Gift Etiquette

Disclaimer: I don't think my ASA big sis reads this blog, but S, if you do, stop now please.

I have a question for everyone else.

RCW and I got into a tiff this afternoon. No worries, it was minor, but it got me thinking, so now I want your thoughts and opinions. We'll take this post back old school when this blog was just about being newlyweds and there was no talk of our babies - imagine!

My BFF and sorority big sis just had her second baby this week. She and her husband decided not to find out the sex prior to birth, and going through this week with her has totally convinced me that when the time comes we will not be finding out. It was so exciting and awesome to wait for that text message saying HE was here and then learning his name. It was beyond special! And RCW and I are beyond excited to meet him next weekend when we're back in RVa.

But since we're going back I wanted to take some gifts, my love language is gift giving. Its just who I am. I needed to find a little something for baby boy and his big sister. So this afternoon while RCW and I were out and about we stopped at Rabbit In The Moon, a Louisville only store. The parking lot, post shopping, is the scene of the tiff. RCW didn't want to shop so he stayed in the car. I spent about 20 minutes looking and was so proud of my purchases all for under $40. I walked back to car and proudly showed off my gifts...

Melissa & Doug Chunky Noah's Ark Puzzle for Big Sister


Mud Pie Chenille Blue Elephant Rattle for Baby Boy


And the 'tiff' causer:Gus the Giraffe Baby Bank for Baby Boy (that we'll add a monetary gift too)
And not to toot my horn, ok, well maybe a little, but while Googling for this I found that Red Book linked Gus (or Gabby) as as Editor's Pick for Kids Cool Christmas Gift Under $40.

But RCW didn't think this was a cool gift. He looked at me like I had bought baby boy an alien! He just stared at me, then laughed and said, "Are you kidding?!".

I was deflated. I thought I had found a great gift for a second child who doesn't need toys or other baby goods. I thought the only other thing I could have gotten him was clothes, but thought this was much more personal and would last longer than 3 months.

So my first question is, what are your thoughts on my gift? Yes or no?

RCW asked if our friends could return this gift in RVa, when I informed him no he suggested we let them know we would take it back. He also informed me that he is excited to see the hub's reaction to this gift. I asked how he would respond to a gift like this and he said he'd fake it, but would think it was a horrible gift. Am I totally losing my mind with this one ladies (and maybe gents)?!

As we drove home, he then got on my case about getting Big Sister a gift. He is the oldest of 4 and apparently he doesn't remember anyone bringing gifts for his siblings at their births or bringing him a gift. I thought it was proper (and nice) to bring a gift for the older sibling to help with feelings of jealousy or feeling left out while the new baby gets a lot of attention. RCW told me I was crazy and that I better not get upset if and when we are blessed with a second child and no one brings our first child a gift.

Again, am I off my rocker? Have I just justified buying gifts for reasons that don't really exist?

And let me say, we have another friend who is expecting in the winter, they have a little girl already and I would do the same thing. I had a co-worker who had a baby luncheon for her second and I brought a gift for the new baby and a gift for the older sibling. I guess RCW and I didn't discuss that one or this would have come up then.

So tell me...if you received the gifts above for your 2 year old daughter and brand new baby boy would you be legitimately happy or fake it? And do you give older siblings a gift when shopping for a new baby?

Don't worry about hurting my feelings, I am truly curious about this now. Tell me your thoughts. If you all agree the bank is a bad gift, I have a week to return and find a new gift, just tell me what you think I should give in its place!

cycle day 1

Since Wednesday night I've had some light brown spotting every time I went to the bathroom. I knew she was coming and to be honest, I had mixed feelings about it. While I was thrilled that I was getting AF on my own, without any medical help in the form of BCP, Clomid, HCG triggers, Provera or Prometrium, for the first time in over 10 years (before I started BCP); I also was bummed. We are 2 weeks away from our 8 week marker on May 6. I wanted to not see anything and on May 6 call the RE, start popping progesterone and get the show on the road.

Now I'll be waiting my cycle out instead.

If AF decides to actually make an encore performance in May, she'll be here around May 23. THEN we'll begin our next treatment cycle. If she decides to no show, her usual M.O., then on May 27 I'll call the RE for progesterone to jumpstart everything. Either way, it seems our first medicated cycle of 2011 will be taking place in June.

