A Monumental Day

Today was a monumental day.

Since I have been pregnant, Tiny has not let me have much of anything to eat or drink that I normally love. Weeks 6 through 12 were particularly bad: I went through life nauseated 24/7, exhausted, and weary.Those who know me know that I have quite a love affair with coffee. It was one of the hardest things I had to give up when I was hyper and caffeine made me feel like I would spontaneously combust. But for the last few months even the smell turned my stomach.

But today I am almost 15 weeks and for the first time in over two months Tiny let me have a cup of coffee! It was glorious and so far has stayed down (thankfully).My dream machine the husband got me for Valentine's Day last year has felt neglected over the last few months. I mean, I used to tell this thing "bye" when we would leave to go out of town...

I promise I've missed you too, K! We don't have to be apart anymore. We may not see each other as much as before, but I will press your button on a normal basis again!

So glad the second trimester is here.

Reality Checking In

I promised myself for the sake of information I would post frequently and in detail through all of this pregnancy, yet I find myself almost at the end of the first trimester and I have only done an announcement post.

My sister had a breezy pregnancy with my niece - little or no morning sickness, felt pretty good the whole time, her skin cleared up and she looked youthful and gorgeous the whole time - so I just knew my pregnancy would also be easy.

Ha. Hahaha. HAHAHAHA! Boy was I sadly mistaken.

I had been sleeping much more than usual from the beginning, but about week 6 morning sickness hit me like a mack truck. I say morning sickness but really it was 24/7. I've been exhausted, sick to my stomach so much that I've lost weight, sore all over, and not sure I was going to make it some days. And my face is breaking out like a pubescent teenager.

But hallelujah I'm here and have made it to week 12 and some change. About week 11 my symptoms started easing some - the nausea comes and goes instead of being constant - which is a major improvement that I am thankful for.

Ornament we had made for my brother-in-love to announce our pregnancy at Christmas.

It was hard, but as others have told me a hard time in early pregnancy is a good sign, because it's one that will "stick." Old wives' tale I guess, but you'll take comfort in any way you can get it when you're convinced you're dying. And so far everything has been just fine with The Tiny, as we've been calling him/her, and the old wives' tale has held true.

Ornament we had made for my mother-in-love to announce her first grand baby!

So far it's been a very normal pregnancy - my Graves' Disease symptoms haven't flared up except for my eyes have been dryer, itchier, and easier to water than normal. My endocrinologist upped my levothyroxine dose from 137 to 150mcg at the very beginning and is seeing me once a month to keep an eye on my levels, so I've been making the rounds at the endo and the OB monthly which is just fine.

Normally you're not supposed to eat within an hour of taking the thyroid hormone replacement, but since I've been so sick my endo told me to eat a little with it because she'd rather it stay down with food than come back up and neither of us get any of the replacement. I am so thankful I have such a caring doctor - I'm not sure I would have ever embarked on this pregnancy journey had it not been for her concern and encouragement. It makes such a difference in the quality of life you have to get good medical care.

Hoping to post more in detail soon. It's just taking everything out of me some days to go to work so unfortunately the blog has suffered. Things are going well though: I'm 12 weeks and have almost survived the first trimester, Tiny is growing and doing just fine so far, and our families are very excited to prepare for another little one.

Finding Ourselves There, Again.

Once again places that are near and dear to me have been devastated by a tornado.

My hometown and old stomping grounds in the northeast suburbs of Birmingham, places that shaped my life experiences, have been ravaged by some of Mother Nature's most terrible. Pinson, Clay, Chalkville, and Centerpoint are gathering the pieces of what the weather destroyed in the wee hours Monday morning. Jefferson County wasn't the only area hit - Chilton County also took a blow as you can see in a local news outlets chopper survey here.

We're pretty insulted, quite frankly, that national media outlets - namely ABC Network News - can't check their facts and tell our story correctly. You can read more on that here, where one of the most (if not THE most) respected meteorologist in this market, James Spann (a.k.a. Spann the Man), commented on the disappointment of their reporting.We're dealing with all of this using our southern humor, as you can see in this picture from the locals making the rounds on facebook. (Edit: for those of you who don't get the weather reference, a polygon is the shape our tornado warnings take on a map and this is in effect saying to Ms. Sawyer "You've been warned.")

It's heartbreaking to see our state go through yet another round less than a year after the generational event of April 2011, but We Are Alabama. And we will rise again. Prayers are appreciated as we recover.

Entering a "Grave(s) New World"

You may remember a little over a year ago (wow - has it been that long?!) I did an interview with a gentleman named Mark on his experience with Graves' Disease.

Mark has now started his own blog here and the title, "A Graves New World," conjures up thoughts of an Aldous Huxley novel. Makes sense. Sometimes you do feel a bit like a Huxley character while Graves' is making your body and psyche do new and strange things.

Best of luck to Mark on his blogging endeavor. We'll continue to keep up with you bro!

The Tiniest Christmas Gift

Just when I had processed the reality that our first journey to parenthood would likely be adoption...

Sometime in November, about a year after I wrote this post on preparing for the "next phase," the Lord graced us with a tiny gift (thankfully with no extra help).
I'm nauseated 24/7, exhausted, and just feel terrible in general...

And yes, there are things I'm having to worry about because of my Graves' Disease that other mommies do not have to worry about at this juncture...

But we are completely grateful that we got such a delightfully tiny Christmas gift this year!

More to come.

