Well, we are back from our Thanksgiving weekend at my parents'. Actually, we were back yesterday, but yesterday was catch-up day, not writing day. The visiting part of the weekend was great. Getting there and getting back home was a nightmare.

To start with, we had snow here in Michigan last Wednesday. It started around 2:00 at my house, and by the time we were ready to leave, at 4:45, we had at least two inches on the ground. That didn't look good. The good news was that it was supposed to be increasingly warmer the further south we went. The bad news was we had about 90 miles of snow to get through first. Normally it takes us about 15 minutes to get from our house to I-75. This day it took us more than half an hour. Once we got to 75, the road was better, but not great. We went through pockets of light snow and pockets of really heavy snow. By 6:30 (now 45 minutes behind schedule) we were just a few miles north of the I-75/US23 split and we stopped to grab something to eat. The snow was starting to get lighter and the roads were not as snow covered, but it was still slow going. We were finally pretty much in the clear by about the time we got to the Ann Arbor area. From there on, the trip was pretty smooth. We still didn't arrive at my parents' until nearly 11:00, way past one little girl's bedtime. It was 11:30 by the time she finally got to bed, and amazingly enough, she was up before 8:00 the next morning.

Thanksgiving Day was nice. One of my friends from college and her new husband, who lives in Cincinnati and whose mom lives in Brecksville, stopped by to visit for a little bit on their way to her mom's. It was good to see them. The last time we saw them was at their wedding, and we (obviously) didn't get to spend much time with them. Shortly before they left, my dad arrived home with my grandma. While I was glad that we were actually able to pry her out of her house for something other than a doctor's appointment or her hair appointment, it was not entirely pleasant to have her there. I feel bad for my mom and all that she has to deal with on a daily basis with my grandma. That in itself could fill an entire entry.

Friday was a pretty laid back day. My mom and brother had to work, so we basically just hung out with my dad for most of the day. When my brother got home from work he headed out for his property to go hunting. To my mom's dismay, he actually came home with a deer. He was pretty excited because, in addition to being an 8 point buck, it was his first deer that he got with a bow (and arrow). He was even more tickled about it because he had only been sitting out there for 5 minutes and had been sitting in the seat of his buddy's dad, who wasn't able to be there, and he knew that buddy's dad was going to be mad.

On Saturday, Kevin and Paul went out to take some pictures of the deer before Paul got it ready to be processed. Alison went out to see the deer to and was thrilled with it. She even petted it, which is kind of gross to me, but what does she know, she's only 2. :) Every now and then during the rest of our visit she would go over to the door to the deck or get up on the chair by the window and look out to try and see Uncle Paul's "reindeer." Luckily it was gone by the time she started doing that, because I think it might have freaked her out to see a skinless deer hanging from the bucket of the tractor.

On Sunday we went to church. Alison had a blast playing in the nursery. She even got to walk around the church a little bit because she was the only child there at the first service. I met her (and Carol) walking down the hall with a donut in her hand when I came down to pick her up. While we were having juice and donuts after church, in walked a friend of mine from high school and her family. It's only the second time in the last 6 years of so that I've seen her. The last time was at her baby shower last year. It was really nice to see her and see the baby. I also got to meet her husband for the first time, too. We chatted a little before they headed up to church. We had a chance to hang out again later because we joined the Lunch Bunch for lunch, which we don't usually do. It was really nice. After lunch Alison took a nap and I snoozed through most of the Browns game before finally getting around to pack.

We finally hit the road at about 4:30. The trip home went great until 5:56. At that point we were on the Ohio Turnpike and were about 4 miles away from the last open rest area on our route (the actual last rest area on our route is closed for reconstruction). We decided to stop there and eat since it would be pushing 7:00 by the time we were off the turnpike and had the chance to stop somewhere else. Unfortunately, at mile marker 104, traffic stopped....completely. An hour and a half later (7:30) we finally made it to the rest area. By that time, Alison had polished of her applesauce, all the Cherrios I had left, and a handful of Teddy Grahms, and was no longer a happy camper. Taking the straw out of her cup and dumping half of it down the front of her probably contributed to the crabbiness, too.

