The High Tech Way

CVS, the next generation

Bleeding is unnerving when you are pregnant, even if it is after a transcervical CVS and is considered totally normal.

Today things went much more smoothly than they did during our first CVS just a little over two years ago.  We arrived at the facility, checked in, got lost on the way to the prenatal testing department because it was in the process of being moved.  But we arrived, filled out paperwork and waited.  There was a little girl about Jack's age in the waiting room with her pregnant mommy and her daddy.  She was playing peek-a-boo with them.  Two years ago that scene would have had me in tears at my loss and my lack of a living child.  Today it was cute. 

The genetic counselor, Sarah, came in and took us to a meeting room. We went over a lot of information, much of which we already knew.  During this time i managed to spill the water I was supposed to be sipping all over my pants.  I must have still been nervous.

We went to the room for the CVS. My bladder was FULL.  The ultrasound technician came in and took some pictures and some measurements. The baby is no longer measuring small, which was a tremendous relief to me. The nuchal fold looked normal.  The tech thought the doc would go in transcervically rather than transabdominally.

When the doctor came in he said he indeed would go in transcervically. And he said I could go empty my bladder part-way.  He gave me a giant plastic cup and drew a line on it with a Sharpie marker.  I was allowed to pee up to the line.  I was very grateful, took the cup into the bathroom and gleefully peed into the cup.

Back on the table again they prepped me for the CVS. First, insertion of pinchy speculum.  Then they cleaned off the cervix with a solution. Then they snaked the instrument/tube into my cervix, found the placenta and collected the sample. I would be lying if I said this didn't hurt.  Having had both the transabdominal and transcervical CVS, I definitely prefer the transabdominal, which was only vaguely uncomfortable in a strange way.  The snaking of this thing made me jump.

When he was finished the doc said it was a little tricker because I had a contraction while in the bathroom, partially emptying my overfilled bladder, and it had changed things around a bit and required more snaking. Because of this he said I could expect more bleeding than a normal CVS patient might expect. (Sigh)

But the collection of the cells was much quicker than I remember from the last time.  He showed us the vial with the cells.  He showed us it had my name and birthdate on it.  But the birthdate was wrong. So they corrected that.  And now the cells are on the way to the lab. And I am recuperating on the couch. 

We are doing the FISH test which gives us some fast preliminary results.

Now there is just the bleeding, worrying and waiting.

Selling the house, worrying about the CVS

We had a realtor over today to look at our house, tell us what to do to get it ready to sell, and tell us what they thought about listing prices and how long it would take to sell.

We thought we had a lot of work to do, but really not so much.  We need to replace a couple of bathroom doors.  We need to fix the Adirondack chair in the back yard.  We need to pack up and remove a bunch of stuff.  But other than that we are good to go.  I was surprised.

She said our kitchen, redone a few months before Jack arrived, was a real selling point and she liked everything we'd done with the place.  She couldn't smell the cats or diapers. I was mostly worried about the cats. 

So hearing all this is a great relief.  Her best guess for how long to sell the place? Thirty days.  And her list price is a little higher than we were thinking.  It would be great to get that.

Meanwhile, I can't believe the CVS is tomorrow. I am nervous about it. Nervous about the results. Nervous about the procedure itself. Nervous about staying on bedrest after the procedure when my 18 month year old will want mommy to pick him up. 

Last time they went in abdominally.  Everyone I know who has had the procedure vaginally has had spotting. I don't know how they will do it this time.  I'm nervous about having it vaginally.  I'm nervous about having spotting.   One way or another in a week or two I'll be able to exhale this breath that I've been holding for about three months. 

Our upcoming inspections

So I mentioned we may have bought a house. Turns out we did. Our offer was accepted. The sellers sold the place for a good price because they wanted a quick settlement, which we gave them. So we will be carrying both houses for a few months (YIKES!!!) The market where we are has not cooled down as much as in other places in the country, so we are hoping that works in our favor.

