cindy's world

Our 3rd day there, pretty much everyone was over their various causes of pukiness (I had a small wave of cold sweat and sensation of nausea and thought, “Oh crap, it’s my turn now,” but it went away in about 15 minutes and didn’t return, thank goodness), so things were looking up. With a happy playful kid who was eating and sleeping well again, vacation became blissful.

After several failed attempts to take Allie on a kayak ride at our lake (she was too young to sit by herself in a kayak seat and I was not allowed to place her in my lap; another time or two we didn’t know kayak rentals closed early for the season), we were finally successful in making it happen. It just took thousands of dollars to get us to the right location for her first time.

She enjoyed kayaking so much that the next day at the beach, she wanted to go back in the “little boat.”
Me: We can’t go in the kayak.
Allie: Why can’t we go in the little boat? I wanna go in the little boat.
Me: It costs money.
Allie: Do you want to give them money?
Me: I don’t have any money.
*brief pause*
Allie: Daddy wants to give them money. *spotting Mr. W sunbathing in a lounge chair about 20 yards away* *running toward him yelling* Daddyyyyy! Do you have money? I need money!
And she’s not even a teenager.

Our active kid took advantage of the fact that my hands were full and climbed up here by herself. So of course I had to drop all the stuff so I could get a photo of how proud she was of herself.

Around this same time, Allie speech seemed to have suddenly broke into a whole new level. Although she was using plenty of words and full sentences before, speech became less of a communication tool and more of a skill with which she was weaving pictures conversing with ease. Now I wonder if she wasn’t just sick, but was having a Wonder Weeks moment (crying, fussing, clingyness, regression, poor sleep) before a brain leap. Example: We’d walked across the street from the resort to eat at Monkeypod restaurant, and Allie and I stayed to pay while Mr. W headed off to the ABC Store around the corner to grab some essentials. We were supposed to meet Mr. W there, but I couldn’t find it. Turning around, I started walking back to the restaurant, carrying Allie in my arms.
Allie asked, “Are you going to ask somebody where the store is, mommy?” (We’re mommy/mom and daddy/dad now, suddenly and out of nowhere.)
I said, “Yeah. I can’t find it.” Allie studying my face interrupted my feeling stupid.
She said, pointing at a store on the other side of me, “You found Hello Kitty, though!” I looked and sure enough, an entire Sanrio display in the window. Her consolation did make me feel better.
Here’s us at Monkeypod before I “found Hello Kitty.”

Second example: Allie started using regular drinking cups (instead of straws and sippys) while on this trip, and although she does fine when she sips carefully, sometimes she’ll swing her hand and knock the cup over. One such occasion caused Mr. W and I to literally fight over her spilt milk. When she thought her dad wasn’t paying attention to us, she said to me confidentially in a low voice, putting her little hand on my wrist, “Are you okay? Are you sad? Daddy scares me sometimes, too.” That’s my little ally.

One of the cool things about this place is that even if we don’t have the calendar of events to see where the photo ops are scheduled, we still do run into the characters just roaming the grounds. And they are GREAT about stopping to give unexpected attention to their little fans.

Mr. W paid $20 for access to the resort’s private lagoon for the duration of our stay ($15/day or $20/length of consecutive stay at the resort), which includes equipment rental. So Allie got to see a Dadafish. She was looking in the window of the lagoon and pointing at fish when he appeared.
Allie: Ooh, look! That one’s cute! It has a yellow face! Awww!
Me: Look, there’s Daddy!
Allie: *staring, then yelling into the glass* Daddy! Are you coming out soon?
Me: Is daddy a cute fish?
Allie: *studying Mr. W as he swam by waving at her* …no…Daddy’s a scary fish.

I got the latter part of the above exchange on video. Mr. W caught it on video, too, but from his side of the glass, all you see is Allie’s mouth moving. No idea as to the cleverness going on the dry side.

Another weird thing we discovered about Allie on this trip…she’s developed a pretty intense fear of water. Screaming. Even in the bathtub after refusing to get in. I noted this to ask Rebecca about later. She’d tolerate water up to the bottom of her ankles, but is terrified of going in farther than that. In the below photo, we took half an hour urging, pressuring, bribing, reasoning, until we got her to sit her butt on the first step. As soon as she got in so that we could take this photo, she went right back to sitting on the dry ledge with just her feet on the first step.

There were some great kid sections with water splashing and spraying, but she would have nothing to do with it and when we carried her in our arms and walked through these water playgrounds with her, she’d panic and cry for a towel to wipe her face. Thankfully, there were plenty of things to do while dry, too.

Like lounge around on (or between!) these chairs.

What’s Hawaii without their native Disney resident?

Kind of an expensive hotel to be overrun by rodents, though…

I love how “regular” stores commonplace to me carry special merchandise only available at that particular location. Check out this cute Hawaii-themed Hello Kitty shirt I found on sale at an Oahu Target:

Allie loved this shirt and would chant to herself, “Pedal then paddle. Pedal then paddle.”

