White Picket Fences

Adjusting

2012-01-04T20:22:00.001-05:00

Life around these parts has certainly changed. In some ways, much more than I expected, and in others, the transition has been much easier than I expected. Prior to K's birth, I was terrified about how A2 would handle the transition. I couldn't imagine how I would take care of him in the same way that I was and also care for a newborn. The two seemed to be mutually exclusive things that couldn't possibly exist together. They were both full time plus occupations. Shortly after we came home from the hospital I was left with the two of them without a chaperone for maybe 2 hours and I was terrified. I was still incredibly sore, could barely move, and definitely couldn't lift A2. Nap time came around and A2 requires someone to lay down with him to fall asleep. I got us all upstairs and laid down with them just in time for K to wake up and need to nurse while A2 was overtired and desperate to cuddle. Both of them screaming, one laying in the crook of each arm. I started crying as well - sure that this reality was exactly what I was fearing and what our lives would be for the next couple of years. In truth, the golden child came home very soon and helped. And in the days since, A2 has made leaps and bounds in adjusting. He loves his brother very much and is always ready to defer his needs to K so that K doesn't cry. He might only be willing to defer for 5 minutes- but it's 5 minutes that make life doable. I nurse with two boys on my lap, with A2 often "helping" K nurse. We read bedtime stories together. A2 helps give K baths. When K cooed for the first time the other day I realized with horror that I had never cooed at him to encourage it. And then I realized that somehow he figured out anyway. It certainly isn't the same one on one attention that the golden child and A2 got - but he's developing and growing nonetheless.

We're surviving. Some might even say thriving.

My health still sucks. The severe headaches that I had for the last two weeks of pregnancy were apparently caused by a cracked and rotting molar that needed an emergency root canal. I'm still sore. from the c-section. Still having some weird nausea, swelling, and elevated blood pressure. I'm having some bleeding issues that may honestly end up in a too soon after delivery hysterectomy. But we're here. And somehow, the picture above is mine. My family.

A family I could never have imagined being my reality in the days of loss. Home is the place I now always long to be.

The Birth & Aftermath

2011-12-15T22:51:00.000-05:00

After the amnio, we came home and I immediately started to contract again. I spent the next 5 days contracting every 3-6 minutes. I got nervous twice when they were 3 minutes apart and went to triage. Still no cervical change so they sent me home - always with offers of more procardia. Umm. No thanks since I nearly died with the first dose. I was flat out totally exhausted by the time it was scheduled c-section time. I asked my sister to come up to help my mom and the golden child watch A2. And truthfully, to help the stress level with the two of them. The golden child had chewed the inside of her lip raw over the weekend worried about the impending birth and my mom was a nervous crying wreck.

We showed up on time and things got rolling. As they were about to take me back, they had to take back an emergency c-section - so I got bumped for about an hour. Baby A2 came up with my mom and sister and wanted NOTHING to do with the whole process. He saw me with an IV, my gown, and get up and immediately requested to go home. Now. Please. Thank you. Do you see the door over there? Let's hit it. So everyone went to lunch and I went to have a baby.

I had a sort of bad impending doom feeling as I walked into the OR and straddled the table to get the spinal. I tried to chalk the feeling up to anxiety. The CRNA student prepped my back and tried to put the spinal in and missed. Unfortunately, at that exact moment, the anesthesiologist walked in to see how things were going. I didn't recognize her and pretty quickly figured out that she was a locum tenens. Bad news. She then proceeded to attempt to get the spinal another six times. Six. As in - not enough fingers on one hand to count how many time she jammed a needle into my back. There was talk of general anesthesia. I was freaking out about getting an epidural abscess or hematoma or spinal cord injury from her nincompoopness when the OB/friend came in all scrubbed and ready. I finally had enough and asked her to stop - and asked her to allow the CRNA to put the spinal in. She got in on the first attempt - I was hugely relieved. Relieved for about 30 seconds until my blood pressure and heart rate dropped down to nearly not measurable.

You guys. Seriously. I have never, ever felt that sick. I was puking and freaking out, watching the monitor, listening to the anesthesiologist bark orders for drugs that I give patients during codes when the situation is nearly hopeless. And then give more. And more. And more. They gave me 6 liters of fluid in a matter of minutes. I finally started to feel somewhat better - like I might possibly live through the experience and they let Monk in. He took one look at me and freaked out. I would have to imagine that I didn't look exactly excited and happy to be there.

The nice part about them overdosing the spinal was that I didn't feel a cotton picking thing. At all. Nada. They took the baby out and he immediately started screaming - a scream I was so glad that I was awake, alive, and able to hear. He was perfect. His lungs were obviously mature. They collected cord blood (has anyone else done that?!?), tied my tubes, and the closing took a long, long time. I had a lot of muscle damage that she sewed up. The OB/friend left to fly to a conference in Vegas and assured me that her partners would take care of me well in her absence. They moved us to recovery where I was finally able to hold my peanut. After all my worries about a giant monster baby, he came out well over 7 pounds and 21 inches - but I swear he looks and feels like a 5 pound peanut. He is still curled up soooo tight. He looks just like his older brother did - but somehow tinier (actual weight difference was a mere 3 ounces), and much much darker in complexion. His blood sugar was low - 35 - and they encouraged us to nurse. He easily latched on and contentedly nursed for close to an hour. I suddenly got another wave of nausea and started puking - and puking - and sweating. It was so awful. And just wouldn't stop. They finally called anesthesia to give me something else. I don't even remember what it was but it helped immensely.

Things with the baby went well after that - He was mildly jaundiced but passed all of his other screenings well. He nursed, peed, and pooped like he was supposed to. Things with me were incredibly uncomfortable. I had close to no pain at all with Baby A2. I realized that this was my 3rd section - but it honestly was nothing even close to the other two in terms of pain. I could barely move - even with decent and frequent doses of pain medicine. It hurt to lift and hold the baby- it hurt to walk, to turn. My lower back was extremely achy - and bruised like you wouldn't believe from all of the spinal attempts. They kept telling me that my incision was fine, that it was a different baby, different experience. It didn't feel right. I finally asked to go home because I felt like maybe I would be more comfortable here.

I went to the OB to get my staples out on Tuesday to be told that I have a massive incisional hematoma - something that she felt I should have gone back to the OR for to have evacuated. Apparently no one looked at me as close as I thought they did. At this point, there are really no options but to let it resolve on it's own. I'm just now - a week out - able to get in and out of bed without help. My blood pressure is up and I still have massive swelling - so I'm getting a work up for post-partum ecclampsia. Seriously.

Baby A2 has done so much better than I thought he would. He and I have both had melt downs at times - more on that later. Someone in my house has hungry lips and is ready to nurse. Had to get the details down before I forgot them. And ohmygoodness the in-law drama. Seriously. I might have to start a new blog just about in-law drama after this birth.

Home.

2011-12-09T21:29:00.001-05:00

We are home, nearly tucked in for the night. It was a very, very rough delivery and continues to be a rough recovery, but we're both alive and healthy. The baby has done great - he's a trooper. He was 7 pounds, 13 ounces, 21 inches long. He did have some post partum hypoglycemia - but never required NICU care. It corrected with breastfeeding alone. He's nursing well, has all of his parts in working order, and is only mildly jaundiced at this point.

Baby A2 is handling things very well so far, much better than I could have hoped for though I sense some sadness looming on the horizon. The golden child is in love with her newest sibling, and after being more helpful than I would have thought possible for a teenager, escaped tonight to a hot tub party with friends.
For several minutes when I got home, baby A2 "helped" me nurse baby K (held my breast while the baby suckled), and the golden child held baby A2 propped on me to allow him to help without hurting my stomach. It was, honestly, almost more than I could stand. These three lives that I've somehow brought into this world, helping and loving each other and me through enormous change.

More details when I can sit up for longer than 4 minutes.

My newest love, Baby K, dressed in his take home outfit.

FavoriteThings

2011-12-05T19:20:00.001-05:00

Life will be changing pretty drastically around here in less than 24 hours ....which is exciting, and wonderful, and terrifying. There are so many things that are perfect right now that I know will never be the same once the newbie arrives. My sister had her 3 babies at the same time that I had the golden child - boom boom boom - one after another. I distinctly remember being in the delivery room with her and seeing this tiny perfect being in his first moments on earth, and how wonderful it was. And how, minutes later, when her older children were brought in the room, they seemed decades older to me. The fourteen month old baby seemed suddenly gigantic and old and childlike instead of the infant he was before I walked in the delivery room.

