Advice Smackdown UPDATES!

We LOVE updates! If you’ve had a question answered here at Ye Olde Advice Smackdown, we love hearing how (or if) things worked out. You know, we worry sometimes. Other times we’re just kinda nosy. Here are a couple updates we’ve gotten recently:

UPDATE ON: Conceiving After Cancer

Hi Amy,

Gosh, I’ve wanted to be able to write you with this update for so long, but haven’t been able to until now. I wrote to you back in the fall of 2010 asking for your advice about being a childhood cancer survivor and seeing a Reproductive Endocrinologist for help in getting pregnant. We ended up doing 4 rounds of Clomid and IUI with acupuncture, getting pregnant twice and both ended up being chemical pregnancies, not progressing beyond 5 weeks. After the 4th round, I had to be taken off of the Clomid and we were told that IVF was our only option at that point, and the term “atypical PCOS” was tossed around, we never could get the RE to give us a good solid diagnosis. We wanted answers as to how IVF was going to keep me pregnant since I was getting pregnant with the IUIs, and we weren’t given any clear answers. So, we decided to go the holistic route. Through a friend who’d also had trouble getting pregnant, we found a holistic doctor who GUARANTEED (can you see where this is going?) he’d have me pregnant within 6 months. I thought it was a little arrogant, but figured I didn’t have anything to lose at that point. I cut all processed sugar and gluten from my diet and took all kinds of supplements, but a year later I still wasn’t pregnant.

Around this time, my husband was given the huge opportunity to open a new division of the company that he works for in Miami, FL. We put trying on hold until we moved and were able to get settled in a new city. We went from a 4 BR house in the suburbs of Atlanta to a 2 BR teeny, tiny condo in Downtown Miami. It took us about a month to figure out that we were “house people”, not “condo people” and we decided to put off trying again at least until after the first of the year so that if I got pregnant right away (ha ha ha, like that would ever happen…), at least our lease in the condo would be up and we would be in a house by the time a baby came. And then, we found out that we were pregnant. I will hit the 12 week mark tomorrow. I had the nuchal translucency scan this morning with the Maternal Fetal Specialist and she just gushed and gushed over what a perfect baby I had growing and bouncing around in there. We are so excited that we can’t see straight.

So anyhoo…Thank you so much for your words of encouragement 2 years ago, you’ll never know how much it meant and how often I went back to what you said about kicking cancer’s ass and infertility having nothing on me.

Thanks again,
Hayley

EEEEEEEEEE! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! What else is there to say? Such happy news and I’m obviously beyond freaking thrilled for you. YAY!

UPDATE ON: Postpartum Excursions & Outings: How Much is Too Much?

Hi Amy!

I recently wrote in about my husband and mother in law dragging me all over town postpartum, remember me? Well some (awesome) commenters asked for an update so here it is, if you’re interested. 

First of all, thank you thank you thank you, and thank you to all the great comments too, for telling me what I was too tired to realize! I am now 8 weeks postpartum, finally feeling good after c section, getting a LOT more sleep (can I just brag that my little guy sleeps from 10-7 every night?), and feel normal energy levels again and I look back and want to kick myself for not standing up for myself more. 

I had the come to Jesus talk with my husband later that dreadful Oktobetfest day. He really is a nice guy I swear, he waited on me hand and foot all nine months of pregnancy, made me breakfast before work, packed my lunches, made me dinner every night… Which is partly why I was SO upset at how I was being treated postpartum (even more exhausted than I was during pregnancy.) Anyways, away from his precious mommy, I told him I was doing too much and needed to be resting and recovering (though this makes it sounds like I was a lot nicer and calmer than I actually was.) And my loving and sometimes clueless husband told me he was sorry, said he had a hard time knowing how crappy I felt because it wasn’t something he could visibly see (unlike pregnancy where I was clearly and visibly miserable.) We had a long talk and the next day he ASKED me if it would be ok if we went to his grandparents for dinner making it clear that 1. We wouldn’t go if I didn’t want to. 2. We would leave the second I said I was ready to go. And 3. He would tell his grandparents that I would be taking a nap in the basement whenever I felt like it. Ah, much better.

Also he told his mom that night that I had been doing too much and needed to take it easy. 

While I worked things out with my husband, my mother in law still woke up every day with big plans of what we were going to go do! Even after my husband talked to her! How crazy is that? Rest assured I told her a big fat NO to all of her grand plans (she went out by herself) and I now know that she will not be welcome for any postpartum visits in the future! Only my mom who was actually helpful and cleaned my house and made sure I had food and watched the baby while I napped like a normal person should!

Good riddance to HORRIBLE postpartum guests! And bear hugs to anyone going through those first few newborn weeks!

Sincerely,
Number One 🙂

GOOD FOR YOU. Lord, I just went back and re-read that column and had to laugh at how white-hot RAGEY I clearly got while writing it. I am pretty sure I had to get up and take a walk afterwards because I got so ridiculously het up on your behalf. (As did most of the commenters, too.) But I’m glad to hear that your husband immediately saw the error of…well, all of it, without you having to involve your doctor or divorce lawyer or threats of bodily harm.

(And I have to say I do sort-of understand the “I didn’t know because it’s not something VISIBLE” excuse, since my own husband fell into that particular trap once, too, when it came to the vicious food aversions I struggled with during my second pregnancy. Just because I wasn’t necessarily barfing in the bathroom on a daily basis past the first trimester didn’t mean it was okay to PROMISE to pick up a veggie burrito for dinner and then show up two hours later with RAW MEATLOAF MIX INSTEAD.)

(The good news is, that story is now officially one of our favorite anecdotes to laugh over: The time Jason brought raw meatloaf mix instead of Chipotle and I basically threatened to divorce him. Memories!)