Across the street was a great little ice cream shop, where Allie got her own ice cream for the first time. She picked strawberry. She ate it all and couldn’t understand why it was not acceptable just to go back into the shop “and ask them for more.” She talked about ice cream for days after.
Allie: I want ice cream.
Me: You can’t have ice cream now.
Allie: But I LIKE it.
Me: I know, but if you eat ice cream now, you won’t be hungry enough to eat dinner.
Allie: But I WANT it. I NEED it.
Me: *changing the subject* I love you! Do you love me?
Allie: Uh-huh! And I love ice cream, too!
Me: *sigh*

The housekeeping service was amazing at the Aulani, too. Our room was at the end of the hallway, and the housekeeper doing our floor would usually hit our room right at Allie’s naptime. After the 2nd time of this happening, she started going to our room first, so she’d be done and out of there before we got back for her nap. This on top of keeping our room beautiful, our supplies stocked, and even doing our dishes once when we left in a hurry.

Yeah, I think we’d totally come back.

More days of photos to come.

In January this year, Allie had started making very deliberate efforts to do things she didn’t want to do, in order to be “nice.” She still does much of her thinking aloud, so this decision would sound something like: When an older girl grabs a publicly accessible toy or playground equipment that Allie was on, Allie would say “I wait. I be nice.” When I tell her to put something down that she really want to hold there is a visible struggle on her face and then it suddenly resolves and she does what she’s told, announcing, “I be nice.” I’d like to think that the “nice” part wins out more often than the resistant part of her. She does volunteer encouragement, such as when I successfully complete a move on one of her learning apps on her iPad, she’d say, “Good job, mama!” And I enjoy the arbitrary compliments of “Mama’s putty” (pretty) and “Dada’s handy” (handsome). As a matter of fact, every female is “putty” and every male is “handy.”

In February and now March, she’s a little more into testing her will. She’ll refuse something not because she dislikes it or truly doesn’t want it, but just to see if she’ll get her way. She may want to go to the park, but she’ll say, “No, I wanna stay home,” just because she wants to be contrary. Unfortunately, she commits to the decision that she’s made without much true opinion behind the commitment. It still works if we just lets her have her protest and then tell her when she’s done, she can let us know, and she’ll get over it in a minute and tell us, “I’m ready now.” Sometimes distraction works. Sometimes reasoning works. But we generally stand firm on not letting her have her way simply because she’s insisting on it. “I’m sorry, Allie, you can’t have more than 2 vitamins a day. You already had two vitamins today. You can have more tomorrow.” “NOOOO, not TOMORROW, want another vitamin NOW!” Meh, it could be worse. She could be insisting on chocolate, which she actually quite dislikes, along with pizza, salty foods, cakes.

Lately, especially in the last couple of weeks, Allie seems very concerned with her affect on others emotionally. She’ll eat something simply to make me happy (which I admit I use to my advantage), so although she may initially refuse a food, she’ll suddenly change her mind and then after she eats it, she’ll announce, “I eat this and make Mama happy!” Or sometimes she’ll simply ask earnestly, “Mama, are you happy? I finished it!” Just within the past week, she has taken to asking on occasion, “Dada, are you happy?” “Mama, are you happy?” She will tilt her head and look us right in the eyes and evaluate our expressions as we answer this question. I’ve decided this is best answered “Yes, I’m very happy,” especially when she’s happy and well-behaved, so that she responds, “I’m happy, too!”, instead of treating it like an existential question. The other day I caught her watching “Mrs. Spider’s Tea Party” on her iPad, a story about a misunderstood spider that all the other insects avoided because they didn’t realize she’s a vegetarian spider until the end of the story, and Allie was repeating parts of the story and saying mournfully, “Awww, she’s sad! Come back, come back! [to the insects running away from the spider] Awww, she’s sad, she’s sad!” and hugging the iPad to comfort the lonely Mrs. Spider.
A bailiff I’m social-networking friends with said about Allie’s displays of empathy, “Well, you know she’s not a psychopath. Or autistic or have Aspberger’s.” Hmm. Never thought of it that way. Mostly I just think about how Rebecca had told me prior to Allie’s birth that she’s “a wonderful person” and she “loves people” and “wants to help.”

I got 3 pieces of bad news this week.

1.) Wednesday was the kid’s dental checkup. I was all happy and confident going into the pediatric dentist’s office because Allie’s broken front teeth have not seemed bother her this whole time. We still brush twice a day, floss nightly. We even have a new flossing game. After Allie selects the kid floss pick she wants to use, we examine what animal shape it is. “It’s a dolphin!” “It’s a crab!” “It’s a hippo!” She starts off flossing a few teeth, then it’s my turn. We tell the floss, “Get the food out of Allie’s teeth, dolphin! What do you think the dolphin will find in Allie’s teeth?” Allie would think back and list as many things as she could remember eating that day. “I think there’s broccoli!” “I think there’s yam!” “I think there’s rice!” Lately she’d get silly. “I think there’s pillow!” “I think there’s cars!” If I get any food bits out, I’d show it to her and she’d be delighted and open up so the animal on the floss pick can hunt some more.
So anyway, the dentist saw what appeared to be a tiny hole in the back of the front tooth that had suffered the most damage. He had her x-rayed, and saw a “shadow” in the roots of that tooth that wasn’t there in the x-ray from 6 months ago. It could be a beginning infection, but as she’s asymptomatic, it could also be nothing. Conservative dentist that he is, he put the tooth on “watch” and didn’t want to start drilling or doing a root canal or even a patching, yet. However, he warned us that if she starts getting pain or showing signs of an infection, he’d have to root canal that tooth and if the damage is severe, pull it instead so the decay doesn’t spread to the permanent tooth underneath the baby tooth’s root. 🙁 I’m keeping my fingers crossed. It just has to last until her baby tooth falls out. So, like, 4 more years. :/
On the happy side, Allie was super duper incredibly cooperative. They got to do a tooth cleaning on her. Afterwards she was happy about her “new shiny teeth.”

