So GrandfatherEndocrinologist is unhappy.  Which makes me unhappy.  My thyroid numbers are still inappropriately low & high, signaling a definite case of hyperthyroidism.  However, I’m presenting absolutely no physical symptoms of hyper-t at all.  So he feels like he should medicate me, but he really doesn’t want to medicate me if I’m just weird.  Well we knew that.  Weird is sort of what my body does.

Even my abnormalities cannot present in a normal way.

So more bloodwork, and a full metabolic workup this time, to see if he can figure out what’s going on in my poor body.

If I knew that none of this would affect Thor, I wouldn’t care, but it has me nervous, I have to say.

Grrrr.

Stupid thyroid.

Taking Lovenox sucks.  There.  I said it.  However, so far, at least, it’s keeping mah baybee alive, so I lurves it.  Here’s how I inject it, because when I started looking online for Lovenox info everything I found scared the shit out of me.  Believe me, if you’re already at the ‘Lovenox’ stage of infertility, chances are pretty much 100% that you’ve already been through much worse than a slightly uncomfortable nightly injection, yes?  Stop panicking.  Here’s how I do it:

1.  Wash your hands.  (Duh.)  Then unwrap the syringe.  This should be a no-brainer, but in their infinite wisdom, the pharmaceutical co. made the backing on the syringe packaging out of something like onion skin.  It won’t peel off neatly, so you’ll be left picking at it with your fingernails or teeth.  Just open as much as you can, to get the syringe out.

2.  Unbutton your pants/skirt & hitch up your shirt.  Now is a good time to change into pjs, if you’re taking this before bed.  In a few minutes, it will feel good not to have to button up pants right over where you’ve just injected.

The Lovenox website recommends sitting or lying down, but I find that to be quite awkward.  I stand in the bathroom where there’s good light and a countertop to place all the Lovenox goodies.  Do whatever works for you.  If you get lightheaded at needles, then by all means sit or lie down.  You’re (hopefully!) going to be doing these shots for a long time, so find a position that works for you.

I like to have a nice big expanse of skin visible. Fortunately, this is easy for me to manage.  (Thank you, multiple IVFs!)  It allows me to arrange my bruising most artistically.  I’ve thought of doing it like stenciling, but it’s too much trouble to remember where I”m supposed to bruise next…

3.  Clean the general area with alcohol.  Sometimes I forget this, but what the hell, it’s probably important.  Make sure you’re planning on injecting more than 2″ from your bellybutton.  It’s less sensitive out there in the love-handle zone, and you’ll feel it less.  Really.  I understand that in another couple of months – due to the belly-stretching effects of baby Thor – I’ll be moving out into unstabbed territory like my tender virgin thighs.  Just the thought of this creeps me out so I’ll try to update this tutorial when it happens, since I’m sure it can’t be as bad as I’m imagining it.

4.  While the alcohol is drying, move that big air bubble in the syringe to the plunger end – not the needle end.  The medicine moves slowly, like it’s more viscous than I think it really is, so just tipping it the right way takes too long.  I flick the syringe with my fingernail a few times to help it along.

5.  Once the alcohol on your belly has dried, pull the safety cap off the syringe.  This is more difficult than it should be.  That gray cap is slippery because the makers of Lovenox have obviously never given themselves injections, so they don’t understand clammy-hands syndrome.  I tend to hold the syringe needle end down, and try to pull it straight off.  But be warned, I’ve ruined more than a couple of these trying to get the cap off, and once the needle is bent it’s almost impossible to use…

Often, there will be a teensy drop of medicine on the tip of the needle.  Flick it off, because you really don’t want that medicine near your skin.

6.  The needle isn’t as sharp as, say, the insulin needles we’re all used to using in IVF.  Bummer.  They are, however, ground on one side, so if you’re really having a hard time punching through your mighty mighty belly skin, try to position the beveled edge up.  I don’t bother, but some people swear it makes a difference.

