oh and it gets worse

So I could not sleep last night at all. I woke up feeling sick to my stomach. I went in and was fine. I met with the rep and we had a great chat. I thought ok so now we are going somewhere. I thought would be a good idea for him to speak to my boss without me. This would be man to man, rep to boss without my feelings getting involved. He agreed. I mentioned my compromise and asked him to bring it up. I said that I was ready to push the issue if he turns down my compromise. This would mean that I would enforce my working conditions of my contract etc. Hopefully we do not have to go there.

My room is used at the end of the day. It has been a major issue bc I have no where to go make a private phone call to parents and use the computer. I was backed up on calling a few parents back so I found a free room in the guidance office. I bump into a teacher who says to me hey do you want to come to our meeting. I was like hmm what meeting....Then I find out that the same two teachers from the last meeting were having another one without me. In fact, they got time out of their classroom that my boss has to approve so he knew they were having the  meeting. I get really upset and said no thanks, if they really wanted me they would have invited me. I start to cry again............

One of the teachers comes down and starts to yell at me...........it got really bad and I left the room and asked the secretary to come in and be a witness to my getting yelled out....She called the AP.........and OMG..............I don't want to go into details but it was bad..............

I got home and started to wonder what the hell is going on with me......I am falling apart. I just starting taking folbic. It is prescription strength folic acid, B6 and b12. Folbic itself did not mention any weird side effects. Then I looked up each part. It seems that folic acid popped up stuff about estrogen...........erghhhhhhhhh  so that could be why I have been crying non stop.............I have also been very warm at school. It was 80 in my room today but my dh said maybe I have been having some hot flashes???? All I know is that I feel the same way I did when I took clomid years ago....... So I am going to stop the folbic for a few days and see what happens........I am still pursuing the unfair stuff with the rep bc that is still a fact no matter how my hormones feel.

Becoming Unglued

Ok so I am sorry to continue like this, but I am starting to lose my mind. I have never felt so unglued before in my life. I actually started to mention to my DH that I need to seek professional help.......
I thought it was the PMS, so AF arrived and then I felt much better about the work drama even though I am still dealing with it.

Then today I checked FB before work and saw that my cousin wrote a post about my baby sister expecting her second child........I lost it and started crying. Here is a link to more back story with her. I was so mad that my parents did not tell me or have any sympathy for me. UGHHHHHHHHH I was able to refrain from going Jerry Springer on FB bc I wanted to write something not nice. I found an article about  infertility and  how families can help those in need. I sent it to my dad and my cousin privately and then I posted the link on FB  and just said here is a good link for anyone who knows anyone going through this.
http://www.resolve.org/support-and-services/for-family--friends/when-infertility-strikes.html

Then I went to work and started crying again....... and of course my boss saw me and probably thinks I am crying over him..... I was able to calm myself down when I saw my wonderful students. I told them to be nice to their siblings and never check fb before school.

Now I am sitting here and I am not sure what to think. I feel unglued. I am afraid to start trying ttc again. I have to start taking daily shots tonight. I have to deal with my sister. I have to deal with the work drama. My job was the one success I had and now it is coming apart. I think I am feeling worse about my IF bc I feel like a failure at work too. Getting lapped by your ungrateful super fertile younger sister does not help. Teaching was the one thing I was really good at.  I am so stressed out and then thinking about how stress is bad makes it worse.

I was supposed to have an us apt on Fri but now I have a meeting where my boss will be there.......awkward. So I have to change it to Monday. I have a meeting with the union rep tomorrow to discuss my concern about unfair workload and not being invited to the discussion. We will see.  I am freaking out about it. If this goes bad then I am going to have a mental breakdown.

Please pray for me.

work drama part 2

I went to bed and cried. I could not stop. I did not sleep at all. The next morning I got out of bed really early. I felt hung over probably due to dehydration from crying. I had a huge headache. I checked my email and my boss had written me and requested a meeting and said I could bring a union rep if I wanted to.
ugh so I took some Motrin and made myself go to work.

I decided to schedule the meeting for the end of the day so I would not allow him to ruin my day and send me into another panic attack. I was not sure if I should bring the union rep bc i did not want to escalate things. Well, by third period word got around the building  and the rep came to my room. He said that I need to have a rep there at the meeting to cover my butt.