2.) I got notification from Discover that my credit card has been compromised AGAIN. This is getting ridiculous. I’m going to see if I can figure out when it was last compromised (I think was within the past year) to see if I had used it at the same merchant. Discover Card’s fraud protection department is amazing. Whatever logarithm they use for determining what is/isn’t my charge is right on. They contacted me about unusual activity on my card the same night it happened, and locked down my card. This time someone used my card number to buy hundreds of dollars’ worth of stuff via Best Buy dot com and Microsoft dot com. Discover has already terminated this account, credited me the money, opened a new account number and the new card is on its way, but it’s just a pain to have to remember what companies have my old number store on file for frequent purchases and charges, such as Amazon and various doctor’s offices. At least this has already been resolved, aside from updating accounts with the new credit card number once I receive it.

3.) This one is a pretty painful one. On Thursday, I took Allie to her pediatric ophthalmologist follow-up appointment for the out-turn of her eyes. It’s still intermittent, and some weeks are better than other weeks, but it hasn’t gone away. As a summary, I had delayed the ophthalmologist’s treatment plan of patching each eye for 4 hours a day, 6 days a week, because I had wanted to avoid the patching altogether by taking Allie to vision therapy. Well, Allie was too young to meaningfully engage in vision therapy. We tried. But since that failed, I hadn’t done anything except to tell her to “look at mama with both eyes” when I see her eyes diverge, and when she brings the focus back in at will, she’s good until she looks far away for an extended period of time (like watches TV) or gets tired. I had sort of fallen back on the last statement the ophthalmologist threw over his shoulder at the end of the last visit, which was, “Or you can do nothing and we’ll wait and see and reassess in a few months.” Okay, so we did nothing. We reassessed. She’s worse. The out-turn has increased between 5-10 degrees (she measured at 20-25 degrees 3 months ago, now between 30-35 degrees). Her doctor basically told me that altho he’s conservative and doesn’t want to throw children into the OR if there’s something else that could be done, we also can’t stand by and just let her get worse. He reduced the alternative patching schedule to 2 hours a day instead of 4, and said if she doesn’t show an improvement by the next visit in 3 months, we’re going to glasses which would force her to work to focus in her eyes, and if that doesn’t work, then surgery.
I should’ve known better than to try to circumvent the Universe. Rebecca had already told me when Allie first started having this out-turn, that she’ll be fine and there won’t be any long-term consequences, but we’d have to patch her for a little bit. I thought I could avoid it but Rebecca’s record is sky-high. 🙁
So today is Day 1 of serious patching therapy. After her dance class, the plan was to let her pick out some stickers at a party store. Then we were going home so she could select a sticker to put on an eye patch. Then we were gonna affix the eye patch and she would wear it while watching any movie she wanted (a rarity since we try to keep her off the TV). “Yeah! That sounds good!” she told us. So that’s what we did. And she kept the patch on for 1 hour 23 minutes, altho at about the 1 hour point she’d asked to remove it “because I can’t see.” We told her if she took it off, we’d immediately turn the movie off. 10 minutes later, she asked to turn the movie off so she could watch it later, rubbing her eye patch. I asked her to keep it on for a few more minutes. We managed to push it much longer than I dreamed for her first time. But now she said, “I don’t like the eye patch.” So we’re likely looking at 10-15 minutes for the future patching. The doctor said that even that’s better than nothing, and to just do it as long as we could even if we don’t meet the 2 hours.
So this third item is a work in progress.

Sigh.

Mr. W and I left early from work yesterday to pick up Allie and take her to her Vision Therapy evaluation. On the way to the appointment, Mr. W drove and I sat in the back with Allie. The setting sun cast some pretty rays directly into the back seat and onto my face. Allie and I had this conversation:
Allie: Mama’s orange.
Me: I’m orange?
Allie: Mama’s face is orange.
Me: What’s making Mama’s face orange?
Allie: The light.
Me: The light? Where does the light come from?
Allie: From sun! From sunset.
Me: Oh! The orange light comes from the sun?
Allie: Yeah!
Me: Where does Dada come from?
Allie: Um…Dada come from work.
Me: *laughing* Where does Mama come from?
Allie: Mama come from friend.
(I can’t believe she still remembers the one time 2 Saturdays ago that I wasn’t there when she woke up from her nap because I’d gone out with Gloria to see Rebecca. When she’d asked if I had gone to work, Mr. W had said no, I was with a friend. Every so often after that, when I would go into Allie’s room in the morning to get her, or get her up from her nap, she’d say, “Mama came back.” I reassured her that I would always come back.)
Me: No, mama came from work, too. Where does Allie come from?
Allie: Allie come from…Auntie Jayne.
(Haha, that’s true, we did pick her up from the care of her nanny Jayne at home.)

