What's Worse Than a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? This.

*****Okay, this is what I like to call a "speed bump entry" - I can't ever get myself to really finish it but I don't write anything else because I'm convinced I'll finish the post soon and don't want to post things out of order. :-/ I really should know Future Lauren better than that by now. So, the first 2 paragraphs are back from 11/9/14 and then I'm just going to jump into a quicker synopsis. When you see what the post is about, you'll understand why it's taken so long.*****

Remember back when I was a young'un and I thought this was the definition of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad experience? Ha! Memories. They make me laugh. Let's fast forward from that past about 4 years but rewind this week about 5 days to arrive at a TRULY terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Days. Oh, the hell with it - week.

Tuesday started normally enough: Robert and I went to an OB appointment and had the second part of my fetal echocardiogram. (The first part showed everything to be on the up-and-up but the doctor only got about 80% of the views he wanted - because Ms. Baby was being uncooperative - and he wanted to make sure he saw everything.) I'd been having some mild cramping and even though that's not necessarily a worrisome thing, I asked the doctor while at the ultrasound and she confirmed that without other symptoms, it was normal. So, I went about my day and not much of note happened. Jenna hadn't been feeling herself the previous few days - she was lethargic and had very little appetite and just seemed to be "off." I'd taken her in to the clinic last week to check it out and Dr. K thought Jenna had bronchitis so

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And that's as far as I got, folks. Dr. K prescribed Jenna a bronchodilator and Jenna was only on it a few days when things started going downhill. By the time we finished dinner on Tuesday night, it was clear that Jenna's breathing was just too labored and I was concerned. So, Robert and I drove her to Ohlone Emergency and had her looked at. They put her on oxygen because her level was low but otherwise they found nothing urgently wrong. Jenna didn't have aspiration pneumonia and the doctor had given her an injectable form of the bronchodilator she was already on so once Jenna's O2 level was up to 92, the doctor said she felt comfortable letting us take Jenna home (because I'm a tech and would know what to watch for). The doctor did recommend a humidifier and some coupage treatment overnight so, since we don't have a humidifier, we had Jenna hang out in the bathroom with the shower running for a while and then I did the coupage (basically, you just use cupped hands and firm pats on the chest to help dislodge any mucus).

I'm not sure at this point what time Robert and I finally went to bed or even when I woke up but at some point in the early morning hours, I woke up with excruciating pain on my left side. I was instantly nauseated and couldn't sit or lie comfortably at all. I was reluctant to go to the ER but once I started spotting, I had no choice so off to Washington Hospital we went. This part I can definitely truncate: I was admitted to Labor and Delivery right away and it was decided that I was suffering from kidney stones. I had ultrasounds performed on both the baby and my kidneys, all of which looked good, and was given a little over 1500mL of fluids while I was there (about 8 hours or so). At an acceptable hour later in the morning (somewhere between maybe 8 and 10, I think), Robert texted my dad to have him run over to our place and check on the fur kids. After a bit my dad texted back, essentially saying that Garfunkel hadn't ruptured himself and something about not moving Jenna but we figured that just meant she wasn't feeling well and up to moving around much so he'd just left her to hang out. As it turned out, we did not get my dad's entire message and that turned out to be a weirdly fortuitous thing.

It's appropriate to inform people of your hospital stay via Instagram, right?

When I was finally discharged from the hospital (around 12 or 1ish), Robert and I headed straight home to check on the babies. I walked into the door first and immediately looked for Jenna. I saw her lying on the carpet just inside our bedroom and I knew instantly that she had died overnight. I dropped all that I was holding and crumpled on the floor next to her, sobbing "she's dead!" hysterically until Robert rushed over and squeezed me. This is where the weirdly fortuitous incomplete text comes in; turns out, when my dad stopped by to check on the animals, Jenna was already dead. (I feel just terrible that I wound up making the man find a dead dog. Ugh.) He'd included this bit of information in his text to us (hence the mention of not moving her) but we didn't get that part and I'm so, so glad. As absolutely heartbreaking as it was to come home and find her, it would've been excruciating to know she was dead and then have to hang out at the hospital for who knows how long. I had already let my clinic know I was going to be bringing Jenna in for an exam so I had to call and give them the news. Everyone just loved Jenna and was very sorry, of course. I also told them about my unexpected trip to the ER for myself and that, therefore, Robert would be bringing Jenna's body in later that day.