When we finally made it to the rest area, there were cars everywhere. Being trapped on the highway with the next rest area 50 miles away will cause that to happen, I guess. We found "additional parking" areas that we never knew existed. When we got inside, we split up.....Kevin got in line for food and Alison and I headed for the restroom to change a diaper. Of course Alison wanted to walk. Luckily she held my hand the whole time without much fuss. The line for the "family"restroom was way too long, so we headed for the ladies room. That line was even longer. I found an empty bench and figure that was good enough. With the diaper change taken care of, we went back to try and find Kevin. To my surprise, he had already gotten our order in was waiting to pick up the food. Alison and I went off in search of a table. We found one more easily that I thought we would. I didn't even attempt to find a high chair....figured Kevin could do that when he brought the food. The people at the table across from us had one, and they weren't using it, but I didn't want to ask them, since you never know how people are going to be in situations like we were all in. They're either going to be really, really nice or really, really not. Turns out that they were in the nice category because when Kevin went off in search of a highchair they grabbed him and told him to take theirs.

8:15 and we're back on the road. From what we could see out the window, traffic was moving pretty well. That proved to be true when we were back out on the road, at least for about 10 miles. The words "wow, we've actually gone 10 miles in 10 minutes" were no sooner out of my mouth then we were stopped again. Arrggghh!!! The next 10 miles took us about half an hour. Beyond that, it was smooth sailing. Unfortunately we still had about 2 1/2 hours of travel to go.

I had talked to my mom just before we left the rest area and we figured we had about 3 hours before we would be home, so that would be 11:00. At 11:05 my mom called to check on us (probably because she was ready to go to bed). She was very sorry to hear that we were still an hour away from home. I told her about the additional traffic tie-up and told her I would call and let the phone ring twice and hang up when we got home. That way they'd know we were home safely, but they wouldn't have to get up and answer the phone to find out. At 12:05 we pulled into the garage.

Alison, mercifully, slept for about the last 2 1/2 hours of the trip. When it was about her usual bedtime, she started getting cranky so I covered her up with the little receiving blanket we leave in the car and gave her the little pillow she got for being cooperative for the x-ray techs and told her to go to sleep. To my amazement, she did! It was kind of a fitful sleep, probably because, in addition to having a wet shirt she now had wet pants as well. She took the cup, which we filled up for her again at supper, and put it under her leg, which squirted water out of the straw and all over the car seat until I noticed it....when I covered her up again because she got all squirmy and upset. She woke up the second the car pulled into the garage, which I thought was a bad sign, but after I got her diaper changed and got her into her pajamas she wanted to go directly to bed. I obliged and her eyes were closed as soon as I put her down.

All in all, our 4 1/2 hour trip took us 7 1/2 hours. Including our dinner stop, we spent 5 hours on the turnpike instead of 2. I really hope that things are better when we make the same trip at Christmas. I'd hate to think they could be much worse.

Alison was FS4SB surgery #154 at Vanderbilt. She was 22 weeks gestation at the time. Hers was the first of two surgeries scheduled that day. Surgery #155 was Isaiah. He was 24 weeks at the time. We had run in to his parents a few times during the course of our consultations and we had our meeting with the head of Vanderbilt's NICU and our NICU tour together. The doctor basically told us that having FS was going to do nothing for Alison and he wouldn't take the risk. Isaiah's parents were told that the surgery would be of benefit for him. We both made the decision to have the surgery. We didn't see Isaiah's parents again after that tour. I did walk past his mom's hospital room a couple of times when I was doing laps around the floor, but her door was always closed. One of the residents did mention that she was not doing as well in her recovery as I was. That was the last I heard about her or them until earlier this year.

Isaiah's mom came across an entry I had made in another FS baby's guestbook and she e-mailed me. I was thrilled to hear from her because my whole family had often wondered how they were doing. I told her Alison was doing great, much better than we ever thought she would, and directed her to Alison's webpage. She wrote back and said Isaiah was doing good, too, and she would send pictures of him. She never did. I never heard anything more from her. It wasn't until we got back from the FS4SB reunion and joined the mail list that I found out that Isaiah wasn't doing nearly as well as we thought he was. (It was at this time that I finally did see a picture of him in our reunion scrapbook. He's adorable.) As is turns out, he was born just a month after the surgery. He has had many problems with his hydrocephalus requiring lots of shunt revisions and he now actually has two shunts in place. At nearly 2 1/2 years old, he does not sit on his own or crawl. He is unable to say any words or close his mouth. Monday afternoon he underwent Chiari decompression surgery. Because his hindbrain has slid down into the top of the spinal column, his scull is putting pressure on his hindbrain. By removing part of the scull, the hope is that it will relieve the pressure and improve his ability to function "normally."

