Abridged

There's nothing more loathsome to me than an abridged audiobook.  Just because I'm lazy enough to listen to a book rather than *read* the book doesn't mean I'm so lazy I also want random chunks missing from the novel as well.

Well today I give you an abridged version of the previous 6ish (may be 7 I haven't quantified my procrastination) months of the Mautino home.

July -
     4th of July:
            Cayce spent the 4th in Boston with his ship.  Lily and I celebrated at a friend's house.  They live on the Bay, and it was great time.  Fun fact: Lily has made the decision ocean water is not for her.  So I had no reservations about watching the fireworks on the beach.  Funny thing about Bay water, it's warm and calm.  I could not get Lily out of the water.  Neither one of us were dressed to be in the water, and it was after dark so it was kind of nerve wracking, but hey at least we found a natural body of water that she does enjoy. :)

     Mom also visited in July, and then she made the long trek to OK with Lily and me.  Fun fact: Lily will not sleep in the same room as anyone else. So the one night stay in the hotel was pure misery, and a complete waste of time and money.

     In July, while mom was here we learned Cayce had been selected for Chief. :-) That was exciting. Mom, Lily, and I were in the NEX wasting time when I got the call from Cayce.  He whispers... "I made it." What? Are you serious? This better not be a joke! "No, I just got a call from _______ and she said she saw my name on the list. They haven't released the official names yet, but she's positive I'm on there." *cue blubbering fool in the middle of the NEX* That night started a very long 6 weeks for Cayce. Very little sleep, long hours on the ship, long hours in "training" (aka initiation), and very little food.  He lost a lot of weight, not that he has a lot to lose to begin with, but he did.  Lily and I headed to OK so he could enjoy the *fun* of Chief's induction without the added stress of family responsibilities.

August -
     Lily and I spent about 3 weeks in OK.  It was glorious.  The god's of Oklahoma weather shined upon us and we actually enjoyed pleasant (for August) temps.  Lily spent every waking moment in the back yard, alternating between chasing chickens and harassing goats. 

Helping Grumpy feed the goats.

Helping Grumpy feed the goats... even when he's not there....

Oklahoma air conditioning

     The big first for Lily and me was her over night stay at Cayce's mom's house.  It was the first time ever that Lily stayed a night away from me.  She stayed two nights.  We both survived. 

September -
     Chief's Pinning:
     A magical moment where I barely stopped crying.  I was (am) so incredibly proud of Cayce.  Of course we *hoped* he would make Chief, but never in a million years did we think it was an actual possibility.  I mean he'd been in the Navy for only 10 years, it was only his second look for E7, and quite frankly it just seemed like a pipe dream this early in his career.  But here were are. :)  Several of Cayce's family members made the trek.  His uncle, a Vietnam era vet, and Lily and I were the ones to pin him.  I cried from the moment we crossed the quarterdeck until I crashed in my bed for a much needed nap.  Cayce's sponsor asked who the family members were who were with me, and I barely squeaked out that it was his grandmother and father.  Oh stupid waterworks (in my defense I was running on about 4 hours of sleep). The most fun part of the event came in the surprise attendance of Cayce's "everyday friend," Joe.  Of course I had asked Joe if he wanted to come to Cayce's pinning.  Joe and Cayce worked at Parris Island together and became great friends.  Their friendship carried over after we moved to VA and Joe got out of the Navy and moved with his family to NC.  Of everyone who could have been in attendance there was no one else who could quite understand the significance and just plain insanity of Cayce's advancement.  When I asked Joe if he would like to come he kind of never really answered me, so I gave no more thought to it.  Cue roughly 15 hours prior to the pinning and I get a text from Joe telling me the Ditzel clan would be making the 3 hour trek up for the pinning and oh BTW what's for dinner? :) Lasagna was for dinner, and I stayed up waaaay too late chatting with Joe and Amanda.  Thank God for Amanda.  She saved my butt.  I was exhausted and stressed from my 5:15 wake up call and getting ready in the morning was just not going as smoothly as planned.  She asked if I wanted help getting Lily ready for the day, and man did she ever.  I practically did nothing, and it 100% soothed my nerves.  Back to the surprise.  So Cayce had NO IDEA Joe was going to be at the pinning.  Part of induction involves a "last night" thing so even if I had had the desire to tell him Joe would be attending, I couldn't because I couldn't actually contact him.  Amanda was also kind enough to bring her camera (she's a professional photographer) and in hindsight, I have no idea how I thought I would take ANY pictures.  I was too busy trying not cry all over everyone and then of course since I was IN the ceremony I don't know how I thought I would get a picture of that. ;-). So Amanda took some ah-mazing pictures.

"Brothers gotta hug!" - Joe, Cayce, and Joe's son Michael.

"Outta the way, Daddy deprived baby coming through!"

Because I haven't cried enough.

So proud... and the ship left for another underway an hour later, returning over a week later.

     Andalso... I started my second semester at Drexel.