Robert wound up bringing Linguini in, as well, because in and around my sobbing, he noticed that there were a couple of piles of bloody vomit in the house, as well as the remnants of a chewed ribbon. So off my three men went while I sat at home, continuing to cry, and waited to hear if Linguini was going to need surgery. I don't think I gave my coworkers the heads-up that Gweenz was on his way in and that was unkind. I talk about how horrible he is all the time but I still should've prepared them! And told them they could do whatever they needed to in order to restrain his furry little butt. As it turned out, one of the girls I work with is a crazy cat whisperer and they were able to get x-rays on Linguini without even sedation! He did pee all over them, of course, but all in all that was a successful visit for Shitty Kitty. And he hadn't ingested any of the ribbon after all so he got to come home. Thank goodness.

I had never lost a dog before - Ziggy was living with my sister's dad when he died and while I was sad when I heard the news, I hadn't been with him for several years and I was happy he died living in a place where he was very happy. So Jenna's passing just knocked me down and continues to do so here and there when I see her ashes or have to write a blog post about her leaving us. Even though I knew she wasn't doing well at all - she'd had some bloodwork done just prior to her bronchitis diagnosis and her values were terrible - I just kept thinking we could squeak out a little more time. Up until the day before she died, she still loved walks and car rides and definitely loves. She just seemed to go downhill so fast; Dr. K suspects that, in the end, she had a stroke or heart attack and went quickly. Still, it breaks my heart and I feel guilty that she was home alone when she died. The logical part of my brain understands that she would've died whether or not she'd stayed at the hospital and so her being at home, a place she knew and where she was happy, was a good thing. But the emotional part of my brain just can't get over the fact that she was alone for hours before she died, when she was still alone.

Robert is very understanding of my residual mini-breakdowns here and there, (no doubt exacerbated by pregnancy hormones). He just loved Jenna to bits, too, and was deeply affected and saddened by her passing; even my coworkers said he just looked terribly heartbroken when he brought her body in. Jenna touched everyone she met, pretty much - the entire hospital staff, my parents, my aunt, even one complex 'regular' who saw Jenna and Funk on walks. I'm sure it seems silly to some people that we became so attached in just 3 months but we absolutely did. We were already so accustomed to the sound of her pattering around the house, her snoring, and her happy dance when she was really excited for food that the first couple of weeks after her passing were really tough. Still, I would foster her again in a heartbeat, no question. She was my best baby girl.

Last photo of the entire family (October).

Begging for chicken!

The very last photo of my baby girl. I was eating lunch at work and she was begging for peanut butter sandwich crusts.

I went kinda goon after she died and took photos of everything she had left behind...

including the spot where she went to the bathroom right at the bottom of our stairs.

 

Maria and Josh sent us the sweetest condolence bouquet.

Even though she was only with us a short while, Jenna was a member of the family and so has a spot in our ornament family timeline.

One of my Christmas gifts - Robert had a painting made of Jenna's final photo.

The likeness is wonderful! I love it. :-)

Baby Burl Is a GIRL!

Yes, indeedy, she is. :-) I know 90% of you know this already but I have to post anyway! I had my 2nd trimester ultrasound last Monday and both the sonographer as well as the doctor were 100% certain she's a girl. The sonographer during my nuchal translucency scan had also felt strongly that she is a girl so Robert and I are feeling pretty sure she's really a she. I will actually have another scan - a fetal echocardiogram, to be specific - in two weeks. Because I'm on several medications, two of which are known to cause different fetal conditions, my doctor is being very diligent in covering all the bases. My bloodwork looks great and Monday's ultrasound showed that Burl is developing right on track but Wellbutrin is known, in an extremely small percentage of women, to cause fetal heart issues so my doctor wants to do the echo just to be safe. My psychiatrist is also monitoring me - and my meds - very closely; the frequency of my visits has increased and will continue to do so as I get farther along in the pregnancy. Everyone from the nurses to the doctors to the geneticist keeps telling me that, while the meds pose their own risks, a depressed mother is the biggest risk of all and everyone wants to make sure I'm feeling good. I am appreciative of that because I have definitely felt the effects of the pregnancy on my depression and anxiety and, if possible, I don't want to tweak anything just now. The doctors are currently okay with how things are going because I am on low doses of all my meds and Burl is progressing just fine so, knock wood, things will keep going well.

