Hi ho hi ho its off to work I go.

So since not much is happening in our lives, I'll tell you about my job. I love my job! When I think about my job I get little tingles of happiness inside! I'm a nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. That's a mouthful, so we call it the NICU. We take care of newborns premature, term and late term and everything in-between. We see tiny little 450 gram 24 weekers. Now 450g in poundage weighs about...Well, There are 2.2 pounds in a kilogram. There are 1000 grams in a kilogram. So 1000 g in 2.2 lbs..... 450 g is SMALL!! And we see 15 lb late termers. We mostly see sick near term kids 34-41 weeks. People always say "I dont know how you do that?" but I'll let you in on a little secret: Most of our kids do just fine. We do get tiny little premies and sick term kids that have really hard roads ahead of them or some that never make that road. But, Luckily, a majority do very well.

Viability is something you hear a lot about in the NICU. Viability is at what point an infant can be saved. It doesnt mean the infant will do well, mind you. Viability is 23 weeks. That is VERY early. 17 weeks early, 4 months! Thats delivering at 6 months pregnant. Babys generally do not do well at that point. Their are so early their eyes are still fused, their lungs are under developed and the blood vessels in the brain are very delicate. Thats not to say that there have been miracles! I've seen them. Medicine advances every day. The best time to have a premature infant is after 30 weeks. At that point the blood vessels in their brains are generally much tougher. Though, they usually still require support, mostly respiratory wise. I love 32 weekers. They are little and skinny and they usually need a little respiratory support but they are mainly in the NICU to get big and learn to eat. Its amazing how much a week makes. They are amazing, these little beings. You watch them go from tiny and pink with see-through skin, their muscles are so weak they can't bring their arms to their chest but they will fight! And when they go home to be "real babies" not patients its wonderful!!

well, thats it in a nut shell. a very big nut shell.

Oh... One More Thing...

So I had someone tell me I shouldn't talk about our fertility problems on my blog. Our fertility problems are a HUGE part of our life. To leave it out would be to leave out something that has shaped the last 4 years of our marriage. So here it is... all the gory details... well, not that gory.....



There is distinct timeline to my career goals as a child.

1st grade: President

2ND grade: Archaeologist

3rd grade: Marine Biologist

4Th grade and 5 Th grade: Air Force Pilot (Mainly because my Grandmother told me that only men should be in the armed forces. Mind you, my Grandfather was a very handsome career Marine!)

6Th grade: back to archaeologist/ veterinarian

Junior High: Veterinarian/ Marine Biologist

High School: No career goals, just get me through this alive!!!!!



My career goals changed A LOT, the above is just the more common ones I hit upon. EVERYONE told me I should be a nurse like my Mom... I mean, EVERYONE!!! So, I did everything in my power to NOT be a nurse.... funny....ANYWAYS, The one common theme was a Mom. I wanted to be a Mom. Not a Wife, a Mom. When I was little I remember asking my Mom if it was legal to be a Mom and not be a wife. I don't remember what she said, but I'm pretty sure she was edging toward Nurse.


Now, I love being a wife. But I married Wayne only because he squeaked by the hiring requirements by the skin of his teeth!! No, seriously though, I really didn't want to get married when I was young. Luckily, I met the perfect man who changed my feelings.


After we got married, we decided to wait 6 months before we started trying. Two weeks after the wedding I felt strongly that we shouldn't wait. I don't know if it was my desire to have a family or Divine Intervention, had we waited we would never had moved to California and had the wonderful fertility group that we have now. Needless to say, we had problems from the get go. I should say, I had problems from the get go. We tried and tried and tried and tried and never even got a nibble of a pregnancy. We sought help in Utah but insurance didn't cover a blessed thing, so the help was limited. We were, originally, planning on moving to Oregon in July after we got married (we were planning on waiting on a baby until we were settled there). When the time came we thought it would be better to find a place where I could get a job that would cover fertility treatments and that place was Kaiser in Roseville, Ca.

Moving to Roseville was Divine Intervention. We were heading to Gilroy to visit my family anyways and had to drive right through it. At that time I was looking anywhere I could for a job in a Kaiser NICU, not just in Northern California. We spoke to a realtor and looked at a few houses. When we came upon our housing development I felt like I was home. We got the paperwork we needed and headed to Gilroy. On the way, I called the only Kaiser NICU, which at that time was located in Sacramento. They had ONE position open and, by the way, it will be posted the next day and, by the way, the entire unit was moving to Roseville in a year. Funny!!! We just found a house in Roseville!!! So, I got my application in and we put the condo in Utah up for sale. 2 years and 10 months later, I am happily working at the Kaiser Roseville NICU just 15 minutes from my cute little house... in Roseville. Have I mentioned, I love Roseville?

