A Thanksgiving Adventure!

For Thanksgiving this year, we went up to Lincolnton to Aunt Brenda and Uncle Rip's lake cabin. They've done a great job on it! My dad, Uncle Tommy, Thomas and I got there on Wednesday night. Mama and Aunt Charlotte had gone over Wednesday morning to attend Uncle Rip's father's funeral. When we got there, Claire, Ben, Matt, and Olivia were there. Matt and Olivia weren't supposed to be here for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year because Olivia's late in her pregnancy, but the circumstances allowed us to celebrate with them. Uncle Rip came up shortly after we got there to fix a leak that had been discovered in the basement. The guys sat around having some beers and talking while the girls played Life. They've updated the game in the past few years and we've decided that we must have been some really smart kids to play it when we were young because it was really hard! We had to keep reading the directions to know what to do next. It was crazy!

The adventure starts as we all started to go to bed. Aunt Charlotte, Uncle Tommy, Thomas and I were going to sleep in the loft. They have 3 beds up there and plenty of room. When we had first arrived, we noticed there were a few wasps in the house and we didn't think much of it because it's a new wood cabin and it had been cold. Once we started getting ready for bed, we started noticing more and more of them, as well as ladybugs. Thomas started killing the wasps with shoes and soon Uncle Rip was up there to check things out. Then he went to get his shop vac to suck up the live ones and the carcasses. They found they were coming from behind a beam close to the ceiling. This is Uncle Rip and Thomas trying to eradicate them at the source:



The sounds coming from the loft soon woke up everyone in the house, including Matt and Olivia in the basement. Olivia sent Matt up to check it out and see if we needed help. Way to delegate, Olivia! The next thing I know, all the men arrived with their own cans of wasp spray!



This is what Mama and I did the entire time:



Meanwhile, Aunt Charlotte documented the event with her camera and Matt went and got his video camera to tape the madness. Here's the last scene (around 2 AM) before deciding to move our mattresses downstairs:



We moved our mattress down to the basement and Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Tommy put there's in front of the fireplace. Sometime later in the night, I woke up to the smoke alarm going off and the smell of smoke. I also hear Uncle Rip saying, "Everything's okay! Don't worry!" It was a crazy night and it made for some great story-telling the next day!

Soon after we ate, Thomas and I headed home because we both had to work on Friday. Boo. We made it through a weekend of work and now we get to embark on decorating for Christmas! We're headed back to Augusta this weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving with Patrick and Chun. I can't believe tomorrow is the first of December! Christmas and New Year's will be here in just a few weeks! I'll post some pictures of the house decorated when we get them up.

Happy Holidays!!

The Plan: Part 2

We went to see Dr. Butler yesterday morning to discuss the surgery findings and what the next step is. He showed me pictures of what he found during the surgery, including all the normal stuff (uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, etc.) and the endometriosis. Luckily, he said I had Stage 2 endometriosis, with the most severe being Stage 4. He showed me the before and after pictures from where he used the laser to get rid of the endometriosis. He also answered a burning question from my mom and Thomas: what is the cul-de-sac of the uterus? He kept using this term when talking to them immediately after the surgery and they were curious as to what it meant. For your knowledge, it's the space behind the uterus and in front of the rectum. It's a gravity-dependent section that tends to have a endometriosis lesions. Just thought you'd like to know that! Thomas asked the doctor and the medical students in the room if that was actually in the text books as "cul-de-sac," and they said yes. So we definitely learned something yesterday!

Now, the next step is to wait for my period to start. Once it starts, I'll go in to the office on day 3 and get a baseline ultrasound and lab work to see what I look like. I'll start the injectable drugs and go back in every 2-3 days for another ultrasound and lab work to see how I'm responding to the drugs. Depending on how I'm responding, they may increase or decrease the dosage. Once they see that I'm about to ovulate (usually about 7 days after starting the drugs), we'll get ready to do the insemination. Two nights before the insemination, I'll take another injection, this time of hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin). It stimulates ovulation and the maturation of the eggs. Two mornings later, I go in to the office with Thomas' sample. They wash that down and select the best-looking sperm, then insert them into my uterus, close to my fallopian tubes, with a small catheter. By placing them close to my fallopian tubes, they don't have to make the long journey up there. Once that's complete, I go home and wait for 2 weeks and hopefully a missed period! If it doesn't work the first cycle, we'll try again for a max of 4 total cycles. Then we would move on to in-vitro fertilization. I asked the success rate for this treatment and he said it's 45-50% over the four cycles. However, he thinks I might have a slightly better success rate because my ovaries and fallopian tubes are in such good shape.

The nurse has to call the pharmacy company and they'll call me to get my information and then send me all my supplies, including the drugs. Once they come in, I have to call her back and set up an appointment for me to learn how to give myself the injections. That way, we'll be ready to go when my period starts.

That is all for now! I know it's a lot of info, but that's what's going on right now! I'll update more as I know it...

Stay tuned...

I have an appointment to see Dr. Butler in the morning to discuss the surgery results and what's next. I'll post more tomorrow!

Can You Believe It?

It's November already!

In less than 2 months, 2009 will be over!

Where has this year gone?!