I have had a few requests for a bump picture so here you go:

My official 20-week portrait.

Robert got to feel her move for the first time on Saturday so it's definitely sinking in that there's a baby on the way! Considering I just hit the official halfway mark (20 weeks), I guess it's about time it did. ;-)

As for the adoption process, we have decided to put it on hold. We told the agency that I'm pregnant a couple of weeks ago and our counselor wound up wanting to have a talk with us. We had two options: to keep the process moving or put it on hold. We were more than welcome to keep things going but there were a couple of big caveats involved. It would probably take a couple of months to finish our Dear Birth Mother letter and get it into circulation. Which means we'd only be in circulation for a couple of months before Burl arrives. And then we'd have to re-do our home visit (because there's another person in the house) AND re-do our DB letter (because our biographies will have changed). :-/ And all of those things will cost extra money in addition to being a pain in the tuchus. So our counselor recommended we put a hold on everything; Robert and I talked about it and decided the same. We want to make sure we put as much of ourselves as we can into the process and we wouldn't be able to do that right now. But we're still adopting, no worries there. It'll just take a little longer than we planned for Burl to have a little brother or sister.

Surprise! We're Adopting, Too!

Many months before Robert and I found out we were expecting, we had started the process of adopting a baby. We didn't necessarily know that we couldn't have kids, we just knew we hadn't had any yet. And I'd thought about adoption a lot over the years, given my depression and anxiety, and when I broached the topic with Robert, I was pleasantly surprised to discover he was all for it. Unbeknownst to me, Robert had been worrying about the possible adverse effects of pregnancy on my depression, especially considering postpartum depression. Fairly soon after we talked about Robert hopped on the computer and researched several different agencies and options for us - this was probably a little after the beginning of the year. We soon discovered that open adoption, where the baby (and we) will still have contact with the birth mother, is pretty much the only game in town in California; closed adoptions or private adoptions are very few and far between. We attended a couple orientation sessions for different agencies and finally decided on the Independent Adoption Center.

The adoption process is a very long one before you even get put "into circulation" and begin waiting for a baby. It's also a fairly expensive process and different agencies have differing payment structures - some of them charge you for each step, some charge you in tiers, some charge you each time you enter the pool (for example, if we were matched with a baby but the match fell through at some point, we would be charged for getting ourselves matched with another birth mother), etc. Robert and I both felt that IAC had the best, most fair-seeming payment structure and it most definitely does not require us to pay again if our match falls apart because that completely stinks!

In a (somewhat large) nutshell, the adoption process looks something like this:

• fill out the initial application to the agency as well as an autobiography, both of which are several pages long
• attend a two-day intensive orientation session where we are assigned an adoption coordinator as well as a social worker and we get to hear from both a birth mother as well as an adoptive family who have worked with the agency
• fill out a staggering number of forms - health evals from doctors, DMV driving records, employment verifications, proofs of marriage and health insurance, various legal releases, income information - and get fingerprinted
• have a home visit, where a social worker inspects the house for carbon monoxide and smoke detectors, makes sure our running water does not exceed 120 degrees, checks on locations of medications and cleaning products and fire extinguishers, etc.
• take an online training course and complete an accompanying questionnaire
• receive 4 letters of recommendation from non-relatives
• write a "Dear Birthmother" letter which is essentially our resume to prospective birth mothers and for which we have to have professional pictures taken
• purchase a 1-800 number for interested birth mothers to call 
• create a Web page on iheartadoption.com
• potentially create our own personal Web page and/or Facebook page for birth mothers to check out

