Lessons I Can't Seem to Learn

I have been a parent for almost fourteen years. There are some things that perpetually stymie me.  One of them is weekends.  I get cranky when we don't get out of the house; I don't mind putzing around the house reading and such, but when we need to do things, like go to the grocery, and children don't get dressed, etc, and I can't leave, I feel like I'm being held hostage.  And more often than not being at home is not the same as getting stuff done at home, because the child requires my active involvement.  Now that LG sleeps until, like, 11:00 am on weekends, I don't plan on doing anything with her in the morning.  But still, Tiny Boy.  This morning--after multiple hours of putzing and playing and waiting for him to get dressed--I finally said I'm not waiting anymore for you and just went outside to rake the leaves.  He followed shortly thereafter (he wanted to rake).  But ditching a child is not a usually useful or appropriate strategy.

I am also prone to headaches.  Although this is much much much better than it was when LG was little and I actually needed to see a neurologist on a regular basis, it is still a thing.  And The Headache makes me cranky--like, it's not just the pain but irritability is an actual symptom--and noise is a major contributing factor, and my kids are like fucking LOUD.  I ended up letting Tiny Boy watch several hours of TV this afternoon so I could sit with a heating pad and try to get work done, which wasn't entirely successful, but at least I didn't need to listen to noisy toys and shrieking (why why why is he so shrill?!).

I finally realized I just needed to suck it up and take Imitrex and my life has been much more pleasant for the past couple hours.  Note to self: just take the fucking Imitrex.

Listening

It's an understatement to say I have a lot on my plate right now.  Juggling four book manuscripts is about three too many.  And Tiny Boy has been waking hourly for some inexplicable reason.  Some separation anxiety.  Some stalling out bedtime.  Calling Mommy, Mommy.

Some craziness at work, with the admin stuff.

I've been dealing with The Headache off and on for several days.  Started with the kids pterodactyl screaming.  They literally made me ill--happened immediately, the throbbing and the nausea.  And now almost any noise is too much.

I was more or less okay yesterday.  But really feel horrible today and finally have decided this is my body's way of saying too much.  So I'm having a quiet, rest-in-bed day.  And maybe will get some work done and maybe I won't but in the end it's all okay.

Middle-Aged Mama Hangover

I woke up this morning right around 7:00 to something that sounded vaguely like a guitar.  I thought, if LG is making music at 7:00 am I will not be pleased.  Kid was sound asleep.  Noise coming from the undergrad neighbors whose backyard backs up to mine.  It occurred to me I felt like I'd gone to a frat party, which actually I never did as an undergrad, and woke up hungover.  That same headache and godawful dry feeling in the mouth that I've rarely experienced as a result of drinking but have felt often as the aftermath of a migraine and/or taking benadryl at night.

But apparently when you plan an event that's really poorly attended and there's a lot of good food you end up eating it, even if you know you'll regret it the next day.  Yeah, so I had a major wheat binge.  And then I was keyed up and had trouble sleeping.  Now I feel ugh.

And LG said she didn't think it was a good idea for her to walk to the coffee shop and buy me some coffee.  Why not, I asked.  Because, she said, I'm not allowed to walk that far by myself.  Oh, yeah, I said.  And, Mom, I don't think coffee shops sell things to kids without grownups.

The Cheap Seats

There's a mega-concert on campus tonight.  A band I actually like.  I can hear it from my bedroom, with the windows closed.  If I went outside, I'd probably be able to enjoy it.  (Have I mentioned we live about a mile from campus?)

Alas, The Headache hasn't been this bad since I've been pregnant.  Actually had to crack out the good (OB approved) drugs.  It's the pulsing in my ear that did me in.

I think now I'm going to close my eyes and reminisce about a certain ex-boyfriend who introduced me to this band, back when I was a twenty-one year old grad student with jet black hair.  Sigh.

Grocery Shopping (7w4d)

(And now for something a bit more lighthearted.)

They say you shouldn't go grocery shopping while hungry.  I suspect that's especially true for pregnant women.

I went to the store to buy bananas, an avocado, and hopefully a mango.

The avocadoes were either mushy or too hard to be usable.  Ditto the mangos.

I ended up bringing home a carton of organic salad, a huge granny smith apple, lemonade, ground turkey, a sample size box of chocolates, and a frozen single-serving pepperoni pizza.

Which is the worst idea ever, given that it's basically a migraine on a plate.  But we'll see what the embryo has to say about it in fifteen minutes...


Update:  Note to self:  frozen pizza is NEVER worth The Headache.  Dumbass.

