General chatter while we wait (and commentary on the "pull out method")

[shaescott]

Winter I’m so sorry you’re going through this. It’s unfortunate that IVF doesn’t prevent all these things. I know of a YouTube couple, Phil and Alex, who did IVF and their baby girl had a CHD (not the same one), and it was the same one the father was born with despite all the genetic testing the fertility clinic did. She had a lot of surgeries as a baby, but she’s healthy now. I pray you have the same experience, that the surgeries will work and your little girl will come out of them strong and healthy.

Dobs oh yikes, that sounds like a nasty burn! Yes, xeroform does tend to stick when the wound dries, and I hate having to take it off people when it’s dried because it clearly hurts. Hopefully no more of that will occur.

 

[DobbyForever]

Pretty glad the cpap is working out and nobody got sick! Lots of great news! Gave you tested at all since your birthday m

In theory, the skin should eventually heal and look normal. But I’ve had smaller, less serious wounds take years to disappear. I’d post a picture but it’s pretty gnarly. I can try a spoiler in a minute.

Shae. I mean I generally stfu because my mom raised me “not to make anybody’s job harder” or that it’s not fun to poke and prod someone so keep it together. But even I was having a tough time keeping it together. Yeah I have some bandaid. Forgot what she called it. One is like a weird grey foam. That’s on my big wound. It’s super moist, which she said to expect. But I’ve called ten times today to ask if I need to change it early only to have them keep calling me back to ask what I want when I said just a yes or no answer! My thigh bandage has a bump that itches like hell. Idk that I can wait until tomorrow to change it.

 

[shaescott]

Dobs I would assume the gray foam is silver infused, silver is super good for burns, I had a pt once who got silver burn dressings. The fact that you need to put a silver dressing on it though makes a statement on how bad it is. When I poured boiling water on my hand as a kid I kept my hand in a bowl of ice water all day and the next day the pain was very manageable. No need for dressings, no blisters. Maybe it was because I cooled down my hand all day and it was able to re-absorb lots of moisture since it sat in water the whole time but idk. But considering how much pain I was in, I can only imagine how painful yours is. Did they tell you to drink a lot of water? Your body needs a ton of fluids in order to heal the area. When people come to the hospital with burns they get a ton of IV fluids, I believe there’s a whole formula for how much to give them depending on how much of their body is burned.

 

[DobbyForever]

Yeah. They said keep hydrated which was easy on break but at work I always forget to drink water =\

yhe pain is better. I was popping advil every 4 hours and NyQuil to sleep. Only need advil at the beginning and end of the day.

 

[DobbyForever]

Ok gonna try to post then quickly add a spoiler

seriously this is super disturbing and not for the faint of heart. Click at your own risk

pic 1 was after 40m under cool water (actually this ended up last but you get the point)
Pic 2 was 3 hours after spill, doctor said they’d prefer I go in but I could just do ointment at home
Pic 3 next morning, went to the doctor at this point
Pic 4 was the first dressing
Pic 5 is how it looks now

Spoiler

 

[shaescott]

Dobs mepilex Ag is the silver dressing. We use a lot of non-silver mepilex dressings in hospital nursing. Also 2/10 pain? Ma’am it sounds like you are an underreporter of pain, because if it was bad enough for you to go to a doctor, it’s more than a 2. For future reference, saying it’s more like a 5 and that’s why you’re there isn’t a bad thing, nobody will judge you or be suspicious until you say 8+ with a straight face and no outward signs of pain (at that point yeah they get suspicious). And WOW the lines from your pants. That’s wild.

AFM wedding planning is in full swing. About half of the people invited to the wedding have RSVP’d, so far 70ish yes and 13 no I believe. I’ve been buying little stuff for the wedding. I just picked up a big photo frame with a white mat to use as the guest book, we’re going to have everyone sign the mat and put one of our wedding photos in the frame to hang in our apartment. I ordered the favors, we’re doing bee-friendly wildflower seeds, here’s a photo from the Etsy page:


I also just ordered the floral arrangement for the ceremony gazebo, here’s the preview she sent me:

I also ordered some flowers you tie to the side of a chair, I’m going to put them on the border chairs for each section at the ceremony, so 8 total.

I ordered table numbers with pictures of SO and I from 2001 to now with the table number corresponding to the year (table 1 is 2001). I did it by year instead of age because he’s a year older than me, and I wanted to be able to do photos of us together once we met.
Example:

I got white button down PJs for getting ready on the wedding day.
Aaand I ordered some lingerie for the honeymoon. We’re actually not doing it right now… I got baptized on Easter and really wanted to wait until we were married once I’d been baptized, because it feels pretty sus to continue doing the same sinful things I was doing before the baptism after saying I’m going to follow God in front of my whole church (absolutely no judgement on anyone on that front because obviously I’ve been doing it for years lol). It’s less than 2 months now to the wedding, so I think we’ll survive. SO is not happy about it but he’s being very supportive.

