One year ago

One year ago today I was sad. Crushed. My second IVF cycle, which had started on such a positive note, was in the process of failing. It started with a Thanksgiving day retrieval, and 26 eggs. 19 of the eggs successfully fertilized with ICSI. My clinic has a policy of not updating patients on the progress of their embryos, so that was the last I heard until my 6-day transfer. The doctor came into my little room, where I waited full of hope (and about a gallon of water) in my hospital gown. He handed me a picture of 2 average looking embryos. That was it. Just 2 to transfer, nothing to freeze. My heart sank.

Elizabeth and I talked about using her eggs, talked about throwing our hats into the adoption ring. We decided that the best thing to do would be to take a break from the TTC madness for a while. We decided to contact an animal rescue and get another dog in the hopes that it would give us something else to focus on. The day before my period was scheduled to come, I started spotting lightly. The next day, I had a beta scheduled. I wanted to skip it and sleep in. But I stuffed a handful of tampons in my purse and went for the test anyway. Maybe they'd discover something, like abnormal progesterone levels or something to explain why my cycle failed, just in case I decided to try again. Later in the day, I went to a Christmas brunch thrown by one of the higher-ups at work. She had invited people's families to come along too, and I tried my best not to get too emotional when a co-worker was there with his young son. I went to the bathroom, and was bleeding heavier than before, so I pretended that I had a lot to do at work and headed back to the office.

When I returned to work, there was a call from Elizabeth on my voicemail. "Check your email" as all she said. I checked it, and there was an email from my nurse at the clinic with the subject line "YAY!!". She said that my beta came back at 148. I could feel my face get hot and my fingers go numb. Everything around me seemed to be happening in slow motion, just like it does in the movies. Somehow I stumbled outside with my cell phone to call the nurse and confirm that she had really intended to send the email to me. I didn't believe that it was real, and I continued to doubt it until a second blood draw showed a very quick doubling time.

I'm not one of those people who thinks that everything happens for a reason. I know that the worst thing you can tell someone who is TTC is "it will happen when the time is right". Still, there are days when I look at my son and daughter and think to myself, if any of the other cycles had worked, I wouldn't have THESE children.

my little bookworm

Oh, how I love those big brown eyes!

Somebody's got a case of the Mondays

Yeah, I know it's Tuesday, but every day feels like Monday all of a sudden. I returned to work last week, and it sucks. Bigtime.

I miss my babies. They're in daycare now. A daycare center came through for us at the last minute, and was able to take both babies for a price we could afford. We're paying just a few hundred dollars a month more than it would cost to send one baby to daycare. I'm pretty sure the only reason they were able to give us such a good deal is because they're desperate. There are TONS of daycare facilities near us, the vast majority are fancy shmancy new constructions. We're talking video monitors in every classroom, Raffi piped in on surround sound, playgrounds with rounded corners and that soft rubbery stuff on the ground as opposed to asphalt or wood chips. The place we're sending our babies? It's a bit worn, to put it nicely. There's no way they can compete with the shiny new facilities. At least the people who work there seem nice, and they seem to like the twins. And really, we had no choice.

Besides missing my babies terribly, the worst thing about being back at work is pumping here. I HATE HATE HATE pumping in the bathroom! It just grosses me out. It's a private bathroom with a lock, which is better than having to use one of the stalls but still. It's the only private bathroom in the building. You know what that means. It's the bathroom my co-workers use when they need to do their worst. There's nothing quite like preparing food for your children with the smell of a fresh dump (or even worse, a fresh dump and french vanilla air freshener) lingering in the air. My first day back, I just stood there and cried the whole time I pumped. The second day, I focused less on crying and more on making sure that absolutely nothing that touched the bottles touched any bathroom surface. Quite the challenge. I've heard rumors of places that give mothers a private non-bathroom place to pump, but for some reason, I don't think they really exist. My co-workers don't seem to see any problem with pumping in the bathroom, so maybe I'm just being a brat. I'd like to know what you think. So please, any working mothers out there, I'd love to know what your experience pumping at work has been like.

Still here

Wanna know a secret? Twins rock. Hanging out with these two babies is way more fun than blogging, hence my very long absence from blogland. I've had the joy of staying home with the babies for the past few weeks, while Elizabeth has been going to work. Since my maternity leave will be ending far too soon, I've been soaking up this time with my son and daughter. Being on the computer or watching TV feels like too much of a drain on my time with them. Occasionally when they're both sleeping, I'll try to go through my blogroll and catch up, but it rarely works. I'll comment on one or two blogs, and then get pulled away housework or the poor neglected dogs. Since Elizabeth is at work, the prime spot for procrastination and avoiding work, she keeps me filled in on everything. I've been cheering from the sidelines for anyone who has gotten pregnant, stayed pregnant, had babies, or just kept plugging along in the TTC game.

My babies are so friggin awesome. I swear, they're the easiest babies in the world. They have been pretty consistent for the past few weeks about eating every 4 hours. They aren't sleeping through the night yet, but are only up once. They're completely different people- our daughter (Butterbean) is the quieter of the two, a very content and focused baby. She's perfectly content to sit still and listen to a story. Our son is the active, smiley, flirty type and he talks CONSTANTLY. I swear, when we were eating lunch today he said "mayhem" very clearly. Elizabeth and I both heard it.

