Remembering...

Certain events become the ones that people remember where they were when they learned about it. For a previous generation it might be when Pearl Harbor was bombed. One that sticks in my mind from when I was a child was when President Reagan was shot. I was so surprised when I got home from school and found out that my grandmother from New York who was visiting us at the time in Texas and my mom didn't know it had happened. As a young child, it made me feel pretty special that I knew something before them, and then I remember my mom letting us stay up late watching tv to hear the updates on his surgery and such. There was only one other time I remember her letting us stay up late to watch the news, and that was for Princess Diana's wedding. When I've asked my college students to reflect on what significant event they recall from their childhood, the "older" students will speak of when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. Younger college students will often mention Columbine or 9-11-01.

I certainly remember how I learned about 9-11. I was a principal at the time, and a parent called us at school to tell us about it. I immediately turned on the radio in my office, and the speculations at the time were more horrifying than what actually happened in terms of how many people they thought had died and how many other planes they thought were out there about to do similar things. Our middle school students were on an overnight field trip (outdoor education). Some parents were wanting them to come home early; I assured the parents that the children were in an extremely safe location as there was no way their location was a target for terrorism (out in the middle of nowhere). They were due to come home that evening. I called the outdoor education center, and it turned out the staff there knew nothing about it yet, which made sense as radio and tvs aren't exactly part of an outdoor education experience. We made the decision to not tell any of the children in our building (preschool through 5th grade) so that their parents could be the ones to tell them, but we decided the middle school teachers would tell their students about it on the way home on the bus. Interestingly enough, there was a meeting held a couple of months later for all the principals in the area (public and private schools alike), and it turned out that ALL of us independently made the same decision. Not one elementary principal authorized their students being told, and in fact they went to great lengths (indoor recess, altered bus routes, etc.) to ensure that they weren't told at school, and ALL of the middle and high school principals told their students at school.

Going back to the actual day, I recall walking into the lunchroom and telling the teachers about it at lunch. One teacher asked me if this was a practical joke or something (which if you know me very well, that would be very out of character for me). They were stunned. I remember  couple of days later seeing a first grader playing with legos in the classroom renacting an airplane running into a building. Although it was very frightening to hear the initial speculations, it actually then made the "real" numbers seem not as bad as they were a small fraction of what they said in the beginning, although of course it still was a very, very sad day. I remember that a lot more parents than usual came to pick up their kids from school that day (rather than letting them take the bus as they usually did), and quite a few picked their children up early.

Paul and I had been married for exactly 1 month on the day it happened, and I can remember being annoyed that Paul wasn't more comforting. I was wanting a nice big hug, and he was very analytical rather than emotional about the whole event. He promptely reminded me that he had worried about this happening. Actually I hadn't needed his reminder. I had told my secretary earlier that day that Paul had said this might happen. When we had been near really high skyscrapers (such as the Empire Building in NYC), he had told me he had no interest in going to the top because this was a target for terrorists. He said this years before it actually happened. His response on 9-11 was more along the lines of "it could have been worse." Men are from mars and women are from venus as the saying goes. I'm grateful that we haven't yet experienced another attack of this magnitude on our soil, and I hope many more years (or better yet decades) take place before such a tragedy occurs again. It will be interesting to note in 20 years what is "the event" that my children will remember where they were when they found out about it.

Five Meals!

Today Ian definitely cried a lot less at meal times. Don't get me wrong, it still feels like a huge ordeal to feed him a few bites, but in reality we've made a LOT of progress over the last two weeks in that I'm not holding his hand or face, and I'm not feeding him when he's crying. The last two days he only had four meals because he refused to eat the other times I tried to feed him. Today he ate all five times. I didn't offer him any of the tomatoes and pasta today. That's not exactly his favorite meal. He also wasn't keen on the cake and milk mixture so I altered the oatmeal "recipe" to include two packets of oatmeal, one banana, one piece of pineapple cake, and a little water. Put all that in the Magic Bullet and serve. I figured I should pick my battles, and if my main focus is teaching him that we don't cry or hit while eating, then I'd just focus on that and serve him something he deems less objectionable. I do plan to bring back out the pasta and tomatoes as he does need to work on texture again, but for now I'm focused on extinguishing the crying. He hasn't had any reaction to the eggs thus far. YAY! Of course I haven't give him eggs straight up yet. For now we're just sticking with "baked eggs" as the allergist called it. Nadia and I also enjoy the pineapple cake thankfully, as it would take Ian awhile to eat an entire cake by himself! The next step will be to take him off the Singulair and then two weeks after that we'll reintroduce another food (peanuts, soy, or milk). Whenever I get frustrated with how difficult it is to feed him, I try to remind myself that at least he's not throwing up any more. We're moving in the right direction!

The timer that the OT loaned us is the first one pictured on this website. I agree, Regina, that Ian seems a bit young. Karen said that she has had success with this with 2 year olds she works with (she works with kids birth to 35 months), and she said she thinks Ian is a smart cookie. I was dubious if he'd figure it out, but I thought it was worth a try. I don't want to mess with the success at night by removing the darkening shade as he sleeps at least 11 hours and sometimes closer to 12 hours at night now. Today he cried for 5 minutes, played for 5 minutes, slept for 15 minutes, and then screamed for 35 minutes until I got him because his hour was up. Later we went out and he fell asleep in the car around 4pm, which proves a 15 minute nap is not enough for him. I had put a ball, two books, and two cars in bed with him. I was hoping he'd at least play quietly rather than scream for so long. No dice. Maybe I'll need to buy him a nightlight he could hold, if that helped Wyatt.

