What A Week (And Weekend!)

Ladies and Gentlemen: What a week! Lots of changes, lots of work and a bit of good news to boot!

Friday was my last monitoring ultrasound and blood work for The IVF Clinic. Nugget looks to be growing nicely, and its heartbeat was 165 – a good, strong heart rate and well within the normal range. Poor Mum was pretty nervous waiting for the results of the ultrasound. Usually my appointments are in the morning, so she doesn’t have to wait long to hear news one way or the other. Friday’s appointment was at 12:45, so there was nothing to tell her till 1:00ish. But again: All was well

The second downside to taking a later appointment for monitoring is that even with ordering the results “STAT,” The IVF Clinic sometimes doesn’t get all of the results that day. This was the case on Friday. The blood work ordered was for Estradiol (estrogen) levels, progesterone levels and beta hCG (pregnancy hormone) levels. As of the end of the work day, only the ultrasound and progesterone results had come in. It’s the full workup that determines how well the pregnancy is going, so it’s entirely possible that, had The Big Hospital sent in all of the results by the end of the day, I might not have had to continue stabbing myself in the butt through the weekend. Oh well. It’s old hat now.

Thursday my office threw a huge bash for my boss’ boss who retired. Her last day was Friday. So our team took her out to lunch at the Chinese restaurant across the street from the office, then threw her a party in the big conference room at the office. People came from all over the state to wish her well, eat cake and snacks and drink punch. Hopefully the Big Boss left feeling appreciated. Frankly, I’m not sure how well the team will function without her, but the lady who’s rumored to be replacing her is brilliant and capable and if she’s hired, will fill Big Boss’ shoes easily.

This weekend I went down to my grandparents’ house to visit and take care of whatever chores they needed done around the house. I won’t go into the list of chores I did, but let’s just say I had to excuse myself and go to bed around 8:30 Saturday night.

I did get an hour nap in yesterday between arriving home after the two-hour drive from Gram’s, taking out the recycling that has been piling up in our store room, and having to take Pooka’s friend Vriska home, which is about a two-hour round trip in and of itself.

Pooka and I popped off at the grocery store to get some cranberry juice and seltzer for me (since I can’t drink de booze), apple juice for her and soda for our guests. Hubs ordered pizza and BAMF, The Ginge and Hubs’ coworker came over for the evening. They went home around 9:30 and Hubs and I brought back the rental car I had used for the trip to and from Gram’s, then dropped his coworker off at home.

One of the signs that I’m pregnant is that my dreams become weird, for me. Now, my dreams are always extremely bizarre. I dream about zombies and superheroes and magic and many other things you’d only see in sci-fi/fantasy. When I’m pregnant, my dreams become exceptionally mundane, and might have some occasional juxtaposition here and there. For example: Last night I dreamed that Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were in town, and insistent on staying at my place. The problem was, my house was very messy, and I don’t like having company – except for very close friends – when my house isn’t pristine. I think there was something about a bet where they insisted that I hide my old teddy bear and if they could find it, they got to stay. Except that they didn’t know I had an attic, and so I offered to put them up in the bed and breakfast on the main street in town, which is a stone’s throw from my house.

Like I said: Weird.