Hello again.....

Well, I don't expect anyone to still be out there listening to me anymore since I seem to go 6 months or more without writing, but things have really gotten out of hand in my life, and blogging was the least of my worries.  I just have so much on my plate that it seems even when I want to sit and blog, something happens and I don't end up doing it.  Well, that is all going to change, I will be back here on a regular basis with updates of all that have happened in the last few months.  I am also looking forward to catching up with the blogs that I read.

Christmas is less then a week away, and I am just so overwhelmed with everything that I can hardly focus.... I have so many little things to finsh that it seems like I won't get them done.  I had to quit seening my therapist because she offended me, when I tried to talk to her about my desire to have another child, she literally got mad and told me that I was lucky to have my daughter and that I need to be more thankful for her, and learn to appriciate more what I do have.  Well, I don't need a shrink going of on me and being snotty when I am there to work through the feelings that I have, so I jumped ship on her and am looking for a new one. 

I started having seizures again, so my Neuro has diagnosed my with epilepsy and now I cannot drive, ride my horse, or go off alone.  So I am either stuck in the house all day or have to rely on the few friends I do have to run me where I need to go.  It sucks to have your independace snatched away from you so quickly, and totally.  So, I have been doing all kinds of little projects around the house to keep me busy and occupied.  Cleaning and trying to sell my bow holders, but that is going slow to.  I have just been feeling so useless and so much like a burden because I have to have someone take me to appointments, grocery shopping, and any number of other things.  Not to mention I have 2 friends who ditched me, who were like sisters to me, so I only have 2 friends in the area that I can somewhat count on to take me places, on is my horse trainer, who is getting ready to move away, and the other is a grifreind dealing with a severe back injury from work, so she can't really do to much with me either.  So usually Keith has to take the day off either partally or totally to take me to appointmentsI guess I am depressed because I have lost my freedom, and the neuro even suggested that I get rid of my horse.  Keith and I talked about it, and he will let me keep him if I get leg straps and a helmet.  I just feel so helpless right now.I mean I am 39 years old and used to be very independant, that this last 2 weeks has really been a struggle for me.

Oneof the big decions that I had to make was that we had actualy done a few Femera cycles before the last 2 seizures, but the neuro totally told me no more baby making, not with the meds that you are going to be on, so I made the decision to get a hysterectomy because I don't even want to run the risk of and accidental pregnancy and then the baby being born with something wrong, I couldn't do that to me Keith, Lauryn, or the new baby, so with all my reproductive hystery, I just decided that a Complete Hysterectomy is the best road for us to go at this point, just to avoid any acciendental pregnancies.  My surgery will be January 28th, and while I have mixed feelings about it, I am doing the right thing.  I wouldn't want to subject a child to special needs becase I just HAD to have another baby.

I have come to some terms about it but some are still aluding me, I worry that I am doing the right thing, but that I won't be able to live with myself once it is over.  I will truely be infertile then.  No going back, they are going to talke it all.  I think I kinda of tripped out the OB as I told him that I wasnted my uterus back because I was going to plant it under a tree so that the damn thing would be forced to grow something.   It didn't want to work internally so I am going to get it to grow something externally!!

Well, I have to go get the girl ready for bed, but I will be spending a lot of time updated you on a few other things that have been going on.  If any are you still there I would love to hear from you!!

Letting go......

I know I have been back and said I was going to post more often, but things just get in the way more and more often, so before I know it I have been gone for several months!


Things are not going well here in the Infertile household.....


I had another miscarriage in February, just 2 days after we found out, I started bleeding and it was all over.  I followed that a few days later by a Seizure/Blackout/Loss of consciousness right in the middle of Walmart.  I ended up in the ER for over 8 hours getting all kinds of tests run, and having them basically tell me that they thought I was having either a pulmonary embolism, a heart attack, or a stroke.  I just love that they couldn't settle on one flipping diagnosis.  So now my Neurologist has forbidden me to work or drive, for at least 6 months after the incident, so guess who gets to spend all her days staring at the same freaking walls??  Yeah that would be me.  I have Lauryn here with me for 2 days a week, but then she goes to daycare the other 3 weekdays.  It gives me a reprieve, and lets her get some social interaction.


My migraines are still with me, and still uncontrolled, so that hasn't helped me out much in the morale department either.  I am so sick of being in pain all the time, it is really frustrating.  I have had 2 concussions in the last 6 months, one in the car wreck, and one when I fell out in Walmart, so I think that has only added to the severity of my symptoms.  The Neuro is trying to find a cocktail that works, but we keep hitting a wall with almost everything.  I even got Botox in the base of my skull to try to deaden the muscles... good times let me tell ya!!  :o)


Mr. Infertile and I are on the outs.  He isn't happy, and hasn't been for a long time he decided to tell me... all right in the middle of everything else I have going on.  Overwhelming to say the least.  He sprang it on me one night, and asked me all point blank if I even care that he is unhappy.  Uh yeah I care, but if you don't talk to me I can't do anything to try to make it better.  He said that I have some behaviors that he really doesn't like and has a very hard time accepting them.  Now mind you this man and I have been together for almost 20 years, and you just realized that you don't like some of the things that I do, or have you just been letting this wound fester for years??  So life in the house is pretty tense all the time, I feel like I have to be Suzy homemaker and a sex slave all the time, but it is never good enough. I walk on egg shells all the time.  It is really getting old, and I am getting tired. 


Needless to say we are no longer in the "Trenches" doing any kind of baby making, in fact with the way things are going, I have been pretty resigned to the fact that this time next year as I get ready to turn 40 that I will be a mom in just the same capacity that I am now.  Lauryn and only Lauryn.  See, I am not one of those women that wants kids after 40, and yeah I guess that I can say that since I have one, then I am good, but just this morning she asked for a sister to play with.  Heart wrenching.  How do you explain to a 4 year old that right now daddy is being an ass, mommy's body never does anything right, and that it is against the law to steal a kid from someone else??  You can't. I just told her that we would have to see what we could do.  I knew this day was going to come, and I had practiced what I was going to say, but that didn't make it hurt any less.


I have also been dealing with some pretty serious friend betrayal issues.  I found out that a friend who I loved like a sister, considered her family mine, and had asked to be Lauryn's God Mother, was talking about me behind my back.  Normally I wouldn't let it bother me so much, but the things that she divulged were of the deep secret kind, stuff I hadn't even told my mother about, and she did it in front of a stranger.  That stranger knew me and approached me after thinking on it for about a week, and told me what was said.  I literally got sick to my stomach to hear what was said.  She called me a Junkie, said I was abusing my meds, I was high when I wrecked my car, and that I had stolen meds from her.  Now, none of these things were true, and I really feel that after 8 years and all the shit we had been through for her to say stuff like that behind my back was the ultimate betrayal.  I have to be civil to her for now because she still owes me money for a car that she bought off us, so until we get that taken care of, then Keith won't let me confront her.  I can say that it must not be upsetting her to much, because she has only called here once in the 5 weeks since I found all this out and posted a snarky status update on FB, she didn't even respond to it.  I am still very sick over the whole thing though because I did consider them family, so it has really hurt me to the very core of my being.


So that is a small spattering of what has been going on here, I am really going to try to start coming here more often since I have to quit therapy, and just sitting here for this post has made me feel tons better....... hopefully there is still someone out there reading this!!  :o)

Hello?? Hello?? Anybody out there??