Making Time for Christmas

So I've decided Christmas cards probably aren't going out this year...

And that's okay.

I'm allowing myself lots of grace this holiday season.

Are you?

Projecting Onto Our Pets

I have recently become acquainted with the term "anthropomorphism." There's the somewhat convincing idea that animals and their owners resemble one another, but I've been faced with the fact I might have taken that a step further and made one of our sweet furbabies physically like me.

When I was living in the most troubled span of my battle with Graves' Disease, I would at times become convinced our cats were sad. They just didn't seem fulfilled, they would mope around the house, and otherwise act depressed. My husband never saw it, but I did. After I made it out of that valley I realized it was more me projecting how I felt onto Mr. Mustard and Molly and less how they really felt.
In the past year or so, Mr. Mustard had some personality changes that seemed like just that - personality changes - that "came to a head" (so it seemed to me) in the past few weeks.

When we arrived at our current apartment a year ago he randomly started drinking water out of the faucet. He had never done this before and it was as if one day lightning hit and he had this fully learned new behavior.

He started eating plastic. Not just licking or rubbing the plastic - I mean inhaling it faster than you could get it away eating plastic. Grocery bags, straws, wrappers, the plastic around those big bulk packs of water...he ingested it all if we didn't get it away fast enough.In the last 6 months or so, Mr. Mustard began being very needy. He has learned our getting-ready routines and if he sees us getting ready to leave he will meow and climb our legs trying to get us to stop and love on him.

He also earned a new nickname: "Hardcore Parkour" for the way he runs around and ramps off of stuff in the house in these hyperactive spurts he gets. You can see them coming - the deer in the headlights stare always precedes these bouts - but he will just jump and fly and holler all through the apartment. It's very entertaining, obviously, but odd he would develop it as he's gotten older.

Mr. Mustard has also had some weight loss, especially around his back end where his tail meets his body. It just feels extra boney lately to me but my husband says it's his hardcore parkouring.

Then he started over-grooming the past few weeks. A strip of hair was missing from one of his front legs, just as if someone had taken a hair trimmer to that spot, and soon more appeared all over both his front legs.

With all this in mind, I (in my normal fashion) Googled the poor fella to death. Suddenly I came across this article and it all made sense. Mr. Mustard was like me - he was hyperthyroid! I had to make a vet appointment even though the husband thought I was crazy. I entertained the idea that maybe I should have petted him post-RAI since they treat cats the same way they do humans for hyperthyroidism. Why had I not seen it before now?! Maybe his attacks on Molly were not asserting his dominance but instead him being in an ill mood!

The vet was very kind, worked Mr. Mustard over, took his time and explained everything...including why he thought the cat was not hyperthyroid. Graciously, he was not ready to charge us $180 for blood work when his heart rate wasn't above 200, his weight loss wasn't significant, he's not in the typical age range, and the markers just aren't there. The over-grooming is either physical or psychological, and since nothing had changed in our home he's pretty convinced it's behavioral.
So we were sent home with a week's worth of Clomicalm to see if that cures the over-grooming (then we'll know for sure if it's boredom or something similar) and go from there.

I'm still not completely convinced it's not early stages hyperthyroidism, but for now we'll have to wait and see!

Expecting Christmas

It seems like everyone is putting trees up earlier this year! I had seen no less than six people post pictures of their Christmas trees my mid-November.

On a side note, has anyone on facebook gotten you with this little gem?
"Expecting again!!:{6weeks!! I know it's crazy ain't it? I can't believe it myself. I wasn't going to put it on here but I wanted to make it official=) I mean who would have guessed that we're expecting so soon!! Yup it's official..we are expecting Christmas in just 6 weeks!!! Repost if you have any sense of humor..."

I'll admit I put our Christmas decorations up early last year, but I had good reason. The year before we had no decorations and I really missed them.

These are two ornaments a delightful artist on etsy made for us, modeled after our furbabies. They're some of my favorite decorations to unwrap each year. (Just to disclose - she has not compensated me in any way for mentioning her on this blog.)

This year between lack of time and my increased patience, I am waiting until after Thanksgiving. Hopefully our tree will go up sometime during the weekend. (See previously mentioned time issue.) It is such a special time of year and I love putting a little Christmas in every room of our home.

Did you put your tree up early this year?

That Time of Year

It's not even winter yet in Alabama, but the brief cold snaps have already worsened my battle with dry hands. They are dry, cracking, and painful.
It's always a challenge to find something that works well to keep my hands hydrated every since going hypothyroid. It takes a variety of factors to truly keep them healthy, but as you may know I am a habitual hand sanitizer and the dry air this time of year exacerbates the problem.

Recently my mom introduced me to some stuff called O'Keeffe's Healthy Feet and I was amazed at the difference in my skin after just one use. She has to take especially good care of her feet since she's diabetic and had a great experience with their foot cream. When I came across their hand cream I had to get it.
This stuff is amazing. After a couple of uses my hands feel better, look better, and aren't nearly as dry. It beats regular lotion any day. It doesn't have a scent and although it feels greasy immediately after you apply, within a few minutes it soaks in without residue. They also put a handy grip around the lid so you can close it up without having to wait for your hands to absorb the cream.

I need to communicate to you that I have not been paid or compensated in any way to endorse this product. I am simply sharing what has been successful for me in hopes it will help those of you reading.

May your hands be supple and comfortable this winter!

Cuddle Buddies

Sweet furbabies, cuddling the day away. This must be the life!