Incubation Nation

I think the thyroid is kind of amazing, in that it is basically responsible for everything that occurs in your body—you know, directly, indirectly, whatevs. What sucks though is that mine does not work properly—and when things are off, things get pretty screwed up for me.

I remember vividly, the beginning of my quest. The year 1999, I started feeling weird. Gained like, 60lbs in a very short time frame. I felt crappy, tired and like I was constantly losing my mind. I saw my primary doctor all the time who chalked the way I was feeling to changes in my eating habits, since I had moved out of my parents home, working 3 jobs and going to school, and general stress. For 2 years I saw him probably on a monthly basis. For 2 years, I had no answers.

I was uneducated, you know. And young. I believed my doctor. Finally, after months of feeling a weird sort of pressure in my neck, and having been told I had ear infections, swollen glands, sinus issues and so on, my doctor agreed to test my thyroid. He did it begrudgingly, as if to shut me up, and ordered a gamut of blood work along with an ultrasound of my neck.

I waited for a week before I finally got a call from some tech at the doctor’s office who simply said “You have a goiter. We can see you in about 6 weeks if you want to talk further about it.”

A goiter sounds mortifying, doesn’t it? I remember learning in elementary science about them; how they were common somewhere due to lack of iodine. The photos of women with bulbous necks. I was terrified, to say the least.

Finally, I did some research. Relied on a friend’s mom in the medical field to find a good endocrinologist, and there began a journey of testing different levels of Synthroid and monthly blood work.

This was 2002. I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder, Hashimoto’s Disease. I lost about 45lbs very quickly. I was managing this condition and I felt good.

I had heard of risks to pregnancy with this condition, and thankfully, never experienced any of them. I had heard that TSH levels can spike after delivery, but for the most part, mine remained constant. Then again, with both Bud and Lucy I had an amazing endocrinologist who monitored my levels monthly, and increased my dose every couple of months to keep me level and then gradually decreased it after birth. Sadly, this endocrinologist moved and the one I have now, is usually too busy to even listen to me. My dose wasn’t changed at all during my pregnancy, and though my blood work continued to show my TSH levels at an even 4, I was starting to feel weird.

You know, with all the stress of a new baby, and going back to work, and managing childcare, I hadn’t really paid attention to the last time I had blood work done. I haven’t really paid any attention to myself since Liv was born. I’ve noticed some weight gain, and mood swings, and being a little bit scatterbrained, but chalked it up to all of the above. A few weeks ago I noticed that I was losing a lot of hair. Hub has had to ask me several times to do things that normally would be non-issues. He has even asked me about checking my levels, because he knows the signs. I have been borderline out of control; feeling hazy and exhausted most of the time.

I finally had my blood drawn on Tuesday, and the results were in yesterday. My TSH levels were up to 14. I guess the high range of normal is 5, but they should really be between 0 and 3? I don’t really know. But I guess it’s no wonder I have been feeling wonky. They increased my dose a bit, and we’ll see what we see, I suppose. It takes about 3 weeks to make any sort of difference, but I’m hoping to be back on the right path to feeling normal and well. To losing some of this baby weight.

I still need to find a new endocrinologist, but that will have to wait for another day.

Oh how neglectful I have been of my poor blog! It’s not for lack of having things to write about either, I’ve just been ridiculously busy with this work transition and then when I get home, I have no desire to go down to the cold cold basement……so, I’ve been reading, always reading, and sending a few tweets by phone, but other than that, I guess I’ve been pretty much MIA.

So yeah, work is in-freaking-sane, but I can’t really discuss any of that, so you’ll have to take my word for it. I’m ok though, we’re ok. But crap! It’s a lot.

Somehow, Liv turned 7-months-old on Sunday. I am not entirely sure where the time goes. I feel like we are trapped in a vortex or something. I mean, 7 months. Closer to being a year old than she is to her actual birth. Closer to becoming, well, not a baby. We moved her in to her crib (and out of our bedroom) last week, and while it’s the sort of thing you think would get easier with the third child, it was harder than I thought it would be to not sleep on her bedroom floor. I like being able to hear her breathe. I like reaching over and placing my hand on her belly, feeling it rise and fall. I’m getting used to checking her when I make my usual rounds of the big kids. But still…it’s hard.