7.  Pinch some fat & skin.  Don’t be shy.  We won’t look, I promise.

8.  Jab that dull needle into the middle of that fat fold.  Faster is better, here. Do it quickly.  Sometimes it stings more than others, and stabbing yourself in the middle of an old Lovenox bruise is definitely the hardest, so shift spots from day to day.  I’ve found that there are certain spots on my belly that the needle hurts & others where I don’t even notice it going in.  Experiment.  Even the most tender place really isn’t that bad (and you’ll know better next time.)  Remember – it’s just a needle.

9.  Now here’s the one tip that I cannot emphasize enough.  Depress the plunger s-l-o-w-l-y.  Seriously slowly.  Slowly enough that it might take 45-60 seconds to inject yourself.  Like one millimeter per breath (unless you’re hyperventilating!)  If you start to feel the medicine stinging, then slow down.  This can be hard to do because the plunger is sort of wobbly, and likes to stick (again – who designed these things?) just go as slowly as you can, it does make a difference.

Also, I’ve noticed that because this injection takes so long, I tend to take a death-grip on that poor fingerful of tummy fat.  This is really not necessary.  I try to consciously ease up on that, and I seem to bruise less.  Of course, that could be my imagination, but it gives me something to concentrate on during the looooonng injection time…

10.  When you get near the end, you’ll see that air bubble creeping down toward your tender flesh & if you’re like me, it’ll freak you the hell out.  It even makes a little whistling sound as you inject it.  Do it anyway.  The air bubble keeps the medicine from pooling under your skin, where it will cause – yes! – bruising.  The air bubble is your friend.

11.  Pull that needle straight out.  If a drop of blood or medicine leaks out, you can wipe it away, but DO NOT rub at this area the way you would with PIO.  Rubbing is not going to help and will, in fact, make things worse.  Just let it be.

12.  With the needle pointing away from you, push the plunger HARD, and an automatic needle shield will pop out of nowhere and surround the needle.  Total overkill, here, and startling, besides.  Plus it microdisperses the last drop of medicine all over the place.  Not sure why they assume we’re too dumb or uncoordinated to put a needle cap back on the syringe, but there you are.

13.  Here’s about where I usually start cursing like a sailor, because right about now, my injection site usually starts to feel like I’ve been kicked by a horse.  An angry horse.  It’s the nature of the beast.  Remind yourself that the medicine is in there, thinnin’ yer blood.  I usually go lie down for about 10 minutes while it’s doing its stuff, just because then I can ignore it.  In a few weeks, if you’ve stayed in the same general area for the injections, it seems to hurt a lot less.  But whenever I’ve moved to a new, virgin spot, it hurts like hell again.  So be it.

If you did the injection perfectly, the new bruise will be just a couple of millimeters wide.  If, like me, you were clumsy or shot up too fast, it’ll blossom into a bit of purple loveliness.  The first week or so is usually bruise free and then all of a sudden, you’ll bruise.  You didn’t do anything wrong.  In fact, it’s a sign that your platelet count is finally low enough, which means the Lovenox is doing its stuff.  It’s also a sign that you’re going to have to keep your belly covered for the next many months or resign yourself to long explanations made to horrified friends.

Lovenox is a (literal) pain, but it’s not as bad as the YouTube tutorials I found when I was looking made it sound.  And the longer I’ve been on it, the less it hurts.  Some people go nuts with the icing & the heat, etc., but I don’t tend to bother.  Keep it steady & slow & by all means ice your belly if that works for you, but don’t massage this medicine in!  Personally, I think icing is worse than the pain of the needle, and it doesn’t do much for the pain of the medicine itself, but hey, whatever works for you.

Obviously, I’m not a nurse, or a doctor, or a rep. of any pharmaceutical company.  I’m a patient being treated for Recurrent Pregnancy Loss with Lovenox, in the hopes that it will keep teensy blood clots from killing my baby, Thor.

And with a hoped-for outcome like that?  Lovenox is No.  Big.  Deal.

OK, so I promised a peek at Thor’s stroller blanket, the one I knit and am currently in the process of finishing so it looks more like a blanket and less like a rolled up dishcloth.