It's times like these that I really feel schmucky. I've been upset for over a week that Alison, who's only outward signs that there is anything wrong with her is her intoeing right foot, the bump on the back of her head from her shunt, and the scars from her surgery, is going to have to wear a brace on her right leg for a few hours each day. Alison, for whom FS was supposed to do nothing, is as close to a "normal" child as you can get without actually being one. And Isaiah, who had such a great prognosis at the time of surgery, has gone through so much in his short lifetime. It really puts things in perspective.

Two weeks ago I started a big update entry on how things had been going in our in vitro cycle. I never finished it, and I think I'll probably just delete it. The in vitro didn't work. As usual, my doctor is at a complete loss as to why. As he said, we know that my system works (at least to some extent) because we have Alison. The only "good" news to come out of the whole thing is that we have 2 embryos frozen. Today we learned that they are blastocysts, the highest quality you can have. So we have decided to go ahead and try another frozen embryo transfer. The funny thing about it is that it will be almost exactly 3 years since the last one. Will we possibly have the same luck as the last time? Kevin says he feels more optimistic about this cycle than he did the full cycle. I'm not so sure. Of course, I wasn't so sure about the full cycle either, apparently with good reason.

We'll be following almost the exact same protocol as our last FET. I'm starting BCP tonight, to help quiet down my ovaries after having them hyperstimulated. On Dec. 2, I will get an injection of DepoLupron. Then I'll start estrogen and progesterone. We're also going to throw a 5 day course of steroids into the mix and wrap it all up with Lovenox (2x per day, instead of just once) and baby aspirin after the transfer. I think about the only thing that will be different is that we're going to transfer blast embryos and we have to pay for it this time. Last time we got a freebie due to a mix up with our 3rd full cycle. We had paid for assisted hatching of the embryos and, for whatever reason, they did not do it. The only question, aside from will it work or not, is will the embryos survive the thaw. Dr. Shamma feels it's highly unlikely that we won't have at least one to transfer. So here we go.

In other news, we have finally talked to both of Alison's doctors about her foot. Once we get the order from Dr. Craig, the orthopedic surgeon, she will be casted and fit for an AFO. The funny thing about this is that Kevin initially talked to Dr. Hurvitz on Monday to find out what had been decided. He told him he had gone back and forth with Dr. Craig about whether or not she needed it and finally agreed to it. After Kevin and I talked about it, we decided we wanted to know what made him change his mind, since he had been inclined to leave her alone. Kevin called him back and we were waiting to hear back from him. On Friday, we got a call from Dr. Craig saying that Dr. Hurvitz wanted to brace Alison. Ok, whatever. The strange thing about it all is that Dr. Craig said she only needs to wear it for an hour a day. Which leaves me wondering what is the point of having her wear it all. I suppose he might up the amount of time in it after she's worn it for a while, who knows. But, at least he answered some of the other questions we had for Dr. Hurvitz. We were concerned about how putting her in a rigid brace and immobilizing her foot was going to help correct what we've all agreed is a muscle problem. The answer is that it will be an articulating AFO, meaning it will keep her foot straight, but she will still be able to point and flex it. So, in about a month or so, Alison will be in a brace.

I'm trying to get a jump on my holiday preparations, and am not doing a very good job. We need to have all the presents we're sending to our family in Maryland ready by Thanksgiving so we can give them to my brother to take with him when he goes to my aunt and uncle's to go hunting the following weekend (thus saving us some money on shipping). Unfortunately, we have nothing bought/made. I do have ideas, though. I've also managed to get a very small start on my holiday baking. Alison and I made a batch of cookie dough this morning. Unfortunately, I didn't check out how well stocked my baking supplies are before we went to the store yesterday. So instead of whipping up a double batch of dough, we just made a single batch, because I'm just about out of flour. :( Looks like I'm headed to the store tonight.

So that's my life....or something like it, right now.