Spring in Seattle

Dave says: Spring has come early to Seattle which is a good thing. We've seen temperatures in the 50s pretty consistently and a decent number of sunny days in the last two weeks. A number of trees and flowers are already in bloom here. Last weekend, we hit the trails with Chris, Keith, Sarah, and Pauline. It was a nice day on Duthie/Grand Ridge with only a little mud.

On the final Saturday in February, we woke up on a crisp sunny morning and made it out for our first "big" hike of the season up Mailbox Peak. We went up the old trail and down the new trail which is a great way to do it because the old trail is crazy steep and gets you to the top in half the distance but might not be as fun going down. On the way up we gained 4,000 ft. of elevation in just 3 miles. Alisha still likes to put the hurt on going uphill! We hit the snow line near the top and ascended through boulders in some pretty fresh powder to reach the famous mailbox at the top along with 360 degree views. On Sunday, we rode the HT29s around Lake Union for an easy spin and it was beautiful. It has been a busy couple of weeks at the university and I just gave a presentation to the faculty on Friday but now the quarter is almost at an end. I've really enjoyed teaching but I'm also looking forward to the break.

IVF Part 3: Waiting

Alisha says:
Friday, February 13, 2015

Now we are just in the another waiting time in which I have been on birth control for a few weeks while my body recovers and then I will be taken off them and will start a new set of injections in order to grow the endometrium lining for the transfer. My new box of meds/injections arrived and this time the shots are delestrogen and progesterone in oil and have to be given intramuscular (in the muscle)in the back of the hip area which requires a much bigger and longer needle that I had to use for the stimulating medications. The needles are  1 ½ inch long and are a little intimidating. I had injection training yesterday at the clinic, they said that you can give them yourself but it is easier if someone else does so we will see if I can talk Dave into doing it, he wasn’t too excited about the idea. After that I had to have another saline sonogram to make sure that no cysts or polyps had developed in the uterus. It is a simple procedure but they had a hard time feeding the catheter in and it ended up taking almost an hour and several attempts. Eventually they even had to use a tenaculum. Because of the trouble they had with the SHG they decided that it would be best to do a mock transfer to figure things out before the actual transfer.  The mock transfer was scheduled for the next day so back to the clinic I went, luckily it went smoothly and they have some notes and measurements for when they do the real embryo transfer.

February, 25, 2015

Yesterday we had a meeting with Dr. Johnson to discuss some lab results. Because I have technically had two miscarriages I had to get a panel of blood tests done to see if a blood lipid thing could be part of the problem. My results came back border line for one of the lipid and usually the treatment is to be on injections of heparin two times a day for the first trimester. I wasn’t sure if this was something that I wanted to do since the result was only border line and after a good discussion Dr. Johnson left the decision up to us and we decided that we are not going to use heparin this time.

 That night I was supposed to begin my delestrogen injections so while I was at the clinic I had them draw some target circles on my backside for where to aim. I decided that I would give myself the injections and spare Dave the experience. I thought I would be totally brave and just be able to do it but I have to admit that it was a little intimidating. I drew up the injection and then just stared at the needle thinking that it was big. I had to psyche myself up and then I just did it and the actual injection really wasn’t that bad. It made me a little sore but not too bad. I have to give this injection every third day up until the transfer when I will stop these shots and switch to progesterone injections which I hear really do make your derriere sore.

More meds to get ready for the transfer/post transfer. I ended up giving myself at least 115 injections and going through 22 vials of progesterone.

Going Underground

Alisha says:  When I looked at the extended forecast on February 1st all it showed was straight rain for the next 10 days. So the first week of February was a little rough for us. Still wanting to do something fun on Saturday we decided that a great rainy day activity would be to use a groupon that I had purchased for a Beneath the Streets Tour of the historic part of downtown Seattle. We learned some interesting history of Seattle and go to go to a few of the underground areas.

Here is a brief recap:
Seattle was originally built on a tidal mud flat and buildings were made out of wood. What this meant for the city was that twice a day the tide would come in and cause problems with flooding and the sewage. In 1889 there was a great fire where 31 blocks of the city burned. When starting to rebuild the city it was decided that in order to try to fix the tide/flooding problem they would raise the streets, all new buildings had to be constructed of fire safe materials and at least three stories tall. A retaining wall would be build surrounding each city block and then the place where the street was would be filled with dirt. Once the streets were filled with dirt a new sidewalk would be built and what used to be the 2nd floor of the buildings was now the entry level. For a time before the new sidewalks were built that were level with the new street you would exit a building by the original 1st floor, be greeted by a big retaining wall on which the new street rested, walk to the corner, climb up a 12-30 foot ladder, cross the street and climb down another ladder. Not one person died in the big fire but apparently several died and lots were injured using the ladders.

Once the new sidewalks were built the now underground levels went through several stages where they played host to many shady dealings before they were eventually condemned. Some of the underground areas have been restored and are in use and others look terrible. It was neat to see the pieces of old glass that worked as skylights.

The underground, the current sidewalk is on top of the ceiling

The original sky lights that you can still see if you walk around

 This is what the skylights look like from underground

 After our tour we went and checked out West Seattle and Alki Beach. You get a great view of the Seattle skyline across the water. And the fun day continued in the evening with a session at the climbing gym and dinner with Sarah and Chris.