Allie was pretty well behaved during vision therapy, but it was obvious that she’s still a little too young for it. She wasn’t able to control her green flashlight beam to chase the therapist’s red flashlight beam against the wall (while wearing red/green glasses). She also wasn’t clear on her feedback of whether one side or the other was blacked out on the red/green-covered TV when we were showing a movie while she was wearing her red/green glasses. So there are some exercises we can do at home to help strengthen her eye movements and increase her brain’s awareness of her eye movements, which we’ll try to do (such as patching or covering one eye and having the other eye follow a toy in figure 8s or up/down left/right movements without moving her head, then doing the same with the other eye). Hopefully this will improve her on our own.

Right now, Mr. W is at home with Allie because Jayne thinks she has the flu. We all got flu shots about a month ago and even tho people at work have been dropping like flies with fever, abdominal pain, headaches, vomiting and/or diarrhea, we’ve so far dodged the bullet. Mr. W was hoping that whatever is in our flu shots this year covered the nasty bug going around. Jayne texted late last night and is apparently at home with a fever and pretty severe body and joint pains, and she is adamantly against getting the flu shot, so she may have the flu. The afflicted people at work I’ve spoken to have said they also did not get the flu shot. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we’re protected.

Many people kept telling me to get a second opinion before subject Allie to IV anesthesia and giving her a root canal on her broken front tooth, and crowns on both broken front teeth. Finally, it took Rebecca saying that she doesn’t like the dentist Allie saw and that the dentist is more interested in making money than doing something that’s in Allie’s better interest, and insisting that I NEED to get a second opinion because Allie doesn’t need work done at this point, for me to finally call the dental insurance to ask how they address second opinions and then to find another dentist. The dental insurance will cover 2 checkups a year, so Allie has another one left. I did more research online and went back to the other office I was considering when I was picking Allie’s first dentist, and noticed an Asian male dentist that piqued my interest for whatever random reason. He’s about my age, did his undergrad at Cal (UC Berkeley), went to UCLA dental school, did his residency at Harvard, volunteers in going and treating children in third-world countries (kind of like Doctors Without Borders, but dental). He reminds me of my peers. I really didn’t look into the backgrounds of any of the other 3 male doctors there. One reason I’d eliminated them first go-round is because Allie does better with females, but maybe an Asian male would be okay as it’d remind her of me and my parents. She does seem to acclimate to Asians faster. I called that office, they were very nice and I finagled a same-day afternoon appointment out of them and they were nice enough to squeeze us in.

Allie LOVED that office visit. She got to explore the office and play before she was called in. Here she is in their photobooth.

She sat in the x-ray chair on her own for the single x-ray of her upper teeth, kept the lead vest on and didn’t cry (like she did in the other office). She also sat in the patient chair by herself, again didn’t cry. The hygienists, nurses, assistants were all playing with her and she talked back with them, and Mr. W and I were surprised how comfortable she was with all of them, so quickly. When Dr. Wu came and met us, he TOTALLY reminded me of a friend I would’ve had from UCLA, he was like my childhood friend Dentist Andy, like our friend Eddie, easy-going, informative, casual. And he didn’t treat Allie like a baby. He talked to her, showed her a hand-held mirror, let her hold it, explained what he was going to do by demonstrating on her hands, and she opened her mouth and showed him how she brushes her teeth, and she let him put his little mirror in and fingers and everything! She seemed captivated by what he was telling her. I was happy she was so cooperative and had so much fun.

So this is the 2nd opinion: He said (and showed us on x-ray) that Allie’s teeth, gums, roots, nerves, are all totally healthy. She’s not in pain, she’s asymptomatic, the teeth are in there nice and tight, no damage aside from the fractures. He says these are deep fractures, and is more severe on the upper left tooth where the tooth broke in a sort of “sheeting” in the back, which did thin out the tooth from behind so a little pink is visible behind that too, but that her nerve is NOT exposed. That’s why she doesn’t have discomfort. He said he has a “difference of treatment opinion” with the 1st dentist — he says this can be a watch-and-see. He says kids this young have tremendous ability to heal, and that he would’t be surprised if her nerve (presently big, which he says is a great thing and means it’s healthy) and internal structure of the tooth actually healed itself. He says potentially, with good care and no further trauma to the teeth, these two teeth will just stay like this and hold until they fall out on their own when Allie’s 6-7 years old. In the very least, he’d like to keep things good and healthy until she’s 3 or so, so that work can be done without having to put her under the risks of IV anesthesia. He says work “has” to be done if the nerve were exposed, giving her extreme pain; if we see discoloration inside the tooth which means decay or bacteria has infected the hallow internal cavity of the tooth; if we see inflammation/infection of her gums; if we see a bubble on her gums which indicates abscess. Absent those and any signs of discomfort, Allie’s teeth are strong and fine and should be left alone. He said if we want, when she’s a little older and can tolerate it better, he can just rebuild the teeth and fill in the gap. He doesn’t want to grind it down and do a crown like the other dentist, he said, because there’s so much healthy tooth still left, it makes no sense to get rid of it. If the sharp points bother her and we start seeing puncture wounds on her lower lips, he said we can bring her in and he’ll round off the points a little which would take 10 seconds, and otherwise, we can totally leave it alone and just clean it well and keep a good eye on it, don’t let her eat things that require a front bite-and-pull, such as pizza. He wanted us to schedule another check-up and x-ray at 6 months so he could compare her teeth then to the baseline he’s now got on file, and if the area around the roots (he pointed on the x-ray) gets bigger showing the tooth is loosening from gums drawing back or getting sick, or if signs of decay/problems occur, to bring her back and they can always do whatever the most conservative, mildest intervention is good for that situation. Meanwhile, he says something so aggressive as a root canal or extraction are not called for.