Keep your eye on the ball

Paul, Nadia, and I were tossing a football around this afternoon. Paul told Nadia to keep her eye on the ball. Of course she immediately put the ball up to her eye. Paul forgets that little ones will take idioms literally, but this then led to an explanation of what that expression means. It was a cute moment. After Nadia's bath this morning while I was wrapping her in the towel, she asked me to hold her "tight and squeezy." What a cute word squeezy is. :-) Similarly during dinner while I was talking to Paul she said, "Excuse me, I want to talk you something." The little mistakes young ones make while learning the English language are amusing.

Ian again ate 4 meals today. He had oatmeal/banana for the first three, he refused his 4th meal, and after GREAT effort we got him to eat his 5th meal at 5pm. I was concerned because his 3rd meal was at noon, and I didn't want to send him to bed at 8pm not having had anything to eat or drink since noon. I was very relieved when we finally got him to eat some pineapple cake mush. I can't say any of the meals are totally without crying or batting of the spoon, but he doesn't get any bites or drinks while he's carrying on. It's still progress.

Since Paul was working from home (no way to get to PSU), I decided to mow the lawn during Ian's "quiet time." When I left, he was playing quietly in his crib with two cars. I put a nightlight in his room in the hopes that he'd be able to see the timer. Nope. The nightlight doesn't provide enough light to see it, and since he's sleeping so well at night, I don't want to take down the room darkening shade. I put a ball and a couple of small vehicles in his crib, and instead of putting him down on his belly with his blanket over him (like I do at night), I sat him down in his crib. He only cried for a couple of minutes at first. He was quiet for 35 minutes. Paul wasn't looking at the monitor, so we don't know whether he was playing or sleeping. After that Paul said he would be quiet for 5 minutes, fuss for 5 minutes, be quiet for 5 minutes, etc. He was in bed for 75 minutes as I can't mow the whole lawn in 60 minutes. I am not sure how long he slept, but he was certainly quiet for a lot more of the time he was in the crib than he was the previous two days.

Two items of praise would be that I am wearing my contacts for the first time in six days. The pink eye is finally gone! The second would be that after not having a water heater for about 48 hours, Paul was able to dry it out and start it back up late this morning! I really appreciated my shower. It's so easy to take these things for granted. The water is gone from our basement, and I was able to mow most of the lawn. Some of it was too swampy to mow. We didn't lose any stuff from water damage this time. We moved some things to the garage, but overall the cleanup is a million times simpler this time than it was in the spring in part because we donated, sold, relocated, or threw away a lot of stuff that had been in the basement.

The town where the hospital I went for ivf and delivered the kids was really hit badly by the flood as was the town where my university is located. In the case of my university, that town it is now on record as the worst flood ever in terms of the river being the highest. It's on record as being the 2nd worst for the town where the hospital is located. It's so sad to see the pictures. Of course other areas were affected as well. Both Knoebels and Hershey Park were under water, for example. Two bison died from the flooding at Hershey Park's zoo. I feel badly for all those who lost their homes and belongings. It's going to take a long time to clean up the mess from Tropical Storm Lee. I'm grateful we don't live any closer to the river. As one of my FB friends said, this gives us a tiny taste of what the folks down south had to deal with after Hurricane Katrina.

Who is more stubborn?

It seems that one quality parents need to have is to be really stubborn - more stubborn than your children. I'll give three examples from today. First, I had to be really resolute in not giving Ian any bites of food if he was crying, batting the spoon, etc. He wouldn't cooperate during meal #1 today (which meant he went 15 hours without consuming any food or drink). Thankfully, he got with the program at meal #2 (around 9am). I purposefully gave him something that isn't as objectionable to him and also was very calorically dense. I mixed a whole banana with a little water and two packets of apple cinnamon oatmeal in the Magic Bullet. He consumed that over meals #2 and 3, which means that even though he hadn't eaten anything during meal #1, he still had consumed at least 400 calories by spoon. He didn't eat anything at meal #4, but he did eat during his last two meals of the day. So all in all it went better than I expected as he did eat solid food four times today. This meant he only had 4 sippy cups today of almond milk. That's definitely the least amount of "milk" he's ever had in a day. Ian had some eggs for the first time in more than 6 months. It was actually a challenge to figure out what I could make that didn't have any milk or soy in it. I made a pineapple cake, which included 3 eggs. I had to put his piece in the Magic Bullet with some almond milk. He didn't throw up, which means so far so good with the reintroduction of eggs into his diet. We shall see how day #2 of the new protocol goes tomorrow.

Example #2 would also be regarding mealtime. Sometimes I take the easy route and serve French toast for dinner as Nadia and I both enjoy that and it would be weird to serve veggies with French toast. Tonight I decided she was going to eat what Paul and I were having- a casserole that had chicken, stuffing, cheese, green beans, etc. Well it wasn't pleasant at first, BUT because I've been stubborn in the past (many times), the battle really didn't last that long. Whew. Oh and raisins helped. I've learned that raisins are my friend in terms of getting Nadia to eat something she doesn't want to eat.