A Small Public Service Announcement, or a Note to Self

Vodka and cranberry juice, migraine medication, and anticoagulation therapy really don't mix. Especially with a history of ulcers. Urgh.

More later. Now I'm off to an interview...

A Day in the Life of a Control Freak

Today has been rough. I'm desperately trying to move forward and getting impeded every step of the way.

1. Apparently all my paperwork for tenure has not been submitted to the college (that's my chair's issue) but our incompetent secretary asked me today for digital copies of documents that don't exist because I was not asked to write them. I'm sure this is a miscommunication--I emailed my chair to doublecheck--but nevertheless, I'm pissed. WHY CAN'T PEOPLE JUST DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS WHEN THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO?! I got my shit in July 1 as I was told, and they're just figuring this out NOW?

2. When the same secretary--whom I actually like on a personal level--was too "busy" to facilitate the copying of my syllabi and scanning of documents I need for Monday, I went to secretary #2, who let me use the no-faculty-allowed copy machine in order to get things done in a total of 5 minutes.

3. I am once again trying to organize a meeting for the student organization I allegedly oversee, because the students themselves don't do it. I hate this kind of nonsense. I just want to do my JOB, not organize meetings.

4. DCL has not fucking sent me the stats on the donor's previous cycles. I sort of need that information to make a final decision.

5. Dr. Gorgeous's nurses have not called me back to tell me that yes, they've looked at a calendar, and yes, I can do a January IUI without compromising March.

6. According to our latest email exchange, Dr. Gorgeous wants to see this donor like NOW and get her on the pill. (I guess I've made March-March-March clear enough to her, anyway!) But I need to meet with a fucking lawyer to sign a contract that I can read on my own, thank you very much, before that can happen. So she wants me to call her nurses (umm, why can't they do their fucking jobs?) and call the DCL (again, why can't she do her fucking job) to get this started. I'm happy to sign the contract and write the check and have it in the mail TOMORROW but this time-taking bullshit is making me go out of my mind.


I'm not sure if it's the stress of all this DE stuff and people being idiots or the beginning-of-cycle-estrogen-crash, but the Headache is back. (I think I actually need to see the neurologist's NP for the first time in about 18 months to get drug refills, although I'd rather not be taking the drugs.) The only things that seem to calm me down right now are (a) brisk walks in the freaking cold, (b) eating things that require a lot of jaw work (like crunchy granola), and (c) vodka, which is, frankly, wearing a hole in my stomach and probably not helping with the headache.

I need a personal assistant I can trust. Fuck.

I have started t his post three times.

I have started it three times because I am rather, uh, incoherent to say the least. Which does not bode well for my afternoon class. However, I have taught this text under worse circumstances* and I do have something resembling a lesson plan that I could teach in my sleep. Which might literally happen.

Two things about doing a stimulated cycle that I (apparently) forgot: (1) I don't sleep. (2) The Headache. Three nights of three different versions of insomnia (the one where I don't fall asleep, the one where I'm awake for 2-3 hours in the middle of the night, the one where I wake up at some ungodly early hour (umm, 3:30?) and then don't fall back to sleep). I need about 8.5 hours of sleep to be a functioning human being; I do better with 9. Sleep deprivation is enough to give me a headache. But add it to a tendency toward menstrual migraines and taking anti-estrogen drugs, and you have a very bad time indeed.

I woke up this morning with a headache that I felt in my nose. That never bodes well. By 10:00, before I went to class #1, I had to take a triptan. And found myself writing really incoherent things on student essays and not being able to string a sentence together. And the damn thing still wasn't gone. Enter a grande coffee. Headache's gone. So is my brain function.

Oh, I really can't wait for this cycle to be over. Or the semester.




*Have I mentioned that the last time I taught this class was The Bad Year, which included being in the midst of the 5 week miscarriage on my thirtieth birthday? That was the semester I literally sat in my office and cried and then went to class. And somehow I got some of my highest course evaluations ever and ended up winning a campus teaching award. Not sure what lesson there is to be learned from that.

Courtesy of FedEx

I took my first DHEA pill about 3 hours ago. About 1 hour ago The Headache returned with a vengeance. Coincidence? I hope so, or that's $90 worth of pills I won't be taking because I can live with many side effects but The Headache is not one of them.

But LG was fascinated by the idea of getting pills in the mail. Particularly blue ones. Great.