Here's what we bought:

It is about 1000 feet bigger than our current townhome, the lot is half an acre, the elementary school is rated 10 out of 10 at Greatschools.org (compared to the one in our neighborhood which is rated 3 out of 10).  The interior style is not exactly our taste, but the place is in immaculate condition so we can change things over in our own time.  And the place is worth about 27 percent less than what our townhouse is worth. Go figure.

On Monday the inspector is coming in to take a look at the place. We can't attend because we are 3,000 miles away right now. Also, we will be undergoing a more personal inspection that day -- our CVS. 

Tivo and Elmo, perfect together

We are big fans of Tivo. Back when the things first came on the market a friend of ours bought one. Then he won another one in a Tivo essay contest and gave his extra one to us.  So we've had a Tivo for a long time.  Back then we bought the lifetime membership which is no longer available. So we have this old old Tivo that is free to use until it dies. It only has one receiver so you can either watch or record something, but you can't watch one thing and record something else at the same time.

But we love our Tivo. So much so that I have vowed that if I ever win the lottery I will buy one for everyone I know.  (I know, not a real noble life goal given all the REAL problems in the world, but I know that people would LOVE them.)

And when Tivo dropped some of its prices recently as it prepared to release its HD version (which is something like $800 -- way out of our price range) we decided to get a new one with two receivers.  We moved the old one up to our bedroom.  Then David got one for his mother for Christmas. And then, because I had a slight windfall with the severance funds from my previous job, I got one for my mom and her husband for Christmas. (We also got them the 3 year service contracts.)

One of the many uses of Tivo, we have found, has been to record the many episodes of Sesame Street that run on various channels at various times throughout the day.  With the new Tivo you can transfer the shows from your Tivo box to your laptop. This turned out to be technology that prevented my suicide from jumping out of a plane because we could play episodes of Elmo for Jack on the laptop in hour 397 of our flight from the West Coast to the East Coast.

This also lets us save episodes of Elmo that Jack really really likes. His favorite is the one where Elmo (and Dorothy of course) are thinking about bells.  During one sequence of this episode, one of Elmo's friends is in a video about her experience with a bell choir -- you know, a bunch of people who ring different notes on hand bells in sequence to play a particular song.  Jack is mesmerized by this one.  He giggles when the girl rings her bell to early and everyone laughs.  And then when she rings her bell at the right time and everyone claps, Jack claps too.  He loves it.

So that was one of the episodes that was recorded on my mother's new Tivo while we were visiting her last week.  And I think we all watched it 7,093,891 times.

It has occurred to me that we will someday be telling Jack that we used to have to watch TV at a certain time to see a particular show, and we couldn't pause the TV to answer the phone.  We would miss our show if that happened.  He will think we are making it up.  Like how my father had to shovel through 12 feet of snow with a teaspoon for 10 miles to get to school each day.

IVM?

Have you heard of IVM?  This looks like an interesting technique that could help a lot of couples, especially if it indeed is less expensive than IVF. Don't know how good it will turn out to be or not, but here's the article I saw about it.

It involves retrieving the immature eggs earlier and then using the fertility drugs to grow them in a petrie dish.  It would eliminate the chances of OHSS and reduce the meds the woman would have to take. Sounds pretty cool, and they say the success rates are similar to those for full IVF.

No place like home

We are finally back from our lengthy trip east. While I was excited about the time off, the visiting with relatives and friends, the holiday parties, the fabulous fabulous food, etc., it is so nice to sleep in our own bed again and have high speed internet!

After a few days of trying to get my email and look at blogs and other sites on the dial up connection I just literally gave up. It was so painful.  But when we got home yesterday web pages loaded in a blink.  Amazing.  Oh, and the water pressure here is SO MUCH BETTER too.  I got my first good night sleep last night since we left here on the trip. You don't realize how much you like your own home until you come back to it.

There are lots of stories to tell from our trip and I cannot do it all in one post, so I may do it as I remember them in the days to come.  In summary, Jack charmed everyone. Also, we may have bought a house.