Things I want to remember and keep just as they are right now:

The fact that although the golden child has her driver's license and her own car, she mostly remains dependent and not at all excited about driving around. She's still content to be here,with us.
That the golden child could not be more excited about a new baby coming into our lives, even though she understands the sacrifices it will mean for her with college, and college visits, and spring break trips. That she isn't somehow embarrassed.
The unabashed way that baby A2 laughs at whatever strikes his fancy - deep baby belly laughs at things we would otherwise not notice.
Baby A2's need for skin to skin contact for comfort
The way A2 pronounces his "R"s ....especially when requesting a "haircut". Haircut is perhaps my favorite word that he says right now. Either that or "withgether". As in, "Mommy, want to play soccer withgether??" We can't get him to say together for anything.
His insistence on referring to himself as "the baby". If someone is carrying him out of the room, he often says "Ohno! Where is your baby going, mama??"

He had several moments today when he nearly lost it when talking about "the little brother" who is coming out tomorrow. I wish I knew how to comfort him, how to let him know that it will all be okay in the end. That he will still be loved. That even though our relationship will change - especially over the next few weeks when I can't pick him up and am wrapped up in establishing a new routine with 2 babies, we'll find our way back to each other.

I'm getting pretty nerved up now about the physical aspects of what's happening tomorrow - all of the discomforts of getting the spinal, the nausea and itching and pain afterwards. Trying to not overmanage who will be allowed to come in when ...worried about every living sole that I work with peeking in to say hi when I'm trying to bond and nurse with the new (still un-named) baby. Trying to figure out a way to not be mean to my mother in law who somehow managed to contract a plague like sinus infection 2 days before I give birth when I tell her I don't want her around or touching the baby. Because umm. Yeah. How do you do that tactfully?? And of course - worried about the baby. That he will handle the transition well. That his lungs will be okay. That I've done a good job managing my blood sugars and he won't experience any hypoglycemia after delivery. That he's healthy. That he has all of his parts and they're all in working order.

I just want it to all be okay.

Trial Run

2011-12-03T16:31:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was perhaps one of the most physically unpleasant days of my life. Of course, I've decided to blog about it to keep it fresh in mind for all of eternity.

The amnio was scheduled for 9:45. We woke up, got to the hospital an hour early as directed and things progressed normally. Amnio was eventless - the fluid was amber and clear. Typically,with mature lungs, it should be colorless and very cloudy. I didn't really feel like they were going to be mature going into things, so I wasn't incredibly disappointed. About a half hour after the amnio, I started contracting, which is mostly expected. Contractions quickly escalated to every 3 minutes and became very, very uncomfortable. The official fluid results came back as early transitional - but definitely not mature. We then spent the next eight hours trying to stop labor. They gave me three liters of fluid and 2 medications - none of which worked. I didn't seem to be progressing as all - they weren't getting more intense or more frequent and my cervix wasn't changing. They called the MFM for recommendations. He felt like we should still try to stop labor for 2-3 days because the baby would probably otherwise end up in the NICU - maybe even vented. WTF?!? At nearly 39 weeks?!? I don't get it at all. He also thought that maybe because I wasn't progressing that my uterus was just pissed off about having no food for 24 hours and suggested feeding me. I was reluctant - because that guaranteed another 6 hours of uncomfortable labor if it didn't work. So we settled on an oral dose of procardia, which they assured me they would know if it would work or not within 20 minutes. About 10 minutes into it, I thought I was dying. I turned myself on my left side, adjusted my IV rate to give me a crap load of fluid, and asked Monk to get the nurse. When she came back, I was feeling somewhat better - and my blood pressure was 60/20. The baby didn't seem to mind at all and tolerated the whole thing really well. After a couple of more liters of fluid, I started to feel a little better - just incredibly flushed, racing heart, and horrid headache. And hey ...the contractions stopped. So they fed me ...and sent me home with plans to return on Wednesday for the section. I'm supposed to be on super limited activity. No sex, no activity, no shopping or lifting and do what I can to avoid labor between now and then. Who would have thought? Who stops labor at almost 39 weeks?

We came home and settled in for the night. We comforted my distressed mother, daughter, and two year old and tucked ourselves into bed. I have another three days of pregnancy before a section and tubal ligation ....and hopefully a live baby to cuddle to show for it afterwards.

The only thing I'm really struggling with is how to parent a 2 year old and a newborn. My 2 year old is very very cuddly and needy. He still needs to cuddle and "touch nursies" several times throughout the day. He is recently potty trained and sleeping through the night. Today, when laying down with him for a nap, he kept trying to touch nursies (which I have been avoiding to avoid contractions) and when I said, "No", he screamed, "THOSE ARE NOT THE NEW BABY'S" !!! I sense big big problems coming my way and don't have a clue as to how to deal with them to make this less painful for him. There's a reason that my first 2 kids were 13 years apart - I swear.

Any and all advice accepted and appreciated :)

Nearing the end.

2011-11-27T22:09:00.001-05:00

I don't know why it comes as a surprise to me that I suck at keeping my blog updated. But yes.  I do, in fact, royally suck at blogging.

The end of this pregnancy is near. C-section is scheduled for Friday at 3 p.m. if lungs are mature after amnio. Holy crap.

I just got out of Triage.  I felt close to no fetal movement for the entire day and eventually felt nervous enough to go in. His heart rate was only 110 when I got there. They promptly woke him up and everything looked good. AFI was on the low end of normal - so I'm back for daily NSTs an BPP's until delivery. I was supposed to work this week . . . but I guess not. Which is good. I'll stay home, cuddle the 2 year old, and drink lots of water.   I continue to have runs of false labor - lasting for a few hours and then it will stop. We're woefully unprepared to have this little one enter our lives ... but it'll work out.

I'm still super worried about a post-partum hormone crash. I put everyone on high alert to watch me after delivery. Other than that ...anxiety seems to be fairly under control. Except see above triage visit.   Ha. I still delude myself pretty well, apparently.

Wish me luck. Here goes nothing.

Three Years

2011-10-31T18:30:00.001-04:00

Three years ago today, I wrote this post:

Trick or Treat

If you had told me then that those three years would have turned into this:

And this:

Plus an additional 34 week from all appearances healthy pregnancy -

I would have told you that you were insane.

Sometimes - life is too sweet.

Favorite Things

2011-10-28T22:45:00.001-04:00

My favorite things about this week

Somehow nearly everyone in my practice (more than 20 people) managed to tell me that I look like I'm ready to explode at any second.
Anytime someone spills something in the office, they blame my water breaking.
On the same day someone told me I was huge, another doc (not in our practice, but whom I work closely with) said, "Ohmygod ..you're pregnant! I had no idea!"
I actually made it in and out of my NST in 35 minutes today with a reactive baby
I got pulled over TWICE on the way home from work tonight.
I left work early yesterday and today because of contractions. So when I started crying and told the cop(s) that I was contracting and got out of the ordeal without a ticket ...it was without lying. I think they were afraid they might have to deliver me and promptly sent me on my way without a ticket.
My OB took me off work AGAIN at my appointment today.

I've been having awful dizzy I'm going to pass out spells which I was telling her about during my exam. I sat up when she was finished and promptly passed out on her table. I believe in real life examples, I guess. Scared the living daylights out of her and the rest of the office. I'm 99% sure the passing out and dizziness is because this breech baby keeps sticking his body parts into my aorta and/or inferior vena cava and blocks my blood supply.

I promptly returned to work immediately after she told me no more working. I did, however, agree to reduce my hours and promised to stop if I pass out again.
Baby A2 is going to be a dinosaur for Halloween and couldn't be cuter or more excited about it.
Baby A2 is going to Sesame Street Live tomorrow with my mom and I. You might already know this because he has broadcast it to the world in general every 30 seconds since I told him about it yesterday. I forgot how incredibly excited a 2 year old could be. The tickets were $100 and I'm thinking we might actually even end up going twice in the same weekend. Because seriously. The kid is excited.
The golden child,in all seriousness, asked me to buy her a "slutty" Halloween costume and described it as such. Ummm.
The irony of raising a toddler, a newborn, and a teenager all at the same time is still not lost on me. Perhaps overwhelming. But full of conflicting needs and fun.