I cannot believe it has been so long since I have posted here that I had to clear cobwebs off my dashboard when I logged in!!

Wow, OK so since my last post in April there have been a lot of things that have happened, we went on a surprise trip to see my Grandparents for Easter, my grandmother truly had no idea that we were coming and the look on her face was priceless, of course then she says " You little shit I just talked to you on the phone yesterday and you didn't tell me you were coming." I told her that was kinda the point, it was a surprise. My granddad cried when we walked into the house, in all my years I have never seen that man shed a tear, but he cried and hugged me so hard I thought I was going to break in half!! There was a down side to the trip though that made it very hard on me, my grandmother has Alzheimer's. To see her disease progression since the last time I saw her broke my fucking heart. I am so hurt for her because she watched her mother die from this, so she know where she is going and she is just as scared as everyone else. I love her so much, and you can never imagine how hard it was for me to see this woman who raised me for some of my life, and who was so very strong, forget what she put in her shopping cart by the time she got to the the next isle. It kills me knowing that she is is going through this almost alone, and that there is nothing I am do to fix this for her. I am just very thankful for the time that I had with her, the fact that she got to watch Lauryn do her very firs Easter Egg hunt, was a big plus to. I guess that my work as a nursing assistant is a bad thing in this case, because I know what the disease progression is like, and frankly I hope she goes before it gets really bad, because I can't see her living in a nursing home, it would literally kill her.

So, then on the baby making front we were doing some femera cycles... yeah well none of them worked, and we have put baby making on hold because I have lost an obscene amount of weight, and Keith doesn't think that I am healthy enough to get pregnant right now. I am at 102 pounds.... now don't hate, because I used to weigh 262 pounds, so all that loose skin that looked just kinda bad at 140 pounds looks holocaust survivouresk on me now. I guess that has a lot to do with why I haven't blogged either, I have been so depressed and going through so much in my personal life that it was over whelming me, and I felt like I didn't even want to write, and that is bad because I have always Loved to write!! So, even having this outlet sort of taken away from me has made me feel out of sorts.

I have been having some really bad migraines, to the point where my pcp referred me to a neurologist, and sent me for an MRI. My migraines were getting so bad that I was taking so much medication that it was really messing with me, I was having memory issues, and sleepwalking all kinds of odd stuff, and then I had my car wreck. Yeah it was bad, and frankly I shouldn't be here typing this post, I rolled my car 4 times and hit a telephone pole, but my airbag didn't go off. Had it, my head would have been smashed like a pumpkin. I was actually swerving to avoid a deer, and ended up in a soybean field. There was a car in front of me who had seen everything, and she got out of her car and told me she had called 911 and that we had to get Lauryn out of the car. We tried to pull her door open, but it just wouldn't give, so we ran around, turned off the car, and opened the back passenger door. I got Lauryn out of her car seat, out of the car, wrapped my arms around her and sank to the ground bawling that she was ok. I on the other hand was not I had cuts all over my legs and arms from the windshield shattering, and the seat belt literally gave me a "road rash". They forced me to give Lauryn up and go lay on the road because I had a HUGE bump on my forehead, and the lady said she thought I probably had a concussion, so she wanted me to lay down until the ambulance got there. Ambulance comes, you know the drill.... back board all that fun shit, I had to call a friend to come up and get Lauryn so that she didn't have to go to the hospital with me (she was totally unharmed BTW, Thank God for Britax Car seats!!!), but I don't remember any of it honestly the last thing I remember is the part about getting Lauryn out of the car and being laid down on the road, everything after that.... fuzzy. I was in shock. So get cat scan slight concussion, here are some pain meds... yummy!!! :o) Then in comes the trooper to ask me what happened, I told him all I could tell him was I swerved to miss a deer, and that I remember the car rolling, and what I wrote above but that that was it. So, this Jackwagon asks me if I had had anything to drink before I left the house that morning, I told him yeah coffee, wasn't that what was all over the inside of my car. Then he asks if I was on drugs, I told him that I take medication for my migraines, but on mornings when I drop Lauryn off at preschool, I wait to take them til after I get home because of any possible effect they may have. Well about that time Keith shows up, the Trooper, pulls him out in the hall, tells him I was speeding, and that people smelled alcohol on my breath, and that my best friend had told him that I was on drugs (she was the one they released Lauryn to) and that I better pray that my tox screen comes back with only the meds the doc prescribed or he is going to get me for DUI..... whatever, I don't even drink, and I hadn't taken my meds that morning so it came back clean. I think he was actually pissed that it did, because he got in my face and asked me what I had learned for this experience, and I looked him square in the face and told him "Next time Bambi's ass is fucking Mine!!" The nurse that was checking my IV almost pissed her pants to keep from laughing. I had no cares by then due to all the drugs they had pumped into me, and he was being a jerk off anyway, so whatever. He actually gave me a ticket to, get this for "Failing to maintain my lane." Ya think dumb ass?? I totaled my car, almost got killed, and you just HAD to give me a ticket.... It got dismissed by the DA last week after I told her what had happened.  He was just being a douche buy giving me a ticket because I wasn't letting him get away with the even mere suggestion that I would drink, or do any kind of drugs for that matter when I had to drive my baby girl to school.  Here are some pics for you to see.....

Yeah, my pretty baby was a big mess!!  I have really taken a step back though since the accident and looked at a lot of things in my life, and one of them is that I love blogging, it lets me be me in a space all my own.  I can write or not write, there is no expectation of me here.  The other is that it is stupid to hold grudges, so I have mended some fences, the ones that I can, and honestly just trying to be a better person, I guess coming close to death will have that affect on you.

So, I am going to be back writing here on a regular basis, and sharing some things from the last few months as I catch you all up on things... I know I live such an interesting life that you are all just DYING to hear about it right??!!  Later!!

Post Partum Depression....

Yeah it seems that I have developed this quaint little issue, even though I was only pregnant for 2.5 seconds 3 months ago. I can tell you that it effing sucks butt. My PCP dx'd me with ADD in January, and then put me on Add*rall. It was amazing how the fog lifted from everything, and then I rapidly began my decent into hell. I guess reality was just a bit to much for my fried mind to handle, and in the last two months along with cycling, I have been trying out meds to help with this depression. Nothing is helping the feelings that I have though, it only seems to make them worse. The harder I try to be positive about things the more I am reminded of what I have lost in the last year. So, when I saw the PCP 2 weeks ago, he told me I had a slight case of PPD, to go along with everything else.... Nice. The day of Dreamy's loss is approaching, and I find myself having dead baby dreams, massively detailed ones at that, and frankly who needs shit like that running through your head when you are sleeping as well as during the day to?? I haven't been blogging because I really didn't know what to say... it isn't all rainbows and sunshine here, and I refuse to pretend that it is, so I just keep my mouth shut. I was prompted to post tonight because I feel like I owe it to what few readers I do have to let you know that at least I am still alive, and just being an asshole by not posting. Femera cycle #2 was a bust. I had one huge follie on each ovary this last time, and still couldn't get it right. Got that fantastic news this morning, and it has broken me down all day. I took Lauryn and tried to get out of the house only to be confronted with newborns and bellies everywhere we went. I am so sick of my body letting me down. I had two chances at happiness again last year, and I feel like I lost the chances that I had. In some ways I feel like both of those pregnancies were a huge tease. My body giving me something and then saying "SYKE, did you really think that you could be so lucky??" I am so tired. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally. It has drained just about everything that I had in me, and it is fucking fair. I want so much for something to give. While I am glad that my RE thinks that my body has it in it to pull one last pregnancy with a real live baby at the end, my faith has disappeared with the fog that the Add*rall took. I don't think it has it to give anymore, but then I think, well maybe just one more month. When do we learn?? When is the heartbreak of "Just one more cycle" enough?? I think that I am really nearing the end of this whole thing. I am tired of letting my body dictate to me what it will and won't do when it comes to IF. So that is where I am at. Tired. I just want all this shit to be behind me so that I can mother the one child that I was blessed with, because this has been affecting her to, and that is where I draw the line.