I work (part of the week) in a predominantly Chinese neighborhood, and this pregnancy was looking like it might really be a keeper right around Chinese New Year.  This is the Year of the Tiger, and for a few weeks there were all these amazingly cool woodcuts and prints and paintings of tigers everywhere I went.  I’m not a fan of horoscopes in general, I mean if Thor was due in the Year of the Rat, I probably wouldn’t have felt the urge to commemorate it in knitwear, but Tigers!  Cool!  Nifty art!

Plus, it seemed like a good thumb in the eye of fate, putting all this money and effort into something that would ONLY be appropriate for this pregnancy, for this baby.  And yes, despite common sense, I do feel the need to stick a thumb in the eye of fate every so often.  Fate’s fucked with me quite a bit in the last few years and I feel entitled to get some of my own back.

Anyway.  I found a great graphic on the front page of a Chinese language newspaper that I immediately knew was the “right one”  It was nearly square, it was a nice balance of light & dark, and best of all, it had a little baby tiger in it as well.  So I photocopied it.

Then I took the photocopy home and scanned it using my ancient scanner.  I then proceeded to try to make things as complicated as possible, by emailing the file to myself at work so I could open it in MS publisher and print it out in poster format, full size, over 6 sheets of paper.  I thought I could trace it onto graph paper, but after about 10 minutes of squinting at the oh-so-faint lines, I realized there must be a better way.

So I went back home and opened it in Adobe Photoshop Elements instead.  But what to do with it then?

During this time, my special, fancy yarn from Denmark (yes, I am that much of a yarn geek) was stolen from our stoop, backordered at the warehouse I’d bought it from, and finally showed up again.  I had to knit a swatch (a sample) to see how many stitches I could expect to get per 4″ x 4″.  This was important both so that I could figure out how many stitches to use to make it the finished size that I wanted, but also because there are more rows of stitches in a square than there are columns and in order for the final product to end up the same shape as the pattern, I would have to adjust the pattern accordingly.

Once I finished the swatch, I stretched the PSE file by the same factor that my swatch had come out to, so that although the pattern wouldn’t look square, the finished product would.  I think my swatch came out to a factor of 4:3, so I altered the image size accordingly.

Then I was absolutely stumped.  I tried out a few demos of knitting software, but none of them did what I needed them to do – namely to take a scanned, altered image and turn it into a two-color, b/w graph.  What I needed was actually closer to cross-stitch software, so I looked into cross-stitch software too, and just found it all too awkward and inconvenient.  I want instant gratification (and preferably instant free gratification,) thank you very much!

While I was Googling, I saw a listing for “using PSE to chart cross stitch”  A-ha!  So I read their tutorial, which was, of course, for a different version, using PSE for windows, not mac, but I got the general gist of it.

I already knew how many stitches across I needed the blanket to be (225) because I’d knit a swatch, so I multiplied that by a factor of 10, and constrained the pattern to keep my original proportions, but to be 2250 pixels across.  Then I applied a pixillating & mosaicizing filter to the image so it got all blocky.  I went all the way down to a “5″ in order to try to keep the sharp edges that I wanted in some of the detailed areas.

In here somewhere I tried to get it to go to just black and white with no grayscale, but couldn’t do it.  I had to eyeball it as I knit which was sort of a pain in the ass.  If I were doing it again, I’d figure out how to clarify the image while still in PSE so that it would be an easier pattern to knit while watching Star Trek DVDs.

Then I created a layer (something I still can’t get the hang of without using step-by-step directions.  Why does PS have to be so damned un-intuitive?)  to actually mark the grid lines around each pixel.  I made a 10×10 image and zoomed in to 1600%  With the foreground set as red, I “drew” a right angle one pixel wide.  Then I set this pattern to duplicate ( like wallpaper) and applied it to my image.

Then, it took me WAY longer than it should have to print this out on several sheets of paper.  Why oh why doesn’t PSE have a poster-printing option?  I had to select different parts of the image to print and then fuss them together with scotch tape and much counting of grid lines.  It was a hassle, (especially because I suspect there was an easier way to do it.)

Then, I started knitting.  Now, the thing about this yarn (Kauni, rainbow colorway) is that it’s a very gradual variegation from purple to blue to green to yellow to orange to red.  I wanted to make sure there was always enough contrast to see the design, but part of the fun of this was that it was going to be somewhat random.  So I just started knitting.  I got about 5 inches into it when both the back ground and the design started getting too close in color to tell apart anymore.  So on the day of the LOTR-a-thon, I ripped it all out and started over.