And speaking of getting older, we picked up Bud’s kindergarten registration crap yesterday; oodles of paperwork and documentation (and maybe fingerprints and drops of blood……) and it kind of hit me……I am going to have a school-aged child. In September, my baby will be riding the bus, and spending every day from 9:30-3:30 at school. He felt like such a big kid, going in to the school with Hub to pick everything up. He’s excited about kindergarten. I am not so much.

Thankfully, Lucy is still pretty much Lucy. No major milestones, no changes. She’s 3 ½ and I struggle to remember that sometimes; Hub and I both do—holding her to the same standards we do Bud. But she’s still just little (and also hell on wheels). We were surprised at her parent/teacher conference last week to hear just how well behaved and controlled she is at school; how smart she is. This is not the case at home. And she will refuse to recite letters or try and draw them. (she will however sing the national anthem on cue, which is adorable) But at school, she is good. She is where she should be. Before we know it though, we’ll put her on the bus too and only have Liv’s babyhood (or lack thereof) to cling to.

I told Hub the other day that the realistic part of me; the huge brunt of my being, is totally OK with being done having kids. I am done with the rigmarole of all of it—feedings, changings, the countless sleepless nights—seriously, so over that. The sentimental part though……that part of me just can not wrap her head around never snuffling her own baby’s neck again, never feeling the weight of her sleeping newborn on her chest again. Never feeling a baby kicking her in the ribs. Hub smiled and patted my shoulder and said, “Well, we can hold out hope for an accident……”.

Indeed.

I just can’t believe how fast the time goes. If anyone has any tricks to get it to stop, please, let me know.

• Ok, well, first of all, don’t screw up the crust like I did. The recipe calls for 2 cups of “sandwich cookie crumbs” 1/4 cup of crushed peanuts and 2 TBS of butter. I used about 2.5 cups of chocolate graham cracker crumbs and ½ stick of melted butter and the crust was still ridiculously dry and crumbly. Fool around with it until you get it to the right consistency. You’re smart people. (I did not add the peanuts to the crust, nor did I garnish with peanuts, because that is not my thing.)
• When it says chill for 4-6 hours, they mean it. We ate some of this after dinner on Sunday after it had chilled for maybe, 3 hours. We were both kind of like, “meh…it’s ok”. But on Monday, after it had been in the fridge all night, it was good.
• Don’t send a huge slab of it over to your BIL’s house so that it is out of your sight. You will regret it and contemplate driving over and stealing it from his fridge.
• Buy some extra heavy cream. You can use it in your coffee later. Yum.

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2 cups sandwich cookie crumbs
2 TBS melted butter
½ cup sugar
½ cup crushed peanuts, divided
2 cups heavy cream, divided
2 cups peanut butter
2 8oz bricks cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
2 TBS Vanilla Extract
6 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

Crust:
1. Mix cookie crumbs, butter, sugar and ¼ cup of peanuts and press in to 10-inch spring form pan. Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes and let cool.

Filling
1. Whip 1 3/4 cups heavy cream in chilled bowl until thick and set aside
2. Mix peanut butter and cream cheese until well blended. Add vanilla extract and powdered sugar in batches.
3. Fold cream in to peanut butter mixture until well blended
4. spoon and spread in to crust and chill 2-3 hours

Topping
1. Bring remaining ¼ cup heavy cream and ¼ cup sugar to a simmer. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips until melted and well blended.
2. spoon over top of dessert and garnish with remaining peanuts
3. chill for at least 4 hours.

I’m tired today. The kind of tired where you feel like your feet are stuck in mucky mud all day and you just can’t get moving. It’s the unmistakable tired of “I’m getting sick”, which makes sense because all 3 kids have some hacking nonsense going on. The joy……

Our weekend was eventful in a non-eventful kind of way. Hub switched the bedrooms around and we bought Lucy a new bed, so that Liv can (finally) move in to the crib. It’s a Tinkerbell bed complete with canopy, and it is so purple and delicious, that I could just die. I always wanted a bed with a canopy when I was a little girl, so somehow, she is fulfilling my childhood dreams.

