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Sometimes things don't end up quite the way we expect them to.
A couple of months ago, I mentioned how I had been called up for Jury Service. I was excited about it, because I figured it would be cool to do something I'd never done before, and get paid for not being at work. Plus the idea of sitting on a jury for a court case does sound kind of exciting.
Jesse from my work had been called up for Jury Service a few months ago, and so I found out from her that it doesn't always work out. They always call up more people than they actually need for the amount of cases they are having that week, and people get selected for the jury or juries, and the rest aren't needed and are sent away.
Still, I figured, no biggie. If I get picked, cool. If I don't, then hey, I still get to do something else on a Monday morning instead of being at work, and then once I'm not selected, I just go back to a regular week at work.
But, it turned out to be more complicated than that.
I got there on the Monday morning, first thing was I went through the security at the court house, metal detectors and all that, and then followed the signs to the right floor. Got signed in by the guy at reception and then went and sat in the waiting area room.
A bit of a wait, while people slowly arrived, some of them a bit late, but about 75 of us in total.
Once everyone was there, they played us this cheesy DVD, all about the honour of serving the community by doing jury service, and blah blah blah.
Then finally a guy came in and showed us this big wooden cylindrical box thing. There was a flap he opened and put in bits of paper with each person's name on it. Then he spun the thing around and around several times to mix all the names up, and then he stopped it, opened the flap and started drawing out bits of paper and reading the names.
About 25 people's names got read out, but mine wasn't. But before I could feel too disappointed, he said they are drawing a second group, for another trial. So he spun around the remaining names in the wooden box, drew out more bits of paper and read out names.
Another 25 or so people's names got read out, and once again, mine wasn't.
Then he gave instructions to the two groups whose names had been read out of where to go to, and said everyone who's names hadn't been read were free to go.
But...it didn't mean I was done for the week.
We were all given this phone number, and told we had to call and check the voicemail on it every night, in case we got called back in the next day, if another trial came up later in the week. So this meant now I had no idea what was going to happen, when I was going to be needed to come back and I couldn't give work a clear answer on when I would be at work.
And let's face it, the idea of being on a jury had seemed a little exciting. But it had also seemed a little nerve-wracking, not knowing what I would have to do. So the whole time the names had been being read out, I had been feeling nervous, and now I had just been told I might have to go through that again and again throughout the week, but I wouldn't know for sure.
I stalled a lot before going to work on Monday after I wasn't needed at jury service. I stopped for a coffee, wandered around Wellington a bit, and then drove home to Porirua because I had "forgotten" to bring my work uniform with me that morning into town so I went home, got changed into uniform, had some lunch at home with Taina, and then headed back into town for work.
I didn't tell work that I had only been at the court for about an hour, so as far as they were concerned, I had rushed straight to work just after.
Monday night the court voicemail message said we weren't needed for Tuesday. Darn, I had to go to work as normal.
Tuesday night the voicemail said we were needed for Wednesday, so I let the boss Katy know, and Wednesday morning I was back to that room, this time with a much smaller group of us (because some people were already on juries since Monday, and some people hadn't bothered to check the voicemail message and so hadn't come back) and once again they drew names out of the fancy spinning box to select potential jury members.
This time, my name was actually drawn.
So once all the names were drawn, the few people who hadn't been drawn left, and those of us remaining were told to stay there and wait a while. So we sat around for about 45 minutes. I spent the time playing a mixture of Wordscapes and Solitaire on my phone, but trying not to drain too much battery power on it, whilst also listening in to the conversation going on with the ladies behind me.
Finally, when it seemed like we had been waiting ages, the guy came back in, and told us we were all no longer needed, as the defendant/defendant's lawyer had arranged a deal with the court in exchange for a guilty plea, so the case no longer was going to trial.
Ugh. All that sitting around for nothing.
So once again, I dawdled and killed a bit of time, but eventually knew I couldn't get out of going back to work so I went back for the afternoon.
Far from exciting, all this jury backward and forwarding and uncertainty had just become frustrating and kind of stressful.
Thursday I wasn't needed, so once again I had to go to work, but now the stress of the week became too much, and I ended up falling asleep in the work staffroom mid-morning and being sent home on sick leave. And then Friday I wasn't needed either, which was good because it meant I got to have my normal Friday/Saturday weekend.
So I guess what my jury service experience has taught me is, it's very all over the place and unpredictable, so don't try to juggle it with work. Just apply for the week off as annual leave, even if it feels like a waste of leave if you might end spending it all on a jury. But at least that way, if you're not needed, you just go home, chill out, and wait to see what is happening tomorrow.
Now aside from the jury service, which was about 3 or 4 weeks ago now, some other things have been happening. I mentioned in my previous entries about how me and Taina got referred to see the fertility specialist, and how he diagnosed me with PCOS and prescribed me a fertility medication called Letrozole to regulate my hormones and allow me to ovulate regularly.
So a week or two after seeing him, I got a period, in early April, and so I followed his instructions and took the Letrozole once a day on days 3-8 of the cycle (Day 1 being the first day of getting the period). Then stopped the medication after Day 8 as instructed, went about trying to conceive throughout the month, and then got a blood test taken on Day 21 to check if I had ovulated already.
The idea behind this was that if the Letrozole works properly, the ovulation should occur somewhere around Day 14-ish, and then if I didn't become pregnant this month a period should arrive around 2 weeks after ovulation, around Day 28 of the cycle.
However, given the dosage of Letrozole he gave me was a lower dosage of the options available, there was a possibility my body wouldn't respond to it, in which case if my body didn't respond and I didn't ovulate by Day 21 (with PCOS often you ovulate really late or don't ovulate at all some months) the blood test should be able to show it, in which case he would contact me to let me know it wasn't working so he could prescribe me the higher dosage for the next month.
