My Golden Birthday

I have heard that your golden birthday is when your turn the age of the day your birthday is, for example. On the 29th I turned 29. This was a less than ideal birthday and Christmas season. This is not a happy post, but most people have heard what has been going on with me so I will write it down for posterity. It is long and gruesome, so you have fair warning.

Right after Thanksgiving I started having some unusual pain and bleeding. I thought that my IUD was out of place so called my doctor to get an ultrasound. When they did the ultrasound they discovered that my IUD was indeed in place, but that I was pregnant. There was quite a bit of bleeding but the IUD was below the pregnancy so my doctor thought that we could remove the IUD without disturbing anything. I was a complete wreck for the next 4 days thinking about all of the logistics of having another baby right now. Our house is too small, our car is too small, we have no money, I would be looking for a job about the time the baby would be born, all that kind of stuff.

On the afternoon of Dec 3rd I felt a non-painful rip and started gushing blood. It was obviously a miscarriage, which because of everything that had happened, wasn't a complete surprise. The bleeding was pretty intense, but having never experienced a miscarriage before didn't know how bad it really was. I had some Loratab left over from a previous surgery, so took one and went to bed at about 6:00. At about 10pm I woke up in pain and went upstairs to take more meds. On my way back downstairs I fainted due to loss of blood. I didn't hurt myself, but it was at this point that Marc insisted I go to the ER. Marc's mom was kind enough to come to our house in the middle of the night to watch the girls.

We went to the U of U ER which was really great. They got me in and seen right away. I passed a lot more blood and clots while there. They hooked me up to an IV but decided I didn't need a blood transfusions, just a lot of fluids. They also did an ultrasound which confirmed that the baby was gone but there was still quite a bit that needed to come out. By the time we left the hospital most of the bleeding had stopped and I was no longer in pain. However, they still sent me home with some pretty good drugs and instructions to take a pregnancy test in a couple to weeks to make sure everything had passed that needed to.

I assumed that with the intensity of bleeding, etc. that this was over with. However, on the 16th I started bleeding and passed a few more clots. I took another pregnancy test and sure enough it was positive. I called my doctor who insisted I come in right away and have blood work and another ultrasound. My pregnancy hormones were still high and the ultrasound revealed there were still "retained products of conception." At this point I was given Cytotec which you insert vaginally and it opens the cervix to complete the miscarriage. I started this the next day and passed a few more clots. Since not much happened I did a second dose which accomplished nothing except giving me a screaming headache. I called my doctor to tell her what happened and she hoped that the little I passed was everything but told me to take a pregnancy test on the next Monday. Sure enough, it was still positive. On Monday I came in to do another blood test which showed that my HCG was still pretty high. She offered to let me do another round of Cytotec or go for a D&C. This had been such a long and drawn out process that I was ready to just have the surgery and be done with it. The two options for me were to do it on Monday (school starts on Tues) or yesterday (my birthday). I opted for yesterday.

I was told not to eat after breakfast and to come in at 3:30pm and we would probably do the surgery around 4:30. I got checked in, the IV put in and we waited, and waited and waited. I wasn't until 7:00pm that I was taken up to the OR. I was glad that I brought my computer and had something to do while waiting. I think the worst part of it was how hungry I was. I was actually OK until about 5:00 and then it really started to get to me. When I was wheeled up I had to wait for a few minutes outside of the OR until my doctor got there. I remember talking to the anaesthesiologist, he gave me some drugs that made me feel dizzy and then I was in recovery. I actually don't remember even waking up. When I came to consciousness I was already in the middle of a conversation with the nurse. It was weird. My doctor said everything went fine and hopefully this is the end of the saga. There are some worst case scenarios that could still occur but I am trying to stay positive. I did tease my doctor that because of all of this nightmare I will be one of the patients she tells stories about to her colleagues. She agreed.

For most of the day I was fine. I wasn't too upset about the way everything went down. I just carried on with my day, except for skipping my birthday sushi lunch. The only time I lost it was at the hospital. Everyone was going on and on about what a horrible day it had been that when the OR nurse gave me this look I started crying. That was the only time. I just wanted to scream "WILL EVERYONE QUIT TALKING ABOUT HOW AWEFUL THIS IS FOR ME, I KNOW!"

There were a few bright spots to my day. I got a new iPod because my old one had died, and I finally got an internship set up for my last semester. I applied for several internships that I didn't get and was getting really worried that I wasn't going to be able to set anything up in time for the new semester. I emailed one of my favorite teachers who I knew was taking interns starting in January. I begged him to let me do my internship with him and he is letting me. So at least that is a relief.

