TomKat Completely Ripped Off My Name

how are things going lately in the world of sarah/robb, you ask? (i wish we had a cool moniker like "sarb" or "robbah." please commence using those).

things are pretty good. we've both been really turning to God lately and i'm finding some peace and even maybe some (gasp! what?) patience in Him.

(on kind of a side note, we went to a great conference today on homosexuality and the Christian church and the conflict betwixt them and it was wonderful- check out the organization, The Gay Christian Network, if you're curious. like curious, curious, or just curious. either way). :)

i am typically loath to read the bible because i find it a) confusing, b) boring, and c) there's some stuff in there that i don't like and have trouble jiving that stuff with the God that i very much love..but i've been feeling compelled to get into it lately.

so my formal bible study is going through the book of genesis. i don't remember exactly why we chose it, but it seemed like a good place to start. (i jest). no, actually, when we were reading hebrews last year, there were many references to genesis and although we feel we know the stories, none of us had actually ever read the whole book, so...here we are.

anyway....fertility issues are RAMPANT in this part of the bible. fascinating how much time is spent on the subject when, at the time it was written, women were muy non importante. and it's not just like, "so-and-so failed to beget her husband a son, so she will be shamed/stoned now," it's actually compassionate and loving toward these women and their plights.

and some of their plights took so darn long!! i mean take sarah, my name sake (previously "sarai"...the name is also morphed sometimes into "suri," ahem...), she and her husband, abraham had been trying to conceive for many, many years when God promised them that they would have a child. she was 65 y/o at that time. it took until she was 90 for this to come true. but it did! at 90! put all the issues aside of carrying and delivering a baby when you're 90 years old and the fact that people lived until 200 at that time, etc, etc. what i most recognize from this is that SHE WAITED FRIGGIN' 25 YEARS. but then they had their little isaac and all was (mostly, for a while anyway) well.

so, seriously...for us it's been 19 months of trying. i can chillax a bit. :)

The Reckoning

i've been thinking a lot about my illness and miscarriage last august and the impact it has had on me. that and the subsequent loss have left a mark on me i'm afraid i can't erase.

regarding the illness. i was in the hospital for 1 full week...which, if you consider it, is pretty drastic. i mean, people have babies and are out the next day or have heart attacks and massive open heart surgery and might stay a week. there are days in that week that i'm still missing. for a long time afterward, i would get these weird 'flashbacks' of moments i don't ever really remember happening. i'm sure some of that was the drugs they had me on. and the high fevers messing with my brain. the thing that might freak me out most of all is i know there were 2 or 3 days in there where i did literally nothing. dark, quiet room. no tv, no reading, no cell phone. just lied there and hurt and shook with chills. i'm a total busy junky who usually has my laptop, cell phone and tv going at the same time, so the idea of utter silence and being so preoccupied with fighting whatever it was that had hold of me that i didn't have the resources to do anything else- weird.

if you're curious about the whole sordid tale, read below. i wrote this email to a doctor friend of mine a few weeks after i got out of the hospital. it's a summary of everything that happened. what a thankful, positive attitude i had at the time. hmmm...

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it's been a crazy couple of weeks. i was on vacation 2 weeks ago and wednesday of that week ( Aug 12th) i started a temp. i was also 11 weeks pregnant (we had only just started telling family and friends that week- of course) and so went to the ER because it was up to 103 or something and wouldn't come down w/ tylenol. everything was well, they said it was a virus and they sent me home. so it persisted and i started getting a cough and stuff, but mostly just bad chills/sweats. fever went up to 105 on sunday (aug 16th) despite around the clock tylenol, cold baths, ice packs,etc. so i was admitted to royal oak beaumont and they had me in there until this past saturday (aug 22). they ran every test in the book (including an LP for meningitis) for everything from funky viruses to weird bacterial infections (lyme disease, dengue fever, etc) to HIV and cancers and lupus and never found anything relevant. i had ID, hemo/onc, ob/gyn, high risk MFM, and IM following me. my fevers lasted for days at that high temp (up to 106F for parts of several days) despite all measures. and my blood counts got all wacky- pancytopenia- went down to WBC of 2.6 and platelets of 16- had to get 6 units of platelets over 2 days. with all the fluid, i ended up in CHF and had to be diuresed. good times. also, my LFT's got really high and are only now slowly crawling down.

and in the process of all this, i miscarried (tues, aug 18th). it was devastating, but also a relief since i can't believe the baby wouldn't have had major long-term effects of the high temps and whatever pathogen it was i was dealing with, and also because i immediately started feeling way better after i lost it. so they didn't have to do a D & C, but instead gave me misoprostol, which caused another spiked temp, chills, and my vitals went nuts. so once we got all that under control, i was d/c'd last saturday (aug 22) and have been home since, recovering.

they're reassuring me that it wasn't an autoimmune response to pregnancy or prostaglandins or anything, but the IM team did look into HELLP syndrome. since i was so early, and because it was never true hemolysis, the OB's ruled that out. but still weird that sx's and labs got better post miscarriage and worse post misoprostol dose.

so...anyway....it's been eventful and very scary, but man did i feel God holding me up- even keeping me lucid enough to advocate for my own health and explain what was happening to my family. my family and robb and his brother were incredible through this. and my coworkers stepped in like family members, too. i am so insanely blessed. i can't get over it.

physically- i'm getting stronger, better stamina every day. taking stairs, making myself walk. and we're doing ok, emotionally. we had been trying to conceive just for 7 months, and i know "the important thing is i can get pregnant." but i don't know if/when i'll be ready to try again. not ready to think about it yet, i guess.