I did not go into the deeper issues with the rep. I only said that he did something that made me panic and I had to leave. I thought I followed protocol and was not sure what the issue was. He said that he would check the contract and let me know. He then said that he heard I was angry and made a scene and stormed off.

We had the meeting and my boss was so furious. He gave me the crazy dagger eyes. He said the secretaries told him I slammed the door. I told him I was sick and that I opened the door said I am sick, I am going home and then I shut the door. I apologized if they thought I did, but those doors are very heavy and noisy to begin with. He would not accept that I was sick He kept pressing me to try to make me say I was angry. I did not tell him I was crying hysterically, I only stuck to the "I was sick" script that the rep gave me. I told him that i have worked here for years and that if I left in a hurry he should know that it was a real emergency and that I had to go home. He did not believe me, but it did not matter bc I did not do anything wrong with the procedure. The rep asked him to clarify procedure for leaving with an emergency and that is what I had done.

Then my boss started talking about the grouping and how I knew it was coming etc. and we cannot do private practice anymore and it is his job to make others do things they do not want to etc. I just sat there and stared at the wall. I told the rep prior that I did not want to discuss that. The rep said ok so I think we have this issue resolved. Then my boss went into the I think you are a great employee speech etc and we still need to resolve this another day.

Then we all walked out. On the way down the hall, the rep was like wow there is some other issue there between you. I broke down crying and told him. We had a great chat. It started to make me feel better like I have a voice again. I told him that I may want to go back another day and discuss how i feel it is unfair my coworkers got to pick my job assignment and I had no say. Then I got thinking about how I have had the advanced group for 7 years. I have had to do more work and gives extra HW, grades, bc I teach 7th grade math to 6th graders. I think that since we are making changes this needs to go back on the table. I think one of the other two teachers should take a turn. I think the most fair would be a 3 year rotation, so I only have to do it once every 3 years. I only accepted that assignment bc it allowed me to have my ais group. Now that he is taking that group away I have no motivation to take on the extra work.

It will be interesting from a labor contract point of view to see if I will get treated fairly or not. I know that he has the right to pick your assignment, but I don't think it is fair that some teachers got a say and other do not. Also not all assignments are equal. The most advanced group is the only graded group. That means a lot more work.

Work Drama

Warning this is a post contains the rantings of a woman with PMS.

This is a story about how my boss is a dictator and got me so upset at work today that I left early.

I am a math teacher. Teaching math is very hard bc students are supposed to know certain skills from the grade before and most of them don't. I have come to accept this. I have also been teaching the same grade long enough that I can anticipate what they need. Our school has it set up so that I teach a mixed ability group math every day. Then every other day we have an extra period with ability groups. One day is the advanced group and the next day is the extra help group. This has worked out great. I usually can get a good amount of kids to pass the math test. Last year I started with  58% of the students passing coming in to me and then I had 84% going out. I was very pleased with the growth.

Well some of the other teachers last year were not happy with the way things were run and got a bug in my boss's ear to change things. I wrote him a whole page about why my system was working and how I have  good scores every year and I did not want to change it. He could have changed the other teachers and left me alone so everyone would be happy. Instead he chose to ignore my request. I heard through he grapevine he was going to mix up all the kids anyway. So that was last spring. The issue got pushed under the rug. I decided to see what happens and not think about it.

Today he walks into my room and tells me that we are going to mix up the kids and that I have to take another high level group. They discussed this at a committee meeting that I was not invited to and they decided what group I should have without any input from me. He said he wanted me to hear it from him first. I told him that this was unfair and not what I wanted. He said we all have to trust each other. I was so mad I went next door to talk to another teacher. That is when I started to cry. I was so upset that he went behind my back Getting another high group mixed with other teacher's students was the worst case scenario. That means that none of my low students are with me.

I could not get over it. I started to shake and I was getting a burning sense like I could not breathe. I told that teacher that I could not go back to teach and was going to leave. She talked me out of just leaving, but I went to the office with tears in eyes and told the secretary that I got sick and had to leave. I went home and cried. I then called my DH.

