when life hands you lemons

....make lemonade. Or so the saying goes. But sometimes that is not possible. I think that this is one of those times. Back in December dh ended up in the hospital with cellulitis and septicemia. There was a day or two that we were not sure if he was going to survive, but praise God, he did! At this time he found a new primary doctor and went to work on improving his health. He had a ton of tests done and found a few issues that needed attention. He also began to work on losing weight. It took a few months but we finally found Medifast and it worked. He lost 6 pounds the first week! All seemed to be going in the right direction.

Then came Tuesday. It was like deja vu. He was back in the hospital, this time with fevers spiking over 104 degrees WITH Tylenol. It was scary!! This lasted 2 days and then things started to get better. his white blood cell count was going back to normal, his cultures came back normal, his heart rate was normal again. Things looked good, like he could come home today. But then we got news that his kidneys were not functioning at 100%. His creatinine was slightly elevated bt his BUN was still normal. Today his creatinine increased more and his BUN is high now too. They told me what they were concerned about but the name escapes me. Basically they are checking to see if he is in renal failure. They did an ultrasound on his kidneys and we should know more tomorrow.

They have thrown around a few ideas on what is causing this but they are not certain what exactly is going on. There is a chance that the antibiotics caused it but they changed them and it is still increasing. They also mentioned that Medifast might be a problem but he was only on it for 8 days and has been off for 5 days now and I would think that at some point it would have quit going up. So really, we just don't know what is going on.

I will be honest, I am concerned. Very concerned. If he loses function in both kidneys he will end up on dialysis. He will now be a candidate for a transplant with his current weight. If he has kidney issues he will not be able to continue Medifast, the first diet to ever work for him. I am just not ready to lose him and kidney issues are scary. I may be completely overreacting but I can't help it. Maddie needs he daddy. I need my hubby.

Please pray for him. And if you know anything about kidney issues that you could share please feel free to contact me. Also, Maddie and I could use a bit of prayer. She is having a really hard time with all of this. And I am so stressed out right now. Between going to the hospital, caring for 2 kids during the days and not sleeping I am exhausted. I just want him home and healthy.

sleep training sucks

Really, it does. It is by far the worst part about parenting. I can handle the melt downs and power struggles. I can handle the messes and getting into things. I can handle just about anything except sleep training. If she didn't wake me up 4-5 times when she sleeps with us I would just let it go and let her co-sleep until kindergarten. But this 2 1/2 foot creature is a bed hog. Hubby and I are in no way small people and Maddie takes more space than both of us combined. How is that even possible?

Wednesday night hubby had someone over to discuss business related stuff and the guy stayed too long and Maddie fell asleep before he left. She slept horrible that night. Then Thursday I decided to rock her alone in her room and try to get her good and sleepy before I tried to lay her down. The moment I move to get up she freaks. She arches her back and screams. Ridiculous! After 30 min of this I set her down and got out the tool box. Now, I did not try to disassemble her to look for a loose wire. Promise! I thought about it but I refrained. No, I took her bed apart and converted it to a toddler bed. Then I laid next to her to see if I could get her to lay down that way. And did she? Yeah right! Not my child. At that point I threw my hands up and went to the living room. She climbed up on my lap and went right to sleep. *insert eye roll here* The good news was that when I laid her down there was no crying and she slept in her room all nit. Half of it was with her on the floor but who cares?!?!? It was in her room!!

Last night I did a repeat of holding her to sleep and laying her down and it worked like a charm. Only last night she was up at 2 am. I tried to keep her in her bed but when she started to want down to play I quickly gathered her, her baby, her blankie and her puppy and brought her to bed with us. If she wakes up fully the kid is u for hours.