As I knit each row, I used a red marker to cross out the line I had just done, as well as to define the gray edges of each part of the design.  ie: did I want that stitch to be background color or design color?  I got it right most places, though there are a couple of spots I may go back and stitch over to make it prettier.

This was a lot of knitting, but it went so fast compared to the stupid cross stitch projects I usually do that it felt like it was flying by.  I was super relieved to see that the places where things were supposed to be circular actually turned out circular after I knit them.  My math skills are crap, and my math visualization skills?  Let’s just be generous and say that they’re painfully slow and I usually end up getting things horribly wrong.  But not this time.  My stretching solution worked, and the proportions were correct by the time I finished.

So, now I’m going off in search of backing (this is a 100% wool blanket, not the softest) and edging so that at least part of it will be nice for Thor to touch.  Of course, if he gets his daddy’s sensitivity to wool, this will get hung on the wall, but I’m hoping that gestating in the Sprogblogger “nothing itches me” womb will give him some immunity from such discomforts.  Once I find the perfect backing and edging, I’ll sew them together probably throwing a few quilting lines of stitches throughout the pattern in order to keep the blanket from shifting against itself too much.  And I’ll sew the edging on.  And then it will be done.

And then I can start a new project.

Thor’s alive.  I didn’t really doubt it.  (Ok, maybe a little, but not really.  Ok.  Maybe a little.)

Took about 30 seconds to find him.

(Whew.)

This was worth the entire month’s rental right here.  A friend at work who’s expecting his second son in another month has taken to regaling me with how much fun boys are, and what to watch out for, etc.  My fingers were tapping away at the (wooden) desk the whole time he was reminiscing.

Thor’s alive.  And I’m entering my 16th week tomorrow.  How cool – how astonishing! – is that?  I might, conceivably, be able to feel him moving one of these days.

And when I do, most of you’all will know because my shout of triumph will surely be heard by everyone in this hemisphere.  Aussies & Euros, you might have to wait til I get a chance to blog it.

Hot damn.  Thor has a heartbeat.

(And, for those of you concerned about the possible ill effects of doppler on baby, the studies done are on 3D & 4D ultrasound.  Many orders of strong US waves above what a doppler puts out.  I appreciate the concern, but I have to say I don’t really share it.  A doppler-wave directed at Thor a couple of times a week for 30 seconds at a time is simply not worth worrying about in the greater scheme of things.

And besides, I now have a 36 hour window of not-worrying at my disposal, which I intend to make good use of by, um, not worrying.)

Whew.

1.  Another bill from my lab that was submitted to the correct insurance company!  This is two out of, say, fifty in the last six months!  Maybe, someday, they will completely fix the computer glitch and the lab nightmare will end.  Happy to pay my $15 co-pay, just for the novelty of not having to go argue with a phone-tech at this point!

2.  We still have so much good food in the house, and I’m even getting to nibble at some of it.  Apples with cheese are good.  Milk is still my BFF.  Stew, anything greasy or rich?  Not so much.  But bread is good.  Even buttered bread is good, provided I don’t slather it on the way I normally do.  And I don’t have to cook, which is good, given my current “to look at food is to experience heartburn” condition.

3.  It’s gorgeous outside.  55* and simply perfect.  Feels like springtime!

4.  Only another 6 days of PIO!

5. The Boy loves me even when I’m cranky and scared and lashing out and absolutely miserable to be around.  Damn, I’m lucky.

1. LOTR day was a success.  Alas, I was not able to fully partake of the hobbity eating, since rich food doesn’t like me these days, & the consensus was that hobbits are very fond of rich food, but it was still fun.  I got lots of knitting (actually ripping out, and re-knitting, due to an unfortunate color combination) done, and much laughter was had by all (and much rabbit stew was had by some.) At 208 minutes for #1, #2 at  223 minutes, and #3 at 250 minutes, that was 681 minutes of hobbity (& elvish and dwarven) wonderfulness.  Not to mention Viggo.