And just like that ...it changed

2011-10-24T22:57:00.000-04:00

So a week or two after that last post ....everything changed. I don't know if there was some weird hormonal switch (my guess) or if I have some wonky pregnancy auto-immune craziness going on (what the overly intellectual internal med docs I spend my days with think) but I went back to feeling nomal. No more crazy hatred towards Monk for unreasonable things and no more crazy emotional lability. Coincidentally, my blood sugars also got way easier to manage. Initially - they plummeted. Plummeted to the point that I had several episodes of hypoglycemia and took myself completely off insulin and metformin. Then they were normal for a couple of days without meds ...and then I slowly crept back to needing some insulin - but was also able to eat and stay in range. Very much a relief. Whatever the cause. I did have some temporary freak outs when everything changed - it was very similar to what happened right before I went into labor with A2. But here we are a couple of weeks later and he's still on the inside.

I'm back to twice weekly NSTs - which have only been dramatic twice so far. On Friday, his heartrate was non-reactive for several hours. He was active and moving a ton - but his heart rate wasn't accelerating as required. While I was waiting for the OB to come and look at the strips and do a biophysical profile ultrasound, it occurred to me that this kid could potentially be taken out of me at any given NST appointment. And ..holy cow I'm not ready. No name. No cord blood kit. No diapers in the appropriate size. No take me home outfit.

You'd think the last 6 days I've had off from work would have given me some motivation to get that stuff done ...but it turns out ...umm no.

Yikes.

Unbalanced

2011-09-24T21:40:00.000-04:00

I honestly can't believe it's been a month since I've posted. If I don't get a handle on this time thing pretty soon, I'm going to be sitting here with a newborn that I'm completely unprepared for.

This pregnancy has thrown me for a complete loop emotionally. I'm an angry, rageful, crying, out-of-control witch. The hormone swings are intolerable to me - much less my poor loved ones that are forced to live with me. The only one that has been spared is the two year old, really. To be honest, Monk takes the lion's share. Why he hasn't left me is completely beyond me. And quite frankly, sometimes I feel like I'm pushing him to make that decision. Which is really strange - because I feel like I'm living duplicate lives at the same time. The old rational me is still there watching over the reactions and decisions that the hormonal witch is making and just letting her run wild and use the excuse of hormones. It's ridiculous. As bad as it is - it feels temporary. Like ...don't fight it too much because this too shall pass. In a matter of 9 weeks or so now...I'm hoping it's done and over with. I feel like I'm on the brink - maybe passed the brink on some days - of really experiencing true mental illness. What absolutely terrifies, me, however, is that I feel like I'm speeding right towards a massive case of post partum depression. My hormone switch has NEVER been even close to being this far off balance and I'm not sure what I'm going to be looking at when they pull the baby out and all the hormones come crashing down around me. For the first time, I've felt tempted to start on medication as a pre-emptive strike. And then the blaring reality of birth defects and side effects snaps me back into reality and I neglect to discuss it at my OB appointments.

Things on the physical front still suck too ....I still can NOT flipping breathe if I do anything. Climbing a flight of stairs leaves me so short of breath and exhausted that I have to sit and rest. A load of laundry is enough to do me in. And getting the baby and myself showered and primped for the day typically happens right before nap. Because I have to nap after such a grand effort. To continue my life's predisposition for really bad timing, my job is changing significantly and I am now required to be much, much more physically active. As in walking. At break neck speeds. All over the flipping place. I wore a pedometer the other day - and with me moving as slow as I do compared to my counterparts, I still walked 7 miles in one 12 hour shift. I come home from work in a near coma with my pelvis feeling dislocated. I have a whole lot of time off built into my schedule now ...stretches of 5 or 6 days off every couple of weeks ...and I need every one of them to recover. The pelvic pain hasn't been nearly as severe with this pregnancy as it was the last ...and it actually goes away completely when I'm off work ...but my god ..when it's there, every single step is excruciating.

And ...of course ...I'm diabetic again. Which, although I was fully anticipating it, is really seriously pissing me off. My blood sugars have not been nearly as easy to control this time around despite a multi dose regimen including 6-7 shots of insulin per day. I need massive doses of insulin in the morning even if I don't eat - and close to none at dinner. All part of the raging hormones that are throwing me for a loop in every way, I guess. I feel incredibly guilty every time I have an out of range blood sugar - even if it's only 10 points out of range, and because of that, I'm trying to eat close to nothing. I've lost 6 pounds in the week and a half since diagnosis ...which I don't think is good either.

I'm a mess. Straight up ...all the way around. A mess. We have no prep done for the baby. We haven't even started moving baby A2 towards a new schedule that will give us some kind of sanity with 2 little ones. I don't have a name or any idea of a name that might sound good. I have no sleeping space arranged. No second crib. No double stroller. No idea where to move most of A2's toys to make room for all the "stuff" that's required for A3. ARRRRGH.

Sixteen

2011-08-27T22:22:00.000-04:00

My baby girl, the one who taught me how to be a mom and forever changed my world, turns 16 in two days.

She passed her road test, which means that in two days, she will inherit my Prius and enter a world full of infintely more freedom.

Be careful out there, baby girl. Pleae be careful with your heart ...and mine.

Fatigue.

2011-08-13T00:27:00.000-04:00

Holy crap. I'm tired. Like ...The idea of using my arm to lift baby A2's arms up and take his shirt off to put his pajama's on tonight is overwhelming. Between that and still not being able to breathe when I exert myself at all ...I'm getting a whole lot of nothing done. I also have insane restless legs syndrome and pica (there's not an ice cube in the state that's safe from me) - both of which are signs of iron deficiency. So ..I'm half thinking there's some anemia contributing to the fatigue. Anemia and iron deficiency would make sense to me since I came into the pregnancy straight after a year of continuous uterine bleeding and was still breastfeeding. I'll get labs done next Wednesday, and I've upped my iron intake in the meantime.

Okay. Can I just tell you that this 2 year old is running me ragged?? I have never known a child to have sooo much energy. He is so much fun I can't stand it. He's already a stand up comedian and spends most of his day trying to crack people up. He gets into everything. We take turns exercising the baby. As in ..."Umm..it's your turn to run A2. I've already done it for 2 hours." We let him out back and he literally runs around the yard at breakneck speed until I die of exhaustion from watching him. He's like a dog that requires a 10 mile walk before you can expect appropriate behavior out of him. I live in Michigan which means that winter will be here soon. I'm currently trying to figure out how to fit his trampoline into the basement so we can bounce him. Like Tigger. Which brings me to this point: I have a huge yard that is beautifully fenced in. Behind the fence is a massive field full of deer, snakes, and wild animals. Although I feel like he's safe back there, I virtually never let him outside even for a second alone because well ..he's 2. Anyway. We were inside watching Dora this evening when I started this post. Monk was out front cutting the grass and the golden child was upstairs. I got up to pee ...came back to the living room to find no baby and no dog. Looked everywhere. Nothing. Panicked. Looked at the sliding door which was wide open. And then to my horror, I discovered that Monk had left the gate in the back of the yard open to the field when he was cutting the grass. A2 was strolling around in grass taller than him with our cocker spaniel tailing close behind. I nearly died. And then Monk nearly died an untimely death for leaving the gate open. Holy shit. I think I lost 14 years of my life in those 2 minutes. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with a 2 year old that suddenly figured out how to open a door. While I was peeing. He should figure these things out while adequately supervised.

I'm already starting to panic ...because ohmygod ...it feels like this baby is going to be here in 2 minutes and I have not even slightly begun to prepare in any way, shape, or form. Much less started my Christmas shopping. And the golden child turns 16 in 2 weeks and I believe is probably expecting some sort of MTV style 16th birthday party .... and isn't going to get it. Ayiyiyi.

I feel like I'm probably going through a normal developmental stage of adding another human being to our family ...but I'm so emotionally torn I can't even tell you which way I'm headed. It breaks my heart that my relationship with A2 is going to change so much. That I will come home from the hospital and my baby will suddenly have grown at least 6 feet. I worry about how he'll handle it. I worry about how I'll handle it. I worry about the golden child ...and her needs getting pushed farther to the back of the line than they are now. And my relationship with my husband ...what happens to that? When do we make time for one another between work and 3 kids? How can I possibly handle getting 2 to bed at the same time?? I honestly think that the first 2 were 13 years apart because seriously ...that's all I could handle. I have no idea how to manage two very needy little people at the same time. No idea at all.