So now we will try to get her to like her new big girl bed and fall asleep in there. We will work on staying there next. Maybe I should just use some duct tape.

sleep training night 2: SUCCESS....sort of

So last night was much of the same. I did wait a bit longer to lay her down, until she was good and sleepy; drowsy but awake. The instant I picked her up to take her to bed she arched her back and started crying. I laid her down and shut the door and it got worse. After 3o minutes of pure torture I went in but did not pick her up. I sat next to her bed and tried to calm her down. I offered to hold her hand and lay there but she wanted none of it. She wanted OUT!! I gave it 5 more minutes and I brought her out to the living room again. She fell right to sleep and I laid her down immediately and she stayed asleep. So while this part was not overly successful the next part is: She slept ALL NIGHT LONG! In her OWN bed! Yeah, you read that right. Nine and a half hours of blissful slumber. For her, not me. I woke up 3 times to check on her. But she SLEPT!!

Honestly, rocking her to sleep does not bother me. I actually enjoy it. Probably why she is so spoiled now. If she will sleep all night I could care less how we achieve it. So I count night 2 as a success. Now onto day three!

sleep training night one: EPIC FAIL

Since I had all of these years to prepare to be a mom, 12 to be exact, I thought for sure that I would be perfect. Stepford almost, just not so creepy. I was going to breastfeed until at least a year, use cloth diapers, make my own organic baby food, and maybe even solve all of the world's problems in my spare time. I was prepared! Then I had a baby. Maddie started out with jaundice throwing a wrinkle in my nursing plans. I could have still nursed but her numbers were so high we decided to supplement. She then refused to nurse. That coupled with 8 weeks of migraines I gave up.

Now cloth diapering I did so much better. I lasted 13 months with those. High five to me! But making my own baby food? Not so much. But Maddie really didn't care for food until she was 8 or 9 months and I had been given so much food from a friend that there was never any need. So that one does not count. But my biggest challenge was not one that I had even planned for: sleeping. Maddie was a great sleeper at first. But she was jaundiced and it makes then lethargic. That first week was awesome! She slept for 3 hours and we would wake her to eat and then she went right back to sleep. For a tired momma recovering from a c-section it was heaven. Then it was over.

Once she recovered she never slept well again. Hubby and I would take turns but we were always so exhausted. Then at 3 months the ear infections started and things just got worse. Maddie's chronic ear infections caused her to develop even worse sleep habits. To her sleeping meant waking up in pain. It was not every night but I don't think that her tiny brain understood that. She just knew that she did not like how it felt to wake up. We have battled these ear infection for 15 months and now that they seem to be over (crosses fingers, toes, even eyes) we have decided it is time to teach her to not only fall asleep alone but to stay in her bed all night.

Last night was the first night. We started a routine of bath, brush teeth, read books then bed. I let her pick a baby to take with her and she had her blankie and cup of water and we went to her room. She walked to that room like a man on death row going to the chair. It was pitiful. As soon as I hugged her and told her that I loved her she started to scream. And scream. And scream some more. After 30 minutes I went in to comfort her and put her back down. Her whole body quivered and shuddered and she hugged me so tight. I tried to put her back down and the screaming started again. I just couldn't do it. It broke my mommy heart. So I carried her to the living room and held her. She quickly fell asleep but continued to shudder for another 5 minutes. I then laid her down and she woke up and cried but I remained strong and left her. She only cried for 10 minutes, this time without ear piercing screams.

Though not a total loss it was not as I had hoped, yet what I expected. She lasted in her room until 1 am and then cried until I brought her to bed with us. Yes, another bad habit. But one we developed to keep our sanity. The problem with cosleeping with her is that she hates if I move at all and wakes if I do. I move a lot so we both wake up often. I am always so tired and dread night time because of this.

We will try again tonight. Hopefully it will go better. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

no news is, well, no news

Not much has changed in the last few weeks. We are still planning to ttc for #2 this year but have not progressed much in the process. Neither of the possible situations we were pursuing worked out so we are going to go through a clinic in CA. I have had the consult with the local RE and he is fine with doing my monitoring here. Now I just need to call and set up my phone consult with the RE in CA and get on their wait list. I just never have time to call. Somehow I accidentally opened an in home daycare. I am really not sure how it happened. I watch 2 little girls right now (one is my niece) and take another one to the bus stop each day. I will soon have another baby to watch in a few weeks as one mom is pregnant and due soon. Having all of these kids here is quite time consuming!! I am still trying to get a routine down.