If there are any updates to report I will send them out, but lets pray that there are not.

Christmas Day 2010

We had such a great Christmas! We took the day pretty slow and were grateful for it. We woke up around 8:00 and cleaned the house and got breakfast ready for when Marc's family arrived around 10. (This is one of the best things about having 2 year olds who don't know any better). When the family arrived we proceeded to eat our traditional breakfast (eggnog french toast and bacon), open presents, play games, and watch movies. 

The girls opened presents throughout the day and got way more stuff then they needed with the major highlights being the presents from their aunt Mimi. She gave them personalized brushes and pillows. She knows my kids so well. After a long day of festivities my parents, Caleb and Janell arrived around 4pm. We played some more games until it was time to get dinner ready. The highlights from the meal are available on my cooking blog. The best part of the day was that I was on call but didn't get called in until 10:30pm. Thanks everyone for the fun day and for helping with food!

Random Things

The girls have been so active it has been difficult to keep up with them. Here are a few examples...

Painting

Bubbles

Sharing

Little Helpers

On Wednesday I did all of my holiday baking. The girls aren't quite old enough to help, but they try so hard. I think I broke the world record in butter, flour and sugar used in one day. Thanks Sandy for all the real help!

Improvising

Alice's feet need to remain dry for 10-14 days after surgery, which means bath time is a little tricky. We decided to bust out the baby bath and improvise.

Claire: the perpetual "helper"

Bilateral Fifth Digit Flexor Tenotomy

Curly toes

Alice loved the waiting room fish tank

Watching Wall-E

In recovery

Today Alice went in for her last procedure to fix her feet. Her pinky toes curl under severely and needed to be straightened. All of the previous procedures were done in the doctor's office, but today she actually went in for surgery. We got there bright and early at 7:15. We got checked in, Alice was weighed and measured and we waited for her surgery. As is typical with this particular doctor, things were running behind schedule. I was really glad that I brought my iPod touch with Wall-E and The Princess and the Frog on it. Alice was content to sit in my lap and watch movies while waiting. I was given the option for Alice to get Versed, a sedative, before the surgery. Knowing Alice and her stranger danger, I opted for the extra drugs. Once she got the drugs, she got a little loopy and was touching the iPod screen with greater interest than was warranted. Even with the sedative, she still cried when they took her away. I waited in the waiting room for about 45 minutes until the doctor came in and told me that everything went really well. Soon after that I was taken back to recovery where Alice was just waking up and very tired. She kept trying to sit up but couldn't get balanced. Many other kids in recovery were crying and screaming, but Alice was awesome and simply wanted me to hold her. Before we could leave Alice needed to eat and drink without vomiting. She lost her lunch around when we were going to start getting ready to go which meant we stayed much longer than normal. The worst part was after she barfed she didn't want to eat or drink again. After a few hours she had eaten a few cheerios and drank enough water to satisfy the discharge nurse to allow us to go. We left the hospital a little after 2:00 making our day 7 hours long. She is doing great now. We were given Loratab for her pain and will do an Ibuprofen regimen for a few days to keep the swelling down. She can't get her feet wet for about 10 days but should but up and about in a couple of days. I am so glad that everything went well and we are done with feet procedures. The best part, I don't even feel guilty about letting Alice watch movies all day and eating whatever she wants. The first thing she asked for after the surgery was eggs. The nurse got a big kick out of that. The food options available in recovery were very limited and nothing the girls normally eat. They tried to give her juice, but she didn't like it. They never get juice so it was probably way to sweet for her. By the time she got home she had a hankering for French Toast and has been eating non stop every since. Thankfully she has kept everything down since the incident in recovery.

Thanksgiving

This year we had a small Thanksgiving with my parents. We couldn't stay ahead of the big blizzard because I was on call Tuesday night, but we headed down slowly on Wednesday and stayed until Friday. It was a nice relaxing holiday. I really enjoyed the intimacy of the small Thanksgiving because I was able to visit and spend quality time with my family instead of being torn between all of the people I want to talk to. On Friday my mom and I hit some of the sales and scored some pretty good deals. Overall I great Thanksgiving!

My mom and I preparing Thanksgiving dinner

Me, Marc, Janell, Caleb, Dad, and Mom

The girls were napping during the actual dinner, but they
woke up at the end and were still able to enjoy the festivities.

 My major contribution this year was mashed potatoes. This is a recipe one that I have no where else to put, so here it is.

