Peace, Quiet and 200 days left

Let me start the post by admitting I'm horribly irritable lately. Like keep the hell out of my way or I'll lose my mind cranky. Little things turn into big things and big things are stab worthy. 

My cousin/roomate is getting on my LAST nerve. She's got to go and the sooner the better. I've given her a deadline of September but I'm really hoping it's more like early August. I doubt it though because her only option right now is going BACK to her grandma's... If they can get the drunkle out for good, but if they can't... she's got NO back up plan. This is so frustrating to me. How can you not want to have a plan B for yourself and your CHILD to not be homeless, or couch surfing? Wouldn't you WANT to have a place of your own so he could have a room to play in?

The kid is 5, he needs stimulation. He needs his own room, with room for his toys, he needs to be played with. She picks him up from school, takes him to the park for about 1.5 hrs until 5 or so when hubs gets up for work (and only because I told her they were waking him up hours early  and it wasn't acceptable) then she expects him to entertain himself for 4 hours while she sits and plays on her phone on the couch. She'll send him to the room to watch a movie or play on his tablet. It drives me INSANE, because of course he's going to come out and ask 8 thousand questions:

Can we go ride bikes?

Can we go play soccer?

Can I play on the playstation?

Can we paint?

Can we watch (insert movie of the week here)?

Over and over and over. and my patience starts to wear thin. Not with him and his questions but her response or lack there of... 

PLAY WITH YOUR DAMN KID 

Then we've got her dog... I don't like to say I hate dogs, but I'm really not a fan of this one. It started when he attacked my ducks, charging at their pen and he actually managed to bite one of them on the bill through the fence. Now he can't go outside unattended at all but instead of sitting out there with him for awhile, she lets him out long enough for him to do his business and then brings him back in. I get it, it's hot outside but he's a high energy dog, he needs to have an outlet or he's too hyper in the house.. and 3 large dogs "playing" in the house is like a herd of elephants. He also tries to jump the fence to get to the neighbors dog which he apparently doesn't like so he can't go outside while that dog is out or it will be non-stop barking and jumping at the fence. 

He's also a barker.. he barks at flies, he barks at cars, he barks at people walking down the street, he barks when the wind blows too hard. We've never had barking dogs and it makes it impossible for N to sleep during the day when the dog is barking at every little thing. And he's recently started barking at people. My stepdad is helping us finish painting the basement and the dog wouldn't let him in the house even after we gave the command to stop barking. I'm not okay with that in my house. He barked at me while I was coming down the hallway the other night for no reason. 

So she had plans to go to a friends house for the 4th yesterday and I asked  her if she was taking S (her dog) with her. She gave me this questioning look... I told her I wasn't watching her dog. Ours are freaked out enough with the fireworks, we were having people over and I couldn't have the risk of him barking at our guests or the responsibility of watching him each time we needed to put the dogs outside. I think I might have made her mad because she decided to go out of town to her mom's for the weekend. 

Frankly, it's been awesome. I hadn't realized how much her being here has changed they dynamics in my house. N and I got up and had breakfast at the table together he said "do you hear that?" I said, "what?? He said "exactly". Then, we laid on the couch and talked about the last week since we haven't had the chance to catch up, we napped on the couch, we hung out in our underwear. It was awesome. I've missed the time we have together just the two of us.

And we only have 200 days left for it to be just the two of us!! That's right, my handy dandy little app told me I've got 200 days until my EDD. 

I'm amazed by that fact. It's a long time but not so long at all...

I totally ran out of steam for this post after my rant... sorry I'm a shitty blogger.. thanks for reading if you've made it this far.  Enjoy this pic of a cat

When in doubt.. blog it out

Some strange things happening on the Twitters today and frankly, my feelings got hurt when maybe they shouldn't have.. or maybe they should have... I don't know. But it was fairly implied that my specific view on paid medical leave for caretakers (of children or parents) has now changed because I'm pregnant.