I read a beautiful post today @ http://sharah.wordpress.com/ and cried for nearly 2 hours afterward. Because ...yeah. Right there with ya, Sharah. Right there.

20 weeks

2011-07-25T15:40:00.000-04:00

So I'm currently on my night shift week ...which sucks when I'm not pregnant. I don't deal with it well at ALL pregnant. Thank God it's moved to every six weeks and we've actually interviewed a couple of people to work full time nights which would take me off the godforsaken rotation all together. They better hire them ...or else I'm scheduled to do nights at 26, 33, and ummm... 39 weeks gestation. Yeah. I'm not feeling that at ALL.

Anyway. I had my MFM level II ultrasound today. I was beyond a wreck. During my shift last night, I coded - as in code blue - unsuccessfully, mind you - a 20 something mother of four that was 9 days post-partum. It was 2 in the morning, and my MFM was also there. We both looked like crap for my appointment this morning at 9:30. There are some codes that you will always remember for how horrific they truly were and how freaking horrible the circumstances that a family has just been thrown into are. This was one of them. Everyone there was rocked last night. There are some things about pregnancy that just ....suck. Like. Really suck.

Anyway. Everything with this peanut looks great. I couldn't be more shocked. I really don't understand the 2 step integrated NT/Quad screen thing ...because I swear the whole purpose of it was to get the results in the first trimester. I never DID get my results until today. I knew that it was an excellent NT measurement. If I'm being honest, I never actually called to inform them that I didn't have the results because I didn't really want to deal with it until I was in the presence of the MFM anyway. BUT - the results were stellar. Less than 1:5000 for any of the tested chromosomal abnormalities. Combined with a mostly perfect ultrasound (mostly because we couldn't see one kidney ...but he's pretty sure it's there) and exam (everything with me was great except my blood pressure :P - see code and lack of sleep above). It's still a boy. Measuring on target. Placenta is no longer previa at ALL. No sign of the SCH or any residual. I'm still really, really not feeling movement. I might feel a slight wiggle once or twice a day if I think about it really hard. He didn't have any explanation for that ...baby seemed to be moving fine on the ultrasound. Monk thinks it's just a lazy baby. After the last couple of weeks with A2 ...I'm almost hoping that he's right!

I somehow managed to be at the appointment alone through a series of scheduling blunders. I wouldn't recommend that to anyone. I left his office full of good news ..and get this ...sobbed hysterically.

Because I'm exhausted and overtired and hate the night shift.

And mostly .... because I can't figure out how we could possibly be so lucky.

Sweet Baby Boy.

2011-07-15T16:25:00.000-04:00

Although it's hard to see ....he's giving me the finger in the picture. I was seriously disturbing his cuddle time with the placenta. Love it.

A-okay

2011-07-13T20:40:00.000-04:00

Amazing what a decent night of sleep and another ultrasound can do for peace of mind.

Although ...the night of sleep. Geezus. Baby A2 fairly recently started sleeping through the night consistently. Like ..maybe 2 months ago. 3 weeks ago, he started talking/yelling in his sleep. All. Night. Long. Last night, he kept yelling "SUPERMAAAAAN" about every 10 minutes. I've resigned myself to no sleep for the next 10 years or so.

Anyway ...I called the OB and she sent me right over for a formal ultrasound. The placenta is thankfully - so very thankfully - now more than an inch away from the cervix and pulling farther away all of the time. I drank approximately 27 gallons of water between yesterday and today (clearly, an exaggeration ...but omg. the water) and fluid levels were much, much better today.

The only problem is that I was contracting throughout the ultrasound. Umm. Still have really good cervix length, though.

Overwhelm.

2011-07-12T22:09:00.000-04:00

I'm currently curled up in bed cuddling a lovey two year old and panicking.

Curiosity kills the cat. I was overwhelmed with gender obsession today and asked one of the docs I was working with to take a peek. We think there is probably a penis. Think. It could have been a hand. Or a cord.

Also? Happened to notice that I stil have complete previa. And really low amniotic fluid.

I'm not really sure what to do with this info other than panic. I did drink about six gallons of water, left work, and came home to lay on my left side. I'll talk to the regular ob tomorrow..and see the Mfm on the 25th. And obssess about congenital defects and abruption in the interim.

I'm exhausted and crabby. Work is in major suck mode. Right now my best case scenario seems to lead to bed rest, financial ruin, and no maternity leave.

Maybe I'll just go to sleep.

Hi ho ..hi ho ...it's off to MFM I go.

2011-07-09T16:57:00.000-04:00

I can't quite getting used to seeing "advanced maternal age" as a diagnosis on my check-out sheet when I leave the OB office. I swear to God I'm still in high school. Advanced age?? Seriously?

But yeah ...apparently seriously. This two step integrated NT scan thing is becoming a pain in my keister. I had the second draw done just yesterday. Which um...doesn't make sense to me. I thought that the whole point of the test was to get results in the first trimester? Anyway. They still don't anticipate having results for another couple of weeks ...and I'm old ...and had another episode of bleeding on Wednesday at work so I'm being turfed to MFM. I'm not sure for how long. My weight is already up 6 pounds ...which isn't a great thing this early in the pregnancy. I keep trying to remind myself that I'm starting this pregnancy out 30 pounds lighter than the last one ...but I really liked my 13 pound gain for the entire pregnancy the last time. It's probably up 12 pounds today, in all honesty ...because I bought a loaf of pretzel bread at Whole Foods and between baby A2 and I, the entire thing might already be gone. My god it's good.

AHHHHHH. Sorry. Had to get that out. Stupid pelvic pain from symphysis pubis dysfunction is back. Already. I could cry just thinking about it, honestly. I'm going to attempt to start PT now - even though they say it's useless and the pain is mild right now. There's NO way I can go through what I did post-partum with the last pregnancy. Can. Not. Do. It. So ..I'll push through whatever during this pregnancy in an attempt to come out at the end with some muscle tone somewhere. I'm really, really nervous about having this pain with my job. Even on "limited" activity at work, I'm walking at least 4 miles a day. By my fourth 12 hour day, every step is painful. Towards the end of the last pregnancy, I could barely walk 10 feet without crying. The OB still wants me off work - or at the very least working no more than 6 hours a day. I convinced her to let me push through until I see the MFM so I can try and come up with some sort of compromise. I have to work if we want to eat and keep our house.

Other than the terrifying episode of bleeding, we've had a really good week. I'm trying to adjust to having an almost 16 year old that has friends that are driving her all over everywhere. It's painful. And scary. And somewhat wonderful to see her blossom. We spent the day at the Detroit Zoo on Thursday. Baby A2 could not be more fascinated by everything zoo lately. My town has a cute little zoo that is the perfect size for him - with mostly farm animals. He can run through the entire thing without a stroller and goes nearly every day with his Mimi (my mom). The BIIIIIIIG zoo, as he calls it, was completely fascinating. We spent over an hour watching the gorillas and chimps alone. And I spent at least 20 minutes trying to convince him that an anteater was not, in fact, an elephant despite the long nose. Too freakin' cute.

Hope everyone else is having a great summer!