10 days...

I swore 2011 was going to be a better year, ha shame on me for thinking.

In the last 10 days we have found out that our water heater has been leaking for at least 2 months causing extensive water damage, and sever mold growth. So, as of Wednesday we will have to leave the house and stay in a hotel for as few as five or as many as 10 days. All this with 2 dogs, us, a fish and a Toddler who is very in love with our DVR!!

This past Saturday night night while I was brushing Lauryn's teeth, I noticed that both of her front teeth have severe discoloration and some decay at the gum line. This does not bode well for her because of my dental history. We are on the hunt for a pediatric dentist.

Saturday was also a shit day because we came home from an outing to find our five year old Rottie girl dragging her hind legs. A trip to the Vet ER told me nothing I hadn't already figured out on my own, she was most likely paralyzed. I took her to our vet this morning only to have my fears confirmed, by a man I trust. So, today I said goodbye to one of the best dogs I have owned, one that I raised from 24 hours old, one who has been by my side through the worst of my IF battle, and the best.

The last 10 days have sucked the life out of me, it might not seem like much to some, but to me it just seems like a faster start to a shitty year....... much like the one we just kissed goodbye to. I need something to give here, things have got to start going our way.....

Three....

My sweet little girl is three.

Where has the time gone?

Just yesterday I was looking at her face for the first time in total awe, and yet when she got up this morning she was so tall and cute with her bed head.

It is just all speeding by so fast, and if I forget to breathe it is because everything about her catches my breath.

Happy Birthday Lauryn, you are the best gift I have ever been given!!

Love Mommy.

Letting Go...

Keith and I came to our decision on Monday night. We talked on Friday for about an hour, and then I told him that we should each mull everything over and bring our concerns back to the table when it was a good time.

That time was Monday night.

We feel it is time to let the totcicles go, and to find a new home for them. I just don't feel that my body can do them justice, and they deserve better then that. I am ok with this decision, not because I Know I will get pregnant on my own, but I was beginning to feel as though we were beating a dead horse.... my uterus apparently wants nothing to do with lab created embryo's.

Keith broke it down for me by the numbers, and he makes a lot of sense really. We have transferred 13 really good embryo's, and of the 13 only one made it out. Those numbers aren't to great in the odds department.

Then we look at this last year, for whatever reason my body managed to pull out 2 pregnancies in less then 12 cycles. Now granted, it didn't result in a live baby either, but we feel like maybe, just maybe something is working its self out inside me. The reason I say this is because I have NEVER gotten pregnant on my own. We have been at this for 18 years in total, and I/My Body has never done anything it was expected to do.

So with this new ray of hope, and a little sadness about where to go with the totcicles, we will be moving on to Femera cycles with no assistance other then the meds.

It has been a mixed bag of emotions for me because I held on to the hope that those would be the ones, and now I am hoping and praying that for some other couple they are. I wish nothing more then to have one or more of those little fellas make a family so very happy.

So we will actively be looking for an "Open Adoption" situation with a couple that is willing and ready to hopefully have one of our embryo's be the one that makes them parents. I am not going to give them to an agency or "bank" because I want to have at least some say so in the process, if not pick the recipient's myself. That may seem like a tall order, but I am looking out for the best interest of my embies, and their possible futures.

I have had thoughts the last few days that I am sure a lot of birth mothers must feel, only in a different way. I want nothing more to find a couple, and have them get pregnant, bring a baby home and fulfill a dream.

That is my dream for those little guys, a family who will love and care for them no matter where they came from. I honestly feel that they have a better chance at life with someone else.

On another note, I will be starting Femera with my next AF. I am scared at what this holds to be honest with you, it has been YEARS since I have done the simple stuff like this.... pop a few pills, get an u/s, have sex, and pray like hell!!! Gah, I just hope I am ready for all of the up's and downs that go along with this ride.

Ultimatum...

Just to start off this post, I hate that word up there. I never have liked it or them, so being in this place has me bound up like a dog on the first day of hunting season!!

I had to go to the clinic yesterday for a repeat Beta and ended up with an U/S while I was there. Long story short they wanted to make sure all was right in the blood work department, and that nothing was lurking in the Uterus of Death that could cause further issues. I only bled for a day and a half and then spotted for 3 days after Sneaky left the building, so I guess there was concern. All was "right" in the ute and tubes, and the Fellow (future RE) that saw me actually had to ask how old I was because she said I had the ovaries of a 20 something year old. Ha!! I got the call from the nurse later that Beta was zero, my other levels were normal, and then a cryptic message that the IVF coordinator was going to be speaking with my doc and would call me with further instructions. Huh?? Didn't know what to think, but I had my suspicions.

I had my annual Pap today, and the doc asked me right out after hearing about the two losses how I felt about trying further. I explained about the totcicles, and that we would continue with our plans for a Frozen cycle, and if that was a bust then we were done.

When I got home there was an email from my RE, and I KNEW what it was going to say before I opened it, I saw it coming from a mile away. She asked me to seriously consider doing a few medicated cycles with Fem.era or Clo.mid. Yeah apparently now that I have proven that sex does manage to get me knocked up, they want to see if I can just get there with a little push from them, instead of a full on frozen cycle. Gah!!

Keith and I have tossed this idea around before and ultimately decided against it because I had no luck with them before we did IVF, so it was kind of a mute point. But now things have changed, and my body is somewhat with the program, so OI (ovulation induction) is back on the table as an option. It however presents me with a whole new freaking dilemma, the Totcicles.

This is where the Ultimatum comes in.... after discussing our options tonight, Keith told me that it has to be one or the other not both.

So, this is where I get bound up.

I cannot stand being told I have to chose, given the chance I will try everything to meet in the middle in some way, but this is just not an option this time. I had to be honest with myself though, and realize that financially we can not afford to do a few medicated cycles and then a frozen if they don't work, or vise versa. I hate the thought of not using my totcicles, but I also feel this exciting little urge to try to get there mostly the old fashioned way.

Right now we are paying over a hundred bucks a month for storage of the totcicles, which honestly had a big part in the decision to just go on and use them. They are there, and aside from donating them to another couple, or using them ourselves, they will stay frozen. I will not destroy them.

We have actually had donation on the table with 3 different couples, who ended up unable to use them. I don't want to use our clinics donor program because it is anonymous, and that is just not how we want it to go. We really want an open kind of "adoption" so to speak.