This was hurtful to me for a couple reasons

• The implication that I was discriminating against childless/childfree individuals
• The implication that I would have had less compassion for those caregivers had I not potentially become one of those

Here's the thing. I've watched friends lose their house because they didn't have enough leave to take care of their DYING daughter. A daughter with Batten Disease who was born without issue who quickly deteriorated before their very eyes. This was not and is not ok. 

I have another friend who is childless because she can't afford treatments for her IF because her mother had a stroke when she was 23 (she's now 36) and she's responsible for her care, both monetarily, physically and emotionally. She hasn't had a "vacation" in years because her "vacation" days are used up by mom's appointments and care. 

I would NEVER begrudge those people for getting more leave than me in order for them to take care of their ailing family members. 

Time off for caregiving is not an extra vacation. This is not a benefit for time spent in paradise. It's taxing work, time that would be gladly given up if their family member would just be well, cured, healthy, living.

The one thing I don't feel like 140 characters can cover is the need for better paid medical leave for all: Let's call this bucket A.

Bucket A covers YOU. This covers sick time for the flu, for the hangover, for the broken leg, for the cancer, for the IVF treatments... YOU! And everyone should be entitled to a much larger " bucket A" than we get in the USA now. 

My concern is a circumstantial bucket B: The emergency, someone needs my help and without time off and a continues paycheck that can't happen, bucket. This is paid time off if the situation arises that you have to be a caregiver for someone else... Be it a spouse, S/O, child, parent, etc. This shouldn't be combined with bucket A. I understand the need for limitations to this bucket, same as Bucket A,  but it should be a different bucket. Because if your mom has a stroke in January and you use up your time and then your appendix bursts in November, you shouldn't have to lose your job, or your car, or your house because you need recovery from surgery. 

And if you never "get" to use Bucket B because you don't have children, or your parents never get sick, or whatever.. you don't complain about someone else getting "more time off" You simply remember they aren't on vacation on a beach in Cabo, send them flowers, wish them and their family well and move on with your job. 

Because compassion for others shouldn't be dependent on you needing that exact same compassion. This is the type of argument that  routinely works against those struggling with infertility when it comes to medical coverage through insurance in the US. 

There are too many people saying "why should I help if I don't need that" and the answer is "because you help when you can, that's humanity" 

I don't do sick

I'm not a very good sick person. I don't like feeling crummy and it makes me kind of a whiney bitch.

Monday night I went to bed early like 830pm early because I couldn't keep my eyes open. Last night was the same. I was exhausted and I felt like crap and I had a fever. YUCK! I hate having a fever. I run cold anyway so 100 degrees for me is like MY EYEBALLS ARE ON FIRE SHOOT ME NOW!

I went to bed. Woke up wide awake at 230am finally went back to sleep around 5am. and got up to work from home at 9. I'm miserable. My head is foggy, I have a cough and my eyeballs hurt from being hot.

I want a blankie and my mommy and a nap.

Plus N and I got in a fight last night about treatment. He's got a couple issues from what I can see, one is money, he's really really really concerned about the amount of money we'll spend on the chance at a child.

The other is the level of treatments he's ok with. Right now that list is really really short. Like not even including IUI because it's "weird". I'm really hoping he opens his mind a little because right now, since we don't have any idea what we'll need to do, we don't have many options at all.

This is a pain in the ass and makes me hate people that just have sex and get pregnant.

First appointment update

Well I'm not super happy with how my appointment went. First of all let me say I love my OB/GYN, I've been going to him for as long as I can remember and usually, his calm/cool/collected demeanor is refreshing but this time, not so much.

He basically ignored the fact I've been charting for the last few cycles. He seemed rather unconcerned with the fact that my average cycle is over 35 days, with most being in the 40+ range. "Not ovulating every month is fairly common" Yeah, but not ovulating MOST of the months isn't... Ovulating on day 28+ ISN'T NORMAL. Basically all he wants to do is a SA for Hubs (that gets sent to an RE that's about 40 mins away... Hubs is NOT happy about that) and a CD21 panel for me to "see if I'm ovulating". Look fucker, I can tell you right now I'm not, and if I am it's late and I surge multiple times before I finally do... so let's skip the baby step bull shit and get down to business. This isn't like a game of Monopoly where you just play and play until someone wins... this game has a sand timer and a fucking buzzer each time your turn is up.