16 weeks

2011-06-30T20:49:00.000-04:00

LAZY THOUGHT BUBBLES POST

Things are still chugging along here. I'm feeling ...well....HUGE. Seriously. It's out of control. Not a ton of weight gain but I'm so firmly into maternity clothes it's not even funny. At 16 weeks. I can't figure it out. I was barely - and I mean barely - showing at this point with A2 ..and not at all with the golden child.
Baby A2 turned 2 (two!?!?) last week. We had a really, really good time and celebrated over 2 days. He thoroughly enjoyed everything about the birthday celebration ...especially the Elmo and Cookie Monster cake pops and blowing out candles. Seventy four times blowing out candles. So much fun.
We had the kids wear "oldest" and "middle" child shirts to the birthday party and finally came out of the closet to my family. They felt mildly silly when I pointed out that I was wearing maternity clothes.
I'm not even kidding when I say that waiting 16 weeks to tell family (including my mom!) gave me a new understanding of how women and teens try to hide their pregnancies. Every day that went by made me more reluctant to tell people and more worried about what their reactions would be. I made myself sick with anxiety about it on the morning of the party ....and then everything was fine.
No more bleeding for now ...though I've had some pretty intense cramping on a couple of days. I remain pretty nervous ....actually, very nervous.
I'm still so. freaking. short of breath. It's to the point now where it significantly limits my activity. I talked to a cardiologist that I work pretty closely with about it and he dragged me up to his office for an echocardiogram right away yesterday while I was at work. I was about ready to throw up waiting for the tech to put the ultrasound on me. About half way through the test, the cardiologist walked in the room to tell me what he was seeing. This was bad for a couple of reasons:

A doctor I work with every single day walked in to see me laying on a cart topless with naked disgusting I just breastfed for 2 years and now I'm pregnant again boobs. I don't know that he'll ever recover from that image.
Him giving me a play by play of what he was seeing was not nearly as reassuring as you would think it would be. He told me right away that my ejection fraction was normal - which WAS a huge relief. It was what I was worried most about. No evidence of pregnancy induced cardiomyopathy. Then he says to the tech, "Is that real?" to which she responds, "Not sure yet." And then I committed myself to an inpatient psychiatric ward. The end. No seriously ...he thought that he saw a significant anomaly in the septal wall of my heart but wanted to confirm after the test was done. I was on late shift this week, so he came down to find me in the ER around 11 p.m. and said he wanted a couple of extra images. I nearly pooped my pants. In the end - everything turned out fine. He thinks it's a normal variant when he got the extra pictures, but wants to follow up after pregnancy. Umm.. Geezus. It was a nerve wracking couple of hours.

Now we just sit back and wait. Next ultrasound in a few weeks....should find out gender. Still waiting for the results of the NT scan. We won't even go there yet.
How's everything with all of you?? I suck at commenting...mostly because I can read blogs at work but get blocked from commenting by the censors. Incredibly annoying. I'm working on it ...I promise.

Relief.

2011-06-09T14:05:00.000-04:00

I went in for an ultrasound/OB appointment on Tuesday. Baby looks good. Flip flopping all around. It's so weird to have ultrasounds this frequently ....he/she totally looks like a baby now. Like ...a baby baby instead of a blob. Crazy. The SCH is still there but tiny. My placenta is lying directly on top of my cervix ...so at this point the OB is not sure if the continued bleeding is from the SCH or from the placenta. In either case, I get to continue with weekly appointments and every other week ultrasounds. And pelvic rest. Seriously. The pelvic rest is killing me. Not to mention Monk.

I opted for the NT scan integrated two step test instead of amnio ...we'll see what kind of wreck that makes me. I completely forgot to ask if there was a nasal bone present. The NT measurement was 1.4 ...and seriously, I was ecstatic for like an hour over that. As if it meant it guaranteed a perfectly healthy living baby 6 months from now ecstatic. I tend to think that the blood draw will increase my risk again ...but I guess I'll deal with that bridge when I come to it.

Baby A's mood/temperament went completely back to normal on my 3rd day home from work ...so I'm still thinking that it was a get your butt home kind of communication. He still uses his siren song whine, but in short intervals and clearly to express his displeasure in something (having to take a bath before we go to the park, etc.).

I'm struggling at work, lately. I've gone through this periodically throughout my career, and it usually passes on it's own but this is a particularly difficult round. I spend the majority of my time in a tiny little dictation room in the ER. The dictation room is directly across the hall from a "consult room" where they put families that have loved ones that are critically ill so that we can go and talk to them. Unfortunately, they also use it for a dead body viewing room if someone dies in the ER. It's uncomfortable, at best, because you end up trying to work 3 feet away from a family at the height of grief/shock ...there is usually wailing, screaming, sometimes violence. Very, very uncomfortable. Last week, there was a major accident on one of the nearby highways involving 10 cars and a 5 year old died. I sat and listened to a mother wail for 3 hours before I lost it myself and had to leave. Yesterday, a 20 year old came in after overdosing on a new - legal - street drug.

I can't figure out how to deal with the emotion of it all appropriately in this little space.

Guilt.

2011-06-04T12:22:00.001-04:00

Surprisingly enough, I worked all six of my 12 hour shifts. It'll actually end up being the biggest single paycheck of my life to date. It's taking everything I have to store it away in a maternity leave fund and not shop til I drop for my entire 5-6 days off. Yikes. The bleeding completely stopped during my stretch of work ..and I thought ...yayayay. Then I was home for a single day and it started again.

Baby A2 is going through a really difficult phase right now. I'm not sure if I should blame it on me being gone for too long during that work stretch or some other quickly approaching milestone that I'm not paying attention to. He sounds like a broken siren all day. He literally whines/cries nearly the entire day for umm...no particular reason that I can figure out. He's always been a super happy mellow little thing. This is totally throwing me for a loop. One of his favorite things (besides the zoo and the park) is to go out to eat. Loves it. Totally sociable, engages the waitress, gets excited about the food. We went out twice yesterday because we were out of town and umm. Holy disaster. As in ...ohmygod. How freaking embarrassing?? At the mall, we passed by the pretzel place and he literally threw himself on the ground shrieking "HOT NUMMIES!! HOT NUMMIES!!" which um. Okay. If I thought it would have helped, I would have bought him a stinking pretzel. But it clearly was not going to help. What was helpful, however, was the lady that walked by and commented that he was a wretched brat. To which I replied, "Yeah ..well. We all have our days." And seriously. I know he'll be 2 in a few weeks and this is likely the beginning of what's to come . I think I must have forgotten how truly awful this stage is ...or I'm missing something big going on with the little guy right now.

Which brings me to a confession of sorts. So ..it turns out I was still breastfeeding when I got pregnant. Not often. We were down to like once every other day ...but the kid would not give it up. I was over it. Like ...over it with a capital O. He was not so much. At all. And then, as soon as I got pregnant, nursing was extraordinarily uncomfortable. Psychologically, physically, the whole bit. And I sort of cut him off cold turkey. As cold turkey as you can get when you're already on an every other day schedule. But this crazy behavior makes me think that he wasn't ready. He still asks to nurse 3 or 4 times every. single. day. And mostly, if he's not asking to nurse? He's got his hand down my shirt feeling me up. Feeling anyone up, really. My mom watches him while monk and I are at work, and the two of them have a very close bond. The other day I was getting ready to leave, and I hear him ask her to nurse him. She busted out laughing. The poor little thing. I think he feels abandoned or something.

Mommy guilt. Somehow, it's always going to be something I did wrong.

Progesterone

2011-05-30T22:10:00.000-04:00

Seriously. I can't remember if I'm supposed to taper off these progesterone suppositories or quit cold turkey ....

Quantitative Loss

2011-05-28T09:40:00.000-04:00

I went and saw the OB on Wednesday. The SCH is nearly totally resolved. The baby was leaping and jumping all over the place - so much so that she couldn't get a heart rate. She's still very concerned that I continued to bleed and strongly suggested that I remain off work. The problem is that I wholeheartedly believe in evidenced based medicine. I asked her about statistics and if there was any evidence that staying off work on limited activity would improve outcomes for the baby. And there isn't. None. It's just what is suggested because there is nothing to improve the outcome. It's a last ditch attempt to try and salvage things. She scheduled me for every week appointments and every 2 week ultrasounds. She's doing everything she can to talk me out of an amnio for genetic screening because she doesn't want to rock the boat. So I agreed to the 2 step NT scan instead. We'll see. I'm sure it'll ramp my anxiety sky high.

So ...I went back to work on Thursday. With limited activity. Driving between campuses instead of walking. Hanging out in the ER to see patients instead of walking all over the 3 hospitals. Literally putting my feet up in between patients. I honestly think that it's probably much more limited activity than what I would have at home. Chasing an overly active nearly 2 year old that climbs all over me non-stop is way more physically stressful than what I'm doing at work.

And the bleeding stopped. Go figure.

All but one of my losses has occurred between 10 and 14 weeks - and the one that wasn't occurred before I even adjusted to the idea that I might be pregnant. Inappropriately slow rising beta followed by miscarriage a couple of days later. It sort of felt like it never really happened. The later miscarriages were very tough. Emotionally and physically. My biggest fear with this pregnancy is that I'm delaying an inevitable occurrence. That the loss will come - but will come late in the second or third trimester or something. Which seems ridiculous to me. A loss is a loss ...but I'm much more fearful of one occurring later in the pregnancy than now. Which I'm unsuccessfully trying to wrap my head around.

