Surgery success!

It's been one month and a few days since my hubby had his vasectomy reversal surgery. (If you want to get caught up with our story, check out the fertility label on the right side of the page.) I had read about people scoping at home in my group on babycenter for vasectomy reversals and at first I thought it was really strange. I knew I would never be one of THOSE people. Then I kept reading about people doing it, hubby had his surgery, and I got curious! He doesn't have his official SA until 3 months out so I wont know anything until then, and it's killing me! I mentioned it to hubby and he thought it was really weird. Then after his surgery he mentioned he was curious too. I took that as my ok, but don't spend money. lol. I found someone who happened to have a microscope that they didn't mind me borrowing and decided to try it out! At this point, I know his odds of having actual swimming sperm, is very low. I just wanted to see pieces, even dead. Just to know SOMETHING was getting through. Well we scoped, and guess what?! There was moving swimmers!

I took a video of it and while it's not the greatest video, I thought I'd share. I seriously just took my camera and zoomed it in on the microscope to see what I could see. You only see a very small portion of what I could see and it also didn't always focus correctly, but you could see them moving. It almost looked like fishes. lol.

In case you're curious, (you know you are!) I thought i'd add the video for your enjoyment ;)

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Pirate charm swap

As most of you know, I am fairly new to sewing. Well, I used to sew with my grandma when I was little but just recently got a sewing machine of my own and have been trying to actually use it! Last Christmas, a friend of mine did a holiday charm swap that I participated in, which was a completely new thing for me. We basically all swapped holiday fabric, 2 styles, 1 yard each and then mailed it to her where she then divided it up and sent it back out. It was a great way to get a ton of different quilt blocks easier then if I had tried to buy it all separate. Definitely cheaper too.

While working on changing my son's bedroom set into pirate themed, I thought how fun it would be to have a pirate quilt! So now i'm hoping to find people interested in participating in a pirate themed charm swap so that I can do that. Because i'm new to hosting and i'm concerned about finding enough participants, i'm going to leave the sign ups open for 3 weeks, with an additional two weeks to mail fabric. If by some miracle I have a ton of people interested, I may include alternates to possibly make the group larger as well.







Details:

1. Please sign up by  May 17th, and have all fabric mailed by May 31st. This should give you time to find fabric, and cut it in time.
2. You will need to include a prepaid, self addressed stamped envelope along with the charms when you mail them to me. Using a bubble envelope is advised to make sure that there are no tears in packaging, but it's up to you. 
3. Put your fabric in a ziploc bag and include an index card with your name and email address. Also stack your fabric, alternating, to make it easier on me while sorting.
4. There will be 28 participants who will all need to find 2 different styles of fabric, 1 yard each.  Please find something pirate themed for the first yard and for the second, use an accompanying color fabric. 
5. Fabric must be quilt shop quality fabric. No Joanne's or Walmart, etc. 
6. Please cut 5x10 charm squares; you can get 28 to a yard. This will leave you with larger pieces that you can cut down to 5x5 if you want or leave it as is. More flexibility that way to use it how you would like. Everyone will receive 1 charm of each fabric back; which will be equal to the two yards originally sent.
7. Fabric must be new, unwashed, and come from a smoke free environment.
8. Upload pictures of your fabric to the swap Flickr group and include the name of the fabric, designer, etc. This ensures that there are no duplicate fabrics chosen and allows everyone to find out more about the fabrics in case they would like to order more once they have received their charms.

Thank you for checking out my charm swap! Hopefully this will be successful and I can do more in the future :)

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Surgery!

I should have posted this earlier but I was busy with taking care of hubby, a vacation to Vegas, job hunting, and me procrastinating.

But here's the news:

HUBBY HAD SURGERY!!!

He got a phone call from Madigan on Friday, March 22nd to go in for surgery on Tuesday, March 26th. By the way, we left for Vegas on March 28th! Short recovery time, I know.

Surgery went well. They said that it was text book and it couldn't have gone any better. He was told to stay off his feet for two weeks and then two weeks of light duty after that. He's on his last week of light duty right now.