Oh and I asked him about his thoughts on Clomid vs Femara... he looked at me like I had 4 heads. He said "plenty of women have gotten pregnant on Clomid and it's cheaper" I specifically asked about lining issues he said he thought they were "grossly exaggerated". Now I'm pissy and taking that kind of personally for all my new found friend that DID have lining issues on Clomid.

Mom went with me to the appt, I'm really glad she did but at one point said that she thought I was too worried and if maybe connecting with people that have been struggling with this for years might be doing more harm than good. Mom has Hashimoto's disease that was recently FINALLY diagnosed. I asked her, point blank, "If you had access to multiple people that were struggling with this disease for YEARS longer than you, that had already taken every drug, ran every test, seen every doctor, wouldn't you listen to them? Wouldn't you want the same tests ran? Because even if the problem isn't the same, it's something that can be crossed off the list that COULD be the problem. And when you're living on borrowed time, why not start at the top and work your way down instead of starting at the bottom and taking the long route?"

I think a light bulb clicked with her then.

So I'll be scoping out RE's this month. I just joined up with the local Infertility Awareness group and they're actually doing a conference this month so I'll have to find someone to cover soccer for me. I'm going. The 4 RE's here in town will have booths there to help answer questions. Hopefully we figure something out.

OMG, I can't believe I forgot to tell you!!!

Newborn baby friend from this post text me last night to ask about random friend from the past. Random past friend posted something about mom and baby doing fine on his facebook and she was curious who he had a kid with... Hell if I know, I haven't talked to him in MONTHS. Regardless, Here's how the texts went:

Mind you, I haven't gotten a text or phone call from her since before that kid was BORN

A: "So who is C having a baby with?"
Me: I have no idea. We don't see him much anymore
A: Oh, ok. How are you?

(at this point I was pretty sure she didn't really care but decided to humor her (and maybe bait her a little))

Me: Eh, I'm ok
A: What's up? I never get to sleep more than 3 hours at a time
Me: Yeah, well I'm going to have to go through fertility treatments to have that problem

(Cue the awwwww snap)

A: What?!?
A: :(
Me: Yep, totally broken. I have a Dr appt on the 9th to see where we start
A: I'm so sorry! Let me know if I can do anything
Me: Thanks, right now it's just a lot of waiting. It's pretty scary actually

And that was the end of the conversation.

This one might divide us

And by us I mean the three or so people that read my blog. (There may be more, but if you don't comment, I'll never know) (yes, that was a pathetic plea for comments, I'm sad like that and need validation from strangers)

I saw the post today about measles breaking out in NYC and it infuriates me to no end. First, the idea of not vaccinating your child is insane and illogical in my eyes. I've yet to see a single study that shows that something vaccines do is worse than dying from the thing it's protecting you from. If you have one, please do share (so I can promptly go science on your ass and refute every claim with evidence)

And I know I begged for comments but the first person to say vaccines cause autism is getting a Blu e*cig shoved in every available orifice (and some I'll just make available). The same lady who has been on this "vaccines made my kid autistic" crusade pushes electronic cigarettes.. Because cancer is better than autism. Don't even get me started on the fact that her kid was misdiagnosed.. She makes me want to punch puppies.

Have you ever SEEN pictures of people with measles? Whooping cough? Polio?? What about mumps? A girl I worked with got the mumps LAST year. Oh, but not regular mumps, a different strand of mumps. Because when the virus is introduced, it can start mutating again. So thanks for that.

Here's the deal, there are a TON of people out there (right here) that would (and are) doing every single thing in their power to have a child and if your snot nosed little ankle biter gives theirs fucking MEASLES before they are old enough to get vaxxed. They will most likely go rabid wolverine on your ass.

You don't want to vax? Fine, buy and island and quarantine yourself. Quit putting my hypothetical child's life in danger because the host of SINGLED OUT told you vaccines were bad!

-h