Example #3 would be regarding Ian's "nap." The longest his nap has been over the past couple of weeks is a whopping 25 minutes. Many days it's only 10-15 minutes long. Yesterday Karen said that no matter what he needs to stay in his crib for one hour, even if he falls asleep in the car earlier in the morning (like he did yesterday at 11am on the way home from the library). From 12:45-1:45pm is his quiet time in the crib. She suggested putting some other toys in his crib in addition to the stuffed animals, and she gave us a large timer yesterday that she said has worked with other children she's worked with. Well the timer doesn't work because the room is too dark. It can't be seen. Yesterday he screamed for almost the entire hour. He never calmed down enough to play. He just stood in his crib quietly for part of the time near the end. Today he cried for 20 minutes, slept for 15 minutes and then cried for the remaining 25 minutes until I got him when his hour was up. I hope it doesn't take too many days (weeks?) for him to figure out he must spend one hour in his crib each afternoon. The good news is that he's sleeping really well at night. Last night he slept 12 hours! I think he's making up for part of his missed nap time by extending his sleep at night.

We had 8 inches of rain in our basement last night. We had raised the furnace/duct work 8 inches a month ago thinking that was more than enough because the last time our basement flooded we had about 4 inches of water. Paul felt badly because he said he should have bought a more powerful sump pump. The reason we had flooding in the spring was because one of the 2 pumps died. This time the flooding is almost as bad as in 1972, which has been the record for a long time (Hurricane Agnes). My university is closed until TUESDAY! That's never happened since I've been teaching there. Thankfully the water level in our basement started receding just before it would have been sumberging the furnace and duct work again. We've been without a water heater for over 24 hours. I miss it. I need a shower. I shampoo my hair every other day, and this morning is when I would have done it so by tomorrow I will have gone 3 days without shampooing, and my hair feels gross. There was enough hot water in the heater for me to run a load of dishes in the dishwasher, and I did a load of laundry using cold water. We live not very far from a river, and all the bridges are closed so we have at most about a 2 mile radius where we can drive from our house. We can't leave our town in other words. The only thing I had on the agenda for tomorrow was a dance with my hubby tomorrow night, but that dance was cancelled. The ironic thing about my university closing is part of the reason they closed is because the town doesn't have much water coming through the pipes. That seems like the ulitmate irony that 30% of the town is submerged under water (the university is high on a hill), but they don't have water (out of their faucets). It really puts our minor inconviences in perspective. No one is needing to rescue us by boat - and that has happened to people in our area. We never lost our power, sewer, water, etc. In the grand scheme of things, we came through unscathed, especially since we had already learned our lesson a few months ago about not having so much stuff on the floor of our basement.

News

I'll start with the good news.

1. We had a nice morning. Nadia went to gymnastics for the first time in 3 months. It was exciting to see the new skills that she'll be learning in the preschool class. It's a bit of a challenge to corral Ian during that 45 minutes. There were 2 other younger brothers being coralled by their moms. There were 5 girls in the class today. One of the moms commented that Ian really changed a lot since she had seen him last (3 months ago). She said he went from being a baby to a little boy. Why do they grow up so quickly? It turns out my Dean's daughter is in Nadia's class. Small world! After gymnastics we went straight to a library program. This children's library is much larger than ours. Nadia did a great job of listening to the librarian read stories, and I was grateful for the toys the library had, which helped keep Ian occupied although I still had to chase him down some. We left the house at 8:30am and got home at 11:30. It makes the drive seem more worthwhile when we can do two things in one trip.

2. Ian is doing better with texture. Yesterday I put some spaghetti noodles in the Magic Bullet along with some stewed tomatoes. He didn't gag! This was exciting as the noodles were only cut in tiny little pieces. It seemed closer to normal food compared to all the pureed food I usually feed him.

3. Ian still isn't throwing up even though he's been off the Prevacid, Pulmicort, and EleCare for 1 week. I called the Allergist today to ask what the next steps would be and also to find out if we could cancel next week's appointment in light of the 5 hour (RT) drive. The doctor said we could postpone the appoinment. I am going to get an appointment with a pediatric allergist at the local hospital now that we have Blue Shield insurance again. He said we can now introduce eggs again; the first introduction is to be through a baked product that has egg in it. In two weeks we are to discontinue the Singulair. This means he'll be off ALL medications. PTL!

4. The BEST news is that I spoke with HR today because they didn't know until my conversations with the Assistant Director yesterday that I am part-time this semester. I found out today that because my reason for asking for leave is to care for the medical needs of my son, I am eligible for FMLA! This means (BIG drum roll please) that I can use sick leave, personal leave, etc. to turn my leave into PAID leave. I am 99% sure (waiting for a response from HR to make it 100% sure) that I'll be paid as if I am FT this semester!! In addition to my salary doubling, it also means we won't have to pay as much for our health insurance. PTL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I had understood about FMLA prior to today because I could have used some of that in the spring as you're allowed 12 weeks per calendar year, and I'll only be using 8 weeks worth this semester. This also means I can be paid a FT salary in the coming spring semester (even though I only plan to work 50%) because I can use another 12 weeks of FMLA in 2012, and I have enough accrued leave from the past 9 years as a professor to last for both semesters. This makes me feel much better that I wasn't able to use much paid leave during my recovery from my 2 c-sections.

