Employment.

Or lack thereof.

My current contract finishes two Fridays from now. I need to find some work and I am very worried that I won't find much and will end up with a big gap in our finances. I am currently 20 weeks pregnant, so anything long term would be awesome, that way I could return after mat leave, but no one wants to hire someone for a long term position when they know that the person will be away for a year, starting in 4-5 months.

Looking for short term stuff is also a possibility, but there isn't much available at the moment. And finding something that will match 4-5 months in duration and that would start two Mondays from now, also a challenge.

I need to continue on to work before the baby comes because A I can't afford not to work until then, B my EI runs out soon and I don't know how things will work for me starting a new EI claim months before having to file a mat leave claim (honestly it is extremely unlikely that I could be awarded both.)

I can't believe I'm stuck in this situation again, but this time halfway into a pregnancy that so far is somewhat painful and uncomfortable.

I need to find work that is not too physical for that reason, too. Which narrows down what I can do. I am specialized in what I do, but then once no work is available at a certain time, I am pretty much useless in any other category of work (to potential employers that is - however I am convinced if the right company could see my potential I could do a lot for them, if only they would try me even if I have no related experience...or if I appear too experienced in another field...)

Man this is a tough time... :(

I have to keep positive though, lift up my sleeves and apply everywhere!

Wish me luck! :)

Again.

So.... I am now 16 weeks and 4 days pregnant with my second child. Yup! I have finally been successful at conceiving a baby in the right place :)

My son will have a sibling.

And when the baby is born, I will officially be done making babies. Oh yes, I will. There are too many things that can go wrong, and a lot of time of discomfort/sickness, and honestly, I can't afford more kids than 2 :)

This pregnancy, I was hoping to avoid nausea medication, and at first it felt like I might be able to, but a week later than my pregnancy with L, I needed it. And I'm glad I got it.

As for many ladies who are pregnant for the second time, I am showing a lot more than I was last time - I think. However, I am gaining a bit less weight this time around, so far (not counting that I was already 6 lbs heavier this time around to begin with).

With a big deadline of mat leave start ahead of me, I had to do something about my work situation. I just couldn't afford to wait for full time hours from my current temporary employer (I was getting a say a week of work at most) and the physical nature of that job would soon be too much for my pregnant body (being on my feet fr 8 hours straight, 5-6 of which I was outside doing what would be the equivalent of a mix of stair-masters and brisk walking in extremely hot summer temperature, with no access to a washroom or a place to have lunch... very far from ideal...) So when a former colleague called me for a 12 week job in my old industry, even if it was a 4 hour commute away a day, I accepted. The bonus was that I might get another contract afterwards and hopefully, I might eventually work there up to the birth and get enough hours to go on mat leave!  If I dare to dream, I might even get something to return to after mat leave, but I need to play my cards extremely well. This is reality when you are a contractor...

So I am back to working in a dark office, and today I have a great reason why this is ideal, my pelvis would NOT be able to do the physical work anymore. When I gave birth to L, I did something to my pelvic bones that left me barely able to walk for 2 weeks, and that hurt for a good 6 months, with a few spread apart days of soreness up to 2 years later. I was a new mom at that time, with lots of worries other than taking care of that pain I had in my pelvis. So I just didn't do anything about it. But for the most part, at its worst stage, it felt like my body would split from the middle if I walked with a gait that was a little too wide. Like I was missing a piece in the front and middle (pubic bone) that would be holding things together. It was very painful to roll over in bed... It just felt like things were not solid anymore, weak and unstable.

Well, this time around, when 15 weeks came, I started feeling the pain again. If I change my posture and move my weight from one leg to the other, I feel (almost hear) the two sides of my pelvis grinding, rubbing together... At 16 weeks now, I am having a lot of pain walking, and my commute includes 40 minutes of walking! :(

I googled things and this is what I think I have Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction. It's the cartilage/ligaments that join the two part of your pelvis together, with relaxin (the pregnancy hormone that loosens things up so you can 'have space' to give birth) things loosen up and the joints move more, causing pain.

All I have to say is: if you are having similar pains after giving birth, don't just accept the pain and do nothing, talk to your doctor about it, and tell them you think that's what you might be having - a lot of them dismiss it and don't pursue 'fixing' the problem... If that doctor doesn't help find one who will.