And speaking of utterly delicious, I made a peanut butter mousse pie on Sunday that save for my crappy crappy crust, was a-m-a-z-i-n-g. OMFG. Hub printed it out from one of those screens at the grocery store and brought it home, so proud of his discovery. He even bought the spring form pan it required. We didn’t let it chill long enough on Sunday, but yesterday, after a full day of fridge time—it was divine. I’m really regretting sending a huge slab of it off to MIL’s house.

I was off yesterday, so Hub and I celebrated Valentines Day with lunch and a movie and then Starbucks while the kids went to school. We picked them all up and went to Tae Kwon Do together for the first time since I went back to work. It was a really nice day.

I’m leaving work soon, and Hub and I will pass each other briefly before he goes off to work. The big kids have been horrible at bedtime recently when Hub isn’t home. They’re just not interested in listening to me, or staying in bed. Then the second that I even start to get upset, they start crying that they miss daddy. Which escalates in to hysterical sobs. Yesterday, Lucy went so far as to say “When will we be a family again, Mama??” through her hysteria. I had to stifle laughter at first, and probed her as to why she thought we weren’t a family. Because I hollered at her, and don’t love her, and Daddy isn’t home. SO apparently, I have to give them free reign at bedtime, otherwise, I do not love them. We are making a chart tonight to track good bedtimes. I think I could deal with Bud, but Lucy is just so extreme……

In other news, the baby is saying “Eddie”. At first, I thought it was a fluke. But she sees him and clear as day says “Ed-Dee”. My mother didn’t believe me either, and today Liv saw Bud’s picture on my mom’s shelf. Clear as day—“Ed-Dee”.

Smart girl. She also claps. She is available for parties.

• Just because we have one lonely sixty degree day in the middle of February, does not give you the right to break out the capris. It will be 35 degrees tomorrow. You are wasting your time. And also—you look kind of dumb.
• It drives me nuts when people say Feb-U-ary. I know this is probably the common pronunciation, but I can not get past it.
• There was this guy at work though, who at Christmas time used to tell customers to “Have a happy holidays.” That was probably the all time most annoying. How can you have A days???? (Happy New Years falls in here too.)
• Lucy changes her clothes 6 times a day sometimes. And I let her. Really, who is it hurting?
• I think I mentioned my mother watching the kids 2 days a week now. My mother made a big deal about having an exersaucer for Liv, and Hub and I said, really, why bother buying one, because she’ll only use it for a few more months. My parents went out and bought one with a ridiculous amount of bells and whistles even though we told them not to. Well, the baby is terrified of the thing. I can’t help but to laugh. TeeHee. I’m sure she’ll get used to it.
• Speaking of the baby, she is a fiend for anything we are eating. She had bites of sloppy joes and veggies from Hub’s beef stew last night. I would have keeled over before considering giving the big kids table food when they were her age. She is growing up way too fast.

Wow, there is a lot going on. Seriously, a lot. Which most definitely calls for a bullet pointed post.