I am sure that the PMS is making it worse. But mostly it is bc I care too much about how my students do. Here are my issues: There is no reason to mix up the kids, I already have them ability grouped and I do well on my results. He wants me to take the kids who are going to pass no matter what including those from other teachers, so my low weak students will get another teacher who does not know them and does not care as much about  them as me. It makes no sense to take them away from me. It is unfair that I do not get to work with my low students. I know what they need. I see their HW and CW.

Then there are the emotional personal issues: I am so hurt that he did this behind my back at some stupid committee. He knew I was not on board with this idea so why not at least let me pick what level group I want. There is no reason to do this to me. I feel personally attacked. If the other two want to swap kids he could have let them without making me. I give my heart and soul to that school. I stay late and tutor kids for free. My DH gets mad that I put them first. I take my work home. I spend my own money on school supplies. I feel that my loyalty should have been repaid instead I got slapped in the face. The school's average for our grade was 64% and I got 84% to pass.

I work very hard at my job. I think this is making me realize that I work too hard and have made school too big of a part of my life. I guess when you are an infertile teacher, your maternal instincts get placed on your students. I am going to have to rethink how much time and energy I want to put into this. I get a lot of satisfaction from getting kids that are low and making them improve. Being infertile makes you feel like a failure and working with these kids makes me feel successful.

Nobody cares that I do my job well.  I have 40 students and I get 2-3 thank yous at the end. I scored 20 points higher than the school's average and my boss did not congratulate me. I did not get any award or recognition.

I am so mad. I have to get this out bc I have to go back to work tomorrow.  He is such a dictator. He makes a decision and then he won't budge. I feel like a serf. I have no say in this at all. Does he really expect me to get the kids to pass this test after he deflated me and stepped on my heart?

I have to be careful bc I want to let him know that I do not agree but I do not want to get him so mad that he wants to get rid of me. This year there is a new evaluation system so he will be evaluated on how the students perform on the state test. I will not. It does not take effect for our teachers until our contract expires. So it may just come back to bite him in the butt. If I do not get to work with my low kids like last year then I won't have the high passing rate and then his scores will go down.

I am so sad that I have no say in this. He tells me that he thinks I am a great math teacher but he does not respect my opinion so who knows when he tells the truth and when he has lied to me. Over the summer I had a great chance to leave summer school for a week and work for state ed he refused to let me go bc he said" nobody could do what I do"

HMMMM Thanks for listening. I am not sure what to do. Any teachers out there reading this? Anybody else have advice? I do not understand his motivation for forcing me to swap my kids. What do I say to him? How do I get across the fact that I get good results based on teaching my own students. Do I mention the 84%? At this point I want to wash my hands of it and say I don't care who passes the test and let him deal with it. I do not need this stress. He is going to send a letter home. I am curious what the parents will think.

Hematologist and Napro Dr visit.

Okay so I am taking a break from my vacation story. Last night I wrote a post about the next day and then blogger malfunctioned and I lost it. I thought I could get the whole vacation story done first, but I have had some TTC updates that I want to share. I will continue with the vacation story another day. Writing about that trip makes me so happy. It reminds me that life does not have to revolve around us apt and taking meds.

Last week I saw a hematologist for the first time. I made the appointment last month. I was nervous that she would think the blood clotting issues and if link was bogus. She was great. She knew all about lovenox and said it was safe to use. She has many pregnant patients on it. She wants to monitor my CBC monthly to make sure my platelets do not go too low. She also said to take extra calcium bc lovenox can cause osteoporosis. She has a lab in her office. She took my blood. Then I walked down the hall and she already had the results. I was amazed. My levels were great so she cleared me to start. I was so excited that she was nice and on board. She said she would be happy to be part of my team.

Yesterday I traveled to see my napro dr. His office is 3 hours away. I speak to him often on the phone, but I had not seen him in person for a year.  I also needed to get the some tests done with a uterine biopsy. He said I could do it locally.  I do not trust a non napro dr as much as I trust him so  I thought it might be a good idea to visit. He recently moved into a new office space. It was very nice. Everyone who works in his office was very nice.The first thing I got done, was an us. At my local clinic, they said they saw something on my ovary. I wanted a second opinion from someone who I can trust. So I had TCIE scan me. It was great to finally meet her. I was a little shy bc I read her blog and meeting her was like meeting a celebrity. She was very thorough and kind. It turns out that they were correct. I do have some endo regrowth on my ovary. It has been 1.5 years since my surgery and I knew that it would come back someday. I am just very thankful that God gave me two ovaries bc my left one is still clean. I am also thankful that my fibroids did not grow back. She said my uterus was moving and then the dr said that was great bc it meant it was not stuck to anything with adhesions. Yeah!