So, here I sit trying to decide if I put all my eggs in one basket, so to speak, and use the totcicles, or do six or so medicated OI cycles and hope for the best. Now do you see why I HATE ultimatums????

Grief Interupted...

I have always know that I was not a lucky person. Good things don't happen to me, I have to Make them happen for me.

When I got pregnant with my daughter it was an accumulation of almost 15 years of my life spent trying for just that one chance to parent a biological child. 15 years of crying myself to sleep and begging God and/or the powers that be to just give me a chance to know the feeling of a child moving in tune to my heart, sharing my body, and then sharing the rest of my life. I didn't get lucky when I got pregnant, I worked my ass off to get pregnant. I have never for one minute taken any job more seriously then the one that I undertook when I started trying to fulfil my dream of motherhood. I did it all, IUI's IVF's, FET's. It wasn't easy, it was heartbreaking. It was a very lonely road to walk because most if not all of my IRL friends were as fertile as the spring. But, I worked hard, and I got what I wanted.

So, imagine my surprise when twice this year, I mearly had sex with my husband at just the right time, and conceived two little miracles. No one can imagine the pain that has settled in my soul at losing those two little lives, unless they have been there. Do I consider myself lucky that I got pregnant on my own? Hell no. Look how that turned out for me. I have two deep gashes in my heart and soul that will never heal. I will forever wonder what those two lives could have become, what potential they carried in their cells. I will never feel the movement under my heart. I will never hear their first cries, smell their hair, or hold their tiny little hands in mine. I will never get to watch them do any firsts, or watch Lauryn play with her missing siblings. I have lost a lifetime of memories with two people I didn't even know, and it will never stop hurting for as long as I live.

I guess where I am going with this is to respond to a comment on my last post. I count my blessings everyday of my life, and I never expected to hear someone tell me on my blog to do just that, because some people aren't even lucky enough to have one baby... I know that. I know all about listening to women sob who can't have, or don't have a child, and feeling my heart breaking for them. I sat on the fence for almost half of my life, I NEVER take my daughter for granted. I only have that little girl because I fought my ass off for her, and to say or suggest that I don't know what I have is just, well, asinine. I realize that you may not have meant it like I am taking it, but really, I am gutted right now from the disaster that has been my life for the last year, not to mention the last week, and then you want to utter a phrase that truly discounts my current grief, I don't appreciate it.

I won't play the pain game here because I know that you can't get past where you are in your IF journey, and I totally understand that. But I can tell you that from where I stand secondary infertility has been harder on me then the whole of my journey to my daughter. I KNOW what I am missing now, and I feel like a junky sometimes in my need to get that back. It is a desire that honestly beats out my initial one to have a child period. Ask anyone trying for a second or even third after a fierce battle with infertility, and I bet you will hear the same answer more then once.

So PLEASE do not think that I do not cherish every minute with my daughter with ever fiber of my being, I do. I also however hold every conception that I have close to my heart, and love each one with my whole soul. Just allow me to grieve this loss as you would allow any normal person the same consideration, I am no different because I am Infertile.

It's Over....

Bleeding started full force this morning. Nice way to end the year. The clinic has been closed for 2 days due to the weather, so I can't even call them. It isn't an emergency, so I won't call the after hours number, no point really. There are so many thoughts running through my head right now. I honestly cannot wait for this year to be over, with two losses under my belt, not to mention everything else, I can honestly say this has been the worst year of my life thus far.

I was ok until last night when I was driving and a song came on the radio that would have brought me to my knees. As is was it brought tears to my eyes that made it hard to even focus on the road. I hate this, I really wish I had never taken that first test, then I wouldn't have know there was a little life attempting to start. I wish I had never told everyone, what the hell was I thinking?? I know better then that. I know how things go in my uterus. I should just have kept my mouth shut. I should have known that when the doc uttered the words Biochemical pregnancy in my direction that even the clinic didn't have faith in the Uterus Of Death. Why the hell did she have to be right??

I swear I really was ok until yesterday. I have a backup plan I kept telling myself, Keith and anyone who would listen. Ha, what a joke I am. I cannot run from the fact that I seem to be a baby killing machine, and that I am so honestly fucking amazed that I have a miracle sitting on my couch watching old Christmas movies. I just keep staring at her and wondering what is so special about her that she got out, that I get to be her mommy, that she won the battle with my body.

I will end this year thankful for the daughter that I have, missing the babies that I won't get to meet, and praying like hell that this next year isn't as shitty as 2010 was. What a joke.

Merry Christmas??

Well, my tests are all coming back negative now. I am so worried that this is going to end badly! I really wish that yesterday hadn't been Christmas so that I could have gone in for a repeat Beta!! I hate this shit!!!

I am Legend....... *Updated*

I realized after I posted this what an asshole I am for having put this up high, so I moved it down some... Look at your own risk....










Yeah, you are a shocked as I was I am sure!!! Beta was drawn this morning... will update with it later! Here is to praying for a VERY Merry Christmas!!!

**** Update**** Beta came in at 25, and Progesterone was 40!! The nurse said that they really think this is the real thing, but since they never see anyone this early in a "Natural" cycle, or actually a "Natural" cycle period, they don't have much to compare the Beta number to!!! So I really am a Legend!!! She said the Progesterone number tells them something good is going on in there, so now we wait. I have a follow up Beta on Tuesday @ 8 AM. I am so freaked out here. I cannot tell you all how out of left field this was!! I just picked up all my FET meds yesterday!!!! OMG, I am pregnant on my OWN!!!!

Da Update.....

Ok, so after many starts and stops I am really going to get this done!! I decided to try this by the month, since I don't want to lay out specific dates for the most part. I hope that this will be less of a headache all the way around!!

May-

You already know that I knew as of early April I was told that they were pulling Kent's Medicaid, so most of my May was literally spent on the phone trying to find him another place to go, all to no avail. I got told most of the time that he was either to medically necessary or not MR from all of the places I tried.

So, on May 30th Kent was discharged from rehab, and I picked him up and brought him home.

On the 31st I took him to our local children's hospital to be admitted for surgery on the 2nd of June. This surgery wasn't something that he NEEDED, it was one that the rehab docs had talked him into, and scheduled while he was still in rehab. I tried to stop him from getting it, but that was another loosing battle.


The Sunday before he was discharged, the 23rd of May, I started getting a terrible pain in my right side. On Monday it got worse, so I called my PCP's office on Tuesday morning. They got me in to see him on the 26th. He did x-rays because he thought I might have had something going on with my gallbladder. The x-ray didn't show anything in the gallbladder, but he saw a stone in my left kidney. Since that wasn't the side I was having pain on, he sent me the next day for an U/S .

The U/S on Thursday showed the stone was actually in my spleen, and not in my kidney. I got the hell scared out of me when I googled that one!! Cancer, TB or hepatitis was what Google said. Uh yeah I think not.

The PCP's office called me at 8 AM on Friday to tell me they booked me with a surgeon on Monday the 31st for a surgical consult because aside from the spleen stone, I had big stones and sludge in my Gallbladder.. GREAT!!! That is one of the possible side effects from not having that hot puppy removed when I had Gastric Bypass 9 years ago.


I was in pretty considerable pain by Friday evening, and by Sunday I had exhausted all my pain meds. After I went up to admit Kent to the hospital that Monday (31st of May), I drove home almost in tears and called the PCP. He told me to carry my butt to the ER.

