Twice Blessed Life

With all of our economic woes recently, and the hoopla about the Beijing Games, and the whole McCain/Obama shootin’ match, I’ve noticed that the Myanmar Cyclone has sorta slipped beneath the media radar lately.

 Cyclone-hit Myanmar struggling to find its feet

If you feel like donating, try this website:

 They seem to be getting the aid where it has to go and circumventing the military junta that’s gumming up the works.

Bye for now,

Lara

I really try to avoid letting my twins (1yr old now) watch TV, whether it’s PBS or dvd/vhs. 

At first I’d let them watch those “Baby Einstein” vids, which purportedly smarten up your kids so they’re ready for ivy-league university classes by the age of two, until I read this article:

“Baby DVDs, videos may hinder, not help, infants’ language development”

 Actually I had noticed that one of my twins, Halle, though she seemed to enjoy watching the tv, was withdrawn afterwards and had a bit of a glassy stare and started to bang her head against things.  I started to even have fears of autism.  But all that cleared up a few days after I stopped all tv for them. 

Now that they’re 1, well heck, they’re twins, I’m outnumbered and outgunned!  Sometimes I need to pee!  Sometimes, gasp!, selfish mother that I am, I even need to take a shower once in a while!  And ‘the tube’ sure does keep them occupied while I prepare their meals.

So somehow I managed to luck out and find “Blue’s Clues”.  What’s different about this show compared to the “Baby Einstein” ones is that the host, Steve, takes the audience along with him in linear fashion.  No scene jumping.  If Steve goes into the kitchen, we go with him every step of the way, while he clearly states that we are now all going into the kitchen.

Steve points to various objects: “What is that on the counter? (an icecube tray! the “audience” voice says) “An icecube tray? What does it do?” (it makes ice!) “Oh!  If we fill this icecube tray with water and put it in the freezer like this, then we can make ice!” he demonstrates.

Babies can match the words to the actions, unlike the random images/word matchups and non-stop toy commercials that are the “Baby Einstein”’s trademarks.

For the first few years of the show “Blue’s Clues”, Steve Burns was the host.  However when he left the show to form an indie band, a new host, Joe, was introduced.

My babies do not like Joe.

I do not like Joe.

I’m sure that “Joe” is a nice person, but we prefer Steve.  Actually, most of the mothers I’ve spoken with all agree “Steve is best.”

By the way, even on the “Joe” episodes on DVD, the dvds usually have a couple of “bonus” eps with Steve.

You can usually find or reserve these at your local library, but if you’re feeling hectic and racking up serious overdue fines at the library when you forget to return them on time, you can try buying them for keeps at either of these two places for cheap:

or

Either one usually has pretty good prices.  I recommend “Blue’s Biggest Stories” because it has 8 eps on it.  More bang for your buck (there are some “Joe” eps, but who knows?  You might like him.  Anyway, there’re about 4 “Steve” eps, so it’s a pretty good deal.

oops!  I almost forgot… you should google “secondspin.com coupon code” first to get coupon codes you can apply at checkout - I found one recently for free shipping, and another one for $10 off a $50 purchase.  (Also, I like secondspin.com ’s shipping rates - for standard shipping of cds or dvds, it’s just $3 for the first one and each additional one is only 50cents.

Bye for now

So…to continue…

Since there wasn’t much in the way of jobs in Oregon, and since my mother had moved quite far away, we got the idea into our heads to head back east and move to Florida where my father lived.

After a two-week car-trip (which deserves a post all on its own), we got settled in the Miami area and my husband got a job with ADT Security as a salesman.  As providence would have it, the health insurance that came with the job covered in-vitro. 

We got a referral from our doctor to the South Florida Institute for Reproductive Medicine and a Dr. Ellen Woods.  After some more tests on his ‘guys’, they told us the news.  IUI (Inter-Uterine Insemination - think “in-vitro lite”) which was *WAY* cheaper, was out of the question.  Even regular In-vitro was out.  Nope, what we had to do was called “ICSI” whereby they inject his sperm directly into the egg, and if the egg survives that process and becomes fertilized, THEN they implant it into the female’s womb.  Kinda sounds like some plot from a Ridley Scott movie, huh?

So to get started, we both had to be tested for STD’s, which meant more blood being drawn.  Oodles of it.  With sharp needles.  Oh joy.

Then it seemed like every other day I had to head into the clinic, get more blood drawn (the way my inner-arms looked could have rivaled a hard-core junkie.) and take hormones.  Lots and lots of hormones.  Mind-altering hormones. 

I was taking hormones in every way it was possible to ingest them!  I had hormone patches for my stomach, injections for my legs, injections for my belly, hormone pills, hormone vaginal suppositories, and my favorite….drumroll please…. a BIG FAT NEEDLE in my butt - daily! 

My husband had to help me with the latter.  We weren’t even allowed to use numbing creams, just an ice cube.  We also had to hit a target area the size of a quarter with enough force so the needle would penetrate deep enough.  It was unnerving to say the least.  My husband had a difficult time of it.  Every morning he had to plunge this huge honkin’ big ol’ needle in my hindquarters and somehow manage NOT to hit a vein, depress the plunger slowly enough and pull the whole thing out carefully so as not to hit anything bleedable on the way out.  (by the way, get the one with a sesame oil base if you’re not allergic to sesame, supposedly it disperses easier than the one based on soy or other oils and doesn’t lump painfully under the skin upon injection, and draw the amount you need into the needle at least about 15-20 mins before injection if it’s been refridgerated, so it can warm to room temp.)

He had to inject me for three months.

Oh, what fun times those were…

I still fondly remember the time he pulled the needle out and a strong spurt of blood shot out and hit a nearby wall, with both of us staring stupidly at it in shock for a few moments before our brains got the signal to “cap the gusher”.  After that we were even more freaked out when we had to do that particular injection.

And then there were the effects of the hormones…

Think extreme PMS on steroids, and you still won’t come close, though severe psychosis is a bit overstating it.

And things peaked every three days after the trans-dermal stomach patch really got going and I went sorta looney-tunes.

I was the Uber PMS Queen to end all PMS Queens.

There definitely needs to be a support group for husbands whose wives are undergoing this process.

Our pastor was flummoxed as to how to deal with this, as it didn’t quite fit under the heading: “Demonically Possessed”, he sorta felt it was a medical problem, and as such, was out of his jurisdiction.

And oh, the things the clinic DIDN’T tell me!…but you’ll have to read the next post for that

Bye for now,

Lara

UNDERCONSTRUCTIONUNDERCONSTRUCTIONUNDERCONSTRUCTION

Hello, currently we are under construction that should be finished by August 1st.  Feel free to wander around and explore, just watch out for falling chunks of plaster

Also, if you have any suggestions for things to add or feedback on what we’ve got up so far, please leave a comment at the end of this “Under Construction” post.

Thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,

Lara