Dr. Wu spent a lot of time chatting with us and making sure we understood everything, answering questions, projecting into the future for possible scenarios and how those would be treated. The other dentist was kind of vague. Probably cuz she knew she was upselling and was fudging the truth, making things seem more emergent and dire than they really were, pushing for surgery. (I called that office to cancel Allie’s oral surgery scheduled for 8/14, explaining that because it’s been a week and Allie’s been asymptomatic, I wanted to hold off doing something drastic like the root canal & crowns. The receptionist said that’s fine and it’s up to me, but re Allie having no pain or discomfort, “This doesn’t happen overnight. And just so you know, when it happens, it’s usually at night.” Okay, thanks. I still want to wait.) Dr. Wu said all their dentists are available and on-call 24/7 for emergencies in case Allie suddenly develops any dental-related problems in the future. Oh, and I always wondered how the heck she fractured her two front teeth at an angle in the center, did she crash into a point? Jayne said she just tripped and fell down and didn’t hit anything. Dr. Wu asked with a knowing smile, immediately after examining Allie, if she’s a thumb-sucker. I said she is. He said the way it’s broken suggests that her teeth had a slight outward turn, usually from frequent bottle/pacifier use and/or thumb-sucking, so the center of her upper teeth made the impact first. Oooooh.

All 3 of us walked out happy. Allie was given a lot of stickers and a pretty princess toothbrush that she really liked and kept talking about “Doctor, doctor, nice doctor, mouth, teeth, fish (she got to play with a stuffed fish with what looked like dentures glued in), sticker, ball (they let her play with all the toy “rewards” they give kids).” Mr. W said, “I like this dentist office SO MUCH BETTER than the other one.” And I was just happy I got a prescription for “wait and see.”

We celebrated after the appointment with Allie’s first sushi dining experience. She didn’t have any fish, but did have some dissected California rolls and a bunch of steamed gyozas. Here she is outside the sushi restaurant.

She’s been to this lakeside sushi restaurant before, but had her own food. Here’s a flashback for photo comparison; the sushi chef remembered our last visit a year ago and asked about my parents.

I followed Dr. Wu’s instructions last night and this morning and brushed and flossed Allie’s upper front teeth for the first time since the injury (I’ve been avoiding just those 2 teeth), and he was right…she kept her mouth open and had NO reaction whatsoever.

I’m so relieved.

On the drive to work this morning, I told Mr. W that I had spoken to Rebecca last night. I told him I asked her “What happened to my embryos?”, and that she’d seen a whole bunch of eggs/embryos, saw embryos being discarded as they would or did lose viability, saw embryos being frozen, saw 2 women receiving embryos, one resulting in pregnancy and the other maybe not. I was about to launch into how my fertility doc lied to me, but before I could, Mr. W interrupted my story with, “The woman who got pregnant was you.”

…

Oh.

When I’d asked Rebecca my question, I had wanted to know what happened to my three donated embryos, but that was not what I’d asked. The Universe is pretty literal, and I had asked what happened to my embryos. That’s why she was shown what happened to the bunch of eggs that were initially harvested, as well. So the two women who received an embryo or embryos. One WAS me. The other was promised anonymity, as I knew she would be, when she agreed to receive my donated embryos.

“I don’t think it’s ethical for Dr. R to not tell you,” Mr. W said. “I think he HAS to tell you [if your donated embryos result in a birth].”

A common and frequent admonishment my judge tells witnesses as they prepare to testify is, “Listen carefully to the question(s) being asked, and answer THAT question. The questions are not an invitation to go rambling off and talk about what YOU want to talk about.” The universe listened to the question, and answered THAT question. I did not listen to my own question.

Dear Riley,

I asked Rebecca today simply, “What happened to my embryos?” No explanation nor background. She said it didn’t make any sense to her, but she saw that a bunch of them were either discarded or will be discarded because they can’t be kept viable longer than an x amount of time, like 3 years. (It didn’t make sense to me, either, until I later realized what she saw was the other 8 or so fertilized eggs that were indeed discarded by the fertility lab, when the most promising one was implanted to make Allie, and the other 3 best ones were frozen.) She said embryos were frozen. She said that embryos had gone to 2 women (which is the scenario I had originally expected), and that one resulted in a pregnancy and she may have given birth already, and Rebecca was getting a big question mark on the other woman, doesn’t think the other became a pregnancy. I was thrown because, you know, what the fertility doctor emailed me last month. I didn’t tell Rebecca anything, just asked her if there was any reason the fertility doc would lie to me about this, and she said that the parents asked for anonymity.

I was so, so angry. I felt violated that the fertility doctor lied to me. I felt that as the donor of the embryos, I had a right to know since he had offered me the DOBs if I wanted them. I felt like the recipient parents violated my embryo/child, because if they’re planning on carrying on with no one in the world but them knowing where the DNA came from, the child has a right to know a medical history in case he or a medical care provider needed family history info. I felt like Allie was being violated, because the reason for the DOB was to prevent accidental sibling inbreeding, since as patients of the same clinic, we’re very likely local to each other. Who do these recipient parents think they are? Don’t they owe me at least the courtesy of truth and/or a DOB, if I wanted it, for my giving them my CHILD?