Once I got there, the ER doc took one look at me and booked me a room for the night. I was cool with that, because the stay brought lots of fantastic drugs that took the pain away!!

June-

On the 1st I had my Gallbladder removed around 12PM, and was back to FB and emails by 7 that night. I was discharged on the 2nd, in pain from surgery, but feeling a crap load better!!

Kent was discharged home on the 4th (Keith and I's 16th anniversary) and my mom flew in that night. I had to have her here to help me with Lauryn as I was not supposed to lift anything over 20 pounds for at least 2 weeks. I didn't know just how important the three weeks that she was here were going to end up being. Sadly though I spent most of it in a drug induced haze. My dad flew out here on the 23rd. My Birthday was the 25th, so we had a little party here with some of my closest friends. On the 26th my parents flew home.


July-

The one major event that happened here at the house, I have already written about.. the Kent thing.

After my mom went home she had an intense work up with a doctor who specializes in the liver disease that she has, Alpha-1 Anti.trypsin Deficiency. After many tests and a thorough work up, he informed her in a nutshell, that she has at best about 5 years to live. Give or take.

To say that my world came crashing down when she called me and told me that would be a slight understatement. This woman is my best friend, mother, confidant, and over all 3rd most important person in my life, and now she has been handed a death sentence. I bawled for days. She has already accepted it, I refuse to.

We have known about her having the disease for a few years, but I never expected this. She has a rare form of the disease that manifests in the liver instead of the lungs, unfortunately it is moving faster then it should. Her liver is only working at 10%, and she has developed a host of other complications. There is nothing that they can do until she gets so sick that she would qualify for a liver transplant.

By then it could be to late.

Like I said, she has accepted this as her lot in life, but I am not able to deal with the fact that I will be losing my mother early in life because we lost my grandmother (her mom) very young, she was only 58 when she died. My mom will be 55 next year. Talk about a kick in the teeth after I had just spent 3 weeks with her, but now those three weeks are something I will treasure for the rest of my life.

After we asked Kent to leave I found out that he had taken a bottle of my psych meds, so I contacted my shrink to get a refill for the meds. He pointedly told me no he would not refill them as it was his opinion that I didn't need them anymore and was just drug seeking. Can you say FIRED??!! I had been seeing this man for 6 1/2 years, and had put up with him not knowing what meds I was on, losing my chart, arguing with me about what meds I would take when I was pregnant, arguing when I switched mid pregnancy, taking calls from other patients when I was in his "chair", and that was the last straw.

So I began the search for a new psych. I was feeling not right on the drugs that I had been on anyway, and began to spiral downward, actually that started in mid May, so needless to say all the stress I was under wasn't helping. I really began to come unraveled, and nothing seemed to help.

Honestly that had a lot to do with why I stopped blogging, I just couldn't come up with anything positive to write about, and I certainly didn't want to drivel on about all the mental upheaval I was enduring. Being Bi-Polar is a right royal pain in the ass to say the least!!

August-

If you remember I had posted about having some dental issues earlier this year, well they chose this month to come to a head. After a failed attempt to root canal/crown one of my teeth the dentist suggested I just get them pulled. The tooth he worked on broke off at the gum line while I was waiting for the crown.

So, the 2nd I had all but 7 of my bottom teeth pulled, and on the 3rd I had all of the top ones pulled. Dentures SUCK!!! The oral surgeon said that once he pulled my teeth, he realized just how bad things were... my teeth were all rotten below the gum line, so badly so that a few of them just broke off when he tried to pull them. Can you say thank the Lord for drugs??!! I can!!! I experienced some pretty severe pain and lock jaw issues afterwards, and spent a few weeks on pain killers and valiu.m. To say that period of highness wasn't conducive to writing here would again be correct!! :o)

My mental issues continued to worsen, and I saw my PCP for a referral to a new shrink. He referred me, and I scheduled an appointment. The bad thing was that she was booked up until mid October, so I had to just stay on the meds I was on until I could see her.

Keith and I were having issues. Verbal disagreements and pissing matches became the norm for us, and that only proved to make my depression deepen. One night after a really bad screaming match, which almost always seemed to start over the TotCicles, he broke down crying, looked me in the face and said "I am not happy anymore, and I haven't been for a long time." Kick in the teeth #2. Cue the sound of my world crashing down around me yet again!

I have only seen this man cry 2 other times since we have been together(18 years), so I knew in my soul I had really hurt him. I cannot begin to understand how hard it has to be for him to live with me and my Bi-Polar, but I didn't think it was hurting him so much. I know I am not an easy person to deal with sometimes, hell I get frustrated with me, but to see the man that I love with everything that I am so hurt, just about killed me.

I resolved to try harder to be a better wife. I knew that the shrink visit was a long way off so I devised plans, making lists and the like, to deal with the lack of housekeeping, I also worked very hard at not trying to be so indecisive, as that was one of his big issues. It seems that I was pissing him off a lot by not helping with household decisions, although some of the ones he brought up were strictly things I didn't feel I needed to be worried about. I mean why should I care if he moves the fence?? Or sells his beloved 67' Volkswagen Beetle?? I didn't think they had any bearing on me. He thought otherwise!!

I can honestly say that the majority of my problem at this time was my failure to get Kent motivated, resulting his leaving. I truly felt like I had let us all down, and broken our family. I had massive guilt that I hadn't been a good enough mother to him, and that was why he had acted out so much. I was worried sick about what was going to happen to him while he was living with his father and step mother, because I could no longer control how well he was caring for his physical self. The surgery that he had, had in June required strict adherence to procedure, and I knew, and know, in my heart that he was not capable of managing it w/o intense supervision.

It was very overwhelming to deal with all of that internally, and then to have Keith's disappointment in me heaped on top. I got to the point where most days all I wanted to do was stay in bed and cry.

When Kent left we also lost a massive amount of support money from the state. Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't like we are broke, but since my "job" was considered staying home and caring for him, when he left we had to cancel our adoption subsidy, reducing our income by a huge chunk. This brought more guilt because I felt like I was no longer contributing to the household, and as much as I would love to go back to work, it is not financially feasible for me to. It would cost me more in daycare then I could make as a CNA.

So, when you roll all that into a big ball, toss the lack of my meds not working right, August was a really shitty month!!

September-

It was really much of the same as August, I was trying very hard to keep it together until I could get in to see the new doc, and getting more and more frustrated. My contact with Kent became more sparse because when he would contact me it was usually him asking me to pick up his pieces and I refused to, so he was pretty angry with me.

October-

Kent's father ended up getting physical with him, and the step mom one night, so she kicked him out, told Kent he could stay, then turned around and tossed him out near the end of the month. Nice right? So he called me freaking out about all the stuff going on, and while I felt horrible about it, I told him that he wasn't allowed to come home.

That was extremely hard on me because I had been missing him so very much, but I know that it wouldn't have solved anything and most likely would have just reinforced to him that he "ran" things. He ended up moving in with one of his BioUncles and his wife. Again not a prime situation, but one that I cannot control.

I finally got in to see the new shrink, and she pulled me off my old meds, and put me on a new one. Well, about 2 weeks into that, I had to tell her that pill was a no go. You see, you cannot give a gastric bypass patient a controlled release pill. Uh yeah how about I was literally crapping it out after 3-4 hours. So on to a new med.