Today is my one day off inside a stretch of working 6 12 hour shifts in a 7 day period. I'm not sure I'll make it through all 6 shifts. The OB said I absolutely shouldn't and work is being fairly flexible about it. We'll see. The golden child escaped with a friend up to a cabin for the holiday weekend. We're planning on laying relatively low though there is sooo much yard work to do. So much. It's rainy and glum out ... which is seriously affecting my motivation to do anything.

Did I mention that I gained 3 lbs in 3 weeks??? I'm so freaked out about that. Morning sickness with baby A2 made me lose 15 pounds or something in the first trimester which left me with an overall net weight gain for the entire pregnancy of 13 pounds. I have morning sickness with this baby - but only when I'm hungry and it's relieved totally by eating. Umm. NOT good. Couple a ferocious appetite with limited activity and no exercise and I feel I'm probably headed for disaster.

Relaxin'.

2011-05-24T08:19:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking this baby, if it lives, is going to be deaf. Because seriously? How many ultrasounds can you have? The really nice part of my job is that I spend the majority of my time in the ER and work pretty closely with the ER physicians. Several of them have just had babies, and most of them are as paranoid as me. Easy access to ultrasounds. So, despite the massive amounts of blood over the weekend, the baby is still alive ...and kickin'. Heart rate 170.

I called the OB yesterday morning just to make sure there was nothing else that I should be doing ...and she said, Umm. Yeah. You should be on bedrest. Wha? This would pose a major - and I mean major - financial conundrum. I have short term disability and we could technically make it ...but just technically. Monk is going through weird job stuff right now because of his back injury. I don't know. So anyway. I promptly responded by staying at work for the remaining 7 hours of my 12 hour shift.

And I'm home today. I only work 3 days a week ...and in my mind, I'm going to be ready to go back on Thursday. The thing is? I'm a horrible patient. When baby A2 asks for me to pick him up ...I pick him up. I really think that being home may be more physically straining than being at work. I can pretty much adapt my job to be very non-physical if I need to. I currently walk ..a LOT ..but could easily not. I could have one of my partners see the patients that are far away and I could sit my butt in the ER - only getting up to go see 7-8 patients a day. And I could sit through the majority of their evaluation if I had to. Bedrest doesn't make much sense to me because I know that I won't actually follow through on it. Monk - god love him - doesn't get it. Even last night - day 1 of the trial - from 8 p.m. when I got home until 10 p.m. when I got the baby to sleep - he must have grumbled 27000 times about what I wasn't doing. And honestly? It wasn't a lot that I wasn't doing. I would feel like a heel if I didn't at least try bedrest and the baby died. So I'm trying it for 2 days. We'll see what happens. Follow up with the OB tomorrow and I'll go from there.

Having an almost 2 year old has got to be the best thing ever. He is soooo amazingly fun right now. Full of enthusiasm and clapping and screaming, "HAPPY!!" when he gets something he wants. Love love it.

Shocking

2011-05-21T15:49:00.000-04:00

I know that this comes as a huge surprise to those that know me ...but honestly. I don't have what it takes to be pregnant with a subchorionic hemorrhage. Seriously. This is rough.

Everything had been mostly okay for about a week. I went to buy flowers this morning with baby A2. Not thinking, I picked up a hanging basket to carry out to the car while the guy I was working with was carrying everything else. I was already holding baby A2. I didn't notice anything at all until I set the flowers on the ground and got baby A2 buckled in his car seat. Then sudden cramping, ripping sensation, gush of blood.

I'm bleeding quite a bit today. Pretty severe cramping. This is the ...fourth? fifth? round of this kind of bleeding.

I'd like to curl up in a fetal position in a dark room and stay there. But it's 79 and sunny ...and the baby that IS here and somehow managed to survive the uterus of doom loves the outside. So it's outside I go.

I can't for the life of me see this ending well.

Weird.

2011-05-13T20:22:00.000-04:00

So ...blogger went down and my last post went with it? Very strange.

Anyway. Bad day for blogger to be off for me. All of the blogs I follow on google reader that are blogger blogs are messed up too.

So. I went and had an ultrasound yesterday, fully prepared and expecting to see a dead baby. I had even tentatively scheduled a D&C for before my OB went off call. And ...lo and behold. The baby is alive. And relatively huge! Like ...2 cm crown to rump length from 0.18 cm 2 weeks ago. Heart rate 165. Measuring on track.

And I have a fairly large subchorionic hemorrhage. Which I know close to nothing about. I came home and read about them for a while, got duly freaked out, and quit reading. I'm taking it easy and that's about it for now. There's been no additional blood.

I'm taking it one day at a time. Trying not to anticipate. Trying to remember to breathe. Slowly.

Mother.

2011-05-08T22:27:00.000-04:00

Today was unreal. Absolutely gorgeous outside. At one point, I was outside watching the ribs that I was grilling to deliver to my mom and grandmother for dinner, with Monk, the baby, the dog, and the teenager running around the backyard giggling and laughing. And it struck me. Who's life is this?? How did this happen? I think the moment even struck the golden child ...because she said to me later, "Can you believe we even have a white picket fence??" It was all very Norman Rockwell. I don't want to upset this apple cart and can't help but think that I'm tempting fate. Being greedy by having another. Why would I rock a perfectly floating boat? Why invite anxiety and heart ache in when we're fine without it?

I ended up in the ER on wednesday night after work. I worked 12p-12a. I felt more and more short of breath and uncomfortable all day long. Ultimately, I decided to say something about the pregnancy and my concerns to the doc I was working with. He essentially confirmed that my worries were valid. At the end of my shift, we walked back to the other hospital (about a 1/2 mile trek that starts with climbing 2 flights of steps). I think he was sort of horrified by how out of breath and uncomfortable I was. We walked slow and it was still really bad. He ended up calling my OB/friend, who agreed that I should go to the ER. Which means that virtually the entire hospital knows that I'm pregnant - and not a single soul in my family other than Monk knows. Not exactly comfortable. Especially because we aren't planning on a reveal until the end of June.

Ultimately - they ran a bunch of tests which confirmed that I had to have a CT scan. I discussed the risks/benefits at length with the radiologist. The radiation he felt would be a non-issue because of the direction of the rays and the abdominal shield. He feels that the contrast was low risk as well. I don't, but ultimately had the stupid test anyway. Everything was negative. The preliminary heart/cardiomyopathy stuff was all negative. No blood clot. I still have to have an echocardiogram and possibly a stress test next week. Ended up not getting home until 5 a.m.

I could barely keep up playing with the baby outside today. I hate it. And regardless of the cause (I'm still hoping for just plain old pregnancy induced tachycardia), it's only going to get worse throughout the remainder of the pregnancy.

I hope everyone out there had a good time with family and friends today ...whether you're holding your babies in your arms or in your hearts.

8 week Freak Out

2011-05-04T01:14:00.000-04:00

So it turns out I'm an emotional wreck.

I'm on night shift this week ..which is never good emotionally. This week is the 10 year anniversary of my dad's death - which I never deal with well. I spent a lot of time last night re-reading my blog entries written during the last pregnancy ...and I think I wrote 27 times that I would never be pregnant again because it (anxiety, physical discomfort) was so horrible.

I don't do this well.

So. Eight week check up. Everything with the baby is fine. Still there. Heart still beating. Hard to tell much beyond that at this point.

Then we talked about symptoms. Probably the most concerning symptom that I've had - which has been there since I was on spring break and before I knew I was pregnant ...is really, really bad shortness of breath. It seems to be getting worse. It only happens with exertion. At first I wrote it off to fluid shifts or something. But ...it's gotten worse. It's now to the point that I have to stop and rest while I'm walking from one building to another at work (maybe 1/4 mile walk). Yesterday, several of the docs noticed I was breathing heavily just talking to them. I also noticed that even while I was dictating a patient note I had to stop several times to catch my breath. Not good.

So ...I'm getting worked up for a couple of different things. One - pulmonary embolism. Because I drove to florida recently without stopping and have a history of a previous clot. Great. I love high dose radiation exposure in early pregnancy. The second - and quite honestly my biggest fear and suspicion - cardiomyopathy. Even typing that word right now made me cry. I don't even know what will happen if that's what's going on. No. fucking. idea.

Because I re-read my blog, I have a fairly fresh idea of what a nutcase I am and keep rationalizing that this probably nothing. But I'm still scared shitless.

Someone promise to make me go on an anti-anxiety medicine after this pregnancy. Assuming I'm still alive.