After some time spent breaking down my thoughts and disturbing feelings of selfishness, it boiled down to this:

I really, really hope that in situations like this, and in this situation specifically, that it is my vehicle, their driver. I hope that the soul born into that family is the soul that was always meant for that family, but I just provided the vehicle because they needed a little help with the human form. I need it to be their son who came into their family, and not you. Because you are my Riley. MY Riley. I couldn’t get over it if I had accidentally given you away and displaced you into the wrong family. You let your sister through instead of coming through yourself this time; I’m fine with your (your and Allie’s) choice(s), I’m not okay with my accidental giving away of your choice.

To that, Rebecca said, “It’s all okay. I read a quote from Amma today that said ‘You are the Self, not the mind.’ In other words, be…don’t think…trust God. Riley is still floating around deciding where he will end up. At least that’s my visual.”

And suddenly, I was SO relieved. I don’t know why, because it’s the same effect. You’ll be born elsewhere to someone else if you decide to come down to this plane during my lifetime here. I guess I feel better knowing you’re not the donated embryo, because by not being that embryo, that means wherever you come out, it would be YOUR choice; I didn’t accidentally give you away.

And Rebecca said, “Nope…you didn’t.”

I feel an attachment to you, maybe from past lives shared. I know you. I feel you. I did in my early pregnancy, as well. You and Allie are so different; you’re peaceful, compassionate and a caretaker. Allie is spunky, fierce and independent. You patiently watch where she experimentally does. You provide help by sacrificing what you can; she takes but turns it into a (positive) payback contribution. You’re both good, but so yin and yang. She’ll give me a good run, some sharp challenges, some rebellions. You would’ve smiled and held me and said with confidence it’s all okay, and you would’ve been right. I still see you as the big brother, 3 years older than Allie, and I guess that was the original picture but that’s changed now, partly with your help. Again, a quiet sacrifice of sorts, stepping aside to let an eager soul come through in your place. “Plans change,” you are telling me now. “It’s okay. Nothing wrong with that. It’s not a sacrifice, just another way to get to the same place.”

I had wondered if the doctor was lying to me, because I had felt a kid out there. That was why I emailed last month. Rebecca told me to trust my instincts. I’m just relieved that’s not you, whatever that says about me. Dr. R likely didn’t like having to lie to me, and the email was curt. He for whatever reason “had” to defer to the recipient parents’ wishes over mine. He probably told himself he didn’t lie that MUCH, since one recipient really didn’t result in a pregnancy. Had he said simply that my embryos were donated to another couple and that it didn’t result in a pregnancy, it wouldn’t have been a lie but an omission about the other set of parents; but he said all 3 embryos were donated to 1 couple and didn’t result in a pregnancy.

I will miss you, as I already do, in this life. Unless…”Riley will be with you in some way if it’s meant to be. Trust the universe; it knows what it’s doing.” One of the last things Rebecca told me tonight. If I don’t see you Here, I’ll see you when I get back Home. Mama loves you, baby boy. Thanks for listening to me.

I’ve had my little donated embryos on my mind, the two “A” quality ones, the one “C” quality that may not survive the freezing/thawing process. When I’d first donated them, I’d asked our clairvoyant friend Rebecca if she feels anything about them. She said she was getting nothing, but that they’d be healthy. When I’ve thought about them, they’ve felt like “my boys.” My two boys are out there somewhere, I was thinking. (Donation was final last summer.)

In mid-January I had emailed my fertility doctor, to whom I’d donated the embryos, to let him know that yes, we’d like to take him up on his previous offer of knowing the date(s) of birth if/when the embryos find their way to their new parents. I’d also included a photo of him with Allie and a professional studio pic of Allie from December, 2012, and a description about her growth and interests, in case the embryos’ new parents wanted some interesting factoids (such as don’t be alarmed if the kids don’t grow hair until well after age 1). Apparently he didn’t get that email, and we went back and forth after I’d sent a followup email this month. The backs-and-forths got offensive for a second there last week and I’d considered posting about that here to vent, but decided to wait. Basically he kind of yelled at me over email, saying that he doesn’t have a date of birth yet and that I need to email him in a year to check because now is too soon. Like I was jumping the gun. I figured he was mistaken because in a previous email in the string, he’d written that all the paperwork for the donation was finalized “months ago”, when I know it was actually 15 months ago, so he probably thought he read March of 2013 instead of the correct date of March of 2012. Besides, I wasn’t asking for a DOB immediately, just that when/if it occurs, I’d like to know. I wrote him a polite email setting him straight, and his response seemed to concede a bit in tone. He ended that email with “talk to you soon,” to which I didn’t respond because, why would I talk to him?

After the request for DOBs was (finally) communicated, I was confused and conflicted about how I feel. I think motherhood has made me feel a little more possessive and protective over my child and potential children. The detached clarity I had before I was pregnant, making me very comfortable about the donation of any unused embryos, had blurred a bit when I actually donated the embryos when Allie was a few months old, and now that Allie is my little spunky tyke, I wanted so much for her “brothers” and I had no way of ensuring that their new parents would make sure “my” baby/ies will be given proper nutrition, allowed sufficient rest, be provided with everything I try to give Allie. I couldn’t even ensure that the mother was properly educated on pregnancy and would eat/not eat, do/not do the best thing as her body built the kids’ organs, bones, brain neurons, etc. All that was hard to think about. Would these parents treat them well and not consider in their parenting that the child(ren) are genetically not their own? I really, really hoped so. And would they tell their kid(s), as they got older, the origin of their genetics, and if so, would the boy(s) look for us? Would I maybe meet them one day since they may be local to access the same fertility clinic, and would I know it? I wondered if maybe not knowing anything would be better. Not knowing if they’re out there, so I don’t wonder how they’re doing, what they’re doing. I imagined Allie one day knowing that she has full-blood brothers out there “somewhere.” How she would feel about being a big sister, sort of.