How insane is that?!

We were back to back from August until December last year. IUI after IUI, medicine on top on more medicine. I even have Femara and Gonal-F injections in my kitchen cabinet that our RE gave us on January 7 when we thought we'd be starting everything up in February! It's still sitting there, just waiting to be used. I wish if hadn't been used for a great reason, like we're pregnant, but sadly that's not the case.

I've said all along I think God is trying to teach me patience with this journey, but gosh, my patience is truly being tested right now. I've enjoyed our break, I've begun to heal and deal with many emotions from our miscarriages, but I'm ready to start again. I'm ready to actively be trying to get pregnant and create life.

You may ask why I'm not calling the RE today, CD1, to get going, but that's a simple answer with a few parts. 1) RCW wants to wait the doctor prescribed 8 weeks from our miscarriage to try again, and I can't say I blame him for that. My impatience is just blurring my rational mind; 2) We need all of our bloodwork back. The RE still hasn't received RCW's karyotyping and we need my most recent retest back to see if I do or do not have a possible clotting issue and 3) We haven't gone over anything with the RE. While he has my other bloodwork and karyotyping in, we haven't discussed anything and quite frankly, we don't have a game plan. While we *think* we'll try an injection IUI cycle next, we aren't 100% on that. So calling the clinic today, while my RE is on Easter vacation with his family, wouldn't do any good. There aren't notes on what to do next in my chart. I don't think any of us thought I'd be seeing dear old Aunt Flo on my own!

So here I sit. Happy and sad all at once. Ready to start trying. I've seen so many recent BFP's from my blog buddies and in real life lately and I'm ready. Ready to be one of those.

my RE rocks

I just logged into my email tonight and saw this gem waiting for me...

Yes, it's one of the clotting issues that can be associated with miscarriages and can be treated with blood thinners. However, only one of the three tests for this was out of the normal range and even that was borderline not positive, so I want to repeat it. NO WORRIES!!

Talk to you soon,
Dr S

I'm so grateful that I have a doctor that I can email and not only will he email me back with answers, but he responds while in the middle of vacation with his family on a holiday weekend!!

I was retested this morning at the OB. Hopefully we'll know more by early next week. And right now, I actually wish this was the issue so it could be treated and we'd have an explanation as to why we keep losing our babies. Finding out I don't have an issue that can be treated will mean while we can get pregnant on our own or with medicine, we may always have issues carrying the little one to full term. I'll keep you all updated when I find out more!

Thank you for all of your sweet comments and suggestions the other day. Its always so amazing to know I can turn to this community for support and love ♥

question for all and any

I need your help and advice.

My RE called, or his nurse did, to tell me I need to have one of the 10 tests that they ran on me a few weeks ago rerun. He didn't tell the nurse why, just that he wanted me to be retested.

I'm officially freaking out a bit. Its due to a lot of questions - why does it need to be retested? why didn't he tell me more? what does this test show? what will it mean if it shows a problem? if there is a problem, will it be treatable?

Back when I got my list of tests I tried Googling things, but it was overwhelming. There was a lot of medical lingo that went over my head, but here is what I found about the test I have to be retested for. The test in question is the antiphosphatidyl serine test. This is the description I found online a few weeks ago:

Antiphosphatidylserine antibodies are part of antiphospholipid antibody syndrome and are associated with recurrent thrombosis, both venous and arterial, and recurrent fetal loss. An ELISA assay detects them. Unlike cardiolipin, phosphatidylserine is a more physiologically relevant phospholipid due to its presence in cell membranes of endothelial cells and platelets and its role in the coagulation cascade. Patients with positive reactions to both cardiolipin and phosphatidylserine antibodies can appear transiently at low levels during many infections. If a patient first tests positive while there are clinical signs of infection, the test should be repeated after an interval of six months.

Yea, huh?! My mind can't help but see a few words pop out and wonder what they all mean for me and RCW. Those words are: recurrent fetal loss, infections, test, repeated, after, six months.

Is this the clotting issue with MTHFR? Is this not? Does anyone know?

