Judecorp.

CONGRATULATIONS, KATE AND TRISH!!!

I am so proud of you guys. xoxoxoxo

I am so angry with myself right now and feel like the world's biggest piece of crap.

Because I trust them and their wealth of knowledge, I somehow managed to let the IVP convince me that I was wrong about Punk and her needs, and that she was doing her Mama-Only thing because she knew if she cried enough for Jen I would be a sucker and rescue her, and that I was (and this was the one I really took personally) perpetuating a dysfunctional situation for all of us by trying to meet her sleep needs on her terms instead of trying to put her on our terms. And last night and this morning I was basically the worst mama ever.

Jen started out trying to get Punk to bed without the swaddle last night at 7:30. I expected some difficulty because of the time change but between the two of us, and a lot of upset on the part of the Punk who was flailing her body around everywhere yet was exhausted, it took two hours to get her to sleep. And she woke up 30 minutes later. By some miracle, though, she went right back to sleep after I flipped her on her back and gave her a paci. And kept sleeping. I thought maybe they were on to something, and I went to bed. With Jen. In a real bed.

At 1am, Punk woke up and thus begun three solid hours of resettling and having her wake up every 15-30 minutes. I would wait for her to cry, then I would give her the paci and I would get back into the futon. And wait. Over and over. At 4am, I couldn't take it anymore and I asked Jen to take a turn, but when she did, she ended up with 30 minutes of Punk making the most hysterical cries I have ever heard, where she caused herself to cough and cough and cough. It was horrible, so at 4:30 I went back in and she quieted down, so I told Jen to get her a bottle.

She wouldn't even let Jen give her the bottle. Just my handing her off started the sobs again. So I gave her the bottle, sent Jen back to bed, and slept with her on the futon. I had to hold her down because she couldn't settle her body and she slept for two hours with 3 wake-ups. But at least she slept.

This morning I wanted to be consistent and did not swaddle her for her morning nap. After an hour of thrashing around the crib, lots of bonks on the head (and at least 3 bruises, sigh, great mama I am), and too much crying, I swaddled her up, held her for about 30 seconds, put her down in the crib and rubbed her chest for two minutes until she started drooping the eyelids. Then I left while she was still awake. She hasn't made a peep since.

I feel like such a crap mama because I /knew/ she was not ready to be unswaddled and I /knew/ we were doing the best thing for her and I let other people who have never even met her and did not understand her needs convince me otherwise. And because of that, my kid is sleep-deprived and has bruises all over her forehead.

I pretty much hate everything right now.

I don't do this very often (read: never) but this is different. Please, bear with.

My friend Calliope has been trying to get pregnant for a Very Long Time. She's a kick-ass woman trying to be a single mama using Man in a Can - she's been doing this for a long time. She's had more medicated IUIs than anyone really should. She has spent more money than I even want to THINK about.

This is compounded by the fact that Calliope's full-time job is to be the live-in caretaker for her grandmother, who has a degenerative disease. She does not get paid for this work. She hardly gets recognition. She was not eligible for health insurance. She does this for her family. Her grandmother, mother, and she live together and try to make life work - and she is trying to create the fourth generation.

Eventually she ran out of money and thought she had run out of options. Her only available option was IVF, and she couldn't afford it. The family had spent everything they could. She gave up on babymaking, but continued to cheer us all on.

Then she discovered a Shared IVF program run by a clinic a bazillion miles away from her home. In this program, she would stim for an IVF cycle and half of her eggs would go to a woman who was financing her IVF cycle. She filled out the application on a lark, and was accepted. Then she was matched. And then she got started. It was a dream come true.

She has been away from home for several days gearing up for egg retrieval and fertilization. She was growing lots of eggs for her and her recipient, and things were looking GOOD. And today... well, today she got a call saying that she tested positive for HepC and her shared cycle was cancelled.

She is pretty sure it is a false positive (she's been tested a million times doing different TTC things) and asked for a retest, which will be available on Friday. But they are still cancelling the Shared IVF. They already told the recipient. They told Calliope that she could continue the IVF cycle (you know, the one she's in the middle of) on her own dime. We're talking thousands of dollars, people.

Calliope is away from home and her mother is willing to sell the family car to continue her IVF, but this isn't feasible. I never ask for money online, but CALLIOPE NEEDS YOUR HELP. There are at least 200 people linked to this journal and if everyone gave $5, that would be over a thousand dollars! Can you even imagine? This could really happen, people.

Guys, she deserves this. She really REALLY deserves this. Her eggs are growing RIGHT NOW and this was HER TIME.

Please.

Donate to Cali's IVF!