Hello Again

I know I’ve been gone awhile.  Couponing became quite the obsession for a while.  I’m doing better at balancing it now that we’ve got a pretty decent stockpile of basics.  My mom helps a lot and we split the goods.  It really fits my OCD personality.  And the rush of getting a good deal – or better yet, free deals! – is addictive.

Davie is doing great, growing so fast.  She’ll be 18 months old in just a week!  A year and a half.  I’ve got to get pictures set up at Penney’s for her.  I’ve already got the perfect over-the-top dress for her.  She talks soooo much, and she’s the boss of everybody!  She has almost no fear, which puts the fear into me!  She’s fallen off the jungle gym more than once, and her new favorite past time is climbing up on furniture and jumping off.  What is the obsession with jumping?

We’ve been keeping her one week with my folks (just Sun night – Wed afternoon), the the next week she goes to a home daycare Mon-Wed (my mom keeps Davie and my niece Kinley at our house every Thursday and Friday).  I like having Davie here as much as possible, and I enjoy the few days the opposite week to get the house clean and laundry done, and maybe have a date night with Troy.  But I’ve really been a bit uncomfortable with Davie’s daycare provider.  I can’t really put my finger on it – she’s efficient and easy-going, but she seems a bit frustrated with Davie.  She tells me Davie is her whiniest child, her most challenging one.  I fear that if she’s frustrated with Davie, she might not watch her as closely or care for her as much as the others.  So we’ve visited a formal daycare right next to my work called Prodigy.  It’s pricy, but we really liked it, and it would only be for 6 days a month.  I think we’re going to try it starting next month.  I’m hoping Davie will thrive in a more structured environment.  I don’t know what we’ll do if she’s not happy there.

We’re still trying for baby #2.  We just went through our last fresh IVF cycle.  It’s the last our insurance will help us with, and we just can’t afford another on our own.  And honestly, I think if we can’t make a strong embryo by now, it’s probably too late.  I think my eggs are just too old.  Since Davie was born, we had 2 IVF’s (and two chemical positives followed by devastating periods) and one frozen embryo transfer that I didn’t respond to at all.  This was our third IVF since Davie was born (our 4th over all), and I had the best response so far.  We got 28 eggs with 25 being mature.  Of the 25, all fertilized by ICSI.  Of those, we transferred in 3 5-day blasts and froze 3.  We have 1 frozen from an earlier IVF, so we have a total of 4 frozens.

I didn’t cheat once with a HPT during the 2WW.  Last Thursday I got a back what they’re calling a “cautious positive.”  They like to see an HCG of at least 50, although they consider anything 6 and over a positive.  Mine was 20.  This morning we repeated the HCG and got a 39 – almost perfect doubling in 48 hours, but still painfully low.  We just have to keep praying and hoping, with another repeat HCG Monday morning.  The waiting and hoping is so painfully hard, but I’d rather have hope than be devastated right now.

My hormones are raging.  I’m so emotional, I cry at the drop of a hat.  I can’t watch anything sad on TV or listen to sad music.  It’s going to be hard to take Davie to my mom tomorrow for her three days up there, but it’ll be good for me.  It’s hard for me not to pick her up (and constantly clean up after her), and I’m supposed to be taking it easy and propping my feel up a lot.  Hopefully by the time she and mom get back on Wednesday we’ll have some really good, strong HCG numbers.  I’m not cramping at all but I have been spotting off and on for about 5 days.

So much longing.  So much hoping.