For the love of God.

Ambivalence.

2011-05-01T08:55:00.000-04:00

I feel so strange emotionally with this pregnancy. With A2, I was obsessive about everything. Um. Everything. Now I'm very ho-hum about everything. Most of the IF blogs that I read have progressed to life after infertility blogs (thank God) - and I honestly haven't sought out new ones lately. So...my brain got lazy. It occurred to me the other day (as a surprise) ..umm..NT scan!! Right. yeah. Supposed to do that. But umm..when does that happen again??

I wouldn't say that I'm overjoyed with this pregnancy. Definitely not disappointed, but not super excited, either. The idea of having a newborn, a 2 year old, and a junior in high school is slightly overwhelming. I guess it's more the idea of being a working mom with all of that stuff going on that it is overwhelming. We have a lot of work to do between here and there. As in. Umm. We need another bedroom. Not sure if there is one handy that I can borrow, but yeah. I was all set on having the babies share a room for a while when my cousin posted on facebook that her similarly age-spaced children were being urgently moved into separate bedrooms because she went to check on the newborn in the middle of the night and found the 2 year old standing in the crib with a blanket over the newborn's head. So. Yeah. End that thought right away.

Anyway. This is what I'm doing. I'm alternating between being in complete denial that the pregnancy exists and preparing for delivery. Yesterday I was prepared for miscarriage because I have waning morning sickness, severe cramping, and continue to bleed. Today I'm pukey, exhausted, the bleeding is gone and there is no more cramping.

Monk is in complete denial. As in ....we're using condoms when we have sex because he doesn't want to take the chance that I might get more pregnant. Um. Yeah.

I have no idea what's going on.

Ultrasound

2011-04-18T20:57:00.000-04:00

Quick post ...

Ultrasound today. Nearly peed my pants in the waiting room. I guess that's what geriatric pregnancy will get you!!!

1 gestational sac. 1 yolk sac. 1 teenie tiny itsy bitsy baby (crown to rump length .18cm). (Seriously). (That's small).

Measuring 5 weeks and 6 days (both gestational sac and baby).

1 perfect little heartbeat. 105 bpm.

Due date 12/14/11.

Holy crap.

So. Um. Yeah.

2011-04-16T22:31:00.000-04:00

It's been a while. A loooooong while.

It's been an interesting year, to say the least. I've had some crazy gynecological stuff going on ...namely dysfunctional daily uterine bleeding for just about a year. I ended up getting my gall bladder taken out at the end of August, followed by another D&C for ANOTHER early miscarriage in late September. The bleeding never stopped after the D&C ...but improved somewhat. It stopped responding to hormones. We mainly blame it on some seriously intense adenomyosis. And the ever present PCOS. Ultimately, I decided very reluctantly to have a hysterectomy. Which I was dreading in most ways. I decided to actually take my vacation that was scheduled and not use all of my vacation time as sick time ...and planned on scheduling the hyster when I got back from a wonderful trip to Florida. I spent 11 days in the warmth of the gulf where I watched baby A2 learn all about the ocean and the golden girl explore what it really means to be on spring break in a spring break town as a teenager.

I was laying on the beach and turned over to stand up and ..umm...had the most crazy out of control pain in my right lower quadrant that passed about 2 minutes later. I thought....hmm. And then it happened three more times. It was a familiar pain. Round ligament pain.

So I came home from Florida and peed on a stick. And saw two very, very dark lines.

It seems that I have an appropriately doubling beta currently in the 10,000's. And it looks like I might be having a baby instead of a hysterectomy. Ultrasound scheduled for Monday.

Which somehow led me here. We'll see how this goes.

Valentine...

2010-02-14T23:24:00.000-05:00

So ...this is my favorite Valentine this year:

I really didn't know you could be more in love with someone. That's not entirely true. It was like this with his sister too. Amazing how somehow through the sleep deprivation and craziness he can still steal my heart.

I'm sure you can see his eyes are goofy in this picture ...it actually made me take a closer look at him and realize that he has esotropia. So off to the baby eye doctor we went ...we're currently patching his good eye two hours a day and hoping to strengthen the lazy eye ..which is just silly. I mean honestly. A seven month old with a pirate patch couldn't be cuter. He doesn't actually seem to mind ...but he's getting some skin breakdown for it. The eye doc also picked up an astigmatism ..so we're probably looking at glasses at some point in time. Good thing I passed on vision insurance for him ...ha!

I moved his crib into our bedroom and attached it to our bed a la giant co-sleeper. He still thinks his crib mattress is made of nails. Amazing, really ...he's super sound asleep in our bed ...I slide him six inches over onto his mattress and he wakes up instantly. I realize this is somehow my fault. But seriously. Six inches away?? And are any of you still swaddling a seven month old? I'm sure this is going nowhere fast ...but the kid won't sleep without being swaddled. It's so bad that now when I lay him down on his swaddle blanket he tucks his own arms into the sides to get ready to be wrapped up. I've tried weaning him out of it...but even in it I'm lucky if he sleeps a solid two hours. Very lucky. I get mad...and then he does something silly like shake his head no for an hour and a half straight the day he learned how to do it and all of the lack of sleeping is forgotten.

Things have somewhat quieted down on the marriage front ...only because I'm not pushing any issues. Which isn't good. I feel like I'm letting things boil under the surface ...and then he does one little thing that any normal level headed person would blow off and I flip my lid. Because seriously. I can eat a cheeto in the living room.

Right?

The flair.

2010-01-31T15:43:00.000-05:00

The flair for the dramatic ...that's what I have.

I guess it's not a great idea to post all woe is me my marriage is over on a blog you've ignored for seven months about 20 seconds after the end of a fight. Because seriously. I don't think it's over.

I think we're at the point where it can easily go either way. I see us in the spot where it all goes wrong. Where we stop loving each other. Turn other places for much needed attention. Where it just becomes easier and easier to shut down instead of open up. And I don't really know how to NOT let that happen when one of us isn't willing to sit down with someone and point out the flaws in our communication so we can make it better.

We have always been very, very different people. Different priorities. Different things that make us happy. And to some extent, it's worked so far. I'm having a hard time currently because I feel constantly and totally harrassed. All the time. About everything. The sock on the floor. The grain of rice on the table. You name it ...I guarantee I've heard about it. At least twice. And honestly? I want to not hear about it. I just want some flipping peaceful family time when no one yells or bitches about stuff.

Because I? Do not sweat the small stuff. And Monk? Is diaphoretic over it. All of it. Can't let one thing go. And I don't want my children to be like that. I don't want them to model their relationships on ours. That's a sad thing to say ...but it's true.

My new job ..being the cake walk that it is ....has left me with lots of time to think. I currently spend my days as a hospitalist. Taking care of people admitted to the hospital who either do not have a physician or have a physician that doesn't come to the hospital. You would be amazed by what I see on a daily basis. On one day last week? I admitted three people varying in age from 20-50 who came in to the emergency department with some small nagging non-specific complaint and were handed a diagnosis of cancer 2 hours later. The one girl who told me she felt really silly but was just sort of ...I don't know ..tired? And maybe a little short of breath? Had a mass that filled her entire right lung. She was 22. And when I deal all day with that? I want to come home and be incredibly blissfully happy for the good fortune that we have right now. Because I know that chances are? It is not the good fortune that we will always have. Those big lung encompassing tumors happen to everyone. No one gets spared. Not if you say your prayers at night. Not if you help old ladies across the street. They happen to us all. I don't want to waste one minute when that crap actually ISN'T happening fighting about how someone left a blanket unfolded, a cupboard open, or a smudge of food on the fridge. Because you know what? We have blankets. And cupboards. And a fridge. With food in it. And right now? That should be enough to make us happy. And if the other stuff bothers you ....fold the blanket. Close the cupboard. Wipe the fridge. Teach the kids about that stuff along the way. Don't ruin my night, your night, and our children's night by yelling at everyone for two hours.

I don't know how to see eye to eye on this. I just know that I won't sacrifice peace and gratitude. We're not here long enough.

Seven Months?

2010-01-29T18:25:00.000-05:00

Seriously. Seven months? I have a seven month old? It's sooo strange. And wonderful.