2.  A big old day of nothing planned.  We got to bed at about 1am, and while my body insists that 8am is the best time to wake up and get moving, I fully intend to nap throughout the day.

I am learning to really love naps…

3.  No need to cook tonight, as we have plenty of food in the house.  Rather obscene, the amount of food, if you really want to know…

4.  Cat Stevens.  I love his music, his old stuff, his pre-conversion stuff.  And it makes me smile whenever I hear it.  Which isn’t a bad recommendation at all.

5.  Sourdough bread for morning toast.  With butter & honey.  And a glass of milk afterwards.  Pure gastronomic heaven.

So I finally got around to seeing the movie Up.  Honestly, I’ve been wanting to for a while – I love Pixar movies – but I’d been warned away because one of the central themes of the movie is the old couple’s childlessness and how it affects the rest of their lives – and it’s even highlighted by a shot of her weeping in a doctor’s office after what, (I was told in a hushed whisper by someone emphasizing to me what a bad movie for kids it was), was probably a miscarriage.  Yeah.  Heaven forbid that children should learn that not everyone gets to have kids just because they want them desperately.

At the time, I was grateful for the warning, since my feeling was, “Been there.  Done that.  Don’t need to see it played out in a cartoon, ferchrissakes.”

Boy, was I wrong.

This is an excellent movie.  This was probably one of the best movies I’ve seen in years.  I was weeping – so was the Boy – and laughing out loud, (“Squirrel!”) and generally having a better time being entertained by media than I have in – literally – years.

And yes, it was possibly the most sensitive portrayal of the toll infertility & miscarriage takes on a person and on a marriage that I’ve ever seen.  And also a damned fine portrayal of what the human heart is capable of in the aftermath of loss and grief.  Not to mention having several talking dogs in the cast, which always improves a movie in my mind.  ”I just met you and I love you.”  (If I ever get a male dog, its name will be Dug.)

I am terrifically impressed.  And I wish I’d seen it earlier.  I might have wept, but it might also have lifted me up at a time when I needed it even more than I do these days.  Well done, Pixar.

(“Squirrel!”)

1.  Yesterday’s sentence in the Realm of Pain wasn’t completely horrible.  The Princess was being, well, sane.  I finally got an answer from one of the people at Central regarding transfers.  There’s every chance that our assistant manager just got a promotion – not so good, because I like her, but good because it would mean I’m only at one branch (though, unfortunately, not the branch I prefer.  But still, one branch is better than two for my sanity)  And the Princess seemed to be making an effort to be civil and, well, nice.  Maybe I need to lose my shit and call her ass out more often.  I think it did her good.

2.  Snow!  Deep snow!  Not enough snow to cancel work but still.  It’s Snow!  Big snow!  Wow!  And it’s still coming down!  Wow!

3.  Looking forward to the weekend.  Don’t intend to do much of anything except be sociable on Sunday.  Saturday, I might not even get out of my pjs.  So looking forward to it.

4.  Ginger ale.  I love it, even though it makes me burp something fierce.

5.  Yesterday was a – dare I even write this down? – spotting-free day.  Nothing.  All day long.  Nothing at all.  Wow.  Sort of forgotten how good that feels…

Ok, so I’m not dealing well with all this spotting.

Not at all.

Instead of living week to week for ultrasounds, or even hanging in there til my first trimester is over (hah!) I’m living pretty much bathroom-trip to bathroom-trip, based on the color of the toilet paper.  And thanks to the overactive bladder, that’s pretty much hour to hour.

And oh-my-fucking-god can I just tell you right now how much I hate this?  Feeling fine, feeling great, in fact, because the sick just keeps getting blechier, and the boobs keep getting sorer, but then – hey, what’s this?  More blood.  Red blood, brown blood, pinkish blood.  Never a lot, never enough to make me say, “Whoa!  This looks like a miscarriage!”  But it’s blood.  Coming from the womb of death.  I hate it all.

Plus I’ve got a zit on my forehead, and since I break out when I’m NOT pregnant, it’s got me panicking over more than whether or not the Boy will ask me to the Valentine’s Day dance looking like this.