Kaiser covers 100% of infertility up to but not including Invitrofertilization (IVF). Which was fabulous!!!!! until we found out we needed IVF. We did everything we needed to do, had all the tests run. Other than one small problem that has nothing to do with my infertility and was quickly corrected with a small surgery, we were perfect. So why were we not getting pregnant.

We started out with Clomid, a lovely little follicle inducing drug that also induces mild psychosis I lovingly call The Clomid Crazies!! Luckily and Sadly, that didn't work. So, we tried a combination of Clomid and Menopur, a major follicle stimulating hormone that does not make you crazy but does produce families such as John and Kate plus 8. That just produced two lovely ovarian cysts I, lovingly, call Tweedledee and Tweedledum. So then we went to straight Menopur and artificial insemination, because, dang it!, if your going to take nature out of the equation you might as well take her ALL the way out!! Two weeks later I thought that I was starting the lovely womanly experience we refer to as Aunt Flo. But, something was different. I went to get a pregnancy test, because the first thing the Fertility clinic will want to do is a pregnancy test. And my SHOCK when there were TWO lines!! I was pregnant.... actually pregnant...

I happily called the clinic and my mother and anyone else that would listen. The clinic set up a test for an HCG level. HCG is a measure of dividing tissue. A pregnancy will give you a number above 50, a healthy pregnancy will result in a number that doubles every 48 hours. My first level was 96... Yippee!!! my second level was 105.... not so Yippee.... It was not a healthy pregnancy, it was most likely ectopic. But, regardless, it was a pregnancy and I had never had one of those before. Amidst the heartache there was that happiness. The good news, we had found it early enough to save my tubes. The next 5 months were filled with increasing the menopur and no pregnancies. I finally had a Nurse Practitioner look me straight in the eye and tell me, "we could keep doing this and keep getting the same results or you could do IVF and get pregnant." That was it, our next step was IVF.

We or I started meds in August. The meds pretty much completely stop your cycle and then start it again but in a very controlled state. Then they shoot you full of follicle stimulating drugs to stimulate lots and lots of follicles. Each follicle has a little egg as long as it is mature enough, which pretty much means big enough. Your ovaries get HUGE with multiple large follicles. Well, its supposed to. I'm considered a "poor responder", it takes ALOT of stimulator to get me to do anything! Then they stick a very large needle.... ok thats gory details.

Suffice it to say: We made 6 little embryos. 6 beautiful little, perfect embryos. And to not relive the next 8 months after: We transferred 2 and I got pregnant but miscarried at 9 weeks. the following March we transferred two more and I got pregnant but miscarried at 6 weeks. We have 2 little embryos left and they are currently living in deep freeze at the fertility center. We are getting things a little straightened out before we proceed with the final two. I'll let you know what we do.

So, I've decided to give this one more go. I'm going to stick to the things that are happening in our lives, and just anything I want to talk about.

Lets start out with THE BUDDS.... We are Wayne and Amy. We were married November 18Th, 2006. We met, courtesy of Heather, on a blind date on November 11Th, 2005. It was a very wet night, I started out late and then got lost on my way to Heathers house for dinner. Needless to say, I was 45 minutes late. Heather opened the door, I walked in, took off my soaking shoes and looked into the kitchen at this cute, very nervous boy. My first thought was, he is way too cute to ever like me. Lucky for me, I was wrong. The funny thing is Heather knew me but didn't know Wayne and Heathers (now ex :<) husband knew Wayne's Aunt, who didn't know me. Long story short, if either knew the other they would never have put us together. But, as they say, opposites attract. Wayne is a good ole Utah boy, he works hard, doesn't especially love music, rides his 4-wheeler and snowmobile, doesn't care much about art or books and loves his dog. I am a California girl at heart, I LOVE music, not so big on 4-wheeling and didn't know much about snowmobiling, I love art, could spend an entire day on my couch with a good book and I love my cats. But, we worked. He endures my music, I ride his snowmobile, we have 2 dogs and an undisclosed number of cats. The most important thing is Wayne is the kindest, gentlest, sweetest man I have ever known. Oh! He's very patient too.... He's married to me!