Recovery was a little rough with Vegas a couple of days after. He pretty much kept himself tipsy on alcohol and popped percocet the entire time. Not an ideal situation by any means but he wasn't going to tell them no when they called.

He was pretty black and blue after. And when I say that, I mean entirely black. Almost four weeks later there's still a little bit of discoloration but it's almost gone. There's also two incisions, one on each side that are fairly generous in size. They had dissolvable stitches but on one side the stitch popped out which left a little hole but it's starting to heal up.

Overall, he's doing good but he does have an occasional off day if he does too much. He did end up with a double hematoma, which the doctor said is common in his line of work. Soldier's don't know how to take it easy. LOL.

So now we're off to the fun part! Baby making! Unfortunately we've had a stomach bug rotating through our house which has put a damper on that, but it'll work out. He wont have an SA until 3 months out so we really have no idea if he even has any moving swimmers, but we're hoping. I really want to get a microscope and test my own sample but I don't have one. I know, that sounds kind of crazy, but it's really common with people who do vasectomy reversals. I'm just really curious. I want to know if there's anything moving in there!

Nervous, waiting to get wheeled in

Well, wish us luck!

What to do first/already completed:

• Soldier goes to his local aid station to get an appt with his doctor
• Appt with doctor to request referral
• Call phone number to get on list and make sure referral was approved 
• Wait till our time is up on the list and then surgery! :)

What needs done:

• Start babymaking!

*Are you (or your husband) a soldier and has had a vasectomy? Do you want to have it reversed so that you can have children? It is possible! Tricare does not cover vasectomy reversals but specific military hospitals do the surgery for FREE on an on call basis. Once you get on the list, you wait till your name is on the top, and when they have a surgery that is cancelled, they fit you in. This means you will receive a phone call the day before to see if you can come in for surgery the next day. You will then wait at the hospital all day until they fit you in. Don't let anyone tell you it isn't possible, it is! Make sure to subscribe to Kinda Crunchy Mama (on the right hand sidebar) so that you can keep updated on my experience and follow along with all my fertility posts.  

Here's a great PDF from Madigan talking about their vasectomy reversals.

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Job hunting

Have you looked for a job in the current economy at all? I have. I actually have been looking for a job since moving back to Washington in Dec 2011... I stopped for awhile and was babysitting but when that ended, I started looking again.

I don't know why it's so difficult. No, I don't have a college degree, and nowadays with the way the economy sucks, that's what everyone wants. And there's plenty of people out there who can give it to them.

I have work experience though. A good amount. Up until I moved to Korea, I worked for the same retail company for almost 10 years and was an assistant manager. When I moved to Korea I found a job on one of the first things I applied for. And it was hard in Korea. Too many people and not enough jobs open. But I did it. So why can't I do it now?

I would love to stay home but financially that's really not an option for us. And now with hubby home and no deployment pay, I really need to find a job... Should I also mention my son is in school now. Half days, but it's still school. So when he's not home i'm bored. Yes, I could clean the house. That's what I should do. But that's no fun. I lack the motivation to do that. I'm also a very social person and I am going crazy sitting home by myself. I need people! I need interaction! And while I love having Facebook, that's just not enough for me.

Our local town is having the spring fair that started today and they were hiring on Tuesday. I went down there and waited in line for two hours for them to run out of positions. They take first come, first serve, and with people bypassing the line and cutting in, some people who had been there for hours before the rest of us, didn't make it in :( Now i'm sitting at home, hoping they call me to come in last minute because someone didn't show up. Luckily, hubby is home starting tomorrow for the whole weekend so I don't have to worry about Gideon but for today, I do. The lady at the fair said she'll take whomever can get there the fastest so I don't have time to drop him off at a sitter. So I have a sitter lined up to pick him up from the bus that I will call at the last minute if I don't get called in. So far I haven't gotten called in...

It's hard out there. Applying for jobs isn't as easy as running your resume to a bunch of businesses any more. Or filling out a standard application. Everything is online and you need cover sheets and letter of interests that are specific as well as questionnaires and tests filled out... It's a full time job just looking for a job.

I'm frustrated and i'm tired. I just want a job. Is that too much to ask for?

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