The Interwebs Are Making Me Blue

so i can't figure out my completely wackadoo cycle this month, so what do i do? i turn to the fertility forums on-line. big mistake. so much doom and gloom! a bunch of anxious, hormonal women with internet access! i'm sure there's good info to be found, but there's so much fear and crazy abbreviations to wade through.

for example, if i were to post my own personal woes story, i would say that i am...

Post 2 IUFD's (5wk6d, 11wks) and POC's resolved by Misoprostol. Before and since, have had multiple cycles with AO. Had BW done and APA, etc all neg. Used 50mg Clomid to conceive last time and got a BFP, so hopeful this time. I am C# 2 post MC and again used 50mg Clomid CD 3-7. Have been checking BBT, CM and OPK and having lots of BMS and it appears OV happened on CD 27. Can that be right? Now what?


isn't that nuts? i totally need a translator open the whole time i'm reading them. grrrr.

Another Month Wasted. No Baby for April, 2011.

that's how i think. in numbers all the time.

day i'm on of my cycle (25). due date if got pregnant this cycle (april 6) . time passed since last pregnancy loss (2 months). time we've been trying to have a child (19 months). how old my first baby should be right now (5 months). turning 30 in october (28th). turning 30 in october (oh, shit).

so aware that through some fault of our own, we are going to be old parents by the time this actually happens. it will be 2 years trying in january. in just a few weeks it will be the 1 yr anniversary of the zombie eating my first baby.

and where am i today? salty taste from the clomid. day 25 and no ovulation this month.

broken and sad. that's where i am.

Seeking Advice

how do you think positively when all your experiences teach you to expect the worst?

how do you hold out (that evil word) hope?

how do you know how much you can handle and if it's worth continuing to fight and hurt?

anyone have any answers to these questions?

how about, "where do babies come from?" i'm still trying to figure that one out.

:)

5 Babies Have Died From Whooping Cough in California...If Only We Could Have Prevented this Tragedy

tetanus (vaccine= DTap) polio (vaccine= IPV) pertussis (vaccine= DTap)


this just pisses me off.

living in fear and making dumb decisions out of ignorance. how many times do we have to explain that vaccines have not been shown to be linked with autism? and yet people are still not vaccinating their kids. how many ways do the folks associated with the original publication have to rescind their opinion and demonstrate that further studies don't back up the link? how many kids have to be maimed or killed from these awful (SHOULD BE ERADICATED) illnesses? what is wrong with people??

my fear for the kids in our country is this: as long as only small pockets of people aren't inoculating their kids, those kids should be safe, since the rest of the country is covered and won't spread the diseases around...BUT, if this community of un-vaccinated kids gets bigger and, if in our well- traveled, global community, they are exposed to kids from other parts of the un-vaccinated world, these nasty bugs will be shared among friends and we will have epidemics and lots of childhood death here. that were preventable. big kids might just get sick or end up with disabilities. but babies die. and all that sucks. and is preventable.

please read this article from cnn last week. it covers the whole vaccine scare controversy and there's some interesting added juice about how the spear-head MD from the original article that started everything was working for a competing vaccine company and was in it for greed, etc, etc.

the doc i scrubbed with today spent some time doing medical missions in africa and saw the damage that things like polio and measles and tetanus can cause. he said the middle bottom tooth of all the adults is removed so that WHEN they get lockjaw from tetanus, they can still get food and water through the gap. that is how prevalent/expected/normal it is there. this MD has been practicing in the US for 20 yrs and has NEVER seen a case here. we do not expect it. because we have forced it out of our community with vaccines. this generation has no idea what these deadly and mangling illnesses look like. check them out above. not pretty. and those are only a few of them.

please get your kids caught up with their vaccines. for their sake and for that of their friends, family members, classmates, neighbors, and, most importantly, my future children. :)

at the very least keep reading and asking questions about it. check your sources when you're reading "compelling evidence" against vaccines. here is the current cdc recommended vaccine schedule. it's big and complicated. you can also just go see your pediatrician. and i am happy to help find any info you need or do any research to answer questions/discuss these issues.

Left Behind

i spent all weekend with my wonderful family and we had a glorious time. playing in rivers and lakes and hiking and eating and gallivanting around northern michigan. i especially liked the gallivanting and the eating.

between all my cousins' kids there were 6 kids between the ages of 1 and 9 and we had a ball with them. all very sweet, fun, and gorgeous (this is my completely objective and unbiased take on my baby kin).

and bless those cousins who are out getting advanced degrees and waiting like me to start hatching so that i am not The only childless one. it is comforting that the next batch of youngins will be closer to my kids' ages and i have to keep reminding myself of that...because i am feeling so far behind my already hatched cousins. they will have middle schoolers by the time my kids can talk! what the what!

it's kind of a bummer because i grew up close (age, geographically, and socially) to my cousins on both sides of the fam and my kids won't have the same experience with all their cousins. i guess we've all made different decisions/taken different paths and this is the natural consequence. ah well. i will have pre-ordered babysitters.

not too big a deal, just kind of bummed me out a little during my eating and gallivanting.