Whining at 8dp3dt

• I have that tickle in the back of my throat that usually precedes a cold. LG reports that only 6 of 14 children were present today (while I do question her math skills, I did receive an email from the principal regarding the high number of recent absences, possibly due to H1N1). Let me say it loudly, in case the universe is listening: I do not want swine flu in my house!
• The headache? It is back. While I might hope that this is the headache that comes with early pregnancy, I am afraid it's the headache that comes with a rapid drop of progesterone and the onset of a new cycle.
• What is up with the random email requests from students I don't know who want to interview me (good lord) in regard to subjects I know nothing about but fall somewhere under the vague heading of my larger discipline?
• Why are my own students all freaking out and anxious? I mean, I understand they have a midterm and all, but they generated their own essay topics in class!
• I lost two hours of much-needed progesterone sleep last night because LG woke me up with some weird moaning noise. And the light was on. And her pacifier was missing. And once I'm out of bed dealing with kid stuff, I'm done sleeping.

Now I am going to watch TV on one of the two channels that actually comes in, drink some hot tea, and wallow. Care to join me?

Random Bullets on Life and IVF

• Migraine last night. Not intense, thankfully, but accompanied by nausea which hasn't happened in YEARS. Thankfully one dose of Amerge took care of it.
• This morning I woke up with a crick in my neck. Not sure what that's about (stress much?). The acupuncturist stuck a bunch of needles along the back of my neck and head. It helped a little, but not nearly enough. I'll be making friends with the heating pad tonight.
• Antral follicle count this morning at 10, which might even be a bit low given that the tech could barely see my left ovary (and 7 of those 10 were on the right). I know AFC doesn't translate into good stim, but there's no way to have a good stim without a decent AFC, and this is pretty good for me.
• The coolest thing? I felt my lazy left ovary wake up after acupuncture. Please decide to join the party this time!!
• Microdose lupron tonight. I'm playing by my RE's rules, at least until day 5. Then if things aren't going well, all bets are off.
• The med tech who drew my blood? Absolutely fabulous. She got three vials from the left--the vein that can only be touched about once every six weeks--with no trouble whatsoever. I'll take whatever small good things I can.
• I've deliberately made my class prep "easy" for the next two weeks (other than that whole grading thing). So tonight, when LG decides she's willing to sleep, it's porch meditation followed by an hour of TV. I'm so freaking tired, people, and it's just getting started.

Let the Headache Begin!

Three things happened my last year in grad school: (1) my on-again, off-again partner moved to another state, (2) I decided I wanted to have a baby (with him?), (3) The Headache became an unmanageable, needed-to-be-seriously-medicated thing. The third landed me in the doctor's office and got me on prophylactic migraine medication which lowered my blood pressure to such an extent that I stopped taking it within a couple weeks. Instead, I stopped taking the pill and went on a wheat-free, dairy-free diet (if I'd only known that SOY was the real problem) and took more Imitrex than I ever thought possible. Then I "tried" to get pregnant when the boy came to visit, stopped taking Imitrex, and started taking prenatals. (I might have had a pregnancy and miscarriage in there, but that's a strange and complicated story with absolutely no clinical support.)

The Headache continued to be a problem the first year at my job, largely because I have so many migraine triggers (foods, scents, stress, lack of sleep, shifts in barometric pressure, you name it). Amazingly, when I actively started ttc (around the same time I finally made it to an actual neurologist), it largely went away. After my first trimester of pregnancy with LG, it was GONE and didn't return until the week I stopped breastfeeding (at which point I got another stash of Imitrex and other goodies). Then, new job, new stress, new and improved Headache and even more drugs, including some anti-convulsant medication that literally made my face feel tingly. I started seeing a chiropractor, got the job stress and caffeine intake largely under control: bye bye Headache. That was most of 2008. Fast forward to the Year of Dr. Gorgeous Puts Me on Every Hormone Possible: not so much.

So here I am, back ON the pill in order to (knock wood) get knocked up in October (let's forget for a moment that I am APA+ and not really supposed to be on estrogen, that's what I take the baby aspirin for). I fully expect the imminent arrival of the Headache which will not abate for a solid six weeks or more. Because as soon as I go off the pill, I'm back in class, and then on Ganirelix, and then on stims, and then hopefully pregnant. So I will be good. I will watch what I eat. I will sit on my porch and meditate (I am not doing acupuncture, sorry Dr. G). I'll take my Folgard and baby aspirin and Omega-3s and maybe even pick up some coq 10 or l arginine or royal jelly for good measure. So let the Headache (I mean IVF Round 2) begin!