That's about it for now. What I need to work on in the next few weeks is finding out if my contract gets extended and if not - look for more work (not easy when you are visibly pregnant, ugh.)

I hope you are all doing well. Anyone have a contractor work and pregnancy story to share? Have you ever had to look for work while you were pregnant? Let me know in the comments! :)

Trying this blog design for size.

I'm thinking of a different background - I'm not sure these colors work with my header - it was the one that seemed to clash the least of the blogger.com ones... I might try another one and change the colors of my header - I am not very good with colors, ay ay ay...

Not 100% sure about the header either - don't know if I like 'my face' that much :) sigh...

Tell me what you think in the comments :)

Chicken.

This is the time I thought of baking chicken, then looked up a recipe, followed it, and ended up with a meal I was proud of for my family!

 

(this pictures the chicken I made, some BBQ chicken that S had made, some plain brown rice and some broccoli.)

Super easy and yummy recipe found on All Recipes - Baked Honey Mustard Chicken, by Mary Bane.

Design.

How do you guys feel about the design of this blog?

I'm starting to feel like changing this up a bit.

I personally find that I am more drawn to read blogs when the colors of the design are lighter. You?

How do you like the design of cinemarie in english?
	Change it up - just freshen it up.
	Change it up - simplify it.
	Change it up - lighten up the colors.
	All of the above.
	Keep it as is - I love it.
	Other ideas (I'll tell you in the comments.)
pollcode.com free polls

Voices.

Yesterday, my boy spontaneously chose to view an episode of the program pictured below. I was so happy to see how much enjoyment he was getting out of it, he even participated in the little 'exercises' that the characters were inviting him to do. I was so proud.

There is a lot of 'special' DVDs on our shelves that I do not push for him to watch, because I want to get his genuine interest, and 'feedback', when he chooses to see it.

 

I do tell him that 'maman worked on this one!' - even though I don't think it means much to him at this point.

The particular one he chose to watch yesterday I was curious to see him react to - because he should be very familiar with the voices of the characters on the show - these are the voices he has heard the most when he was in my belly - he would have heard close to 40-60+ hours a week's worth of these shows in the womb - my last show before mat. leave :)

Full circle.

I miss my old job sometimes... often times...

Conclusion.

This is the conclusion of my ectopic pregnancy story. This is a long read and may be TMI for you. You've been warned ;)

part 3
part 2
part 1 


First of all - I need to share a video that has helped me tremendously throughout my ectopic pregnancy. This video is the reason why I am sharing my story - I needed to read/see other stories to keep me sane, to see that I was not alone, to see what others were experiencing. This woman does such an awesome job of telling her ectopic pregnancy story, I kept viewing it over and over as my story progressed, what I went through symptom-wise was very similar. Everything is so well put and organized, if you found my story because you are going through the same, I highly encourage you to view this video - Kelsey kept me positive, hopeful, and sane! Thank you so much Kelsey, you've helped me more than you will ever know!!




And she has great vlogs and TTC vlogs, etc. - she seems so nice! I couldn't stop keeping up to date with her and her family afterwards :)


ok, back to the final part of my story.

After getting the shot, the doctor asked me to follow up in a week with blood work. He said that typically the HCG levels keep rising at first before they go down, so it would be useless to get more bloodwork done right away. If the levels were not dropping, I would have to get another injection.

I got a call from him personally when he got the results because my levels went from 16632 the day before the injection to 20715, a week later. He said he was on call that day so I would have to go to the hospital and tell triage to page him when I got there so that he could meet me and give me an injection.

If you have read my story so far, you know where this is going:

 

I got sent to get another IV, just in case. 

''But I thought I was just meeting with my doctor to get a sh... ah forget it!"

They take some blood, and leave the IV in. The nurse I got was the absolute worse for putting an IV - and I'm sorry to be saying that because I have great respect for nurses, my sister is one - but it hurt like hell and no blood would come out, so she pulled it out and pushed it in over and over, and had me pump my fist over and over to get enough blood out - it took about 5 minutes of pumping to get 2 cms of blood in the little tube - I'm sure every body in the waiting room was ready to barf seeing this happening :)

I saw a new set of doctors, and they asked me for the whole story again, as if I had not been to the hospital before... I repeat everything, and they leave...

