PROUD AUNT

I couldn't resist posting this picture of proud Aunt Dawn with baby Kayleigh. 

LOOPY FOR LUPRON

Okay!

Enough!

I've had just about all the excitement I can take - things need to start calming down soon.

We went from moving into the new house straight into the holiday frenzy, what with the shopping and the wrapping and the decorating and the visiting and the meals and all. The next day Eileen began to go into labor, then Cheryl got engaged, then the next day Kayleigh was born.

And all this after the year we just had. Wow.

One thing is becoming true - for a year that was, overall, a big pile of crap, it has certainly ended on a high note. Everything is much much better now. New houses, new babies, new weddings. Much better!

The funny thing is, through all of the mayhem, I have sort of "forgotten" about IVF. Isn't that weird? For the past several months I have thought of little else than my state of infertility, and how exactly we're going to treat it, etc. Lately, I have hardly thought about it.

I have been taking my birth control pill every night, but I have been doing it in an almost trance-like state. Just part of the old routine. Same old same old.

When Eileen was in the peak of her pain and was screaming her way towards delivering Kayleigh, I actually said out loud "maybe I WON'T be starting those IVF shots this week after hearing THIS!" I mean, who would want to put themselves deliberately through that kind of pain, right? Naturally, though, the minute I held Kayleigh that whole line of thinking went right out the window. Yeah, I thought, I want one just like her. Guess I'll be doing my shots after all.

So tonight it begins. Back to injections. Back on the Lupron. About two and a half to three weeks away from the procedures. Back to the discomfort and horrible mood swings. Back to the false hope, back to the waiting. Back to getting my heart broken all over again.

I'm just so not into it this time. Last time I was "Ms. Queen IVF" - I did everything right. EVERYTHING. I was so good. This time? Not so much. I drank a few times over the past few weeks, between my birthday and Christmas and my company holiday party. I haven't fully weaned myself off of the caffeine in my morning Starbucks quite yet. I should be drinking decaf and I am still working with a half-caf. And I have been eating....well, I have been eating whatever the hell I want. The diet went out the window the minute we moved into our home, and since then if it is bad for you then I have eaten it.

I don't think that this absent-minded professor act of mine is going to mean anything. There is no reverse-psychology at play here, i.e. last time it didn't workl because I was too obsessive about it so this time it will work because I couldn't care less.

I'm just doing this IVF because I can. Because insurance is letting me. Because it has been a few months and it is time. Because maybe, just maybe, it will work.

But I highly doubt it will. And at least this time I am very well prepared for that outcome. Hell, I am expecting it.

My mother hates to hear me talk like that. "A negative attitude can produce negative results," she says.

Bah. I don't have a negative attitude. I have a realistic one. A self-protective one. An attitude that says "I am no longer putting all my happiness eggs in one basket." If it doesn't work, I'll dust myself off and move on. I won't shrivel up and die. At least that is how I feel about it today.

Ask me again in a week when I am all doped up.

32 HOURS

After 32 long, long hours of painful labor, my sister Eileen screamed "I CAN'T DO IT!" A chorus of voices uttered "Yes, you can, Eileen. Yes, you can! Push!" She let out a scream that was painful not just for her but for all persons within a fifty mile radius of her delivery room. Her epidural had long worn off and she was feeling true labor pain with no drugs of any kind to assist her. "I'm sorry, but I CAN'T!" she continued to wail. Her husband Kevin was with her, as was my mother.

My dad, my sister Cheryl and her new fiance Ron and I stood just outside the double-doors outside of Eileen's delivery room. Eileen's screaming and crying were more than any of us could bear - it had been a long day and a half, we were all exhausted, punchy, and anxious as hell. To hear her in so much pain sent tears streaming down all of our cheeks. Well, maybe Ron was actually not crying, but the rest of us could hardly deal.

After a moment the screams from Eileen seemed to stop. We all heard a tiny sound. It was a baby whimper. That precious, newborn baby whimper that no one can resist. It was coming from Eileen's room. We all turned to each other in disbelief, as if the last thing in the world we were expecting was to hear a baby crying!

Finally, my mother emerged from the room sobbing her eyes out. For a split second, we worried if the tears were due to some problem or health issue. We all held our breath until she fell on the swinging double doors and erupted into even more sobs.

"It's a girl," she cried, barely able to utter the words. "It's a girl!"

We began to jump up and down, to hug each other, to cry some more, to let it all sink in. We asked my mother a million questions. "What's the name? How much does she weigh? What color hair?" She kept shaking her head, "I don't know, I don't know, but she is so beautiful. Eileen did SO good, that was so hard. She did so good."

And there it was.

Just like that, I'm a godmother.

Just like that, there is a beautiful new baby in my life.


Kayleigh Dawn 

7 pounds, 13.8 ounces, 21 inches long, born at 1:36PM on December 27th.

She is absolutely the most wonderful baby I have ever known. No really, she is. She is the best baby ever.

You don't believe me? Well, tough, she is!

I am on my way back to see her again, just had to make a quick pit stop home for a shower, a meal, and to shovel out the driveway. I was supposed to go to work today and I hope I get fired for not going in.

Hey, I've got my priorities. Kayleigh was just too cute to tear myself away from today.

I love her so, so much.

BIG HAPPENINGS

There's been a lot going on and I've had no time to post, but here are the two most important things.

1) My youngest sister Cheryl got engaged yesterday. I've been asked to be Matron of Honor. I am so excited! Don't know any details yet, as far as whether there will be a wedding THIS year or next, but either way there is a wedding coming soon and I couldn't be happier for my sister!

2) My other sister, Eileen, is in labor. We still don't know what she is having, but everyone is in a tizzy due to this being the first baby in our family since Cheryl was born twenty six years ago. We're all crazy-like. I am on my way to the hospital now - hopefully I will be meeting my Godchild while I am there, before I have to go to work this morning.

More later...