 

[DobbyForever]

Oooo I love the flowers and the seeds! Super cute idea for the table cards with the yearly photos! Yay for 70! That’s a great party! When is your deadline?

I guess I just think of like pain 1-10 and 5 in the middle…. I mean idk lol yeah my pain scale is messed up. Need a visual like I’m WTE when she’s like “I’m a 8, frown face no tears!” Except in my mind if I’m not crying it’s 5. 7 is audible noise/screaming/crying. 10 is I’d be passed out by now lol. I def will pretend I’m ok until I’m really not ok though. When the first doctor scraped my blisters, he didn’t numb me and he was worried I had nerve damage because I was too still and quiet. But the xeroform removal, with two rounds of lido, was honestly worse.

And right?! The lines are nuts and intriguing but then I remember f* that’s my leg

 

[DobbyForever]

Just not looking forward to changing my bandages tomorrow. The exposed burns still hurt to the touch and are hard enough to wash. Idk how I’m going to stomach washing raw skin. I can tolerate a doctor doing it because I have to but doing it myself… not so much. I’d honestly make an appointment but tomorrow is a minimum day so I have to pick up A and he’s scared of the doctor now/I can’t do that to him again. Friday I can’t either. So wish me luck

was much less painful. My leg has that numb tingling sensation though. I have to go in because I have a new blister and I couldn’t get the dead skin off my larger burn despite washing it twice.

 

[DobbyForever]

No infection. Everything is healing as it should. But yeah lots more blisters and dead skin so now my whole calf is bandaged lol

 

[shaescott]

Make that 80 yes RSVPs. The deadline is May 10th, so I’m sure we have many more to come. Still 70 no reply.

Dobs glad there’s no infection. That’s a lot of bandages. Yikes. I consider it a 7 once I’m whimpering/groaning (not in a dramatic way), 8 being constant groaning/whimpering/crying, 9 near passing out, probably vomiting from the pain, 10 loss of consciousness. But the type of pain makes a difference in how you react to it, and your personal reaction to pain might not have you whimpering at a 7.

 

[DobbyForever]

Ooo nice definitely still time. At what point will you start nagging people?

yeah I was pretty impressed lol. She was staring at my leg for like five minutes mumbling to herself and looking at different bandages to figure out a plan to cover all the blisters without getting the sticky bits on anything but also in a way she could put that transparent layer on top so it would stay on until Monday. When she was done, she was like “do you want to come in so I can change it or do you think you can do it yourself?” And I just laughed lol. She said she has another burn patient right now and between the two of us were hella expensive

fair fair part of me is like if I’m at a 7-10 though I wouldn’t be at the clinic. I’d be in the ER. Like if I can wait for an appointment, it’s not bad. Or if I can mask that it hurts with deep breathing and balling my fists, it’s not bad. I did groan with her a lot on Monday. Everything was so painful. But both the first and second visit, I was pretty gassy because I turned the remaining Easter eggs into deviled eggs. And let’s just say the poor doctors because there’d be unexpectedly painful moments that caused me to fart dunno where involuntary flatulence falls on the pain scale

 

[PrettyInInk42]

Dobby - Wow, that leg is something else. This is why they told us to wear bag pants in culinary school. Not that people shouldn't wear tight pants in their own homes, just that this is why professional wear baggy ones. Would washing it in cool water possibly be less painful? Either way, I hope you're not too uncomfortable during the day.

shae - That's a cute idea, using pics of yourself for the table numbers. As well as the flower seeds. Something other than food, but not something that'll collect dust.
That's a nice way to really feel like things are different; abstaining til your wedding night. Hopefully you both aren't too exhausted from the day to consummate. lol
Sorry if you've already said it, but where are you going from your honeymoon?

Re: Testing. ICs arrived on Wednesday and I did one then; negative. Been having clear CM, sometimes even EWCM, for weeks. Maybe I should have gotten some OPKs to see if I'm even Oing, or what. But whatever.

In other news, got some video of Zoey taking a handful of steps, repeatedly. She's definitely getting more confident with that and standing. She just needs to learn how to stand up without using a piece of furniture and then she'll be unstoppable. lol

 

[DobbyForever]

Omg that’s so exciting that she took a few steps! And yay for catching it on camera. Interesting about the ewcm bummer about not having opks. Would be nice to know.

Yeah the pants def made it worse. Oh well. Just glad it wasn’t worse. My friend burned herself as well! The doctor wanted her to do light therapy and it gave her second degree burns! The worst was she followed the instructions to the letter and the doctor just blamed her. . But hers didn’t scar or blister really. Already looks basically back to normal.

