I began 100 IU Follistim shots in my stomach on March 19. I went in every couple days for an ultrasound. My eggs "ripened" quickly so the following Thursday, March 25, I was given a trigger shot, then the next day we went in for artificial insemination (Mike's sperm was cleansed and inserted via catheter). I had four eggs ready to be fertilized. The purpose of doing the shots and getting so many eggs ready is that, with my history of miscarriages, if I lose one or two, I will still have one or two left. I began progesterone supplements, in addition to the daily prenatals and baby aspirin. Fourteen days later I took a pregnancy test and it was negative. I began bleeding that day, and an ultrasound showed my uterine lining had been too thin to support a pregnancy.
Of course I was devastated, but somewhat relieved to have a possible reason for my trouble. Clomid thins the uterine lining, so if my lining is thin anyway, then that could have been the reason I lost the previous two pregnancies. The doc said next time I will wear an estrogen patch and we'll increase my Follistim dosage to 150 IU and do the shots a few more days to thicken the lining. Of course that will increase my likelihood of multiples. Also, it will increase the cost. This last round was over $1000, so who knows how much more this one will be. So right now we're waiting until I get past some upcoming events at work and trying to determine when we can do it financially.
Thank God I have Mia! She is amazing - funny, smart and truly the light of my life. She makes me belly laugh over and over each week. When she sees how hard I'm laughing it eggs her on and she just acts even more silly, talking in voices and making dramatic gestures with her head and hands - but she's able to keep a straight face. I swear, once she's old enough I'm getting her into acting classes!
The other day she wanted a drink of my coffee. I told her coffee was yucky and she wouldn't like it. She tilts her head to the side, shaking it as though I have no clue and says in a very serious, knowing whisper, "I like it. Coffee's so good." She also does silly things like put her jacket on Grace and talk about how pretty she is. The other day I put pigtails in Mia's hair. She looked at herself in the mirror and says, "Oh...I have two pigtails! I look soooo pretty." But her tone and mannerisms are almost tongue-in-cheek!
She's very opinionated about her wardrobe, particularly about her shoes, and often wants to wear her brown dress shoes, regardless of the outfit. She likes to pick out her clothes and put them on herself. She actually does very well a lot of the time. Of course she takes them off almost as soon as we get them on her. We still put onesies on her as often as we can, because she also thinks it's fun to take off her diaper, particularly when she poops. She thinks she's being a big helper, bringing us her poopy diaper to throw away.
She goes on the potty on occasion, but still doesn't have much interest. We don't push it at all. I'll ask her if she wants to go with me when I go, and if she does great, if not, I don't mention it again. To be honest, I'm not really looking forward to all that butt wiping when she is potty trained!
Mia is doing great with her counting. She can count to 15, but for some reason always skips right past 5! It makes us laugh because no matter how much we try to get her to add in 5 she just ignores us. It's almost like she realizes we want her to say it and thinks she's funny by skipping it. She's a handful! She knows her colors and knows many of them in Spanish as well as English. They are learning to spell their colors in the songs they sing, but I'm not sure she gets what she's doing when she spells them.
We've started thinking about where we want to send her to school and we're very intrigued by Highlands Latin School. We've contacted them for more information and want to go on a tour. Their curriculum is based on traditional Latin education. It's also a Christian school and they teach classical music, art, literature and Greek. They have grades K-12, are in the 99th percentile in testing and 100% of their high school graduates receive at least one academic scholarship. Oh, and they only go to school 4 days a week and they're cheaper than Catholic schools. What???!!! So we're going to check them out.
I have tons of pictures to post, but I can't find my cord to connect to the computer. Hopefully I'll find it before her next birthday!