After a few hours of waiting, I finally see one of the first resident doctors I saw on my first hospital visit, my favorite one! She was so nice, she took the time to chat with me and see how I was doing. She said it was silly that I got an IV put in, but that for the hospital it was a safety measure because of how 'ectopic-pregnancy' might mean 'emergency-surgery'...  She also said to me something that I will always remember about my ectopic story:

"I just want to open you up and look in there and see what's going on! Normally at 20000 HCG you see a giant ectopic with a heart beat and it's all very clear what's happening, but with you, it's a mystery!"

So she said I would get another injection soon, it was just a matter of waiting for the meds to come in after she order them. And that it was nice to meet me and to have a nice life...

well...

I wasn't expecting to see her again, but here she was with a little post it note: "Did you get the injection yet?"

"No?!"

"The blood work they did shows that your HCG levels are now down to 12957!!! If you want you can skip the second injection!"

OMG!!! Now I didn't feel so bad about the useless IV/bloodwork :) Even if this was the aftermath:

 

After that point, I went to get blood work done every Wednesday. Most of the googling I had done showed stories of people who had the shot at less than 5000 HCG levels, so I was wondering how long it would take me to go all the way down to zero considering I was starting from 20000+!

here's how it went down from the highest HCG level results:

08/21:    20715

08/23:    12957

08/28:      8820

09/04:      3536

09/12:      1172

09/18:        887

09/25:        386

10/02:        225

10/08:        126

10/16:          52

10/23:          25

10/30:         >5

So all in all - it took from August 14th to October 30th (2.5 months) for it to resolve and for me to not be pregnant anymore. Two and a half months of worrying that I might bleed internally, worrying about every little twinge in my shoulder, every little pang in my belly... Did I mention that I was working 60 kms away from home at the time, walking outside 3+ hours a day in crazy summer heat, and loading and unloading hundreds of heavy boxes in and out of my work truck? yeah...

At first I felt weak, a lot of nausea, a feeling like chemicals were poisoning my body... But gradually I started to feel better and better.

Now, we're trying again. But I'm still spotting mid-cycles, having pain on the side of the ectopic every other month... I got checked, complete blood work done, ultra sound shows normal things down there... The doctors said just 'leave it be' and if I'm having no luck at becoming pregnant for a year, then they will see what we should do next.

Until then, I'm trying not to worry that this could happen again. I take home pregnancy tests all the time to be safe. I am tracking everything on my calendar. If I become pregnant again, I will be able to have all this accurate info to go back to. Essentially, the moment I get a positive test I am to call my doctor and get tests done and follow ups right away, just because of my history now.

I struggle with the fact that it feels like I can't trust my body anymore. I felt invincible before. But now, I know that I need to take care of my body, I can't take health for granted, if I let it down, it will let me down! Not that I necessarily did this to myself - it happens randomly sometimes. But it still had me thinking how much I need to value that I have my health.

Health is important - life is important!

Time will tell if we will be successful at having another baby. I'll keep you posted :)

 

Treatment.

This is the third part of my ectopic pregnancy story. It will be a long read and some of it might be TMI for you, so you've been warned ;)

part 2
part 1 

My next 2 hospital visits were similar:

August 3rd (2nd day at hospital): HCG levels up to 1788, nothing seen in the uterus. (but it could still be early)
August 5th (3rd day at the hospital): HCG levels up to 2738, nothing seen in the uterus.

The first doctor I saw at that point told me they suspected it was indeed an ectopic pregnancy and very briefly explained that I would end up having to choose between surgery or a shot of methotrexate to end the pregnancy.

I then saw another set of resident doctors who explained in more details what the options were:

Surgery: I knew I wanted to avoid surgery - if they did surgery and found that there was something in my tube they could remove it and they may or may not be able to save my tube (if they couldn't they would have to remove the tube...) On the flip side, if it turned out the 'baby' was in the right place after all, they could leave it alone, and potentially let it grow into a successful pregnancy (assuming going through surgery didn't 'mess it up'...)

Methotrexate: I was a good candidate for methotrexate, with no signs of internal bleeding, a small sized 'ectopic', HCG levels that were low enough, good 'liver health' and being able to come to the hospital quickly, should complications come.

