HUGE changes in behavior

So this is going to be our updates post.
I am going to make a nice long list of all the HUGE leaps and bounds my kids have made in the last 6 months. B and I had a nice long talk last night in bed about how AMAZING they've been doing recently compared to how they were when they got here. I will work on it this afternoon, and update this post this evening. Be on the lookout!
-Megs

Ok, here it begins.. check back in a day or so, and hopefully I'll have it done. lol!

The kids are all learning to use their polite words, BEFORE they throw a tantrum. When they got here, it was scream and cry and throw a fit, even for a glass of milk.

The girls are not having their nightly (sometimes several times nightly) nightmares. They stopped about a week or so ago! Praise the Lord, that is a load off my shoulders.

Big A doesn't demand to be dressed, fed, wiped, have his teeth brushed, etc. (he's 6, and I guess felt like if I had to do those things for him, that I couldn't leave or something. I don't know.)

I haven't seen "stubborn pose" out of Little A (now known as D) in a good long time!!

Neither one of the older kids have fits of rage any more, and they have not tried to hurt me for several weeks now.

They cleaned their rooms by themselves, and did a FANTASTIC job yesterday for the first time. When they got here, they'd insist they didn't know how to clean. Or big A would demand that his sisters HAD to help him clean his room. He still does that a little, but takes redirection now.

D's speech is exponentially better. Now strangers can understand about 70% of what she says instead of 25%. She also takes redirection relatively well, but is still the most stubborn person I know.

We are not having the nightly rages we were having EVERY night before bed out of Big A. That is a relief.

Big A sleeps in his own bed w/o protest, every night. Granted, the light is still on in his room, but he falls asleep just fine.

more to come. (yes, I do believe there is more!)

covered vs not covered

So I'm trying to figure out if heparin is a covered drug under my prescription plan has proved to be quite a hassle.
This may get interesting.
Turns out my insurance will cover all diagnostic testing for IF and RPL, with some out of pocket expenses and deductibles.. some things are covered 100%, like labwork (which is good, I've had many 100's of dollars of lab tests done this month).

I got a chance to talk to a mom (who has 10 bio kids, most of them while fostering!) at our adoption agency Christmas party about being pregnant and having babies while fostering, and she had nothing but good things to say about it. Reassured me that our thinking is right, that it's a great opportunity for our kids to feel even more like a part of the family, when they become brothers or sisters all over again! Also gives great opportunity for our kids to learn more about what it means to be a part of a family, that there are things that they will be expected to help with, just like any other family.. I am excited by the prospect and hope of being able to give my kids a brother or sister eventually, and what that will mean to them, to know that even though they didn't come from my tummy, that they are just as much a brother/sister to the baby as a bio-kid would be. So exciting!
-Megan

So what to do about all these answers??

Right now, our thinking is that other than the direct treatment for these issues, we're going to be spending a few months just "trying on our own" again.. so heparin, baby aspirin, folgard, for 3 months or so.. then we'll start talking IUI's again, but not for several months. This is something we don't want to get in debt over. It wouldn't be fair to our three kids. We also want to give them a few more months of adjustment before we add to the family. We're kind of hoping that a year from now we have a new family member. We have been talking with the kids about having a baby brother or sister, and they are all anxious to have more kids, they have since the beginning. They're used to having kids of all ages, including babies living with them, so they miss having other kids around!

Anyway.. this is all talk. We're not sure what we'll do, and it's still ultimately under God's sovereign control. Either way the kids will have at the very least, 9 more months to bond with mommy and daddy before we add to the family.

-megan

Finally have some answers

So not on the topic of adoption or foster care...

Though the kids are doing well, and we were officially moved to an "Adoption case worker" instead of a foster case worker, but no word on the legal stuff or anything like that. Looking more and more like we'll have to wait the full 2 years for that crap to go through.


So Baron and I decided to move forward with some more fertility testing. We were getting a little tired of having no answers, and repeatedly miscarrying, especially since we choose not to use birth control for moral reasons.

So far, we have a whole host of answers, amazingly enough. Something my OB/GYN who specializes in Infertility couldn't find.
I am homozygous for MTHFR mutations. This means I can't metabolize Folic acid and this can cause multiple reasons to miscarry. It's needed for blood clotting, and neural tube formation in the fetus.
I am also VERY positive for APA's, or Antiphospholipid Antibodies. Also a clotting disorder. This can cause thrombosis and embolisms if left untreated, but normally nothing is done until it causes a problem. Thankfully they think that 5 miscarriages is a problem. Basically what happens is that microclots form where the embryo attaches. Conception takes place, the baby tries to burrow in, and all of the sudden my uterus says "NO WAY JOSE!!" and forms a clot. Thus all the early miscarriages right near the time of implantation.
I am also positive for another clotting factor, and he didn't mention which one it was.. but it really doesn't matter. The treatment is all the same.

I am now on Folgard (a TON of extra folic acid and B12) and Baby Aspirin, daily. For the rest of my life to help prevent clots that could kill me. (Praise the Lord that we found this. I have several close family members who have had this problem and some of them have died from heart attacks)
From the time of ovulation until the start of a new cycle or a BFP (big fat positive pregnancy test) I'll be taking low-molecular weight heparin injections, twice a day.

I also had a Sonohystogram today, which is basically just where they inject saline into the uterus, and do an ultrasound. Everything looked good (no fibroids, no septum, no polyps) but I had NO lining at all. Which also explains miscarriages. No lining=no place for embryo to attach to.
So not sure what they're going to do for that, we'll see.
I have another u/s on monday to see if my uterus ever decides to catch up and make a lining.

I guess that's about it for now.
I am sure there will be more later.
-Megan