5. I spoke with the ivf nurse today, and she told me when I should schedule my first appointment. The reason I am including this in the good news list is because she said we didn't need to attend the ivf class. WOOHOO! When the previous ivf nurse said we needed to attend the class (again) for ivf #2, I objected, but she insisted. I was just assuming we'd have to attend our 3rd ivf class, but the new ivf nurse said that we don't need to attend the class. The first appointment takes long enough (paperwork, bloodwork, mock transfer, etc.) without adding in a slide show/lecture. She said the new RE doesn't use the bcp at the start of the ivf protocol. The good news is that although my cycles are not the 28 day "norm," they have been fairly consistent lately (the last 4 cycles have been 40-42 days long).

There also is some bad news.

1. As I type this, we have 5 inches of water in our basement. At least we don't have a big mess to clean up this time. Praying the rain stops asap! Classes were actually cancelled at my university for this evening and all day tomorrow due to the flooding. My choir rehearsal was also cancelled. Many roads are closed.

2. Ian is still crying almost all the time when I try to feed him. I'm  not holding his face or his hand any more when I feed him. Karen (upon observing a feeding session today) said that maybe it was time for Ian to participate in the intensive day program that the Hershey feeding team runs. Basically the child stays at the hospital all day (8am-5pm) Monday through Friday (goes home or to the Ronald McDonald House at night). It typically takes between 2-6 weeks for the program to be completed. Thankfully the psychologist doesn't think that's necessary yet. He said I need to give him milk after every bite, but I am not to give him any bites if he's crying. Me thinks my boy isn't going to eat or drink much tomorrow. Please pray for my sanity tomorrow as this is going to be hard, but if we can teach him not to cry during meals, it will be worth the agony to have victory in this area.

Bounce, Skip, and Cut

I've been meaning to start using ideas from the Busy Books that Joy recommended and Slow and Steady Get Me Ready that Jenn recommended on a regular basis. This week I finally started using the "get me ready" book. It really is a great book. Three activities that were listed for those who have recently turned three years old included bouncing a ball, skipping, and cutting with scissors. I purchased a couple of pairs of blunt scissors over the last year, but today was the first time I let Nadia use scissors. She loved it! Of course she still has a LOT to learn with her cutting skills (such as don't cut your shirt which she accidently did today), but she had more success with that than skipping or catching a ball with her hands after she bounced it. We'll keep working on those. I think I'll try to teach her to "trot" first since skipping was a challenge. Last week we started doing some workbook pages together every day. She calls it her schoolwork. We've been working on grouping items into sets, one-to-one correspondence, finding matches, ranking pictures by size, etc. I also have some flashcards that have pictures of objects on them (as few as one to as many as twenty-six). She picks several of the flashcards and counts how many objects are on each card. She's doing pretty well with that! I also read to the kids every day. Today I read at least 10 different Curious George books, for example. We also do some music almost every day. Sometimes we play instruments together while singing, and other days we use the Take-Along Songs books/cds that Nadia loved when she was really young. Both kids sit on my lap, I sing, and we look at the pages of the songbook together. We have a lot of fun together every day! One of Ian's favorite things to do lately is "Ring Around the Rosy." He laughs his head off while we do that! It's the simple things that bring all three of us a lot of joy.

Today Ian had speech therapy for the first time in 3 weeks. She was very pleased! She said in a few weeks we can first switch to her only coming every other week, and that probably soon after that he can be discharged. She said he's caught up to where he should be for his age. YAY! I thought that was the case (as he now says over 80 words), but it was nice to hear it from someone official. So although he'll likely have OT for a few more years, it seems his stint with speech therapy will only be for a few months total (as we just started that in June). She pulled out some flash cards today with pictures on them, and he immediately said the (correct) word for several of them such as: apple, car, and shoes. He's come a long way the past 3 months!

The main thing on my mind today was the health insurance. Today was the deadline for either declining or accepting PSU's insurance. I had emailed someone in my HR on Saturday regarding what date my insurance would become effective again, but I didn't hear back over the holiday weekend. I called her at 8:00 this morning. She said she'd be looking into it and getting back to me today. After a few emails back and forth (and I left a few messages on her voicemail), she sent me an email in the late afternoon that the main headquarters for our state system said I would have had to enroll in the health insurance in May, that I couldn't do so now. I immediately tried calling the head of HR. He didn't answer the phone, so then I called the Assistant Director. Thankfully, he did answer the phone. I explained that I had never been offered health insurance in May. How could I be penalized for not accepting that which I was never offered. I had been told I wouldn't receive any benefits again until the start of the fall semester.

