Our Girls!
Monday, December 31, 2007
Fragile X
Just a quick update, I had a fragile X test done about 3 weeks ago, which is to see if I carried the gene that could increase our chance of birth defects but it was negative so that is a good sign, we just got the results back on Friday. Hope everyone is having a great holiday season, we will keep you posted!
Sunday, December 16, 2007
3 hours of knowing December
Let me explain the title entry to this blog. Yesterday afternoon Michael and I went to Loxahatchee to buy some bamboo for our backyard. This was a adventure that we will never forget because we had never been so far out west, and because this is where we would meet a dog that we called December. Yesterday was a reminder that life is not always beautiful, sometimes it is just plain hard. After driving around for a while trying to find the nursery we finally headed down what we believed to be the correct road, except be got way more than we bargained for and learned that sometimes when you think you are on your way, it's just a dead end road at the end of the day.
As we came to the end of the dirt road and made a right turn, about a 100 yards to our left we heard a gun shot. We saw a big truck, a dog scampering around and a guy with a gun. As soon as we heard the gunshot I told Michael to stop the car as we tried to make sense of the situation. The dog ran around from the front of the truck to the side. I told Michael "this guy just shot that dog," but Michael was sceptical because it was broad daylight and the dog was running around. I then saw this guy flip his gun around to hit the dog with the butt of the gun but he ran under the truck. This all happened in a matter of about 10 seconds and we were pretty much stunned. While we were still sitting in the car trying to figure out what the hell was going on. The man and his wife get in the truck and drive away and the dog trots off after the truck. The situation didn't feel right so we decided to investigate. We turned the car around and head the other direction. As we passed the scene of this crime I think I saw blood stains on the ground, but Michael didn't see them. We took off to find the truck, but it is nowhere to be found. As we went back past the scene again, Michael stopped the car and said "yep there's blood." At this point we turned our focus towards finding the dog. It was a narrow dirt road with a drainage canal on one side, so there weren't many place the dog could have gone. At first glance we couldn't locate him. There was an entrance to another rural nursery part way down the road so, we figure he must have seeked shelter there. As we started to pull into the nursery driveway Michael says "look over there" and we saw the dog hunkered in the bushes. Michael couldn't tell, but I could plainly see that he was covered in blood. I got out of the car to help him. Worried about my safety, I grabbed a coat from the back of the car and approached the dog. I did this slowly and with caution, not knowing if he would try to attack us. I sat down on the ground and gently talked to him, and as is did this he came over, laid in the coat and I wrapped him up. He was bleeding everywhere and had bullet holes all over this shoulder, chest and ear because he had been shot with bird shot. Michael backed up the car and with our assistance the dog hopped up in the cargo area. His right front leg was pretty much not working, so I got in the back with him wrapped up in the coat and we were off to find a vet. Lucky for us there was one not far down the road.
We got there and the vet came out to help us get December out of the car, which took a little bit of time. During all of this the vet tells us that since we brought him in we are responsible for him, but they will try to help us find a shelter for him. Well of course we are going to treat him and not leave him in our car bleeding and full of holes. They allowed us to go in the back as they gave him some medications, ran some blood tests and started an IV. They tell us that December is a pitbull mix and about 2 years old. They find that he tested positive for heartworms. One of the assistants called Peggy Adams Animal Rescue but they could not take him because they can only have 20% of their population as pitbulls at the shelter, plus he was positive for heartworms, plus he needed to have orthopedic surgery and possibly his leg amputated to repair what the vet believed to be a shattered femur. We were left with the decision to either treat this dog and take him home with us or put him to sleep.
Never did we anticipate that we would have a day like this, sometimes life can knock you down and break your heart. We were faced with a decision regarding December's fate and our options were few. I'm sure he must of done something for someone to want to shoot him, but he had not been aggressive towards us, not even once. Who knows, maybe it could have been because he was injured, we don't know. There were to many unanswered questions about weather or not this dog was a danger or could be a danger to us, our dogs, and eventually our baby.
The vet said we were looking at about $3000-4000, to treat December and once he recovered we would have to start heartworm treatment which she said would be another $1000.00, so minimum we were looking at $5000. We knew that our situation didn't afford us the opportunity to keep this dog, but we were determined to find a way to save his life. We called my parents to say "hey if we fix December" would you be willing to take him? They said no, they could not. The vet told us that even if we healed him we would have problems adopting him out because of his situation. After much crying and heartbreak we decided that the best plan of action was to put December to sleep, we really felt we had no other choice. If he would of been a different type of dog, then animal rescue would of taken him. If we weren't in the situation that we are in, having 3 dogs already and in fertility treatment, then we would of taken him. This is one of the hardest decisions we ever had to make and I don't know if I will ever feel 100% sure that it was the right decision. I believe that in life our struggles make us stronger, and the changes make us wise, but we struggled to understand, why us, why this dog. We wanted so much to save this dog and give him something better, but life ain't always beautiful and it broke our hearts not to be able to. So we shall never forget this day that we met a dog who we named December. Rest in peace our four legged friend.