Maddie is doing great. She is finally talking!! Now I ask her to be quiet! I love to hear her little voice even if it is saying "no no". She is so much fun and I pray that we can give her a sibling in the next year. I just need to get cracking on these phone calls!

EA and life update

This whole baby makin' business ain't easy!! Since the first of the year we found embryos via Miracles Waiting and we started the process through their clinic. Then that did not work out. Not sure what happened just that the couple was giving the clinic different information than they were telling us. I emailed the couple about this and there was never a response.

Then a second situation presented itself and I am not sure how this one will turn out. But that is fine as we are letting God lead. In the meantime I am scheduled for a phone consult with a local RE and I will discuss with him to either do the FET here with the donated embryos or to do my monitoring with him and travel to another clinic for the FET. Next week I will call the clinic in CA to schedule a phone consult with the RE there and get on their waiting list. If the other situation happens to work out then we will be ready to go and if it does not we will be on the list at a clinic. The wait time is about 6 months which works well for us.

I also posted about home repairs. I hate home repairs!! What started out as a new sliding glass door and new kitchen flooring has turned into major damage to our roof (which is only 5 years old) and a lot of money that we were not prepared to spend. So that needs to be done so we can put this place up for sale and get rid of this headache! We will move in with my mom until we are ready to buy a house. Just typing all of this out makes me tired!!!!

Maddie is doing great and growing like crazy. She is finally talking though I am not always happy with what she says. Her favorite words are NO and NO. But I love to hear her voice even if she is bossing me around! Please keep her in your prayers as she is having her third tube put in her right ear. She has been doing so well since her surgery in September but she got strep in October and we later found out that the virus caused and ear infection and that clogged her tube. During the cleaning of it the tube fell out and the whole quickly closed. We waited a bit to see if she would still get infections and while they are nowhere near as bad as they once were she still has gotten 2 of them. So the tube needs to be replaced. Here's hoping third times a charm!!!!

Well, that about updates you all on everything. I hope to catch up on all of yoru blogs here soon too.

New situation

I posted previously that the donor couple that had chosen us was giving the clinic "conflicting information" in regards to donating to us. I emailed the donors and never received a response. In all honesty, I am glad that we will not be working with this clinic. I really liked the donor mom though I will admit that her lack of communication disappointed me. I only made one request and it was that if she changed her mind, regardless of the reason, that she let me know. I knew that they wanted to move out of state but that they would not move until all of the embryos had been donated and used. I was honest with them that it could be 6 months before we were financially ready and that if they felt that they needed to find another couple to please let us know. She assured me that they were choosing us and things continued well for a another week or so. I have no idea what exactly happened as she never said a word to me, but that is fine. Obviously it was not the situation for us and I would rather focus my efforts on moving forward, which it look like we are doing.

I was contacted last year from someone considering us for their little embies. Things got busy for them and no decision was made at that time and when the donor mom went to contact me again we were already matched with the other couple. When that fell apart she contacted me again and things are looking good. Right now we are waiting to hear from her clinic and whether I will need to travel there or if we can ship them here to me. My prayer is that they can be shipped here as it would be much easier for me. But ultimately we all want what is best for the embryos, what will give them the best chance at survival. I am fine with traveling there as long as it only requires one trip. Travel is expensive and being away from Maddie is not fun. And there is NO way I am flying with her. And it is too far to drive with her as well. So a lot hinges on what the clinic says. Once we know that we can start making decisions. I have a consult with a local RE on the 23rd of this month. He allows for donated embryos to be used in his clinic and he is awesome! I saw him years ago but since they did not have an ED program we went with another clinic. But he was my first choice as a doctor.

So right now we wait. But that is okay. Nothing in infertility goes quickly. If for some reason this does not work out I have also found a clinic. It is is CA and they have been mentioned to me on several occasions (thanks Morningsun!). They are affordable, have a 6 month wait, and only require one visit. And most importantly they returned my call promptly and had answers to my questions. So either way we will be proceeding, just waiting on His will to be clear to us. I will update when we hear more!