He called the headquarters again and called me back around 4:30 to let me know that yes I was eligible for health insurance. It seems my benefits resumed the end of May because I was teaching this summer. My HR said they didn't know I was working this summer (how could they not know when they issued me paychecks this summer?), and that's why they didn't offer me health insurance in May. Since I wasn't offered it, they will offer it to me now. The only glitch is that they're saying I might have to pay the premiums for the past 3 months (which is lousy because they aren't cheap, I didn't receive the benefits, and I had to drive all over God's creation for medical appointments because PSU's insurance doesn't work with the local hospital). I really hope I don't have to pay for those 3 months, but if that's what it takes to get back on Blue Shield, so be it. I plan to check with the union to see if I am really required to pay for 3 months of coverage which I didn't receive. It wasn't my fault I wasn't told I was eligible 3 months ago. It was a stressful day. I wasn't exactly sure what time was the deadline for enrolling/declining the insurance through PSU today. At first my university was saying I was not eligible for insurance until next May, and if that had been true I needed to sign up for PSU's insurance because PSU's is certainly better than none!!! I also didn't want to end up paying for BOTH insurance premiums as my university's is already very expensive. So I'm glad that just in the nick of time someone in my HR was able to tell me YES you can have health insurance this year so that I could decline PSU's. I accepted PSU's dental and vision because together they cost less than $20 for the entire year for all four of us. I wish I had accepted those the first two years Paul was at PSU. Live and learn. I figured why sign up for additional coverage since we had vision and dental through my job, but it turns out PSU's dental plan is better than mine, plus if you have two plans then it means the one covers the deductible of the other one and we don't pay a dime.

One thing I kept reminding myself during this time of wondering what I should do and whether I was going to find out from HR in time or not was to keep this problem in perspective. I found out today that a friend of mine just recently experienced the passing of her spouse. They had been married for 47 years. I met Jeanie in January 2003. We shared an office for 18 months. I've kept in touch with her since then. We've seen each other at conferences; in fact we shared a hotel room in New Orleans for one conference. We carpooled to a meeting in Virginia once, she attended my baby shower, etc. I kept reminding myself today that my stress was such a minor thing in comparison to losing a spouse. I'd appreciate prayers for Jeanie, her kids, grandkids, etc.  - everyone in her family who is mourning the loss of her sweet husband.

Pink Eye Again

After going many, many years (possibly decades?) without having pink eye, I've now had it 3 times in the past 13 months. Since Nadia's cleared up on Tuesday, it seems dubious that I got it from her. She woke up last night in the middle of the night (that has been a habit again lately - grrr), and when I woke up to her crying, I immediately realized I couldn't open my left eye, and I knew I had pink eye. All the discharge and then seeing a red eye in the mirror confirmed that diagnosis. At the breakfast table I made two calls, to the answering service so the doctor on call could be paged and to my pastor because I was supposed to be giving a testimony during the morning worship service today as the final step in officially joining the church. The irony is that I had originally been scheduled to give my testimony in the spring, and I had to cancel that time at the last minute as well as our basement flooded the night before and my eardrum ruptured that day. The pastor said I could do it next week. Hopefully the third time will be the charm. I feel badly to have cancelled twice in a row. I surely wasn't expecting to wake up to an eye that felt like it was on fire!

The answering service said that the doctor usually won't call in a prescription, but because the offices were closed today and will be closed tomorrow, she did call one in for me. The drops only cost $15, and they are worth every penny. I still don't get it why ear drops are SO much more expensive than eye drops. Nadia was really, really upset that she had to miss church again. Last week I left her at home because she had pink eye, and today she couldn't go because I had pink eye. Hopefully all three of us will make it there next Sunday as I'm teaching Sunday School next week and scheduled to give my testimony during the worship service.

Yesterday we made our first trip to Lake Tobias. We had a great time! As long as we're living within an hour or so of that place, I'm guessing we'll probably go back once a year. The kids enjoyed the reptile building, the petting zoo, the safari ride, etc. We spent about 3 hours there. It scared them at first when the sheep took the crackers out of their hands. Nadia got over that fear and enjoyed feeding the alpaca, but Ian wasn't interested in feeding any other animals. He loved seeing them though. I broke into song (thanks to VeggieTales) when we saw the zebu and the water buffalo.

The reason we picked yesterday to go to Lake Tobias was that we were going to a wedding reception for one of Paul's cousins. The picnic reception was held at Paul's aunt's house, and they live about 2 hours from our house but only 50 minutes from Lake Tobias. We were the first guests to leave the reception. We had stayed for 2 hours, which I thought was long enough to be polite, but it made for a late night for our kiddos. Ian slept at first, but he woke up when we stopped for gas, and he never went back to sleep. Even dvd's weren't enough to keep him happy for the last 30 minutes. It reinforced in my mind that our decision to travel to and from Maryland during the afternoon has been a wise one. I'll try to avoid late nights in the car as much as possible since they were both wide awake when we arrived home at 9pm.

IVF #3

Before I share our exciting news, let me say that if you're someone I see face-to-face, could you please NOT talk about this while Paul is around? He doesn't enjoy chatting about ivf. My guess is that's probably true for most men. As you know if you've been reading this blog for the last year, I've been longing to have one more baby, and I figured that ivf #3 was probably the only way that would happen. Paul didn't share my desire to do ivf again. I really didn't think he was going to change his opinion. I had been praying that either the Lord would take away my desire for another baby or that He might enable us to conceive "on our own." Although humanly speaking it seems impossible, I figured that if God wanted us to have another baby, He could even enable that to happen without medical intervention. If it had been up to me, we'd have started the ivf process this past January. My main concern with waiting is the fact that the success statistics drop down pretty quickly each year as you approach 40, but that's water under the bridge. One advantage of having waited a year is that I won't have to wonder if we would have been able to conceive on our own. We jumped immediately into ivf #2 after Nadia weaned herself. I had heard of people (in fact two of my cousins) who got pregnant on their own after having a baby through ivf. There was always a tiny little part of me that wondered "what if" we had tried a little on our own. Well I don't wonder about that any more.