The Ultimate Thanksgiving Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:

5 pounds (about 10 medium) baking potatoes, peeled and quartered

4 Tbsp unsalted butter melted

2 oz. cheddar cheese, (about 1/2 cup) grated

4 oz. cream cheese

1 1/2 tsp coarse salt

3/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

Directions:

Place potatoes in a large pot and cover with cold water.

Add salt.  Place over high heat and bring to a boil.  Cook until fork tender about 20 minutes.

Drain and mash with a potato masher.  Add 4 Tbsp. melted butter and the cheese and continue to mash until well incorporated.  Season with salt and pepper.

Disneyland

For her PhD program Marc's sister Melanie is required to go to "residencies" or conferences at different places around the country. Her third and final residency was at the Disneyland Hyatt. She asked if we wanted to come so Ryan could go. We couldn't pass up the opportunity, so we drove down with her and spent 2 days at Disney. Doing Disney with toddlers is a totally different experience. We had to go back to the hotel for a nap during the day and couldn't stay very late, so we didn't do nearly as much as usual. Ryan was so patient and helpful with them and he didn't even mind riding all the kiddy rides. The girl's favorite things were Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, the teacups, Winnie the Pooh, and the carousel. The hated Pinocchio and Claire told us for hours after how scary it was. Our time was way too short, but we had a lot of fun. The last night after the girls were asleep and Melanie was done with classes and working on homework, Marc and I got a few hours to ourselves at the park. We rode my favorites, Space Mountain, the Matterhorn and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The wait for Haunted Mansion was really short so we  did that. If it hadn't of broken down we would have done Indiana Jones, but alas, we were on Haunted Mansion until the park closed. On the way out of town we even stopped at the beach for a couple of hours. It was a whirlwind trip.

Halloween Fun Part III

Halloween Fun Part II

Melanie and Ryan joined us for Boo at the Zoo. Once again, the girls loved the idea of people handing them candy. Marc let them have dum-dums and they went to town on them. Alice was very lady like and didn't make a mess but Claire struggled keeping the blue just in her mouth.

Halloween Fun Part 1

This year we had a couple days of Halloween fun. On Friday we went to the canyon trunk-or-treat. It was a lot of fun this year because the girls had some grasp of what was happening. Claire was in love with her candy cauldron. She wouldn't let it go for anything. We were a little worried she would want to sleep with it. The only thing that comforted her was the promise of going to the zoo to get more candy in the morning.

The top left pictures are of the girls coloring their treat bags, and the bottom left is Alice at the fish pond.

Living Planet Aquarium

Today for our weekly outing with Grandma we went to the Living Planet Aquarium. We were unexpectedly and happily joined by my aunt Laura. None of us had ever been but we thought the girls would enjoy it. They LOVED it. Alice was so excited she could hardly focus and was constantly wanting to quickly move on to the next thing to take it all in.

Claire and Laura watching the penguins.

Grandma and Alice. Penguins are one of their favorite
animals so this was really great

Alice kept telling me she wanted to touch the sting ray,
but whenever they got close enough she would freak out.

A little skeptical of the jelly fish

The memberships there are pretty cheap so we got one. It was really fun and we didn't even have time to see an entire section of the aquarium. Fun for another day.

A quick trip to Logan

This week was Fall Break so with my couple of days off I took the girls (along with my mom) to visit my grandparents in Logan. The first stop was to my friend Su's house where it was so nice to catch up with her for a bit while our kids played. We then went to the cheese factory where we discovered SUPER cheap shelf stable single serve milks (I buy these for my girls on the run. They are normally $1.20, I buy them when they go on sale for $1, at the factory they were $.30. YEAH!). We then headed over to my grandparents. Shockingly the girls warmed up very quickly, especially to my grandma. I think her toys helped. My grandma gave Claire a kitty that she has been holding onto ever since.

We were planning on going out to dinner but when we called my Aunt Gail's house to see if they wanted to come we found out my cousin Stephanie and her kids were there and they invited us over for french toast and carmel apples. Since we were there to visit we couldn't pass up the invitation. I also knew that my girls would do much better at my aunt's house then at a restaurant. I was right. They had a really good time playing with the kids and making carmel apples.

Alice and Ellie

Anyone who knows Alice knows what a big deal this picture is

The girls were really silly before bed

We ended the visit with lunch at the senior center. My grandparents
volunteer there quite a bit.

We had a really fun visit and will try to get up to Logan more often. It was fun to see my grandparents one-on-one instead of part of a crowd, which is how we usually see them.