As it happened, I ended up getting the blood test done in the morning of Day 22, because Day 21 was Anzac Day and the clinics for blood testing weren't actually open anyway.
But I never heard anything after the blood test was done, so I assumed this meant the blood test had shown I had ovulated and the Letrozole had worked, as that is the typical system with doctors- if test results are fine, they don't contact you.
But then Day 28 came and went, and no period came. I didn't get excited too quickly, as I figured it wouldn't necessarily be as exact as that. So I waited a few days. Still no period.
Now of course, if you are someone who wants to get pregnant, and you have reason to believe you might be pregnant (because of a missed period), and you are an extreme overthinker and overplanner/overresearcher like I am, you immediately start looking up every possible sign and symptom of early pregnancy, and immediately become convinced you are experiencing every one of them.
Nausea? Yeah, now you mention it, my stomach feels slightly off...
Sore breasts? Yeah, they are a bit tingly...
Fatigue? Oh yeah, I'm yawning right now as a matter of fact...
Bloating? Yeah, I don't usually feel this full after eating a sandwich...
So as hard as I tried, not to let the excitement creep in, it got me.
So then I took a home pregnancy test. Negative.
So immediately I googled every article possible about pregnancy tests, and all the people who found them to be inaccurate, who had gotten negative tests, only to find out later they were pregnant all along.
And I constantly kept telling myself, no, not yet, don't get excited, don't get carried away...
Day 35 and still no period. Took another pregnancy test. Still negative.
Now I was just getting angry and stressed out. I just want a clear answer, goddammit!
By Day 40 there was still no period, and still a negative pregnancy test, and I started trying to find a phone number for the fertility specialist we saw, figured it was time to call him and actually find out for certain how the blood test had gone. After all, it may have shown that I didn't ovulate, and the medication didn't work, and that might be why I haven't had a period yet, I might not be pregnant after all, just driving myself crazy for no reason.
But there seemed to be no phone number for the doctor directly, and I had this weird feeling if I tried to call the 0800 for the fertility associates general enquiries number, they would be unhelpful and wouldn't put me through to him or give me any answers. So I figured, let's see a GP.
It was Monday this week, and so my favourite GP Rini wasn't working. But I got an appointment with another doctor, a guy, who I'd never seen before.
I explained to him my predicament of not knowing what the heck was going on. He told me he thought the home pregnancy tests are pretty accurate so it's unlikely I am pregnant, but couldn't give me anything else to go on. He glanced at my medical records on the computer, found the blood test results from Day 22, but didn't understand what they meant.
So then he said he would contact the fertility associates for me and get back to me, and then sent me on my way. $52 for an appointment that took less than five minutes, and gave me literally no help whatsoever. Thanks, Dr George.
I got a voicemail on my cellphone yesterday from Dr George. Said he had spoken to the nurses at the fertility associates, said that I had been given instructions on the medication I was taking from Dr Murray himself, and that he had planned to see me in 3 months if I had had 3 unsuccessful cycles by then, and just to follow the instructions he gave me.
WTF?? That doesn't help me!!!
I did follow the instructions. There is no point in me waiting 3 months if I don't end up getting through 3 cycles by then because the medication doesn't work. And I still have no information on what the blood test showed, and whether or not there is actually any possibility of me being pregnant right now, which if there is a possibility it would be really nice to know sooner rather than later.
So now all I can do is do my best to find a way to contact Dr Murray directly, see if I can get his advice personally. And otherwise keep waiting, and try not to go insane, while I wait to see if a period eventually comes, or if I eventually get a positive pregnancy test, or clear enough pregnancy symptoms to confirm something.
Oh, and one more thing to add stress to the month.
My landlord has sold our flat. He announced a month or so ago he wanted to put it on the market, but assured us once it sold, it would either sell to someone who would keep it as an investment property, meaning we might be able to stay on as tenants, or if we did have to move out we would have a 90 day notice period.
So I wasn't worried. 90 days from the day it sold seemed reasonable, and we had been hoping to move out later this year anyway, once Taina finished studying full time and got a job so we had more money. I find the flat claustrophobic at times, being upstairs, having no yard of our own, hanging up our wet laundry inside and having to combat the damp and mould as a result. So I've been keen to move for a while, it was just money holding us back, because the market's gone crazy recently, and places the same size as our current place are now way higher in rent than our flat is. In fact it is virtually impossible to find anywhere to rent at all for a similar price to what we are currently paying ($270 a week).
So the last month or two, there have been open homes happening at our flat every Sunday afternoon, which was no big deal because we were never at home at that time, it just meant we had to try and make sure the place looked reasonably clean and tidy before we left the place every Sunday morning.
But then, yesterday we got a call from the real estate agent, and our flat has been sold. Not to an investor, but to people who want to move in and live there. And apparently, due to the legal technicalities which I don't understand, instead of 90 days notice, we are only entitled to 40 days. Damn.
So now, we have to try and find a new place in a hurry, and find a way to budget for it, because wherever we go, it will be more expensive than our current place.
Meanwhile, Taina has to work hard to finish his course, and then try really hard to get a job as soon as humanly possible, because otherwise we are screwed money-wise. Eek, this is all freaking me out a little.
Still, I found a couple of potential places on TradeMe this morning, and sent enquiry emails to see if we can go look at them, so we'll see how this all goes.
And that is the story of my crazy times right now.
weezieishness · Wed May 16, 2018 @ 08:57am · 0 Comments |
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