We had been talking recently about what I should do next year. I had made a comment about I'd be willing to keep working part-time if I could do ivf again. Since I really thought Paul wasn't open to doing ivf again, I didn't think he'd really give that any thought. I was wrong! He surprised me by telling me on Thursday night that we could do ivf again. I'm going to teach two nights in the spring semester (Tuesday/Thursday), and teach two online classes again next summer I realize there's no guarantee that ivf #3 will result in a baby in our arms, but it is exciting to feel like there's at least a chance we might have one more little miracle. I looked up the stats again, and if you combine the last three reported years (2007-2009) for my age group (38-40), the clinic I've gone to for my first 2 ivfs had a 35% success rate if you just narrow it down to those who made it to a transfer. Of those 9 women who gave birth, 6 gave birth to one baby, 2 gave birth to twins, and 1 gave birth to triplets. I didn't include FET's in the stats. I also looked into Hershey's program because they're considered a "preferred provider" with Paul's student insurance. During that same time span, they had a 43% success rate for my age group. All 13 women gave birth to just one baby. The hospital I've used in the past charges $8,200 up front and it can cost a little more than that if you need things like ICSI ($450) or assisted hatching ($300). Hershey said you can either just pay for the egg retrieval/transfer ($6,028 which is just $28 more than what our hospital charges) or you can pay $9,073, which includes the bloodwork, ultrasounds, etc (everything except the medication). I read the PSU grad insurance handbook again, and they make it very clear that they don't pay for ANY fertility treatments or medications - not even Clomid (which is cheap!). So I don't see any financial advantage to going to Hershey. In fact it's probably a little more expensive, and I don't think the extra driving time (an extra 2.5 hours RT) is worth a little bit better success rate, considering how many trips are made during an IVF cycle. Plus as Paul said, we've had a 100% success rate (per fresh cycle, not per transfer) with this clinic thus far. In the end the stats don't matter. It's 100% up to God. If He wants us to have another baby, the cycle will be a success even if we're the only success for that age bracket at that clinic in 2012. If He doesn't want us to have another baby, we could be at a clinic with a really high success rate and still not end up with a baby in our arms. He is in control not the stats!

I'd like to actually make use of my paid sick leave for once. I used none for Nadia since she came during the summer, and I used 2 weeks for Ian. I could have used a total of 16 weeks between the two deliveries as you're allowed 8 weeks per c-section. I'd really like to use a full 8 weeks if I give birth a third time. Paul also likes the idea of waiting a few more months. Finally, if we push the retrieval into January, it means I can file the paperwork to request the maximum allowed to be set aside in the medical savings account (or whatever it's called). I think it's around $6,000. That income then becomes tax free, which would make the ivf cheaper for us. I looked through my previous ivf cycles to try to figure out a timeline, and I'm thinking that I should start the bcp no later than December 1 and the fsh shots by December 22nd to have a January 3rd retrieval (approximately). If that was the ER date, the EDD (if I got a BFP) would be September 25. The semester starts on August 27. Based on those dates, I'd hit 36w on August 28. I gave birth to Nadia at 36w and Ian at 34w. I'd really, really like to go closer to full term this time as I really, really, really don't want to have another baby in the NICU, but I'd rather not have the EDD be the end of August just in case I do go early again. This way even if I have the baby 4 weeks early I'd still be able to use 8 weeks of paid leave. What do you think? Does this sound like a good plan? I spoke with the finance lady yesterday, but the nurse who is now the head IVF nurse was too busy to be able to call me back. When I spoke to the former ivf nurse almost a year ago, she told me that they were no longer doing up/down cycles like they used to do. There used to be only select weeks they did retrievals and transfers throughout the year. She told me last year that they are now doing them year round. I hope that's still the case or that early January is an "up" time if they're back to having up/down times.

I'm sorry this is turning into a lengthy post. Our last decision to make (by Tuesday) in light of this new bit of information, is which insurance we should pick. PSU's insurance will cost us $3,574 for the year. If I switch back to my university's (Blue Shield) insurance, it will cost us $9,922 since I'm only working part-time. At first it seems obvious to stay with PSU's, but Blue Shield will cover $2,200 of the ivf costs that PSU's won't. Plus Blue Shield pays for all the medications (minus some small co-pays) whereas PSU won't pay for any of the meds. In the past the most Follistim I've needed was 1,500iu, Repronex or Menopur - 750iu plus Lupron and Ovidrel or hCG. Unless I was able to get them through Craigslist or something like that, the meds would likely cost at least $2,000. That brings the gap between the two insurances down to about $2K. We decided to switch back to Blue Shield because if we end up with a situation like Nadia (who was a FET) then the gap will probably be totally gone. The other two advantages to switching back to Blue Shield are #1 that we can save 4 hours RT for doctor appts for Ian (such as a pediatric Allergist) and #2 if I do give birth next fall, the university has to pay for my insurance for a year. Well we still have to make some contribution, but it will be a LOT less than what we'll pay this year while I'm working part-time. So it seems Paul had this change of heart regarding ivf in the nick of time as the deadline for either declining or accepting the PSU insurance is September 6. I'm going to contact my HR to make sure that we won't have a lapse in coverage. We shouldn't since the fall semester began on August 29.