Then came the biopsy. I was worried about how much this was going to hurt. My dr is so gentle that he takes his time and tries to make sure he is not hurting you if possible. I have been to many drs and some of them will just get rough bc they rush. It was not too bad. Crampy but not sharp pain. This got sent out to check for all sorts of things.

At this point I got the green light to start the lovenox next month. I feel like I am getting ready to go into battle. I had the summer off from US apts and any real expectation of TTC. Now next month I am getting back into the game. It was nice not having any expectations. Now I am scared to try again.

Starting next cycle on CD6, I will take a shot of lovenox daily and then add a shot of neupogen around peak. UGH but I can do this. I am going to try this for 3-6 months if I can stand it. If this does not work, I have nothing left. But that is what I said last Nov. Last Nov, I had nothing left to try and my LUFS was really bad. Now almost a year later, I found out about my high NK cells and my blood clotting.

Atlanta Trip Day 3

Saturday morning we woke up thankful for our wonderful hotel. We ate some power bars that we brought to save some money. We did not put the costumes on because we were going out to see the parade. We were lucky bc the parade route was one block from our hotel. We walked down there and found out that the streets were already packed. I did not expect such a turn out. We had to go down the street a little to find a spot where we could see. It was a great parade. They had all the costumes grouped by topic. Each topic had a banner to let you know what it was in case you were not familiar. There was such variety for example Disney, pirates, star wars, star trek, zombies, dr who, steam punk, super heroes, Harry Potter, knights and maidens etc. They had the Delorian from Back to the Future and the car from Ghost Busters. They had some floats and some music too. It was a very hot day in Georgia for that parade. I give those people credit.

Then we went back to the hotel and cooled off. We got our costumes on and went back into the convention. I had some major blisters from those boots. So I had to walk down town in flip flops and carry my awesome boots. I put them on when I got to the hotel. It was really hard to walk, but it was worth it. (I am not usually a fancy shoe person. I usually wear flats, so this was a big deal for me) We walked around and did some shopping.

Then we went to see Chad Vader. If you do not know ho he is you have to check him out on youtube. He is Darth Vader's younger brother and he is very funny. He works in a grocery store. There were two guys there. One guy wears the suit and the other does the voice. They explained how they came up with the idea, how they make the videos and how George Lucas did not sue them. In fact this guy does the Darth Vader voice for video games. It was really cool. We got to watch some clips from the show and ask him questions.

At this point we are walking around and other women are talking about following me bc I know where I am going. Hmmmm really? Ok so eventually, I go left and they go right. Someone yells out, wonder woman where are you going? The photo shoot is over here. Photo shoot? hmm really. I was not aware. So it was sheer luck that I was in that hotel. I got really excited and went out to check it out.  It was super hot out and the wig makes you even hotter. They did a large photo shoot of anyone dressed as a DC super hero. I was standing shyly by the side when they asked me to jump in. Then they started to separate the multiples out and take turns. I also got asked back.  I was having a lot of fun, but I was starting to melt. Then my DH wanted to leave to go see Captain Kirk.

We left to go get in line for captain kirk. They sign said the line forms one hour before it starts. Well when we got there, we found out that the line was already  outside the hotel and wrapped around the building a few times. We decided not to bother bc we might get heat exhaustion before the hour was up and then there is no guarantee that we would get in after all that.

We walked around some more and then we went to see a sci fi version of the match game. We both love that show from the 70s with Gene Rayburn. This was fun. The MC was the actor from Buck Rogers. Everyone had fun.

Later on we walked around some more. There are 5 hotels so you can walk around for a long time. We saw some new costumes, got more photos, people asked to take our photos. It was getting late, so the hotels were getting packed. It made me think of a mosh pit. You had to get in line to use the escalators. The crowd was so thick, they had security there to tell you to keep moving and not block traffic.