I also started seeing a therapist there in her office, and while I like the shrink and the therapist, I HATE the office staff. They are inept to say the least. They know I live in NC, yet they called my number with a VA area code to confirm my appointments They cancelled one because the number was disconnected... gee ya think?? Trust me when I tell you that I expressed my extreme displeasure with them to both my docs.

So, I am going to end this now and do November in a different post... that will give you and I both a chance to potty, get a drink and stretch your legs!! See you in a little bit.

That's My Girl....

The uterus that is!!

Went for the Hydro Sonogram this morning, and everything looks good!! The Ute is "Beautiful". Her words not mine. So we are all clear for take off as soon as AF comes again.... of course you do know that means I have thrown down the gauntlet for a shorter then 60 day wait!!

So working on my update post still... it is so hard with a toddler who has decided that she is a terrorist!! OMG you guys cannot believe the tantrums and attitude this kid can throw!!

Ok, be back tomorrow!!! HUGS!!

So....

I guess all I had to do was bitch about my uterus here on my blog, and she would buck up and come through for me. Maybe I should have tried that a long time ago!!

So, AF came this past Friday morning. I started spotting pretty bad Thursday night, so I knew the next morning I could call and make the appointment for the hydro sonogram. Also, in Thursdays mail I got my package from the IVF nurse with all our scripts and our Cryo schedule, so maybe that put a little motivation into her to!! :o)

I have yet to hear back from the woman in the business office, but that is par for the course with her, I have had issues with her before, and I fully plan on making the clinic aware of everything at the end of this cycle regardless of the outcome. But, I did hear from the IVF nurse again this morning and everything is a go as far as blood work and the scripts.

Lorraine made a comment on my last post about minimal meds, and I wanted to explain what I meant about that. I am agreeing to go along with the standard meds as far as the precycle and transfer meds. So, pre-transfer I will be on the Vivelle patches, estrace tablets, predisone and doxycycline. After transfer I will be on the Progesterone injections..... although I would rather not, she pressed the low progesterone issue with me and the fact that the suppositories seem to have no affect on me. She also really wants me to be on heparin injections again, and I am on the fence with that, but we will discuss it when I go in for the Hydro on Dec. 1st. I am not against meds if I feel that there is a benefit, but with the last 2 cycles that we did, I felt so overwhelmed at all of the shots I ended up doing, and I wondered if all of the stress didn't play at least some part in the negatives.

I know that the outcome of this cycle will depend on the embryo's themselves, so I can only hope at this point for a good thaw, and at least one little embryo that CAN!!

Things will probably not get rolling until after the first of the year due to the fact that the lab closes for 2 weeks at Christmastime so the last day to start patches for a cycle this year is the 4th of Dec., and my hydro isn't until the 1st. I then have to get AF after the hydro before I can start the Vivelle patches. This is actually cool with me as I cannot see adding the stress of a cycle to the stress of the holidays, not to mention Lauryn's birthday shortly into January.

I wanted to let you know that I am working on a little update post about all that has gone on in the last few months, but honestly it is hard to sit here for more then a few minutes at a time what with a toddler, 3 dogs, 2 horses and a husband who all demand more of my time then I actually have to give!! I am working on it though!!! See you all soon!! Hugs!

Waiting... not so Patiently.

I am on the road to FET land, however my normal 34 days cycle has apparently decided to disappoint me this month.

I talked to the IVF nurse, and my RE wants a Hydro sonogram before we can transfer. Cool Beans, no problem. It has to be done between day 5 and 15 of your cycle. Normally I would be at that point right now, but alas my uterus is screwing me over again.

I have decided that this FET will be done with as little medical intervention as possible... meaning Meds. I think that things were just getting overboard towards the end last time, and the only thing I was on when I got pregnant with Lauryn was baby aspirin, progesterone suppositories, and pre natals. So I think a return to minimal is called for here.

This will be the last time we do this as honestly we cannot afford... mentally, physically, emotionally, or financially, another try. I have worked through the whole thing in my mind, and I am just at that point where I want to bring these last ones "home" and if we end up getting a baby then great, but if not, I can move on KNOWING I did everything I could, No Regrets.

So, when Mother Nature gets the memo and fills my request for AF, I will be on my way....... I am scared out of my mind!!!!

Another.....

Keith stood at the back door Sunday morning looked at me with soft eyes and said... " I think I would rather have another gee-up lover then the Bug in the garage."

And so it begins again.

For the VERY last time.



p.s. a Gee-Up is Lauryn's name for her blanket, she cannot be found with out it.

Still Breathing....

I am here, still breathing, still trying to make sense of all that has gone on in the last few months, and thinking of how to make it through without losing who I am. Thanks to everyone who commented or emailed checking up on me. I have been hiding for months hoping that it would help me forget, but I realized that nothing is going to help at this point other then talking about it. I have been doing a lot of soul searching and trying to come to terms with some personal events, and it really seems the harder I try the more resolution avoids me.

Aside from all of the thinking, I have been dealing with a rambunctious toddler, and a horse who needs lots more attention then I was prepared for.

Lauryn is creeping up on 3, and continues to amaze us everyday with her antics. She seems to have adjusted well to Kent being gone, although it really wasn't like he was here much in the last year anyway with how he sequestered himself in his room. She is talking up a storm now and tells you everything that she "likes", which is mostly everything. She only believes there are two food groups, cereal and chicken nuggets. She spent most of the summer outside wither playing in her pool or the mud... she is definitely an outdoors baby. She has a huge rock and shell collection, is in love with every set of beads that she can get her hands on, and is finally allowing us to put her on the potty most of the time. I have honestly realized how much I love this little girl. I know we are supposed to be awed and amazed with them from birth, but I just hit that plane where I have finally accepted that she is mine, all mine, and I finally have the deepest love for her. I sit and just hug her when she wants to cuddle me, feeling her warmth makes me smile. The smell of her hair, and her little giggle send me into heaven every time. I have known it was in there, but just feeling it on the surface isn't the same. There comes a point when you know that you love them so much and so deeply that nothing can break that bond, and I am so happy to be in that place now.

Keith and I have discussed that this change in me may be from what happened in April.

As I sat here waiting for news of my nephews birth, it was all business as usual. Dealing with Lauryn, Rex, Kent's issues, and life in general, I wasn't paying attention to something, my body. I missed little signals, that looking back, I realized I would have missed anyway. Nothing prepared me for what was to happen though, and I have still not recovered from it emotionally.

April 22nd, I got up and was getting ready for the day when I got very nauseous, and had to sit down on the couch. Every time I stood up this wave washed over me, and I couldn't swallow the heaves away, so I ran to the bathroom where I dry heaved for almost 15 minutes. Almost instantly after the last retch I got the overwhelming urge to pee, so I sat down and tried. Nothing came out as far as urine was concerned, but all of a sudden there was a pop and a plop in the toilet. It was the most fucking ominous sound I have ever heard. I jumped up and looked down and was confronted with what I hope to never see again. A fetus in the bowl. Not just a little something, but a perfectly formed, from what I could tell, fetus. All I could do was stand there and shake in disbelief at what I was seeing. How had this happened?? How did I not know?? What had happened to it?? I think I stood there for almost 5 minutes before I realized I was bleeding all down my legs and onto the floor. I slowly cleaned up avoiding the toilet the whole time, and called Keith at work. He had no words, but asked me if I was ok. Um no. I tried to call the clinic to see what they wanted me to do, but I didn't get anyone on the line. I couldn't go in the bathroom at all, and when Lauryn finally got up, I just held her. No tears. It stayed in there all day until Keith came home, and asked me what I wanted to do about it. I still hadn't heard from the clinic, so I told him that I wasn't going to fish it out of the toilet, and the only way it was gonna get out was if he did it. Well he wouldn't touch it either, so we literally waited until we put Lauryn to bed, went in the bathroom, said a little prayer, and flushed the poor thing. That was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life, and I pray to the Universe that I NEVER have to do that again.