The bottom line is that I am very excited that there is at least a possibility that I'll have another baby. I was very grateful to be able to pick up the items that didn't sell from the consignment shop yesterday. I won't be trying to sell or give away any other baby items for at least a few more months. I'm trying not to get my hopes up tooo high, but it's hard not to hope it will be a success. Even if it isn't, I know I won't have any regrets because if we hadn't tried again I know I always would have wondered if we might have been able to have a third child if we had tried ivf again. Yesterday we also stopped at the mall, and while the kids were "riding" the rides (without me using any $$), one of the nurses from the fertility clinic walked by! I hadn't seen her since 2009. It was really a funny coincidence since I had been on the phone with the fertility clinic that same morning. I'll never forget this particular nurse as she was the one who tried to console me when we found out we were losing our first baby ( July 2005). I also have to say I am like the nurse (Joanie) who has been promoted to head nurse better than the one who had been head nurse the past several years. The RE we worked with the most has retired so I'll be seeing a new RE. I'm praying for a BFP in January!

Kindness of Strangers

Twice this week I have been blessed by the kindness of strangers. On Wednesday I accidently left one of my bags of items I had purchased at Walmart in the shopping cart. They have these carts which have this attachment that the kids can sit on (purely functional - nothing fun like the ones at some grocery stores that look like a car). Ian had been fussing so I had given him one of the bags to play with the stuff. Unfortunately when I was unloading the kids and bags from the cart, I forgot about that bag, which had been down by Ian's feet. I realized it as soon as I got home. I called the Walmart to see if it was still in the cart. They said it wasn't. I was tempted to drive right back and check for myself, but I didn't want to put the kids through that. I decided to call back later to see if the person who found the bag was honest and returned it to Customer Service, and that proved to be the case! I went back to Walmart (by myself) after choir rehearsal on Wednesday night. It was only about $13 worth of items, but I was still grateful they weren't lost.

Yesterday morning as we were walking to the playground, we passed a lady walking her dog. Shortly after we arrived at the playground, it started raining. We sat in the gazebo to wait it out. Ian kept shouting "rain!" He was laughing at times. It was a lot of fun to be in the rain in his opinion! After awhile I realized the storm wasn't probably going to end any time soon. I figured the kids would stay fairly dry due to the canopy on the stroller, but I was expecting to look like a drowned rat by the time we got home. Just as we were heading to the stroller, a minivan pulled up to the playground. It turned out that the lady who passed us had taken her dog back home and had come to take us home via her minivan. The stroller I use for taking the kids to the park doesn't collapse. She had to put down the seats in her van in order for the stroller to fit. The kids and I sat on the floor of her van as she drove us home. What an extremely kind gesture! I thanked Susan for being a good Samaritan. I usually check the forecast every morning, but yesterday when I checked I was just looking at Saturday's forecast because we're hoping to take the kids to Lake Tobias en route to Paul's cousin's wedding tomorrow. I was so gunshy this morning that the kids and I didn't even attempt a trip to the park. Sometimes it seems that society is going in the wrong direction, but these two events showed that there are still honest and kind people that will help a stranger!

It's Also Time

10. For the fall semester to begin. I went "back to school" on Monday. Since I'm teaching online, this meant my office hours via Wimba started on Monday night. I'm having them on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings this semester. I'm also having them on campus one Friday a month. The grading won't resume until next week, but I've already resumed spending a lot of time with email for work.

11. For choir to resume! Last night was the first choir rehearsal for the new choir year. We had a picnic for an hour and then sang for 90 minutes. I was going to bring brownies, but the pastor's wife happened to post on Facebook that she made brownies for the choir picnic (can you believe she's 49 years old and it was the first time she ever made brownies?), so I made chocolate chip cookies with Nadia instead and took half of the batch to the picnic. I do love singing in choir. I'm glad I am able to attend the rehearsals this semester!

12. To stop giving Ian Pulmicort or Prevacid. The GI called me yesterday, which was a very pleasant surprise as he had said on Monday he wouldn't call until next week. CHOP took 8 days to call me with the pathology results, but I had noticed on the report that the results had been available one day after the procedure. So in that sense I'm not shocked that they called me 2 days after the procedure. The good news is that Ian's esophagus is now fine! From the view by camera and the pathology results, they don't see any evidence of reflux or esophagitis! I asked the GI if we should continue the Prevacid because if so I'll need him to issue a prescription as the CHOP GI had been giving the prescriptions. He asked if Ian was still throwing up. When I said no, he said then he doesn't think he needs to be on the Prevacid any more. He said that if the vomiting resumes that we can resume the Prevacid. I then called the Allergist, and he said to stop the Pulmicort immediately. Yesterday Ian only had ONE medication - Singulair! This is a big change as he had been receiving (at one point) 6 doses of medication a day.