• We had Liv in to the doctor for her 6-month visit last week and Hub mentioned that she could not shake the stomach bug. The dr. recommended temporarily switching her to a soy formula. We did, and it made an immediate difference. What it also did though, was cause her to stop fussing through her feedings, caused her to completely stop spitting up (thereby immediately eliminating her need for Zantac), and caused her to effectively burp and pass gas instead of building it up and being uncomfortable after a feeding. We’ve also noticed a marked improvement in the red blotchiness on her cheeks. So……milk allergy? I’m starting to think that she never actually had acid reflux as the dr. assumed, but has been sensitive to the milk all along. Case in point, we had about enough of the gentile formula left for 2 bottles, and hub just mixed it in with what was left of the soy……fussy baby all day yesterday. It has been less than a week, and we have a completely different baby. I can’t even believe it. I was fine with believing she had acid reflux……but then this formula—everything just clicked. I had a severe milk allergy as a child, one that I mostly grew out of (I would say I have a minor intolerance now) and it was probably only a matter of time before I passed it on to one of my kids. I’m just glad it’s not as bad as it could be, though I imagine that if we hadn’t caught it when we did, there could have been trouble. So……from here we become vigilant. Checking labels. Being careful what we introduce in to her diet. And see what happens.
• We have decided to take the kids out of preschool/daycare one more day per week; they will be there 2 days now as opposed to 3. Though I’m overly sick of statements that begin with “because of the economy…” this does have something to do with it. Hub is losing a little bit of business, and we did just buy that truck, so we need to take some precautions before we get hard up. Hub has also had some issues working at home since Liv has been born, you know, since she requires constant attention, so having all of the kids home 3 days a week poses a bit of a problem.
• My mother though, has recently quit her job. My mother had some health issues and other things going on over the past year and has made a good turn in her life. She is though, home by herself all week. She’s going to help us out and watch the kids 2 days a week. She’ll likely only have 2 kids at a time—the baby plus one big kid, but Hub can manage one kid. He can even take one kid out on jobs with him. It’s going to be a big help to us, but I think it’s going to be an even bigger help to my mom. She lives pretty close to where I work too, so it won’t be much different than dropping them off at daycare. I think it will be good.

And ok, this turned out longer than I thought it would and doesn’t contain nearly as much information, but I need to get back to work. More to come soon!

To My Hannie—

I don’t write a lot of letters, Baby Girl, and I’m really trying to save the nostalgia until you turn a year old, but today is momentous. You are six months old; one half of one year old. How is that even possible? It really does seem like yesterday that I was walking in to the hospital, so early in the morning having barely slept the night before from all the anticipation, but it wasn’t. It has been six beautiful months.

I feel blessed that you have fit so easily in to our family. You love your brother and sister so fiercely and want to be involved in every last thing that they are doing. The problem though is that you are not at all mobile. This frustrates you to no end, but does not make you any more eager to roll or spend extended time on your belly. You are horrifically stubborn and though you don’t talk, you make your needs and wants known to anyone who will listen.

You are also obsessed with the cats. You will stop everything you are doing to get a good look at them. And you get more and more excited every time Oswald settles down near you. You’ve been allowed to pet him recently, and the look of amazement on your face is priceless.

You love to play with your toys, but you are happiest when I let you chew on a wet washcloth. Being easy to please is ok with me. Meal time is your favorite and you especially love oatmeal when it is thick and chunky. You also love chewing on Gerber Wagon Wheels. You have tried noodles, and yesterday you took a piece of garlic bread right off of my plate, and went to town! You are a girl who gets what she wants, that is for sure.

Your daddy says that his favorite thing about you is how we can hear you smile. Even in the dark of our bedroom, in the early morning when you first wake up, we can hear your open mouthed gummy grin. My favorite thing about you is how you bury your head in my neck and babble; it almost sounds like you’re saying “I love you”.

So here’s to 6 more months, my Banana. And years to come after that.

I love you to the moon,

Mommy

Well, my stomach is finally feeling back to normal today, so I am looking forward to lunch time. Of course, all I have is a Lean Cuisine, but it is Southern Beef Tips, which is savory and good.

I woke up to Hub’s extra loud cell phone alarm this morning—he thought he was doing me a favor by not changing my alarm, but actually, he screwed me over because his alarm woke the baby. And just as I got her back to sleep, she decided to poop. A huge disgusto poop, mind you, so I had to get her up early and change her. She woke the big kids up with her babble, and we ended up being ahead of schedule, but due to the weather, it made no difference.

It normally takes me 5 minutes to get them to school, and it took me over a half an hour today. Then, my normal 20 minute commute from school to work, took me about an hour and fifteen minutes. You know, this snow storm was predicted well in advance. Like 3 days in advance. Plows and salt truck should have been out, but nothing was plowed. Everything was still covered in snow. It was total suckage.

I don’t have much else to say. The baby turns 6-months old tomorrow and therefore has a morning dr. appointment. Bud has his 5-year checkup as well, and I think they are both getting 4 or 5 shots. Hub has a fun day ahead of him!

I am off to visit your blogs and check Facebook while I eat. Why aren’t YOU my Facebook friend???