Partly Cloudy With a Chance of an Infant

Because our kids only seem to be around for a limited time, here's announcing baby "Julian" at six weeks.  It's kind of like naming hurricanes.  They pop up on the horizon from time to time, make our lives miserable for a few weeks, put me in the hospital at least once, and then spiral off into the great beyond.  Fifth time's the charm?  Maybe?  Whatever.

There is a slight chance this time might be different.  My uterine cavity has been cleared of all abnormalities.  I'm currently on a progesterone treatment, and my nutrition is much better as we've been hardcore vegetable and fruit juicing for about a month.  I've decided to go gluten-free for the duration just as an extra precaution.  We're really grasping at straws, but it never seems to matter what we do.  Oh, well.  Time will tell.  In the meantime, brace for impact.

Change of Plans

I've been looking forward to moving house for a long time.  Some friends of ours moved into a lovely apartment almost two years ago and I immediately knew I wanted to join them.  Unfortunately we had only just resigned our 12-month lease, so we had a long wait ahead.  When our next opportunity rolled around, they served us with new papers earlier than expected, and the location Dave's new job assignment was in question, so we opted to wait another year.  The move was now scheduled for next April.  I was really looking forward to being closer to friends, closer to Dave's work, closer to the free dog park, in a prettier apartment with a double sink in the kitchen, long counters in the bathroom, a gym and a pool.  (Our current apartment lacks both the gym and the pool, the gym being the more attractive prospect of the two.)

The de-cluttering began in earnest.  We were going to paint the walls, buy new furniture, replace the glass on the dining room table.  There was a whole list of exciting things that would happen "after we move."  One of those things was going to be trying for another pregnancy.  It seemed silly not to at least give it a shot after all the probings and scannings and surgical corrections we had done.

But you know what they say: location, location, location.  As much as I wanted to just move and be done, in the end I couldn't reconcile moving away from my current doctor.  It's not that I'm particularly attached to her, but both my PCP and my OBGYN are in the same building, and that building is just a few minutes up the street we live on now.  The hospital is a ten-minute drive down the road and through a neighborhood.  If we're going to attempt another high-risk pregnancy, it doesn't make sense to move away from this incredibly convenient set-up we have here.

So, I mourned the move for about a day.  Then I bought (and built) new furniture and painted the walls.  I rearranged everything in the living room and the bedroom.  I made pillow covers and new table linens.  A large piece of glass will be procured to keep them nice.  The thought of possibly being pregnant, miserable and couch-ridden soon made me want to do all the heavy lifting now.  In the meantime, we've given up our semi-celibate lives, so we'll see what happens.

Pictures of the new decor to follow, just the "afters" because I forgot to take "befores."   Regardless of whether the pregnancy works out or not, I love our new blue walls.

Where Has This Cough Syrup Been All My Life?!

Okay.  I've been sidelined by a horrible hacking cough which started two weeks ago with one night of otherwise innocuous sinus drainage.  Dave has been sleeping on the couch almost that whole time just to get some sleep.  I certainly haven't been sleeping.  I've been subsisting on little more than Halls menthol drops and DayQuil syrup.  That horrible persistent dry tickle deep in the trachea was all that remained, but it was impossible to reach with medication and it just wouldn't go away.  I think I tore my vocal cords at one point just from coughing.  It had progressed to the point that each cough triggered a dramatic gag reflex, which generally makes one a social pariah, especially at church.  I thought the worst was finally behind us, but yesterday the drainage started yet again, and a fresh sore throat started creeping down over the worn out scar tissue left by the last one.

I wasn't okay with another two weeks of this.  Fortunately, we met some new friends through their skittish cockapoo Clementine who attends Andy's puppy playtime at PetCo, and they recommended a holistic honey-based cough syrup called Chestal.  I didn't have high hopes, but it was worth a try.

Oh.  My.  Gosh.  The stuff is magic.  I had full-blown postnasal drip with lots of mucus and sore throat on top of the old dry tickle from before.  A few doses (it can be taken every two hours) and I slept through the night.  The dog slept through the night without sighing at me.  Dave slept through the night, NOT on the couch.  I woke up and felt great.  NyQuil can't even compete with this stuff. And it tastes good, on top of everything else.  I'm going to have to canvas all the little organic shops in town, because we grabbed the last bottle.  Also, Riccola cough drops are beating the pants off Halls.

The list of ingredients on the box was especially fascinating to me. I'm not even sure what most of it is, but I like that they broke the list down into the various functions.  Looks like it will cure just about any cough out there.  I had several of the varieties listed, but once you feel it coat the back of your throat - and stay there - magically you don't feel like coughing anymore, and you are free to sleep or do whatever.  I might have to smuggle the bottle in my purse for Sunday.

Flouro Hysterosalpingograthingy

So, following up the surgery, the obgyn referred me back to the radiologists for "flouro hysterosalpingography."  The name alone was enough to be off-putting.

Suffice to say, the procedure was unpleasant.  I was in no mood for the doctor's questionable bedside manner, particularly while I was wearing little more than a giant paper napkin.  After pumping my unmentionables full of sticky brown dye (which induced some cramping), they pushed me under a giant x-ray machine and eventually were able to determine that my uterine cavity is now normal and that my tubes are not blocked.  I was never concerned about my tubes; in fact, I would have been perfectly happy to have at least one of them blocked.  One woman's blessing is another's problem, I suppose.  At this point, I'd be happy to donate my tubes to some deserving recipient somewhere.

I'm finally just fed up with people poking around up in my uterus.  I'm generally a healthy person otherwise, but ever since this problematic organ entered service four years ago it has helped me learn more than I ever wanted to know about emergency rooms, blood work, IVs, local and general anesthesia.  It has been scraped, probed, irradiated, photographed, ogled at, tested, dissected, resected, injected, and all kinds of other mean, nasty, ugly things.  Sometimes it seems like I spend more quality time with speculums and intravaginal ultrasound wands than I do with my husband.  I've just had enough of people messing with it.  I'm sick of this little temperamental blob of scarred flesh holding my life hostage.  I almost hoped one of my tubes was blocked so I could have the satisfaction of telling them not to fix it.

But it would be a waste to go through all these procedures without trying again at least once.  That won't happen until next year.  Whether we are successful or not, a pregnancy would sideline me immediately for an indefinite amount of time, and I have a cross-town move to plan, crap to pack, walls to paint, etc.  Best case scenario would mean another caesarian at least.

Trying to stay positive and hopeful, but I'm just done with it.  If I could send my uterus off to go to its appointments without me, I would.  There are other things I'd like to do with my life.

Not actually me.

Upcoming Surgery

Ok.  I expected to be able to post actual 3D images of the ultrasound I had recently for visual exhibits, but the CD copy they gave me is completely unreadable to my laptop.  So I scoured Google for some stand-ins.

Here's a normal uterus, for the sake of comparison:

Exhibit A: The Ideal

Here's a partial septate uterus, like mine.  It looks more like a Y on the inside, but the outside is almost normal.

Exhibit B: Definitely Not Ideal

Here's the plan: surgically remove the septum.  They don't know that it's THE problem, but it's something they know how to fix.  

Exhibit C: Burn the Monster Out

Whatever.  It will mean a thirty minute out-patient procedure.  Might as well while we have no deductible and no co-pay.  It will probably mean re-instituting our semi-Josephite marriage arrangement, but we're old pros at that by now.