i thought this would be an okay way to get back into blogging....


My Extremely Egocentric Year in Review


JANUARY

Spent NYE on a plane back from Colorado. Thought we had escaped the horrendous stomach virus that my baby nephew had picked up. Shared a drink and a midnight smooch with Seanie. One hour later he doesn’t feel so good. Seventeen hours later, I had it. It was a nightmare.

I lost weight, but my main man cleared me to stop nutritional counseling with him because I had done well.


FEBRUARY

I got my BFP at the beginning of the month, but as I was leaving for work on the last day before February break (and the day before my Mom and Sis would be flying in for some winter fun), surprise! Another failed pregnancy. Miscarried—just barely avoiding medical intervention--on the 25th while teaching chorus.

Did NOT use this as an excuse to go back to my symptoms. Go me.


MARCH

C.R.A.P.T.A.S.T.I.C month. I hate March. On the 17th, I turned 33, which was okay in itself, but I’m not getting any younger. Also, it was one week from the 24th, which was the would-be due date for my first pregnancy. I got through it (work and all) like a champ. The 28th was 4 years from when I lost my best friend Bobo. I got through that too.


APRIL

Survived another NYSSMA festival. Okay month I guess. Pretty quiet.


MAY

Gave a decent concert—much improved from the December one. Went through all the standard “recurrent miscarriage” testing. Found a luteal phase defect—possibly due to ED, but no way to know for sure. Possible blood clotting and/or autoimmune problem, but nothing clear. Started baby aspirin.


JUNE

Allowed to TTC again. Started Clomid. Typical, quiet month at school. I was a little sad to see the school year end, maybe because I was saying goodbye to the first group of kids I’ve had from first year through graduation.

Bought a bike and started exploring.


JULY

Felix stopped eating and started acting phobic of food. It was lymphocytic plasmacytic stomatitis; Felix was pointlessly hospitalized for a week. It did no good; he was given antibiotics and NOT given painkillers or steroids. I scoffed at him being tested for feline leukemia virus—he tested negative for it the day before we adopted him—but the test came up positive. We visited him twice a day in the hospital. We had to test Lucy for FELV. It was negative; we got her vaccines up to date. On 7/28, Felix underwent the surest treatment: removal of every single tooth.

On 7/29, Lucy goes under to have her teeth cleaned and to have a vaccine-site lump removed and biopsied.

A terrible month.


AUGUST

Felix has an incredibly rough recovery. He is eating so little that we feared fatty liver disease. I feed him every couple of hours around-the-clock and constantly check his eyes and skin for signs of jaundice. At 2-week check, he’s showing improvement. But eating is still awful.

8/16 was our 7-year wedding anniversary. We weren’t really up to celebrating.

My beloved bike gets stolen right out of my garage.

Parents visit; Felix barely eats. I worry about him the whole time. But we did go into the city to see Wicked, which was great.

Lucy’s biopsy comes back cancer-free! It’s a reaction to the rabies vaccine, which we’ll be skipping from now on.

TTC month 3 of 4 on Clomid.


SEPTEMBER

I’m not ready for school to begin: emotionally, I’m okay (unlike last year, which was right after my first miscarriage), but I just don’t have stuff done. I’m also scared for Felix and worried that I’ll have trouble handling middle-of-the-night feedings while working.

Things start to turn around for Felix. By the end of the month, I’m able to stop the middle-of-night feedings. At 4-week check, he still has some redness, so we do another short course of Predisone. We start looking into trying to get hold of Interferon-Omega from Europe, which requires some MAJOR resourcefulness.

TTC month 4 of Clomid.


OCTOBER

Cycle 4 of Clomid is a failure.

Went to a wedding in Connecticut—it was our first 12 hours away from home since Felix got sick! Because it went so well, we were able to do a 24-hour trip to a wedding in Rhode Island at the end of the month. Major progress!

October 15th is the would-be due date for my second pregnancy. A coworker’s daughter has her first child on that day.

The school year is starting to get rough. I have the roughest group of kids I’ve ever had in 7th and 8th grade chorus, and—surprise surprise—the biggest classes I’ve ever had (75-80 per class). My 75 6th graders are an absolute delight and sometimes the only thing that gets me through the day without pulling my hair out.

Felix is still hanging in there. The Prednisone worked: On 10/18, he eats dry food for the first time in months. No luck on the Interferon so far.


NOVEMBER

I survived parent conferences (beat-the-teacher night). It was pleasant, actually.

Still no luck on Interferon. We start the process of getting LTCI, which is an experimental treatment that is available in the US.

Meet with Dr. Mack to find out about “the next step.” Decide on IUI with mini-hyperstimulation. Start 150 mg of Clomid and also FSH (Gonal-F) injections.

An okay, pretty quiet month.


DECEMBER

Mini-hyperstim kind of failed—I got one large follicle instead of the 4-5 smaller ones we were hoping for. I talked Dr. out of canceling IUI, because there’s just no way I’ll get pregnant on my own. Do IUI #1 on 12/4.

The kids gave a good concert. It was the most relaxed I’ve ever felt and I didn’t lose my voice. Still, there are some seriously disturbing behavioral issues. For the first time ever, I have to think about kicking someone out of chorus.

Hired to sing at Christmas Eve services, and I find myself resenting the Virgin Mary for being so fertile.

Go out to Colorado for the first time in a year. We have a really nice visit and the trips there and back go smoothly. Kitties do GREAT for the cat sitters.

Ultrasound finds a big (4.7 cm) corpus luteum cyst on my right ovary, so I can’t do anything TTC-wise until it’s gone. Start a “rest” cycle. I’m hoping it’ll just be one cycle, but it could be up to three.



SUMMARY: The year was very bad for my eating disorder (which is a good thing) but also very bad for my biological clock and for my sweet sweet kitties. I’m ready to be done with 2009. I’m hoping for better things coming this way.