Gonna stop taking Advil. I only have one spot that hurts, and advil doesn’t seem to do anything to make it stop.

 

[shaescott]

Dobs I agree that 7-10 is ER. It sounds like before the debridement you were at more of a 5 than the stated 3, that was more what I was talking about. I wouldn’t go to urgent care for a 3, but I’d definitely go for a 5 if it wasn’t improving on its own. I kind of think of a 3 as a headache you can still work through without feeling too awful, like it’s there and noticeable but not really impacting your ability to work very much. That doesn’t apply to mom work though lol, moms can continue to mom through horrific pain.
I’d probably also be staring at the burns for a minute to figure out how to not get the sticky parts of the dressing on the burned skin. It’s tough.
We’ll probably start nagging the day after the stated deadline, it’s their deadline and not ours for the venue.

 

[shaescott]

Pretty honeymoon is Italy for 18 days! We’re super excited.
That’s so crazy that Zoey is walking already! I remember you talking about wanting to TTC for her like it was last month.

 

[DobbyForever]

haha good plan to have that earlier deadline. Do you have an online RSVP or do they all mail them back? I’m so excited for you. Your wedding and honeymoon sound heavenly. Where are you getting all these ideas from?!

Haha yeah honestly I was so impressed. I honestly credit my healing to her. Things didn’t start improving until she laid hands on me both times.

Oh yeah I’m definitely underselling it. Lol. At one point, I was telling myself that I made it to 7cm without meds so if I could handle contractions then I could handle this but if it had been ongoing like contractions I’d definitely call for meds. I’m just shocked at how much it hurt even though I took two advil before and she did two rounds of lidocaine. Then I thought about poor A getting circumcised or his tongue tie cut with just lidocaine.

Im like 99% pain free and walking pretty normally. Finally cleaned the house! Had to rest a couple times but I can see the floors again and not trip on toys lol.

 

[shaescott]

Dobs we have online RSVP. I’m using Zola which was originally just a universal registry but they expanded so you can have your website through them and people can RSVP on the website. Also, the registry is embedded into your website, it’s not a separate link or page, it’s just on the registry tab. They also do stationary but I didn’t love the options, so I went with Minted for that. As for cute ideas, I see ideas pop up all over the place. Sometimes it’s just Google. I’m not sure where I saw the table numbers idea, maybe Pinterest. I’m not creative enough to come up with this stuff on my own

I’m glad that nurse had the special touch! Nearly pain free is huge. Lidocaine is used as a nerve block essentially for circumcision, they inject it on both sides of the base of the penis, at least the ones I saw. When it was injected correctly, the baby didn’t cry. Don’t be too hard on yourself.

 

[DobbyForever]

Yeah I think he didn’t cry for the circumcising according to my ex (they whisked him away too fast for me to keep up so sent the ex to supervise) but the tongue tie was brutal he was on the fence number wise but since he wasn’t able to latch they thought it might help but nope

Walking normally, mostly healed with a few tiny spots that are a bit raw and not happy to be out. Overall, crazy how much progress happened in ten days. No more bandages. Def allergic to the pure aloe I bought. My only guess is it’s the agar they use? I know I’m not allergic to aloe. Not ready to jump back into my jeggings. Wish I cited wear pj pants to work

update pic in spoiler because it’s definitely still not pleasant business

Spoiler

 

[shaescott]

Currently in a kinda sorta TWW (pullout only) because on Sunday my ovaries decided abstinence isn’t an option while I’m ovulating we hadn’t done it in 2 weeks but SO had taken care of himself earlier in the day while I was at work. Considering his reaction when we did it (it had been 2 weeks, he was very excited) I wouldn’t be surprised if there was extra pre-ejaculate, and since he had finished earlier in the day, any sperm left in his tract would be younger and more likely to be good. I know it’s a long shot, but my brain has decided to obsess over this long shot it feels like a slightly higher chance than usual pullout considering the circumstances. I was O-1, LH surge that morning.

Dobs Jesus Christ that looks so painful

 

[PrettyInInk42]

shae - Ooo, Italy. That'll be nice. My parent went back in the 80's (pre-kids) and my mom loved it. Are you learning any Italian in preparation?
And ya, time flies. Sometimes too fast. I miss feeling her kicking on the inside and the newborn scrunch. In just over a month, she'll be a toddler. :') I know you wanna be pg so bad, and I have totally been in your shoes, but your pregnancy days will be over quicker than you realize, no matter how many kids you have.

Dobby - Glad to hear you seem to be on the mend. FX it doesn't take too long for the discolouration to fade.