We aren't considered to be "in circulation" until our Dear Birthmother letter goes out but the average wait-time for a baby is 15 months, which is a lot shorter than either Robert or I expected, quite frankly. It's a very rigorous exercise but extremely informative and helpful because the agency addresses every question you can possibly think of and that's certainly very reassuring for some things (especially concerning paternity if the birth father isn't known or around). The process is also extremely detailed in that everything from how many visits per year with the birth mother to who gets to cut the cord in the delivery room is discussed, decided, and legally recorded. It's pretty crazy. We get to bring the baby home from the hospital and it takes about 6 months for the adoption to be finalized and the baby's birth certificate changed to reflect Robert and me as the legal parents. There is no limit to how long the birth mother can wait to sign off on the adoption but the agency assures everyone that about 3 weeks is the longest any mother has taken. So, of course, the entire process is fraught with possibility that the adoption could stall at various stages but we just have to power through. The amount of stuff birth mothers have to go through with the agency is almost comparable to what we as adoptive parents have to do so by the time a birth mother contacts us, she will have already had a lot of opportunities to back out. In fact, the agency stated that last year they had 3,000 birth mothers contact them and only 200 matches because the counseling that the agency does with the birth mothers is very effective at getting down to those mothers who really are prepared to give their baby up for adoption.


Robert and I have kind of stalled out at the Dear Birthmother letter, mainly because with the pregnancy and everything else going on, we've just been swamped and I've been feeling pretty poorly, though that's thankfully improving some. I did ask our counselor if my being pregnant would affect our chances of a birth mother selecting us - I assumed we wouldn't be very desirable because a birth mother would assume we'd give more attention to our "real" baby than an adopted one - and the counselor said no. It's about a 50/50 split between birth mothers who do care and who don't and she said she recently had an adoptive mother and a birth mother who essentially had the same due date and the adoption was very smooth. I think we should probably take pictures before I get too chubs, however, so I think we're going to be moving fairly quickly to that step! :-)

Robert and I talked about the possibility of my getting pregnant while we were trying to adopt and we both decided that we'd want to keep going with the adoption. So we are! We definitely want more than one child, we both still really like adoption, and who knows how long the process will take? We could wind up matched with a birth mother in weeks, months, or years and even if it is weeks, it will still take months for the actual baby to arrive so we feel like moving along with the adoption is the right choice for us. We've discovered that many of our friends and family have lots of questions about the process so I'll probably be posting quite a bit on the subject as we slog through the steps. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Blowing Cobwebs Off the Ol' Blog

Well, this is absolutely depressing. I can't believe it's been OVER A YEAR since my last post and that the grand total of 2013 posts is 14. Fourteen?! Granted, there's been a downward trend from year to year - 410 posts in 2008, 293 in 2009, 144 in 2010, 94 in 2011, 23 in 2012 - but 14??? Oy. That is just too sad for words.

All of this emptiness has not been without thoughts of posting, however. I have written and rewritten posts in my head literally dozens of times while trying (and failing) to fall asleep. This started a long time ago, so at first my posts were about depression, then dementia, then dementia and depression, then isolation... Very uplifting stuff, sure, but very applicable to my life an that moment. Now I'm up to crappy bosses, dog fostering, pregnancy, and adoption. I don't even know where to begin! Wait... yes, I do.

Indeed I do.

Hopefully, I will be able to get the word out that I am trying to be active in my blog posting you guys will start coming back! In the meantime, I will do a quick post on the a recent source excitement at Casa de McCauley - I'm pregnant!!!

Right now, I'm just shy of 4 months and am not due until March 1st. So everything is still very kind of vague-feeling and it still hasn't really sunk in that a baby will be arriving in the new year. I have had an ultrasound so that made things a little more real but I think Robert and I are still not 100% in pregnancy mode. He's mostly just stressed about cleaning out the office and how much childcare will cost and I'm mostly splayed out on the couch feeling sick or tired (or both). :-) We got several photos of the baby a couple of weeks ago via the ultrasound:

This is a front-facing view so the head looks a little alien-y!

3D version 1

3D version 2  (Robert and I had gone to a NIN concert the night before the ultrasound so I think the baby was still covering his/her ears...!)

So now we're just waiting until October when we get to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl. But we already have a spreadsheet of name options (courtesy of Robert, of course) so we're prepared for either eventuality. ;-)