I talked to my RE the next day and she was sad that it had happened, and was a little upset that I had been unable to get anyone on the phone because she said they would have had me bring it to them for testing. She wanted me to come in for some tests, but when I called the ins. company, they wouldn't approve me seeing her. She told me to keep an eye on the bleeding, and to call her if I had any issues. I bled for almost 2 weeks, and even had milk come in... nowhere near what it did with Lauryn, but since I had still been leaking I noticed that it ramped up a bit for about 3 weeks then wained back to what it had been before.

I struggle with the whole situation still everyday. I know that I missed something, I mean I have always paid attention to my body, but frankly when I spent all these years trying to get pregnant, and the only time I did was when I did IVF, I never in a million years expected something like this to happen. I mean I knew it could, we weren't preventing, but it really wasn't even a blip on my radar. When I look back, I realize that even if I had known, I don't think I could have prevented what happened, but it still doesn't lessen the pain. I have nightmares about it, and I don't expect that to change for the immediate future, since my mind loves to torture me.

So, that is how I came to realize that no matter what I had to let down that wall in my heart as far as Lauryn was concerned, and just love her without abandon. It has been a change for the good as I always felt somewhat disconnected from her in ways that I couldn't explain. Maybe it was the fear that I have always felt about losing her, but now that I have lost a future life, I know that living in the present is what is more important. I can't predict that something bad may happen tomorrow, but I know that for today she is mine, she is here, and she needs her mommy to love her with all that she has. And I do.

Answers to Questions....

In my comment from the last post, Yo Yo Mama asked a few questions, and I wanted to address her very valid questions before I move on. She asked:

What's keeping "dad" from returning Kent to you since you're still the legal guardian, aren't you?

Kent going to live with his dad was voluntary on both parties parts, so to speak. I love Kent, but he is no longer welcome to reside in our home, and he knows that. We have actually never had legal guardianship of Kent, we were his parent just like any other parents. In November when he attacked me, he had just turned 18 and at the urging of the adult protective services worker, we looked into getting declared his guardians due to the situation. We were told by our attorney that it would take months to go through the process, and once a judge saw how intelligent Kent was, he would most likely not grant our petition. The judges look at whether the child is competent to care for themselves, and in Kent's case, he is able, he just doesn't. Keith and I decided in the end that if we pushed the issue that it would just cause more hate and discontent with Kent, not to mention the legal implications it could have had for us had he hurt himself or someone else.

Have you checked with Medicare? He should definitely qualified and should have ages ago. It can take 18 mos from the beginning of the application process but the sooner you start it, the sooner he can start receiving benefits.

Kent was on Medicaid from the time he was placed into foster care, and it continued in part after we adopted him, our insurance became his primary while Medicaid became secondary. We were told by Virginia DSS that Kent was eligible for medicaid until he was 21 under a federal special needs adoption law. They told us that no matter where we lived in the US after we adopted him, that state had to abide by the adopting state's Medicaid law, that was not true. Each state is required to offer Medicaid, but they do not have to cover the same things that another state would cover. They also have the option to set an age cut off for the minors receiving coverage. In Virginia special needs kids are covered until 21, in North Carolina, it is only until 18. So, under North Carolina state Medicaid law, the day Kent turned 18 he had to reapply and meet the state income guidelines for disability medicaid. The problem with that rule is that once Kent turned 18, North Carolina began to consider the federal grant that we get monthly (Adoption Subsidy) Kent's income. Under that law, Kent "made" above the dollar amount level to re-qualify for medicaid. The check comes to me, and gets put into my bank account to cover all of Kent's medical needs not covered by medicaid, which were numerous, and to help with his living expenses. Kent had no job, so other then that money, he had no income. I plead to the Social Security Administration to declare him disabled, but I got the same story from them. I literally asked the woman at the SSA office if I had to make my son homeless and penniless to get him the help that he needed, and she looked me right in my face and said, "It won't be the first time I have seen a parent have to do it, and I am sure it won't be the last." So, even though Kent is permanently paralyzed, as long as we got that subsidy for him, it was his income, and the government did not consider him disabled because of the money he made. Trust me when I tell you that I was in total freaking disbelief when all this came out because it is just the dumbest shit I have ever heard of.

I fought hard, even going back to Virgina because they have the option to take him back as a Medicaid recipient if the state we live in would no longer cover him, but they wouldn't do it. I even gave them the federal statutes that I found online that stated they were able to exercise that option, but in the end we lost. North Carolina cancelled his Medicaid, and he had to come home. Honestly the really stupid thing about the whole thing is that Kent was already 18 when they agreed to pay for him to go to the rehab hospital in the first place, by 3 flipping months, and they waited until April to tell us they were pulling him.

Since he is no longer living here, we rescinded our subsidy and cancelled him off our insurance, so he can get back on Medicaid and now qualify for SSDI.

I hope this kinda helps you guys understand what I have gone through with the government, it is really sad to know that they force people to make decisions based on crap like this, full well knowing that they are screwing up lives, but they don't really care. Honestly this is part of the reason that I tell people adopting from foster care to be VERY careful and not to take anything the workers tell you at face value. They may not mean to mislead you intentionally, sometimes, but they do, and frankly the more homework you do on your own the better off you are.

I cannot say whether it would have made any difference in where we are at today because the simple fact is that Kent didn't live up to his end of the agreement that we had, but I can't help that it is part of the reason that things turned out the way they did. He was not anywhere near ready to come home from the hospital, and I honestly believe that had he stayed there longer, I wouldn't be sitting here without him nursing a broken heart.

Emotionally Drained......

For the last 3 1/2 months the Universe has chosen to lump more and more on me at every turn, making functioning a thing I could only dream of. I guess I can't really apologize for being gone because frankly I didn't have it in me to write out what was going on, so there wasn't really a point. Sure I thought about it, and I even sat down to do it a few times, but I never could even type out one freaking word. I honestly felt like I was in a tornado, well not in one, but on the outskirts where the air starts to get sucked up, and all the debris starts flying around.


Things were already ramping up at the end of march what with the whole tooth stuff, caring for Rex, and other little things.


Then came the day in early April when I got a letter stating that the state was pulling Kent's medicaid coverage, which was who was paying for his inpatient treatment. I lost it, and called the worker. She stated that the state told her that once Kent had turned 18 that our adoption subsidy had become his "income" and there fore he "made" to much money to qualify for coverage. This didn't ring true with what we had been told when we had adopted him from Virginia, so I started calling, and calling, and calling anyone I thought could help me. Turns out we were lied to. Each state has the right to adapt the Medicaid law as they see fit, and what is covered in some states is NOT covered in others. In Virginia, Kent would have remained on medicaid until 21 here in NC, not so much. So, for literally almost 6 weeks I fought with 2 states about who in the hell was going to cover this kid so that he could stay where he was, because he was in no shape to come home yet.