13. To stop drinking EleCare. The Allergist also said that we could switch to a milk that doesn't come from soy or a cow (such as almond milk, coconut milk, rice milk, etc.). Three of Ian's sippy cups today will be filled with Almond milk as he'll finish the last can of EleCare this morning. I purchased some vanilla almond milk yesterday. The allergist asked us to come in for an appointment. I made one for Sept 15, but I'm going to call back and ask if we truly have to go down there because it's a 5 hour drive (RT) and I think he's just going to give us instructions regarding attempts to add back in the foods that have been eliminated (milk, eggs, peanuts). Since the EleCare has been costing us a little more than $200 a month, I am grateful we don't need to buy any more of that!

14. To start some new techniques with Ian. The OT gave us an alligator that vibrates on Tuesday to use on Ian's face to try to desensitize him. I'm also to do the joint pushes (both legs and both arms) 6 times a day. My mom wisely suggested I do them in conjunction with feeding him since I feed him 6 times a day. I'm also supposed to be doing scalp massages throughout the day, the alligator, and also using the toothbrush on his tongue. It honestly feels very overwhelming at the moment, but I'm sure once I get into a routine it won't seem like such a big deal. Ian did nap on Sunday as he had been doing on vacation (slept 50 minutes in his crib without any crying). Monday we were at the hospital. Tuesday he napped only for 20 minutes and screamed the rest of the time. Yesterday he slept for only 10 minutes and screamed for an hour. I called the OT yesterday afternoon, and she's going to buy a timer for him that has worked with some other little ones she's worked with in the past. I'll set it for one hour and it will stay red until that hour is done. I was very frustrated yesterday because I had been so happy that he had finally learned to take a nap, but it only happened a grand total of 4 times and now it seems we're back to square one.

15. To buy size 5 diapers. In the beginning of this week there were 2 mornings when he woke up with a very leaky (and actually disintegrating) diaper. It made a huge mess. I ordered some size 5 diapers, which I thought I'd start using only as the overnight diapers as size 4 diapers fit him fine and we aren't having leaking problems during the day. Of course since I placed that order on Amazon his diapers haven't been leaking, but I'm sure at some point it will be time to make size 5 diapers the overnight ones. I'm sure those won't go to waste.

16. To pick some apples. I'm not sure why I'm not nearly as excited this fall, but I have been having trouble drumming up the energy to tackle picking the apples, peeling them, coring them, cooking them, etc. A lot came off of the tree during "Irene" last Saturday, but the trees are still full of apples. Paul didn't spray them this year, and that means that the apples (especially on the one tree) don't look very usable. He didn't spray because we didn't have gyspy moths this year. He said from now on he'll spray every year. Hopefully I'll get motivated to tackle the apples soon because I recently ran out of my homemade apple butter that I had been eating all year, and we ran out of homemade applesauce a LONG time ago. We have a picnic at church on Sunday afternoon. I could bring homemade apple crisp or something like that to that event. That should get me started.

17. To decide what committees to be on this year. I've received various emails this week from colleagues and my Dean asking me to serve on various college wide and university wide committees. The last couple of years I've only been chairing three department committees. I need to be careful not to say yes to too many of these opportunities. I am only getting 1/2 a paycheck for one thing. These decisions have made it necessary for Paul and I to decide what I'm going to do in the spring. I think we're going to make that decision tonight so I can then respond to these committee invitations accordingly.

18. To go to church. Nadia wasn't able to go to church on Sunday due to her pink eye still being contagious. She was sooooooooo upset. She kept begging me to take her with me to church. She said as I was walking out the door "But I love church!" This was music to my ears! I felt badly that she wasn't able to go, and I was thrilled that she wanted to go so badly. I am grateful to the Sunday School and Children's Church teachers who have helped make attending church so appealing to her. On Tuesday morning when she woke up without lots of goop coming out of her eyes, I told her that her eyes were all better. Her immediate response was "I can go to church!" That melted my heart! I am so glad her eyes are better, and I'm even more grateful that she loves to go to church. On Saturday morning when she woke up she screamed in terror "I can't see! I can't see!" because her eyelashes were stuck together. I'm glad that no one else in the family caught the bug from her.

19. To try a new feeding strategy. I spoke with Ian's psychologist today about the fact he's still screaming, but we now know it's not because he's in pain. He said we could either continue what we're doing and hope that at some point he'll stop screaming OR we can work more aggressively at extinguishing these behaviors (screaming, turning his head away, batting the spoon with his hands, etc.). I opted for the latter as I'm getting tired of the "same old, same old" that has been the norm now for almost 5 months since we started this feeding program. He said to cut down to 5 meals a day and that I am not to hold his face or his hands at all. He has to take the bites willingly. That might mean he sits there screaming for an hour before he takes one bite. He said there will initially be more screaming, but this should speed up the process of eliminating these behaviors. My only concern is that he's not going to be eating as many bites this way. I am going to weigh him tomorrow to make sure that this new plan doesn't wreak havoc on his weight because the almond milk has a lot less calories than the EleCare so if he also is eating less solid food at the same time, that could be a problem. Hopefully he'll get with the program and stop screaming and fighting me when I'm trying to feed him!