I need to write more often

I don’t even know where I am anymore. Jon was in Virginia last week, so I’m hoping that is part of why I feel so jumbled, disconnected from the online community and overwhelmed lately.

International Bereaved Mother’s Day was on Sunday. I didn’t do a single thing for the bereaved mothers I know…not even one facebook post. I feel bad that I didn’t at least acknowledge this day for my friends who are missing their children. Instead, I picked up my new bike. After talking with Jon about needing to find a family activity that’s active, we’ve tried to add bike riding to our lives. Jon brought his used mountain bike in for a tune-up and got road tires put on it for easier riding. He purchased a bike trailer from a garage sale for $15 so that we have a safe way to bike with Gus. I had my bike from when I was about 14…and it was used then. We went out on a short family bike ride and Jon could see why I was having so much trouble riding my bike; both wheels were bent. Jon didn’t feel safe with me riding that bike, so off to the bike shop we went on Saturday.

While working with the salesman to figure out what kind of bike I wanted, and test riding some, Jon was following Gus around the store to try and keep Gus from knocking over all the bikes. Jon came over and said that he found one that he thought was perfect for me, but was only a single gear bike. Jon and the salesman walked over to that bike and brought it up front for me. I took it out for a test ride and it felt great. I was able to sit how I wanted (upright), it had a nice big seat and I felt comfortable while pedaling. But, it was a single-speed. Jon said that I would want a geared bike, even if it was only a 3-speed, so we went inside and asked if they had a geared version. Not only did they have one, they were just putting it together in the back. On Sunday, we got the call that it was ready for pick-up. We went out, got my bike, got home and went out on a family picnic. It feels nice to have a bike I feel comfortable on. I’m not at a point that I can pull Gus in the trailer, but at least I can go out with Jon and get some exercise in, too.

What I really like about the bike is that it makes me think of my kids. There is a small section of pink and a small section of green on the seat (Bella and Tittle). There is no blue (Oscar) on the bike, but I can totally imagine Oscar liking a similar style of bike as mine, and the bike is turquoise, so in the blue family (right?). And where does Gus fit into the bike? Well, he doesn’t, but he’s here to enjoy all the bike rides that the other kids aren’t here for. I think the best part of it all, as Jon pointed out is that we go to pick up the bike ON International Bereaved Mother's Day, so that felt special.

A few weeks ago I had an appointment with my diabetes educator (DE). I've been meeting with her monthly to make adjustments to my insulin doses, knowing that Jon and I had fertility treatments quickly approaching. At the end of April I had a standard blood test done. It came back higher than I had hoped, but wasn't extremely high, so I figured we'd make some adjustments and work on getting tighter control back. Instead, I received an email with adjustments to make, but also stating that with what my blood test came back at they could not recommend proceeding with pregnancy. I was crushed. I messaged Jon immediately and fought back tears many times while at work. This email came 4 days before our CD11 u/s to see if I was growing any follicles. After much anger, and trying to place blame, I'm now thinking about this whole situation with the following perspective: they are not used to dealing with diabetics who are menstruating. I had an appointment with my DE. While looking at the data from my pump, and seeing all of the high blood sugars, I told her what we discovered during our u/s at the fertility clinic...that I had ovulated. Her response was, "Well, that makes sense. In that case, I don't want to make any changes because I think once you start your period you're numbers will really come down and I don't want you to crash" or something like that. Later that day, after being over 200 for far too long I started messing with temporary basal rates for the next 3 days until my cycle did start and my sugars did come back into range.

The point of that big long explanation is that why did I have to tell DE that I ovulated and then she knew why I was running high? And why was she okay with letting me run high for another half of a week? I'm glad that I used my temp basals, but I'm also glad that Jon pointed out that we need to get back in to the habit of making changes to my insulin pump on our own, without always relying on DE. We also are moving forward with fertility treatments. As I said above, I don't think she's used to dealing with people who aren't pregnant, and with Oscar's and Bella's pregnancy, we didn't work with this DE until we were already pregnant, so I think we'll be okay in making adjustments on our own, in between visits and uploads with DE and just not tell her that we're proceeding with treatments. And, I'm not pregnant yet, so we have another week or two before we actually have any IUI's.

Tuesday Jon and I had an u/s at our fertility clinic to see if I was growing any follicles. I was totally prepared to not see anything on the u/s, which we didn't, so I'm glad that I was already expecting that. Then the only question was last time I ovulated on CD25, would it make any difference to wait to see if I needed more time to grow a follicle on my own? After some discussion with Jon and the doctor, we decided to move ahead with taking femara and head back for another u/s on May 15. On my walk into work, I called my prescription drug insurance company to see what the co-pay would be. I knew femara was on the formulary, but wasn't sure if I needed to order it through a specialty pharmacy. The rep on the phone told me that it would be $5. But, of course, that's not the end of the story. I went to pick up the prescription and was told that if I was taking one pill a day it would be covered at $5, but since I was taking 5 pills a day it wasn't covered and would cost be over $300. So, I walked out without my prescription and got on the phone again with the insurance. The rep this time told me that she would fax my doc's office with an exception to coverage form, and it should hopefully be processed in a few days, which still wasn't good enough for me, but I really didn't have a choice.

I got home, told Jon what happened, started crying, then had to answer Gus' questions of why I was sad and why I was crying. Over dinner I asked Jon to call the insurance company back to see what would happen if I paid out of pocket today and then the exception got approved. Jon made the call, which I am so thankful for, we got some information about what to do and headed back to the pharmacy to get my pills. Just yesterday we found out that the exception to coverage was denied, so we are going to have to pay $200 (we signed up for the Walgreens Wcard, which saved us $100) for the pills :( We have an FSA account, so we have the money, but we don't know if these pills are going to work and the $200 that we just spent could go towards follistim, if we need it. So, I'm taking femara for a total of 5 days (last day will be Saturday) and have an u/s scheduled for May 15. I really hope there's a follicle growing. Please, please, please!!!

The March for Babies in our area is on Saturday, and while I posted before about how it felt like I was failing at fundraising, things have turned around. Jon is still doing awesome with donations from his company (almost $1400) and Gus has raised $400. We're still bombarding people via facebook and emails every day to get more donations, but I'm so thrilled that Gus was able to raise more than he did last year for an organization that has been helping families and babies for the last 75 years.

Gus' last swim class is on Saturday. I'm really hoping that we don't need to leave the walk early to get to swim, but it's very important to me that we do not miss this class. I think this will be Gus' very last swim class with either Jon or me in the water. that may not be a big thing to some people, but it's huge to me. The next time he takes a swim class no parent will be in the water. This is just another sign that he is getting to be such a big, big boy and doing what he's supposed to do: learn and grow to be an independent person. I'm glad that he's advancing and learning what he's supposed to learn, but it still makes me sad that with each passing day it feels like he needs me less and less. Now, I know in my head that Gus will always need me, but I also think that I'm allowed to be sad during transitional points in Gus' life. I'm allowed to be sad that we won't be taking swimming lessons together, while also looking forward to seeing him be at an age and stage that he can be in a class with just a teacher. Because I do look forward to that. I look forward to Gus coming up to me after class and asking, "Mama, did you see how big I jumped during swimming class?" or "Mama, did you see how long I floated on my back?" and celebrating with him.

I think I really could go on and on because it just feels like I have so much that has happened, but I haven't carved out the time to post. My resolution (who says resolutions can only be made for January 1?) is to carve out the time to post more often.