In the end, I lost the battle, and he returned home on the 30th of May. No more changed then he was when he went in to treatment. The 31st, I took him to be admited to the hospital for an elective surgery that he was having done. He came home on the 4th of June from that, but he had already started to act up while he was there for the 5 days.

We have gave him a six week deadline to meet certain requirements. He was supposed to do his chores around the house as he had before he had left, get an ID, get his GED , or be waiting on a test date, and working towards enrolling in the local college for the fall. We explained that we understood that all of this things might not be doable in the time frame, but that if we saw that he was making a concerted effort we would extend his time. Here we sit 6 weeks later, and he never did anything to work towards those goals, in fact in 6 weeks he only left the house six times. He spent most of his days in his room watching TV, playing games, or sitting on the computer.


I told him four weeks into things that I was tired, and I no longer cared what he does with his life. I still love him, but honestly you can only watch a person NOT care about themselves for so long before it poisons you to. Not to mention the fact that we have since found out while he was in treatment, that he really spread some very hateful lies about us before he left. Needless to say it has made for some confrontations for us, and some of our friends that never should have happened. We live in a very small community in the rural south, so everyone "thinks" they know your business, when really they usually have no clue. But the damage has been done.

Last Wednesday night we sat him at the table and told him that Friday was the end of his six weeks, and that since he had made no motions toward accomplishing the goals that we had set forth, that he would have to find a new place to live. The hate and angry words that came from him will forever ring in my ears and heart, but I can imagine the fear that he had at the time.

Thursday he made some calls, and after a verbal altercation between his birth father and I on the phone, and a long discussion with Keith on the phone "dad" agreed to take him in. Plans were made for him to go up there to them on Friday. We agreed to drive him the 3 hours to his dads house and drop him off. The step mom was supposed to call early the next morning with the details, unfortunately she waited until after eleven AM to call us, so with us having to drive so far and the fact that we would have to drive through a major metro area during rush hour, it was decided that we would take him Saturday morning instead.

After much consideration on Friday afternoon, Keith and I decided to give them some money, our mini van, which was purchased for Kent, and to leave him on our insurance until the end of the month. we were trying to help ease the transition as much as we could for all involved. I called step mom and let her know what we had decided, and she was very relieved. I totally got that this was out of the blue for them and that it was going to be hard on them to have another mouth to feed, not to mention his special needs.

Friday night while mowing the grass we found out that our truck's starter had broken, and there was no time to fix it before the next morning. I made arrangements for a couple of friends to help us the next day. Keith didn't want to put said friends out, so we contacted "dad" told him what was going on, and I started to ask him if he could rent a truck to come get Kent.... before I could even tell him that we would pay for said truck he vehemently said no, he didn't have the money, and he didn't want to drive all the way down here to get Kent. I told him that I didn't relish the though of driving to his house either, and he responded with, " Well once you drop him off I have to deal with him for the rest of my life." Nice one there "dad". He then had the nerve to grill me about what was wrong with the van that we were so willing to give it to them. I told him nothing was wrong with it, it had just been serviced, and had a set of new tires. He didn't believe me and was going on and on about why we really were giving it to them. I explained that it had been bought for Kent, and the only time we used it was when we went somewhere with him. I have a Mazda 5, and Keith has his Kia, so there is no real need for us to keep the van anymore.

When I got off the phone with him Keith was just livid, and started going off about "dad". Then he looked at me and told me that they weren't getting shit from us. I told him that there was no reason to be so upset over the whole thing, and then he let me in on the fact that the night before when "dad" was going off on him over the phone that he had threatened to have Lauryn taken away from us if we kicked Kent out. I was stunned. This man is a minister people. I have been raising his son for over 10 years, and he has the nerve to say something like that. I agreed with Keith that we shouldn't give them anything, because I wasn't going to put up with that kind of shit from anyone.

After finding out that a rental was going to cost almost 400 bucks, we decided to just go with our plan of having the friends help us out. I called "dad" and let him know what was going on, and held my tongue about the threat.

Saturday we loaded Kent's things, and they left. Under direction from "dads" sister who told me that "dad" was going to lose his shit when he found out he wasn't going to get anything, I called the sheriffs department in "dads" county and asked for an escort. They couldn't do it because of low manpower, but told me that if I needed the deputy to call his cell, and he would be right there.

Before they got to "dads" Keith decided to stop for drinks and gas, and called to tell me that he was going to tell them that he needed to bring the van back home to get the seats that go in it, we had to take them out to get Kent's stuff in it, and that he had forgotten the check with the title. He felt like this was the best way to go with things to avoid a confrontation.

They got there, unloaded Kent and his things, and even went so far as to set up his bed (hospital type), told them the story, and left. Needless to say 10 minutes later, "dad" starts blowing up my phone. I called Keith and told him that I wasn't going to answer it because frankly I didn't feel like talking to the dumb ass anyway. He called 5 times in the two and a half hours it took Keith to get home, and I still didn't answer.

We decided to treat the friends who had helped us to dinner and went out. When we got home he had called 4 more times on the house phone, and 3 on my cell. Keith and I were sitting here discussing the best way to break the news to them when step moms cell pops up on the phone. I decided that honestly was the best policy and answered the phone. "Dad" was on the other end and asked if Keith had gotten home OK, and why I hadn't called him back. I told him that I wanted to ask him a question, he said fine, so I asked him what he was thinking threatening to have my daughter taken away from us. he was all apologetic, and told me it was very inappropriate, and that he didn't mean it. I told him fine, but that if he ever did it again, he was going to need his God to come in between us. He then asked me if we were going to give them the van and the money, and I started to tell him that based on his behavior towards us at that point we weren't sure. To say that he lost his shit would be an understatement. He started screaming at me, calling me an effin bitch and then told me that he could play my little games to. When I asked him what that meant, he stated that he was going to take me to court and lie to them, telling them that I abuse and neglect Lauryn, and that he was going to sue me for stealing from his crippled son all these years. I just told him to have fun with that, and hung up on him. He called back a minute later and when I answered he was still ranting, and then he said that he was going to drive down here the next morning to "Get Me". I told him to "Bring his ass", and then I hung up on him. He called right back again, but I had handed the phone to Keith, and he answered. As soon has he heard Keith's voice he was all apologizing about talking to me like that, and Keith just said "Yeah sure you are "dad" let me talk to step mom."

Keith then got step mom on the phone and spent the next 30 minutes explaining why we had decided not to give them anything, and that basically we legally didn't have to offer them one cent, much less give them a van. He told her that "dad" had sunk their ship with his behavior, and that he was never to call this house again.

Sunday we called our Sheriff and told them what had happened, and they told us to document what was said because if they took a report then they would have him arrested for communicating threats. Since "dad" being in jail wouldn't serve any ones purpose, we decided to just leave it alone for now, but there is no statute of limitations on that offense, so if he starts his shit again we can have him charged.

So there you have it. That has been my last few weeks as far as Kent was concerned. There is more to update you on, but frankly my fingers are killing me after typing this, so I will be back to tell you about what else has been going on soon. Hugs.