I've already sent an email to my RE, luckily, he gives it out and he's responded to a few of my freak out's before, but I got an auto-response that he is out of town without email access today through Monday. Lovely.

Someone please tell me calm down, but warning, I won't calm down unless you can also tell me what the above all means in terms of getting and staying pregnant. Ok, thanks.

Oh and PS: here's some more info. Since my labs are done at my OB, they called on Monday to tell me that all tests came back in the normal range. Sooooooo then why does my RE want a retest? Yea, I don't know the answer either.

Who needs Pottary Barn when you have Rick's Workshop?!

For starters, this is not baby related. Sorry, but baby news isn't currently happening so I thought instead of going completely offline I'd post something else. Hope you enjoy!

Way back in early 2011 before we found out we were pregnant and way before we lost our little nugget numero dos, we decided to use our 'break' to do some work around the house. We did some painting, we talked about getting a new fence with our tax refund and talked about wall art. We decided that we love our new found Kentucky roots - the Bluegrass, the horses and the bourbon and bourbon barrels. We had a theme and after spending a Saturday afternoon pouring over 'rustic country' living room theme images I knew the piece of wall art I wanted to hang over our sofa. It was a piece I'd seen back during our wedding registry from Pottery Barn. While we did register at PB, I couldn't bring myself to put a $200 piece of wall art on the list. Now that I was ready to commit and gasp! spend that much money, it was retired. The original $200 piece called Planked Pony.

What was a girl to do?!

Well, first I found a blog that recreated the piece on their own. It was nice, but I wasn't thrilled with it.

But I did realize that RCW could create this piece for us and for pretty cheap. He looked at it, we put blue painters tape on the wall to figure out size and then we took a field trip to Home Depot to buy wood, dark wood stain and white paint while also heading to Kinko's to blow up a horse silhouette that I found from Google images.

I apologize, I didn't take pictures of the process because it did start that late January weekend and just today, April 10, was hung on the wall.

Here is the new piece in our living room. I'm in love. I'm so proud of RCW for making it and he think the piece turned out great, he wishes he'd done a couple things differently but the slight imperfections are only there for him to see.

This was a whole lot cheaper than $200 and has personal meaning since the hubs made it himself! Not to mention, this was the perfect small project for him to realize he can make whatever he wants when he has the proper tools and plans...I'll show you what he will be creating at some point for our future nursery soon!

another Wednesday, another trip to give blood

Yup, its a Wednesday and that means a trip to the OB to give blood. Luckily, I was there super early this morning with only 3 other women in the waiting room, all alone. 2 were obviously not pregnant, and 1 was about to pop, but at least she wasn't smoking and looked presentable in her cute leggings and black flats.

They called me back after only reading 3 pages of my book and I sat down in the chair, rolled up my left sleeve (my right arm does not cooperate) and thought we would get started. The nurse had to print massive amounts of paperwork, which I then had to sign. When I started to get a bit freaked was when she started pulling out vial after vial from the storage cabinet.

I asked, "Those aren't all for me are they?"

"Yes, they are.", she replied.

9 vials. 12 tests. Why can't they use the same blood from one vial?! Or maybe 2?
In all honesty, it wasn't that bad. It went quickly and she chatted me up about movies and her kids. Luckily, I didn't get emotional listening to her talking about her 10, 5 and 4 year olds and how they're at their aunt's for Spring Break and how its so nice to have a shower without an interruption. She works in an OB office, she isn't thinking despite seeing all the blood work I was getting done. It was ok and a distraction from the needle in my arm flowing blood out of my body. In what seemed like 5 minutes it was all done.

My blood is off to wherever blood is sent to be tested. Hopefully we'll have some results in a week or two. The karyotyping is still out. Looking at a calendar we'll know something about our genetics between the week of April 18 (4 weeks from testing) and the week of May 2 (6 weeks from testing).

My hope is that RCW and I are genetically compatible (although eventually to us and many of our friends it would be hilarious if we weren't), and that one of these 12 blood tests show an easy to fix problem like I'm lacking a vitamin or something that is causing the miscarriages. We shall know soon enough.

PS: COUNTDOWN TO BEGIN OUR NEXT CYCLE (and 1st of 2011!!): 29 days