For dinner we got some event food like hot pretzels, hamburgers etc. There were so many people that there was no place to sit. So you have to sit on the floor. I was sitting down eating when a woman dressed as she hulk approached me to get my photo with her. She was so humble like I was a major celebrity. I stood up and her friend took our photo. Then the traffic flow stopped and people starting taking our photo. Then we started talking. She was so nice. She said I looked great. (I am normally a very shy plainly dressed person) I told her that I saw other women dressed the same that looked so much better and I felt shy. She said I looked "authentic" and had the best costume she saw. She said too many women are "pushing the spandex" I could not believe what she was saying. I was so happy that someone else thought I looked so good she had to stop me from eating to get my photo.

Later that night we walked home exhausted. My feet were so sore I had to do something. So I grabbed the recycle bucket and soaked my feet. My DH wanted to take a photo of the gross blisters, but I refused. I let him take a photo of my feet soaking. Then we went to sleep. What a great day.

(I tried to add some photos to the bottom and then blogger froze and I lost them. At the end of the whole story, I will send those who request it, a link to my flickr photo page.)

New Article: Gianna Center

I like to search Google news for infertility topics to see what is new. I was surprised today when I saw a photo of Dr. Beiter and his nurse Jamey in an article about the Gianna Center in NJ.
Here is the link, Pass it on.
________________________________________________________________________________
The Gianna Center for Women’s Health is named after Italian pediatrician St. Gianna Beretta Molla, who sacrificed her life for her unborn child in 1962, and embodies the saint’s devotion to Catholic morals. The FertilityCare certified center offers women natural ways to overcome infertility, a condition that affects about 7.3 million women of childbearing age.

Affiliated with St. Peter’s University Hospital and located on Easton Avenue in New Brunswick, the center officially opened its doors to patients in November 2010 and is steadily increasing in popularity.
The original Gianna center, located in Manhattan, opened in 2009 with funding by the former St. Vincent’s Hospital and is now privately owned.
St. Peter’s University Hospital lacked sufficient fertility care resources in 2010 and reached out to Beiter and Anne Meilnik, M.D. who is the director of the New York office.

“Unfortunately, a lot of the therapies used by other practitioners are destructive to early human life,” center director, obstetrician, and gynecologist Kyle Beiter, M.D., said. “We aim to respect human life at all ages, from the embryo to the old adult. This is not always easy or convenient to do but we believe that it is the right thing to do.”

Aside from general ob/gyn consultations and treatment, the center promotes NaProTECHNOLOGY and the Creighton Model FertilityCare System, two natural fertility treatment methods based on patient education and pattern observation. The hospital is the first in the state to offer these methods, Beiter said.
Beiter studied NaProTECHNOLOGY under a selective fellowship at Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha with Thomas Hilgers, M.D., the chief researcher of NaPro.

The Gianna Center is part of a network of 200 to 300 centers across the country that provide NaProTECHNOLOGY, most of which are run by family practitioners who refer to gynecologists like Beiter for procedures on a weekly, if not daily basis.Referrals are received from a wide range of areas, including but not limited to Massachusetts, Connecticut, the Tri-State area, and Florida.

“There are many women who don’t want contraception or birth control forced on them, and don’t want abortion as an option,” Beiter said in a press release. “For those reasons, we have found, many of them hadn’t gone to a gynecologist in years.”
Patients can choose to use the care-based procedures as alternatives to control-based methods such as In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) for treating infertility, or to avoid pregnancy by identifying detailed patterns in her menstrual cycle.

In avoiding pregnancy, the system is 96 percent effective; Birth control pills have a 92 percent effectiveness rate, according to Beiter.  “With fertility, our goal is to help conception through active intercourse between husband and wife, the most natural way,” Beiter said. “[Patients] respond in favor to it though we don’t force it on anyone.”

The center provides patients with additional testing to determine whether IVF can be avoided and if the couple can proceed with a natural pregnancy after treatment at the center. Because the center does not use IVF, an important goal is removing all disease.
Dr. Hilgers made significant developments in adhesion to reduce scar tissue build up, which is a common problem after surgery, according to Beiter.

“Our philosophy is that you can equal results by putting out far less cash out of your pocket,” Phillip Hartman, Director of Public Relations for St. Peter’s University Hospital said of the treatment, which is much less expensive for patients than IVF.
The center appeals to Catholic patients who hold ethical concerns as well as those who seek a more natural treatment.