I'm just having so much fun with them. So here's a few pictures for anyone who might still be reading this blog. I'll probably start posting more when I return to work in a few weeks. :(

staring at the mobile above their crib

getting ready for the rainbow families halloween party

smiliest. boy. ever.

relaxing in her bumbo chair

An apt 100th post

It's amazing how time slips away from you when you've got two babies at home. It's also surprisingly hard to do a blog post one-handed when there's a baby curled up in the crook of your arm. This week has been both magical and challenging, and it still feels a bit surreal to look at these children and know that they're ours. So without further ado, a picture of the babies and their names. I don't plan to use their real nameson the blog as I don't want it to be googleable. But I know everyone wants to hear name choices, so they can ooh and aww, or question what kind of drugs the mother was on when she chose the name. The first names are just names that we liked, we wanted something a little different, but not too out there. Our son's middle name is after Elizabeth's father, our daughter's middle name is for my brother. This will be the only time I use the names on the blog.

This is when our son is about an hour old, and our daughter is about 15 minutes old. They've changed so much in the past week, I really don't think they look like this anymore.

PHOTO REMOVED

Thinking in her boppy.

One of the rare moments when our little guy is still.

Lucky Friday the 13th

At 38 weeks 6 days pregnant, I finally got contacted with a date for induction, to happen one full week later. I was miserable. One week seemed like an eternity. Still, Elizabeth and I did our best to enjoy what remained of our free time and made a lunch date with some friends for the next day. We checked out one final daycare, and ended the day with chocolate ice cream. At 4:30 in the morning, I got up to pee and felt a strange pressure on my pelvic bones. Yet the toilet paper showed no sign of a mucous plug, so I attributed it to sleeping funny. I went back to bed, and realized I was still peeing a little. Hmm....I'm not a bed wetter I thought to myself, I should stop this at once. Only I couldn't stop. The trickle grew stronger, and I shook Elizabeth awake. "I think my water just broke" I said as another small gush came out. Elizabeth turned on the lights and threw back the sheets. "Yup, it sure did" she said upon seeing the puddle I was lying in.

I can't ever remember feeling so giddy in my life. We raced around the house following our to-do list...change the sheets, feed the dogs, run the dishwasher. I couldn't stop giggling the whole time. The first few hours of labor were exactly as I'd always imagined- being awakened by my water breaking, and then a drive to the hospital when the streets are dark and empty. The rest of the delivery was completely unexpected.

Once I found out that I was having twins, I knew that many aspects of their delivery would be out of my control. A home birth was out. I knew they would likely arrive early, so I braced myself for spending time in the NICU. I knew they would most likely be born by c-section, with a room full of hospital staff.

I totally lucked out. Both babies were head down, and my OB was excited about letting me go vaginally. While it's policy in this and many other hospitals to deliver all twins in the operating room "just in case", our OB pulled some strings (okay she was downright stubborn and insistent) that we be allowed to stay in the LDR room for their birth. Rather than being surrounded by a team of 8 hospital staff, it was just Elizabeth, the OB and a nurse in the LDR room when the babies were born. Labor progressed slowly and steadily, and I allowed myself to experience painful contractions until I was 5cm. I had a low dose epidural, which my OB asked me to let wear off by 10cm. After an hour and a half of pushing, we had a son.

We waited for the contractions to do their thing and push the next baby down. The baby's heart rate got really wacky on the monitor, and the contractions slowed down. The OB asked my permission to start some pitocin to help bring the contractions back up since the baby seemed to be in a bit of distress. I was exhausted at this point, so I was happy to have any method of help possible. Just shy of 40 minutes after our son was born, we had a daughter. She surveyed the room, pouted, and then peed her disapproval.

One of each. We are over the moon thrilled and excited about these babies, born on an oh-so-lucky Friday the 13th. They could not be more different. Our little boy has dark hair, dark eyes, and is a skinny little thing. Our little girl, a blondie, looks bigger. We learned after having them weighed that her bigger appearance is just due to her chubby little cheeks. He weighed in at 6lb 1oz, and she was 5lb, 11oz. They were 20 inches & 18 and a quarter long, respectively. They're absolutely perfect and precious, and we will post pictures and names, provided we can figure out how to make them un-googleable, very soon!

GUSH!

The race is on, Poppy!

Meds giveaway!

I think we've held on to our extra F0llustim long enough. First, we were keeping it because we weren't sure if this pregnancy would stick. Then we held on a little longer because we toyed with the idea of having Elizabeth create and freeze some embryos for use a few years down the road. We've finally decided that we're not going to use it before it expires on 9/2011, so we have two 900 pens of f0llustim up for grabs. Please e-mail me (gaybyrabies at yahoo dot com) if you are interested. I can send both pens to one person, or split it up. I'll determine who gets it mostly on a first come, first served basis. However, since it costs a small fortune for me to overnight this stuff, priority will go to anyone on my blog roll. Of course, anyone who needs the meds is welcome to ask. My only conditions are that:

A) You are seeing a doctor, I don't want to be responsible for anyone self medicating with this stuff.

B) You don't sell it. I could really use the money too, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal.