Brace of Chickens

Otherwise known as the woot! Bag of Crap - Three (or more) totally random things from their warehouse.  Sometimes really awesome, sometimes really lame.  It's all in the anticipation.

Bathroom Emergency

We went hiking with some of my family on Saturday.  It was an impromptu trip, my sister called me at noon and said she was taking my nephew hiking at the state park right next to our house.  I hadn't been feeling my best that morning, but I thought all was well, so We packed up some water, gingersnaps, and my camera, and joined them.  It was a blast.  We let the kids pick the trails we would take (age 5) and got ourselves a little turned around.  My nephew was sure we were lost, but it was more that we didn't care too much about our exact location, and we knew we could find our way back without too much trouble.

Anyway, about 2 hours into the hike I ducked behind a tree to pee, and realized, that if I started to pee, I was going to have the runs, right there, behind a tree, with no TP!  This was not acceptable.  (and not terribly optional)  So, I got back up, caught up with my mom and said "I really really need your TP, I'm about to have the shits."

I won't bore you with the details, or torture you with pictures (I didn't take any) of my experience, but it did lead to an unexpected discovery.   I went wandering into a low spot as far away from any of the trails as possible, and so as I was walking back to find the group, I happened to look down and see a skull half buried in the dirt and pine needles that covered the ground.

Yesterday I finally got a chance to take some pictures of the skull to share with everyone.  It was also the first real chance I had to play with my magnifying filters for macro pictures.  (I'm hundreds of dollars away from a true macro lens, and even then, I guess I've got more pressing things to do with my money.

I spent some time Sunday night trying to figure out what kind of skull it was, because our first guess was Marmot.  Did you know that they're a type of squirrel?  We could tell it was some kind of rodent, but we were having trouble thinking of which ones would be that large, but not really big.  It seemed just about housecat sized.  I looked up marmot skulls on the internet and found a document about Rodents of British Colombia and skull identification (http://capewest.ca/rodents.html).  Looking through all of the skull drawings I was able to discern that the skull I found was that of a porcupine.

Sorry - Welcome to the club.

That's what my Brother-in Law had to say when we went out to dinner with my sister and him on Thursday.  It was a great meal, and very nice to get a chance to visit with them, we don't do that enough. They've had their fair share of troubles as well, although theirs have been more along the lines of Recurrent Pregnancy Loss.


We only talked about our problems for a couple of minutes, but I could have kissed him for something he said right off the bat.  Jakobe asked me if I had told them why we were having trouble, and J looked right at him and said "Does it matter?"


It doesn't matter.

Numbness

I think that's where I'm at now.  I thougt this morning that maybe I felt better, but I really just feel numb.  Jakobe is not feeling better, and now to top it off, he's worried about me.  I guess that's par for the course, since I'm worried about him. I wonder what the normal course if for this stuff...  We don't have any final answers, and it will be a while before we can get any, but I did a bunch of looking, and it looks like we're down to 4 basic options:

1) IVF with ICSI - Expensive, like $12-15,000 a try, which is a lot of money for us...but it's the option that gives us a child of our own.
2) IUI with Donor sperm.  Jakobe really can't stand this idea.
3) Adoption - I'm not sure how I feel about it, and I feel like I'm a bad person for feeling that way.  I think part of it is wanting to experience the whole process, and wanting to have a child that is part of us in some way.
4) Be DINC's forever.  I don't think either one of us likes this option, but Jakobe is more comfortable with it than I am.

I feel terrible, but I told him that I was afraid that if we waited until he felt ready to make the appointment with the urologist, it won't ever happen.  I asked him to see the dentist before we got married - and he still hasn't gone, so I know of which I speak.  That and he really likes to deal with stuff using "Retail Therapy" otherwise known as buying things that you want, even if you haven't budgeted the money for it.  It's supposed to make you feel better, and it just makes me nervous about money.  That's not to say that I don't buy myself things to feel better, just that I keep it within my budget when I do...

For the most part.  Our trip last weekend was more expensive than I hoped that it would be.  Oh, well.  it's done.

Better than Yesterday

Right after I posted yesterday, Jakobe came home and we really got into it, he was angry with me because he felt pushed and pressured, and I was angry with him because I felt like all I did is ask him if he's be willing to take a vitamin/mineral supplement.  We talked a long time.  I don't know that either one of us is really better than we were before, but now at least we know what the other one was thinking.  We're both unhappy and afraid.

Falling to earth with a thud

It's been a rough coule of days, on the positive side, it was our annual trip to Radcon, a science fiction adn fantasy cnvention, which thankfully kept us busy and somewhet kept our minds off of the bad news of last week.

Friday we got the final results from Jakobe's SA - and it was not good.  So not good, that we're not sure that there is anything that we can do.  It's hard to accept.  For both of us.  The other thing that is hard is that we react in very different ways.  Part of me wants to find out as much information as possible, so that we can know what our options are, and can make longer term plans.  His reaction is that he doesn't want to deal with it or do anything right now.  He doesn't want to go to the doctor, he doesn't even want to consider a trip to the doctor for a couple of months. 

I want to be supportive, and I want to be understanding, I'm just also angry with him.  He says that he feels poked and prodded, but all he's done is give a sperm sample.  So I guess I feel like it's not important to him, or at least not important enough to do anything, or experience discomfort, or even to try and get someone who actually know how to interpret the SA results to tell us what the problem mght be.

So here we are, and I'm feeling like my dreams are fairly pointless.  Now I guess I wait for the hope to come back...

A Waste of My Time...

...and money, otherwise known as my Database Applications class.  Last week, I left partway though because he spent all 4 hours discussing homework that we were supposed to have turned in that day, and I had finished 2 weeks before.  Today, We're still talking about the same homework.  I spent valuable money so that I could sit in this class and actually LEARN something.  Mostly I guess I'm just sitting here, and instead of paying attention, I'm blogging.  Maybe I'll go back to reading my textbook.  Really though, If you can get the same amount of learning from reading the damn book (which I found for less than $50), Why would you pay for a 4 credit class...

Oh yeah - because if you pay a lot of money, for a lot of classes, they give you a piece of paper that says that they believe you actually learned something...

...and people believe them.

Test Anxiety

And, it's not even me who's taking the test.  I'm getting very nervous about Jakobe's SA on Wednesday.  As I told him last night, it's not so much that I'm afraid of what the results will be, but more of what his reaction to a poor result might be. He tries to take the blame for everything anyway, and even though we already know that I have problems, he feels responsible because he hasn't been able to "give" me a baby.  In response, I'm feeling guilty  for even asking him to get the SA.  I feel like it will be my fault if he's upset by it, because I'm the one who asked him to do it. 

On my side of things, I still don't have a recommendation from my doctor for a different doctor.  And, I expect I won't be able to get an appointment right away when she finally gives me one, so we're looking at a couple of months of just doing what we have been doing.  I did call my old doctor's office and they mailed my records today.  Hopefully the US Postal Service can get them to Spokane pretty quickly.

Sleepless Night

So, last night was almost entirely sleepless...  Sasha, our dog, had gotten into and eaten an entire 2 pound bag of Hip and Joint Dog Treats.  It upset her tummy greatly, and ended in her whining nonstop all night.  After and hour or an hour and a half, I snuck out to the living room to try and sleep, because Jakobe was sleeping right through it.  Well, as soon as I left, he stopped sleeping, and was very very grumpy by 4 am.  So, I was sleeping poorly on the couch, and he was sleeping not at all in the bedroom.  At 4, I want back and cuddled Sasha so Jakobe could sleep at least until 6:30 or 7 when we had to get up.  It was better than nothing.

I will not cry.

I was right about getting my hopes up.  The crash hurts a lot worse this way.  In today's news:  I'm not pregnant, again.  What a shock.

I guess it's like playing 5 card stud, when your first three cards are a 2 of spades, 6 of Hearts, and a 8 of clubs - you're screwed.  That's how I feel like we're doing.  I've got endometriosis, and possible poor ovulation, and Jakobe has at least some retrograde ejaculation.  But we just keep trying.  Hoping that next time we'll get a hand we can play.

So, my sore boobs can stick it in their ear, and in a day or two after my period actually starts, I'll stop feeling sorry for myself, and be ready to try again, with some sort of new plan.  Maybe Jakobe's SA will tell us something else we don't want to know, or maybe, just possibly, nothing else is wrong.  I've got Metformin, and maybe another laparoscopy that I can do, and apparently from research I was doing yesterday, we can solve the RE problem with sudafed for Jakobe.  We're not without hope, or a plan.  Plus - I guess this gives us a little more time to increase our savings, and me more child free time to finish school.  It's just not what I want.