October -
     So Cayce said if he ever made Chief he wanted to take us on a family vacation to Walt Disney World to celebrate.  I agreed, of course, not expecting him to make it any time in the near future.  So when he did actually make Chief, he was still gung-ho about this plan.  So in August I planned our trip to WDW.  Cayce got his leave chit approved and all was good.  Then the ship schedule changed, and they were supposed to be gone during our vacation.  If there is anything to learn about the Navy it's that they don't like sailors missing ship movement.  Luckily Cayce has the right people in his corner and the XO approved for Cayce to miss ship movement and take an extra few days so he could take this vacation.  Woo hoo! Great! Oh wait, even better news, the schedule has changed... again.  If there is anything to learn about the Navy it's that ship schedules ALWAYS change. Now they will be in port during our vacation time, and there's no need for extra leave or anything.  Oh goody.  So towards the end of October the ship left for about 5 days underway.  Cayce would get home on Friday, and we'd fly to Orlando on Saturday to spend a lovely week in la la land.  Does anyone remember what happened at the end of October? Anyone? Anyone? Yah, Sandy.  So the ship went to NY, and our trip was cancelled.  We were given the okay to re-schedule the trip for two weeks later.  Surely the ship would be back by then.  No.  Trip cancelled for good.  They finally came home after 3 weeks in NY.  Doing nothing.

November -
     Mom visited for Thanksgiving.  Cayce was on duty for Thanksgiving.

December -
     Finished up my semester. 
     Finally made it to Raleigh to take family photo's with Amanda.  That was part of the Sandy debacle.  We had a wonderful overnight with the Ditzels, and then Amanda took more ah-mazing photos of us.

Fun with leaves.

Fish face!

God, I love her.

     In September we started the long process of getting treatment for infertility.  That involves lots of tests, for everyone, and lots of facetime with the RE.  I ended up with a diagnosis of Poly-cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). Tell me something I don't already know.  I was also given a nice prescription of 1500 Mg/daily of Metformin.  Finally in December we reached a point where actual work to get pregnant could begin.  I was given a 100mg dose of Clomid for 4 days.  When we got pregnant with Lily I took 50mg of Clomid, and we got pregnant the first time out.  Lily was conceived at Disney World. :-) So, I wasn't necessarily expecting this go around to be a walk in the park, but I certainly didn't expect it to be as difficult as it has been.  Everything about trying for baby #2 is much more stressful and exhausting.  I spent the majority of December greatly uncomfortable, in retrospect it was probably OHSS (Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome).  But everything was working like it was supposed to so I didn't mind the 24/7 pain and discomfort, I mean, we were going to have a baby who cares about a little pain! A few days before Christmas I found a bit of blood.  I first panicked, but then realized, oh this is PERFECT timing for implantation bleeding.  So I kinda allowed myself (and Cayce) to get excited.  We spent a wonderful Christmas morning with Lily, allowing ourselves to think this may be the last singleton Christmas for us!  As the day progressed my cramps started getting stronger.  The spotting was still slight, but the cramps were worsening.  I still *fingers crossed* thought it could be from implantation.  We had plans to spend Christmas evening with friends, the same friends from the 4th of July.  We made our way over to Virginia Beach, and still my cramps were strong, but nothing to write home about.  Then a couple hours into the festivities the cramps became unbearable.  I was shaking from the pain, could barely stand, let alone walk, and I wanted to vomit.  We had to excuse ourselves early, me apologizing profusely. By the time we got home I could do little more than huddle under my blankets in fetal position alternating between cold sweats and chills.  That night AF started.  Immediately all pain and nausea disappeared.  I was up doing chores that I had neglected because of my constant state of sickness from the fertility treatments.  Despite keeping myself busy I was beyond upset, and beyond denial.  I still kept taking home pregnancy tests, maybe just maybe that was just some serious implanting of the embryo, maybe it's twins, maybe that's why it was so bad? But of course that was all lies I was telling myself.  There was no baby to celebrate.  Ugh so crushing.  I had already designed the cute way we would tell everyone.  I had already named the baby.  I had already picked out a Halloween costume.  So yeah.  I'm a moron.  I definitely got ahead of myself. Part of my depression was my fault for letting my heart run ahead of my body.  But then also came the reality.  This will not be so easy as last time.  If we couldn't get pregnant with everything looking *perfect* how do we expect to make this work if things aren't perfect? Blah.  So yeah. Cycle 1, complete failure.  Then we had to pack and to go home and face people when all I wanted to do was hide under the covers and wallow for a bit.

January -
     Spent 5 days in OK enjoying family, reconnecting with distanced relatives, and generally healing.      
     Spent 4 days in MO... Thank you to Kay.  Thank you, Kay.
     Came home with a cold Lily (who is NEVER sick) brought back with her.  It was pretty gross here for a while, and then we met back with the RE. She made me feel wonderful and hopeful.  Changed up the course of treatment.  All we needed was for AF to show up.  And she did towards the end of the  month.  After a bunch of confusion with the clinic and one awesome warrior in the form of Cayce we got in to see the RE for an ultrasound to make sure the cyst I had developed was gone.  All was good, and I started my Femara.  I had very few side-effects.  I had headaches, but that could have been the virus I was sacked with.  I had night sweats, but that could have been the virus I was sacked with.  Other than that, no side-effects. 

 February -
     So here we are, on Cycle Day 12.  We have an appointment today to see what's going on in the Ovary-hood.  On one hand one of the reasons REs like Femara is its lack of side-effects, but on the other hand I feel like *nothing* is happening.  Without the side-effects - dull ovary pain, bloating, cramping etc I don't know that my ovaries *are* working.  I'm afraid we'll get in there today and there won't be a follicle as far as the eye can see.  I'm also afraid that since I've been sick with this virus that morphed into a nice sinus infection it will have messed with what is supposed to be happening in my uterus. Blah.  I pray if Lily decides to be a mother she does not have these struggles.  I pray she's a happy fertile Myrtle and pops out the babies to her heart's content.  I pray we get good news today.