I have forgotten to mention something: my beautiful baby L was almost 35 months old at the time (yes that's a little over a month before he turned 3) and I was still nursing him, once a day, before bed time. And the occasional one time before a nap on the weekend... ok, back to the story...

Methotrexate would dissolve the pregnancy and I would get checked once a week to see that my HCG blood levels were going down until they reached less than 5, which is considered 'not pregnant'. BUT! Methotrexate would render my breast milk unsafe for L to drink.

I sobbed. I cried SO hard right then, because unknowingly, the night before, I essentially had nursed my boy for the very last time.

They left me alone for a little bit, to make my decision final and discuss this with my husband (obviously, I didn't mention him yet, but during this whole ordeal, I was updating my husband and getting his opinions and thoughts over the phone. We have no family or friends that live close enough to take over childcare on a short notice - it's only ever just the two of us! - so clearly, he had to take care of L while I was in the hospital... so at that point we both decided to go ahead with the shot)

Until... I met with the chief of OBGYN at that hospital. He basically just shook the whole thing up. I went from deciding to end the pregnancy to deciding, with him, to give this pregnancy one more chance, because he was not 100% convinced that it was abnormal.

Basically, he said he had seen normal pregnancies start this way. He also said that they were not sure where my pregnancy was located (there were signs that it might be in my left tube, but really nothing absolute or clear). He told me that since I was seemingly normal (minus the belly pain and the spotting, both of which were a bit less at that point) I could give this another 48 hours, go for another blood work and ultra sound, but that this time, he was going to do it 'out patient' - that I wouldn't have to go to the hospital and waist a full day there again (unless I was feeling signs of internal bleeding of course...) If I was still showing up with an empty uterus, I would be able to make an appointment to get the methotrexate shot in his office no problem.

Well, I went to another ultra sound, and did more blood work:

August 7th: HCG: 5409
Ultrasound: I went to this private ultra sound place, and was not pleased with the technician. He declined to do an internal ultra sound.

Back to the doctors' office: He's still not convinced, and I am not confident that the ultrasound was done properly. This time, give it a week and see - by that point, we would REALLY see something if it was in the uterus, both based on the HCG levels AND based on gestational age...

August 13th: HCG: 16632
Ultrasound was done at the hospital, in the pregnancy 'area' (whatever it's called) with a technician who is trained specifically in 'uterus' ultrasound, and looking for babies in uteruses.

August 14th: The doctor called me and gave me the results from the 13th, it looks like we gave it a good shot, but there's no baby in the uterus and at 16632 we should really REALLY see something. The spot they saw in my tube that could be the ectopic pregnancy seemed to be slightly larger so at this point, he wanted to treat it and give me a methotrexate shot, and could I come into the office that same afternoon.

About breastfeeding/weaning: I spent the previous week preparing L and explaining that 'maman' had some 'bobos' in her belly and that to make maman feel better, the doctor might have to take out the bobos and all of maman's milk at the same time. Meaning that there would be no more milk available to drink for him. When the doctor called it was almost nap time, so, even if I was letting him call when he wanted to nurse at that point without suggesting it, I called him and asked if he wanted to nurse. I explained that I was going to the doctor's office and that he would take all my milk away to make me feel better, I explained that it was the very last time he would ever drink maman's 'bon lait', as we used to call it. And just like that, on August 14th 2013, I nursed my boy for the last time. I thought our last time would be a sweet tender and loving moment, but the truth is, in reality, at that point he was most of the time using nursing to delay having going to bed :) He was always half into the nursing, like it was natural and needed, and the other half was more of a drink a bit, get distracted and talk about something else, drink some more. And this last time was no different, and I kind of like that about it - I'm not sad thinking about the last time we nursed - I kind of laugh about it - he really was very close to choosing to wean anyway. And I'm so happy that I got a chance to verbalize it with him, and that he could understand a bit what was going on and why.

I put L to bed for his nap, kissed my husband, and left for the hospital pharmacy to get the meds, then arrived to at the doctor's office, more than ready to put this 2 week ordeal behind me.

We spoke about it a bit, then got ready for the shot. Turns out the pharmacy gave me too little of it, ha ha ha!

I went back, got more, drove back to the doctor's... he split the injection so he would inject me once in the back muscle over the left hip, once over the right hip (apparently it works best that way).

I was finally done with this. Or so I thought. Next post will be the conclusion of this story :)