I’m just so damned weary of being afraid.  Scared sucks, and what’s almost worse is that I’m not even heart-poundingly panicked – I just feel resigned, somehow.  Fatalistic.  Like, if I’m going to lose this pregnancy too, can’t I just do it now instead of it dragging on for another week or two?  And that is so unlike me that it just annoys the hell out of me – when I can be bothered to feel annoyed.

I’m thinking of going in to the clinic tomorrow, instead of waiting til my day off on Thursday, just because I’m tired of the suspense.  I’m tired of waiting for a shoe to drop on my head, tired of waiting for the punchline that will make me cry.

I just want something to be easy – or at least not the hardest thing ever.  I keep doing what feels like the hardest thing ever, and it keeps not being enough to make any of this work.  This is a fucking donor egg pregnancy.  This is supposed to be cake.  Cake made from the fluffy, happy eggs of a sweet young thang.  And my ancient woodburning-oven can’t even bake it properly?  Someone get me a new recipe, damnitall.

Internets, I’m just so very tired.  And I want to stop bleeding.  And I want to stop waking up in the middle of the night, needing to pee, and just lying there until my bladder is ready to goddamned well explode, because I’m too scared to go into the bathroom where I might find more blood than my brain can rationalize away.

I just want to be pregnant.  With a baby.  A baby that I can feel somewhat confident might be around in another week or two.  Or month or two.  Or year or two.  Or decade or two.  And I’m seriously starting to wonder if that’s something I’m ever going to be allowed to have.

And I hate that.

Going to think about going in to pee now.

Maybe.  But I’ll bet it can wait anothe r 2o minutes if I put my mind to it.

Like many New Yawkers, we employ a woman who cleans our house once a week.  (There, I said it, I confessed – I am the most spoiled human being alive.  Actually, the Boy employs her, and since he’s the SAH-spouse, I think technically he’s the most spoiled human being alive.  But I digress…)  She is pleasant, good at her job, and kind enough to my dog that Nellie will follow her from room to room hoping for a kind look.  But she speaks – well, almost no English that I can tell.  Which is understandable, since she was born in Brazil and works for a Brazilian-owned cleaning company.  She & I usually manage to say good morning in the other’s language, and then I get out of her way if I happen to be home.  And three hours later our toilets are clean, our oven is sparkly, and I am grateful to have a clean home that I did not have to clean.

Tomorrow, however,  I will not be home.  I’ll be having blood drawn, and then visiting Mo for a hot chocolate fix.  My husband will be at a meeting.  Nothing world-shattering there, except – all of next month’s meds are being delivered tomorrow – for which a signature is required.  With my fabled delivery luck, they will be delivered in the wee hours of the morning, before I – or my husband – have returned from scary scary Manhattan.

Now, if I were going to be here when she arrives, I’d do my world-famous “librarian pretending to be Marcel Marceau” imitation by which I have instructed hundreds of non-English speaking children as to the meanings of their randomly assigned vocabulary words.  (Seriously – ever try to act out the word “slink” to a seven year old kid who only speaks Arabic?  Harder than it sounds.)  But I’ll be gone by the time she arrives – as will the Boy.  And I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read any more English than she speaks.

What’s a girl to do?

GOOGLE TRANSLATE TO THE RESCUE!!!

Bom Dia!  Eu estou esperando 2 pacotes importantes (medicina) estanho pelo correio.  Se o carterio toca a campainha, por favor responda a pora e assinar por qualquer pacote.  Obrigado!

By damn, I love the internet.  I love the fact that I can punch in text, and get back an approximation (a decent one, if the OTHER online translation service I employed to doublecheck is any indication) of the Portuguese translation.  It is, at least, good enough to assure me that she’ll understand that I’d really appreciate it if she’d answer the door and sign for the packages if they arrive while I’m away.  Or so I hope.  Otherwise, tomorrow’s going to turn into a long, long day of tracking down FedEx & UPS shipping centers in the darkest reaches of Queens somewhere.

Modern technology quite simply ROCKS.

Come on, join in the fun – anyone want to say something in Turkish?  Latvian?  Swahili?