Things To Whine About (IVF edition)

• The vein in my left arm is now useless. I have supremely easy veins to draw from (I used to joke that I could just take a straw and poke it in my arm), but according to the nurse I saw today, they're also very small. So they collapse. And the left one *rolls* now, since a blowout during the June hcg drama. It hurts like hell no matter who does the draw. Blood draws used to be the painless part of this process for me.
• The Ganirelix headache. When I saw "May Cause Headache" on the package, I was sure I'd have a migraine within about 10 minutes. I was wrong. It took a few days, but now The Headache has officially returned. I really hate this. I'd rather not be taking so much medication right now. But without it, I'd be in bed all day.
• We ran into a colleague/friend at the farmer's market this morning. She asked how the summer was going. I said okay, because, really, what else is there to say? This has been the summer of death and despair.
• It's really hard to be zen when it's gloomy and your head feels like it's about to explode. Today might need to be movie day for LG. Hmmm....

Things I Am Stressing About

1. This cycle quite possibly being a no-go due to the Sunday factor.
2. This cycle working and ending in beta hell.
3. This cyle working and ending in a later m/c.
4. This cycle not working and needing to move to IVF.
5. Paying for IVF.
6. Scheduling IVF around other aspects of life.
7. Lots of needles (pretty low on the list, but still).
8. Lots of rain (will LG's window leak again?)
9. All the work that should be done on my house.
10. The elusive book contract. (Please, marvelous feminist press, take my book!)

That's just the top ten. I woke up with the headache this morning; that's never a good sign. I think it might be worth finding $60 to have a massage.

Updated to add: I have now forbidden myself to Google anything about IVF, Ganirelix, or MTHFR. I am not going to think about IVF until I'm in the 2ww for this cycle. Left ovary is getting surly; still hoping for IUI #6 on Saturday or Monday. Taking life a minute at a time--and now I'm calling the massage therapist.

What I'm worried about now

is the possibility that I might have already ovulated. Yeah, I know, I'm only cd 7. Yeah, I know there wasn't any sonographic evidence of that happening. But that was certainly the case back in December, when I told Dr. Evil I surged on cd 8, he didn't believe me, and I had ultrasound after ultrasound after ultrasound, only to eventually learn on cd 19 that, gee, I was right.

The reason I'm worried is that I feel *nothing*. And I can reliably count on feeling my ovaries, even on non-medicated cycles, from the beginning of my cycle through ovulation. Other than a little "scratching" sensation yesterday, that all stopped Monday night with a huge *pop* on my left side.

That is, I'm not expecting to see anything when I go back on Saturday. Doing another unmedicated IUI or jumping straight to IVF is sounding more and more appealing.

And in other news: can I just say that I am really sick of The Headache?

Spring has arrived!

The forsythia is in full bloom, daffodils are waving in the wind, and even my recalcitrant tulips have managed to poke their way out of the ground. I think all the plants survived the winter (though one rose bush looks a bit questionable).

Two days ago I was wearing a wool coat and gloves. Today I'm in a tank top. I kid you not.

Between the temperature swings, the growing things, and the Femara I'm having a doozy of a headache. At least, this early in the cycle, I can actually treat it. Thank you, LG, for going to bed without a fuss.

On Take-Your-Daughter-To-Work Day

LG accompanied me to campus today. She drew pictures and played on my computer while I got ready for class #1 and occupied herself during class #1 (with only the occasional whisper, "Mommy, come here," and only then when the class was broken into small groups). We then celebrated her marvelous behavior with a trip to a local cafe for lunch and headed back to the office for office hours. No students showed. I prepped, she drew pictures and played Connectagons, and then I dropped her at a friend's house while I taught class #2. (As well behaved as LG was for the first class, the second [the longer of the two] would not have gone well with a small guest.) All in all, I have to say it worked out. And I think LG only heard the word "shit" uttered twice. Good times.

Now she's conked out with her whale and manatee (and the pacifier she still hasn't given up), and I'm nursing The Headache which not surprisingly has made a reappearance (at least it waited until after the conference). I have a ton of work to do in the next two weeks--major grading, annual review materials, reading awards submissions, committee work, writing a letter of rec, and more--but I'm taking the night off. For the next hour, it's me, House, and a cup of hot chocolate. And then bed.

Self-Destructive Behavior 101

Known migraine triggers: milk, soy, wheat, wine.

Since Friday I have consumed all of the above, thanks to a university-sponsored reception, a baby shower, and my own stupidity. I mean, I already had a headache, so why not make the most of it?