This morning, I saw that I got another email from the fertility doctor. I wasn’t expecting to hear from him again, and my hands felt slow and unsteady and clumsy as I clicked through the encrypted mail site, entered my password, and read. I was not expecting these words…

Cindy
Your three (3) embryos were donated to another couple but they unfortunately did not conceive. Thank you very much for your generous gift. We all regret that the results are what they were.
Dr. R

His tone did not invite further questions, and had lost the original warmth they’d had in our initial email string (before it got offensive for me). The words on the screen blurred. A couple had hopes of conceiving children dashed again and again, and now this. The beautiful little boys I saw in my head who had Allie’s smile would never be running around out there somewhere playing in the grass. Confused by my profound sense of loss, I wrote back a curt response that did not begin to hint at the depth of what I was actually feeling.

Dr. R,
Thank you for the information. My heart goes out to the couple. I wish I could have done more. I’ll embrace them in prayer tonight, now that I know.

I did not realize how much I wanted these boys to exist until that moment. I quickly went into the restroom and cried it out. I didn’t know whether it was my loss I was feeling, or empathically the loss of the parents. This would be a couple who has tried everything to conceive naturally, to conceive through IVF, and now to conceive with someone else’s embryos. I didn’t understand. It made no sense. Those kids were supposed to be healthy. They were 2 “A” quality embryos. This is a very good, experienced fertility clinic whose doctors literally wrote the book on IVF fertility (really, you can buy this book and other doctors reference it) and their stats of success are well, well above national average. How? Could it be that the universe knew I couldn’t handle it well so it took the option/hardship away from me? Could it be that those embryos would have energetically only existed for me? I had zero problems with the fertility process or pregnancy, success with no complications the first time. How could my other top-notch embryos not make it, also? I wanted to give a family and a soul or two the opportunity and vehicle to incarnate and be together here in this life. What happened?

I may need to talk to Rebecca about this. Had they conceived, they would’ve been healthy, but she got nothing on conception itself. She’d also always said the souls waiting to cross to be our children were just waiting for me to make the decision. Could it be that once the decision was made to not have another embryo implanted, that the embryos were only dog-eared for us so they lost viability? That can’t be, or other people’s embryo donations would have failed, too. I don’t get it. I wonder what Riley’s doing right now. I realize I sound crazy.

I’m not asking him to stay. That would be cruel. If he wants to go, I want him to be able to move on peacefully, easily. It hit me watching him struggle from underneath the bed to his carrier a few feet away, staggering, struggling as his back legs bent in effort to support his weight. Stumbling. He’s so weak. The appetite stimulants aren’t working because he is choosing not to eat. He’s trying to go. I force-fed him a few morsels along with his medication this morning, which caused him to lick at the gravy on the wet food, and gave me hope. But seeing how weak he is in that short walk told me everything. I will not give him any more medication designed to make him do stuff he doesn’t want to do. I will only administer the ones that make him more comfortable. Anti-nausea meds, blood pressure meds so he doesn’t get a headache. I petted him with the top of the cat carrier open for awhile, and he struggled out, gave some short yowls, went to his water bowl, sniffed but went back in the carrier. He did this twice, then the third time, he went out and struggled to the walk-in closet across the room, his usual sleeping spot. Thinking he wanted to be alone, I left him be. I had already told him it’s okay, that I love him, and he should do what he needs to do. That was when Rebecca returned my call. She asked if he’s laying on his side stretched out; he was. She said gently, “You know he has to go, right, sweetie?” I know. I just wanted to know if he wants me to do anything for him. Anything. She said just to go in the closet, lay with him a bit, tell him it’s okay and then when I feel ready, to give him some space. Cats do that, she said. Cats want to be alone at the end, and it could be that my being there is keeping him from being able to let go. So when I’ve said my goodbyes and when I have gotten what I need, I can walk away and he’ll be okay. He’s not suffering right now, altho he had in the past. I know; he’s not struggling except when he’s trying to walk and he’s weak. He’s not panting, not complaining, not heaving. He purrs when I pet him. His tail moves up in response to the strokes down his back. He’s just so weak, and doesn’t want to eat. Twice today, I’ve given him water by oral syringe, just in case he felt thirsty. But I also don’t want him to feel compelled to struggle back out and get in the litter box, which is what he’s been doing instead of having “accidents.” He’s such a good cat. It’s not really about me and getting what I want. My needs are his needs; if he needs me to say it’s okay to go and know that I love him and then leave him alone, that is what I will do. That is what I did. I went in the closet, stayed with him for a bit, petting him, stroking my face against his fur, listening to the light purr, told him it’s okay, it’s okay, mama loves you, mama loves her boy, do what you need to do, don’t suffer. Rebecca said that everything is shutting down, but he may be having a little bit of a hard time letting go, and may need help. If he’s still around like this tomorrow morning for the 9:30a appointment, the appointment may be what’s going to help him go.

