbal tea concotion to make at home and drink 3 x a day after meals at room temperature. I didn't even want to try last night, instead we went out for Mexican with friends where I enjoyed a beer and a margarita in place of the tea. Ha!

This morning I was dreading the tea like the plague. I finally brewed it up and still have my candle going strong in the kitchen to drown the smell of the tea. I chugged it and literally almost threw it right back up. I downed a diet coke (caffiene free) and still can taste the concoction in my mouth. This picture is the tea and also the herbs used to make it. The whole time I kept thinking, this is for a baby, you can do it....Now I wonder how I will be able to do it 3 times a day. The good news is once we are pregnant (God willing)I will quit the tea and only do the acupuncture. I told him we cannot afford twice weekly sessions and the tea mixture but will do once a week. I mean that was going to be $190 every week, as it is just once a week will be $130, Lord please help me get pregnant this month so the tea can stop not only for the difficulty in getting the stuff down, but the cost as well! He said he will be able to tell me I am pregnant right away, long before an ept test can tell based on my pulse. I almost don't wanna know so soon, that is just 2 weeks longer for me to worry and 2 weeks longer before I can see my doctor as well.

I am so not a person who buys into New Age type stuff, but the Chinese have been treating fertility issues since 2000 bc! Interesting stuff, right? I have researched it to death and got many positive stories from yahoo groups members, it is worth a shot to me. So with this and the progesterone suppositories my RE gave me, maybe this will be the combo to give us our healthy baby we so long for and desire...
I am quite nervous that so many of you take TONS of medicines to get and stay pregnant, and I am only taking 1 folguard daily and then these suppositories in a couple weeks. SHould I be asking for more? Or thankful I don't need anything else according to the doctors? I just wanted to be taking SOMETHING to make me feel like we are doing something to prevent another loss. I am eating totally organic (aside from the Mexican last night) and going to try to cram so many healthful foods into my jaws from here on out. I also have quit walking my wild dogs (feel guilty about it a bit) and have been walking on my own and doing "restoring fertility" yoga DVDS which has a different set for each part of the cycle. I bought foods which are supposed to be good for my kidney, spleen problems like dates, cantaloupe, pumpkin seeds, flaxseed, bell peppers, shrimp, black beans, oranges, and have quit all caffiene. If any of you resident experts know of anything else I should be taking, feel free to prescribe it to me! Fish oil? Co enzyme 10? another prenatal in addition to the folguard? I am open to any and all suggestions. I am a nervous wreck to try again, but can't imagine not trying. I have to let go.....and let God.

This is the tea and the herbs used to make that delicious (ugh) tasting delight.