Posts Tagged ‘suring’
It seems like fate
As I wrote in my other post, my cousin recently died. My cousin was beautician and had been doing my mother’s hair for the last 33 years. She really needed a perm, however, she was waiting for my cousin to get better. Obviously, that did not happen. My mom made an appointment at the same place that I had my hair done at for my wedding. We had great service at that time, and she remembered that it seem like an older person place. They put her with a wonderful woman named Michelle.
You know how you get to talking to the beautician doing your hair? Well, my mom and Michelle started talking. They talked about how they both grew up on farms — her in DePere, my mom in Suring (now Suring is an hour north of Green Bay and has about 500 people living there). When my mom said Suring, Michelle was like I know somebody from there. My mom was like “Oh really! Who?” Michelle said “Well her mom’s name started with a B. I think it was Beulah.” Well, Beulah was my aunt. She died several years ago of ovarian cancer. The person she knew was my cousin Carmen. Carmen died 12 years ago. She was 6 months pregnant and in the hospital for kidney infection. She had a brain anerism and died instantly. She was a first grade teacher at the time. Honestly, it was the sadest funeral I have ever went too. Not only was my family shook up, there were all these little kids there who understood to varying degrees what was going on. Well, Michelle’s daughter had Carmen as a teacher. The school put a memorial bench in Carmen’s honor. Michelle was the one who collected the money to get that done.
Now, Green Bay isn’t a small town, so for my mom to run into this lady is just well odd. I am glad she met her. It was like it was meant to be. When she was telling this story, I felt like I should be sitting in some home theater seating and eating popcorn, because this whole situation feels like it came out a movie.
Ever have something like this happen to you?

Gravestone Marker
I figure my Halloween post is a good lead in to my next topic here.
We were up in Suring this last weekend for my family reunion which was held at the old schoolhouse. Next to this building is a cemetery. A lot of my family is buried there, so we always try to take a walk through when we are up there. One of the coolest (yes, I am using that word) gravestones up there has an interesting saying on it. The guy who is buried there was blind and wrote his saying himself. This is what is written on his gravestone:
Remember friends as you walk by
As you are now, so once was I
As I am now, you soon shall be
Prepare for death and follow me.
Cool and creepy. Let me know what you think. What would you want on your gravestone?
Positive Triple Screen Test
I discussed this somewhat on my other blog, but I figured I’d talk about it here too. Whenever I figure out how to combine both blogs, this may end up being a double post, but what ya gonna do. Let me give you a bit of history for those of you who do not know me.
I use to be on Depo Provera. When I went off of it to try and get pregnant, I was under the assumption that it would take up to 18 months to get my cycle back. I had a kidney stone and when they did a CT scan (at least, that is what I think it was) I went a new OBGYN and he told me I was wrong about the Depo and ran a bunch of tests. He first told me that I had premature ovarian failure. Then when my test results did not come back to confirm that, I had polycyctic ovarian sydrome. He then started me on hormone replacement therapy. It made me sicker than I have ever been before. Then he wouldn’t return my call when I complained about it. I decided to go to another OBGYN and get a second opinion. Guess what? It takes up to 18 months for Depo to get out of your system. My cycle returned about 18 months after going off of it. I think it still took us another 6 months to get pregnant with Madison.
Getting pregnant with Madison was the easy (and fun) part. What was next to come wasn’t. I ended up in preterm labor with her 6 times (4 times it was stopped with medicine). One of my many visits was Christmas Eve. I ended up with 6 ultrasounds on the kid. On the 5th ultrasound, her waist was measuring short, so we had to get another one. They thought she had IUGR. Of course, after 5 ultrasounds, she was stubborn and would not show us if she was a boy or girl. On #6, she was cooperative. We found out she was a girl and that her waist was measuring fine. The funny part of this story is that she is most long waisted kid you will ever see now. At 2 years old, I had her in 4T shirts because otherwise they were too short.
Fast-forward to now. Madison is now three. In July, I suffered a miscarriage at 5 weeks. It was devastating. We decided to try again and I am now 4 months pregnant with a due date of June 25. On Thursday night, we got a phone call from my OBGYN and are slowly seeing our world crashing in on us again. My triple screen came back high. What does that mean?
That means that I have a higher risk for having a baby with a nueral tube defect. We went on the internet and did a search on that term. What this usually means is spinal bifada or Anencephaly (this is the really bad one. This is fatal).
I also found out that there is a high false positive rate for this screening test. However, I keep going to the place where what about the people who aren’t false positives. What happens if we are one of those?
Here’s our plan of action. I already have a Level II ultrasound scheduled for Feb. 2nd. Before the ultrasound, we have to meet with a genetic counselor who will tell us our odds of how bad this is. Then we have the ultrasound. We should be able to tell from the ultrasound how bad it really is (or how good). However, if the baby does not present correctly, we may still not have an answer. We then need to decide if we want an amnoicentisis (sp?). They will do one immediately if we decide to do it then. If they fast track it, then we would have an answer by Tuesday. Otherwise, there is a 7 – 10 day wait for the results.
Needless to say, I am a wreck. Bill keeps telling me to think positive and I am finding it hard to do. I think the miscarriage has jaded me. I am trying not to go to all the dark bad places in my head, but it is hard. And the wait till Friday might kill me. So if I seem a bit bitchy or mad or sad, this is why.






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