As we came to the end of the dirt road and made a right turn, about a 100 yards to our left we heard a gun shot. We saw a big truck, a dog scampering around and a guy with a gun. As soon as we heard the gunshot I told Michael to stop the car as we tried to make sense of the situation. The dog ran around from the front of the truck to the side. I told Michael "this guy just shot that dog," but Michael was sceptical because it was broad daylight and the dog was running around. I then saw this guy flip his gun around to hit the dog with the butt of the gun but he ran under the truck. This all happened in a matter of about 10 seconds and we were pretty much stunned. While we were still sitting in the car trying to figure out what the hell was going on. The man and his wife get in the truck and drive away and the dog trots off after the truck. The situation didn't feel right so we decided to investigate. We turned the car around and head the other direction. As we passed the scene of this crime I think I saw blood stains on the ground, but Michael didn't see them. We took off to find the truck, but it is nowhere to be found. As we went back past the scene again, Michael stopped the car and said "yep there's blood." At this point we turned our focus towards finding the dog. It was a narrow dirt road with a drainage canal on one side, so there weren't many place the dog could have gone. At first glance we couldn't locate him. There was an entrance to another rural nursery part way down the road so, we figure he must have seeked shelter there. As we started to pull into the nursery driveway Michael says "look over there" and we saw the dog hunkered in the bushes. Michael couldn't tell, but I could plainly see that he was covered in blood. I got out of the car to help him. Worried about my safety, I grabbed a coat from the back of the car and approached the dog. I did this slowly and with caution, not knowing if he would try to attack us. I sat down on the ground and gently talked to him, and as is did this he came over, laid in the coat and I wrapped him up. He was bleeding everywhere and had bullet holes all over this shoulder, chest and ear because he had been shot with bird shot. Michael backed up the car and with our assistance the dog hopped up in the cargo area. His right front leg was pretty much not working, so I got in the back with him wrapped up in the coat and we were off to find a vet. Lucky for us there was one not far down the road.
We got there and the vet came out to help us get December out of the car, which took a little bit of time. During all of this the vet tells us that since we brought him in we are responsible for him, but they will try to help us find a shelter for him. Well of course we are going to treat him and not leave him in our car bleeding and full of holes. They allowed us to go in the back as they gave him some medications, ran some blood tests and started an IV. They tell us that December is a pitbull mix and about 2 years old. They find that he tested positive for heartworms. One of the assistants called Peggy Adams Animal Rescue but they could not take him because they can only have 20% of their population as pitbulls at the shelter, plus he was positive for heartworms, plus he needed to have orthopedic surgery and possibly his leg amputated to repair what the vet believed to be a shattered femur. We were left with the decision to either treat this dog and take him home with us or put him to sleep.
Never did we anticipate that we would have a day like this, sometimes life can knock you down and break your heart. We were faced with a decision regarding December's fate and our options were few. I'm sure he must of done something for someone to want to shoot him, but he had not been aggressive towards us, not even once. Who knows, maybe it could have been because he was injured, we don't know. There were to many unanswered questions about weather or not this dog was a danger or could be a danger to us, our dogs, and eventually our baby.
The vet said we were looking at about $3000-4000, to treat December and once he recovered we would have to start heartworm treatment which she said would be another $1000.00, so minimum we were looking at $5000. We knew that our situation didn't afford us the opportunity to keep this dog, but we were determined to find a way to save his life. We called my parents to say "hey if we fix December" would you be willing to take him? They said no, they could not. The vet told us that even if we healed him we would have problems adopting him out because of his situation. After much crying and heartbreak we decided that the best plan of action was to put December to sleep, we really felt we had no other choice. If he would of been a different type of dog, then animal rescue would of taken him. If we weren't in the situation that we are in, having 3 dogs already and in fertility treatment, then we would of taken him. This is one of the hardest decisions we ever had to make and I don't know if I will ever feel 100% sure that it was the right decision. I believe that in life our struggles make us stronger, and the changes make us wise, but we struggled to understand, why us, why this dog. We wanted so much to save this dog and give him something better, but life ain't always beautiful and it broke our hearts not to be able to. So we shall never forget this day that we met a dog who we named December. Rest in peace our four legged friend.
New IVF Schedule
We went to the doctor this past week and got our IVF schedule for January. I will start my stimulation drugs on the 2oth, retrieval is set for the 31st and transfer on Feb. 5th. These dates are give or take a few days earlier or later depending on how my body is responding to the medications. I have been tested for the fragile-X chromosome and should have results by the end of this coming week. ( If I am a carrier, then we sit and talk with the doctor about our % of having a normal healthy baby). Our doctor is increasing my medicine to the extent that he would give a 40 year old woman. He said my body does not respond as it should be, so hes really turning up the notch. If I have a cycle like a did before ( which was not that great) after giving me all these medications, then we will have to sit down and talk with the doctor because most likely it is my eggs. Our hope is with this increase in dosage I will produce the eggs and estrogen levels that he wants to see and we grow nice little embroys.
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