What timing, Dodo. We’re at the beginning of our vacation, so I have all day to spend with him on Monday. And right now, there’s no vet available on a Sunday. He may pass peacefully at home, comfortably, if he is able to let go. I got my chance for a private, affectionate, teary goodbye with Mr. W gone for a long 2-hour massage and Allie napping, the stepkidlet out and about as usual. I told him it’s not goodbye. It’s a see-you-later. He can visit, and then I’ll see him again when I go to the Other Side; he’s just getting there first. My fuzzy boy, my furry baby.

“Hey mommy.”
“Yes, Allie?”
“Do you know what today is?”
“It’s Saturday.”
“More than that, it’s Lunar New Year’s Eve! It’s almost the Year of the Snake!”
“Oh, is that why you made me wear this today?”
“Yes, mommy, it sure is. Now let’s wish your blog readers a Happy New Year!”

“Gong xi fah tsai!”

Yesterday for Allie’s second Chinese New Year’s Eve (see her first here), we met up with my parents and grandma in Irvine for dim sum. Allie was at first a little pensive that her dim sum experience would be like last time.

But it wasn’t. We let her have some dim sum. Those molars came in handy. She didn’t seem bothered by the MSG, but I limited her food anyway, making sure she had a full breakfast before leaving so what she had was just a snack. She behaved pretty well at the restaurant, altho she kept freaking my grandma out because she’d lean back in her chair to look up at the ceiling decorations, and my grandma thought she would flip herself out of her high chair. Allie ate everything we placed in front of her — sticky rice, shrimp, egg tart, those long flat noodle things that they wrap shrimp in, steamed veggies and meatballs. After lunch, her grandpa told her shocking secrets about what was really in those mystery meatballs.

Then we all came back to our house. My grandma and parents had Allie distribute the red envelopes. “Give this to Dada.” “Give this to Mama.” “Give this to Po-Po.”

So Allie did; she brought envelopes to Tai-Po. She brought envelopes to Gong-Gong.

Here she is bringing me one.

It wasn’t until we checked our envelopes after everyone had left that we realized my grandma had lost her mind. She’s on a fixed income (collecting social security and a meager teacher’s retirement salary) and gave me, Mr. W and Allie an envelope each. I was already shocked at the amount in mine and Mr. W’s, and then the amount in Allie’s was more than triple ours. We put the cash aside in an envelope labeled “Money to Return to Grandma (Slowly).” Because if we try to just push it back at her, she’d be offended. So we’ll have to wait for special occasions for which she CAN’T return a red envelope, such as her bday, to give her this crazy amount of money back. We may have to split it up between several occasions, though, or it’d look suspicious. Christmas, Mother’s Day, etc. But she’d still know it’s the same money being pushed around. Such is the Chinese way. =P

It’s nice having just one nap a day so we have so much time to do stuff in. I think Allie still gets sleepy around her usual morning nap time, but we try to be out so she’s distracted and would stay stimulated. We go to Costco, play at the park, have brunch out. And then we give her an earlier lunch (around 11:30a) and then put her in her crib early (around noon). She now takes less than 10 minutes to fall asleep, where before her latency time was more like 30-45 minutes. I used to think there was a problem that she wasn’t immediately zonking out until I read that the average well-rested toddler plays in their crib for half an hour before putting him/herself to sleep.
With me, Allie would typically sleep 2.5-3 hours or more in total, but for some reason, with Jayne she’s getting 1.5 hours or so.
The only weird thing about this nap from my experience is that during her usual brief wake-ups between sleep cycles, when she’d roll and switch positions and go back to sleep every half hour or so, now she wakes up and WAILS. It doesn’t last long, and she’s usually back to sleep in a minute or two after she lays back down, but I don’t know why it’s such drama when she’s up in between her natural sleep cycles now. So it’s not uncommon for 2-3 stand-up-and-wail sessions for a couple of minutes each to happen during each nap from what I’ve experienced.
I haven’t seen this adversely affect her night sleep at all. She does drop to sleep at bedtime faster since she’s up for a longer period of time after her noon nap and has actually fallen asleep more than a few times nursing and was transferred into her crib asleep. She still may wake briefly to switch positions between sleep cycles, but it’s silent and she’s barely awake when she moves around and resettles. She’d usually be asleep close to 7p and wake up on her own a little after 6a. So it’s been really nice.
Some moms have told me, when Allie was months old, that “all” babies stop sleeping through the night at 9, 10 months and again at 14-18 months, but so far, so good. Those mommies that have told me this opted not sleep train their babies and they co-slept, so I’m not sure if that may have something to do with their experiences. I don’t know why co-sleeping babies would wake up during the night; I would’ve thought feeling mommy and daddy asleep next to them would lull them back to sleep. But we’ve never co-slept so I have no idea. I wouldn’t have been against co-sleeping, but I never considered it because Mr. W was adamantly against it from the beginning, and this is an issue you need both parents onboard for.

Allie was put in her crib earlier at noon, was asleep before 12:15, and 20 minutes in, she sat up and wailed a couple of times. Then she looked around, stunned, pulled her blanket up to herself and hugged it while it was all bunched up, then rolled to her side, and went back to sleep, all within 1 minute. It’s now been 54 total minutes of sleep time. If she wakes up by 2:30 or so, we should be able to visit with Rebecca at the coffee shop. 🙂