To say that I'm a bad blogger is a disservice to bad bloggers. Because really? I've not been a blogger at all for the past ...oh ...7 months. Life here got crazy ...and is just now settling down.   I switched jobs. Went back to the hospital. Punch a clock. Work no overtime. Make more money. Work much less hard. Have no work stress. Have much less work satisfaction but a lot more mommy satisfaction. Monk is still not working ....off work from the broken back until March. Not sure how well it will go when he does go back. The only good part of that is that he's been home with the baby the whole time. Not as good as mom being home....but closer than any other option we would have had.

I've struggled with pumping and milk supply since the end of maternity leave ...we're still holding our own without supplementing. But I'm decidedly not someone that should give advice on how to pump well. Unless you want advice on how to take drugs to make you produce more milk ....because alas ...we've tried them all.

Baby A2 is unabashedly wonderful. His kidney is still huge...but still not causing any problems to speak of. He's laughing hysterically now. He loves giving wide open mouth kisses. My heart melts every time he smiles and reaches for me. Loving him has been the easiest thing I have ever done. There's really nothing about parenting him that I find stressful {other than milk supply}. He doesn't sleep.  Like ...ever. I've toyed with the idea of sleep training but know that I don't have the heart for it. And honestly ....the best thing about having 14 years between children is knowing how short this phase really is. I can cuddle and nurse him through the not sleeping for this short while. The world won't end. I'll survive on less sleep. It is unbelievably amazing to me how healing this little man has been for me. For my soul. I think I had myself half way convinced that I would have been okay without a baby. That I didn't really need one. That I was somehow faking the ache for one. And then he came. And I'm better. All the way better.   I don't know that I'll ever be able to describe it.

And so I've struggled with blogging...because I'm not really a mommy blogger. I read lots of mommy bloggers ..find them fascinating even ..but it's not me. And I can't come to this space day after day and gloat about how wonderful getting to the other side of the infertility hell zone is.   I think of things I want to post often ...write ...and never hit publish. I don't know why.

I came here tonight after a fight with Monk. The marriage? Is struggling. Badly. And I don't know how to fix it. There are no major issues. No cheating. No lack of money. No infidelity. No abuse. There's just no connection anymore. I've requested ...demanded ...counseling. And he said no.

I found myself again in this baby. Our baby. I've lost my marriage. And found myself here. So maybe I'll start blogging again. Maybe.

The last four weeks

2009-08-31T20:51:00.003-04:00

Or: "Why I suck at blogging, in bullets"

Although I have about six really excellent posts half written, life seems to be getting in the way of well...just about everything. My life is nothing short of a joke, lately, people. Seriously. A joke. A few of the occurrences that have kept me from the computer:

First and foremost, a beautiful, wonderful baby. We had a rough few weeks but now that we passed the six week growth spurt life is back to easy with him. Except that he no longer sleeps. Like Ever. As in, our longest stretch without sleep was 17 hours without even closing his eyes for a five minute nap. I nearly poked my own eyes out. Except that it's hard to poke your eyes out with a 2 month old smiling lovingly at you.

I developed a very lovely incisional infection EIGHT WEEKS post partum. Eight Weeks. Seriously. Oral antibiotics didn't work. I'm allergic to the 2 classes that would actually work. So ..my options were 1) take an oral that I was allergic to 2) be hospitalized for IV antibiotics 3) attempt IV antibiotics at home. I opted to try the one I was allergic to and broke out in a huge rash about an hour after I took the first pill. Because of the item directly below, hospitalization and/or having an arm out of commission for an IV was out of the question. So I'm currently treating the infection with a peroxide wash and hoping for the best. As in ...hoping I don't end up in the ICU septic or something. It seems to be holding it's own right now.

Monk fell off a roof at work and broke his back in two places. The good news is that he's alive, can walk, and has control of all of his own bodily functions. The bad news is that he 1) can't work 2) can't do anything else. He's in a brace that limits movement, has a 5 pound weight lifting restriction, and can't bend or twist ever. If you're particularly astute, you'll note that my brand new baby weighs 13 pounds (because he's a moose). So ..I now have 2 babies. I felt less like a single mom when I was a single mom. Honestly. To say that it's overwhelming to have him out of the running for helping with anything - a single diaper change or nighttime waking - is a tremendous understatement. To describe the stress of your husband asking you to tie his shoes while you're nursing a baby and trying to online shop for a teenager's birthday? Umm...I don't think I can. These restrictions are in effect for a minimum of 12 weeks. The baby will be nearly 6 months old before his dad can hold him again.

I picked the baby up out of the crib about a week after Monk broke his back. It hurt. A lot. In the morning I quite literally couldn't sit, stand, or walk because of the unbelievable pain in my back. My mom had to come and rescue me. She literally held the weight of the baby so that I could nurse him. It was awful. I finally made my way to the MRI machine to discover that I herniated a disc, tore 2 others, and pinched a major nerve. Umm. If you want to think about stress? Think about the fact that now the only one in my family that can tie their own shoes is my now 14 year old.

The dog - who has severe hip dysplasia - somehow managed to fracture her left elbow. She requires not 1, but 3 surgeries, at $2500/pop. And she can't walk. She needs to be carried in and out of the house to use the bathroom. See above for the family members that can safely do that.

This is my last week of maternity leave. Can't. even. think. about. that.

Prior to Monk's injury, I didn't know how to turn on the vacuum or where we kept the garbage bags. For reals. He does that much around the house. He did, I should say. Because his name is MONK, he still expects the house to be in that very neat and hyperclean orderly state. We've had many issues because umm...I'm not the type to vacuum while holding and nursing a new baby with a herniated disc in my back. He is, surprisingly to me, not understanding that.

The golden child starts high school one week from tomorrow.

Normally? Any one of the above items would throw me for a loop. Currently? I'm getting very close to requesting an in patient psych admission. I'm a wreck. When I'm no longer a wreck? I'll get back to posting my happy posts about all things nursing, pumping 101, and the beauty of a good photographer.

Until then? I'll try and keep my focus on the little man on top. He is my angel. Seriously. I think he's the cutest thing ever.

Birth Story ..part two

2009-07-14T09:28:00.003-04:00

Mostly because I want to be able to remember all of the little details....

Sorry it has taken so long ...we've landed ourselves smack dab in the middle of a growth spurt ...and the baby feels like he's dying if he doesn't nurse every 45 minutes or so. Umm...I'm thankful for the increase in milk supply ...but geez.

After the NICU team was done with their assessment, Monk brought the baby over to me. The CRNA did an outstanding job taking pictures for us. She helped Monk to lay the baby on my chest while they were putting my parts back in and sewing me up. That was something that never happened with the golden child and I was so happy to be able to cuddle him that soon after birth. Eventually, Monk and the baby went into the recovery room and they moved me over to a bed and wheeled me into the recovery room with them. The NICU team asked that they wait to bathe the baby for 12 hours to give him more time to transition. One of my biggest "I don't want to do that" moments was over remembering the shaking chills after the golden child's section. They have a fancy new Bair Hugger gown that they had me wear and hooked the gown up to a hot air blower ...and I never got the chills. It was rather delightful.

Remember when I said that spinal anesthesia with duramorph was the best thing ever? It truly was. But it was also like ..almost the worst thing. The CRNA came in to check on me and told me that I might get some nausea and facial itching from the duramorph ...and that if I did I should ask for meds sooner rather than later. Ha! I felt great for quite a while ...I nursed the baby. He latched on like he was a 6 month old ..nursed on both sides for 15 minutes. I was rather amazed. Monk left the room to go tell the 30 or so family members about the baby and to let my mom and the golden child come back. The golden child was appropriately amazed and awed. The picture above is her first glimpse at her brother.

My mom and daughter left to allow Monk's parents to come back ...still felt great but maybe a little itch on my nose?? They left and Monk's sister and my niece came back. During the transition I started to feel really nauseated. They left, and the nurse decided to roll me side to side and change me into a regular gown to go back to my room in. Turned left ...no problem. Turned right ...and started puking like a mad woman. I must have thrown up/dry heaved 27 times ..each time feeling like staples were popping out. The nurse finally pushed some zofran and things calmed down. By the time I got back to my room, my face was full on ITCHING. I don't mean like ...a little scratch here and there. There was no rash ..but I swear to God I tried to rip the skin off my face. Monk was freaking out ...I couldn't stop rubbing, pulling, scratching my face for anything. And then, thankfully, I had the best RN I've ever encountered on the patient side of life. She came in and said that she knew I was an NP and had privileges at the hospital but that she was going to pretend like I didn't know anything and tell me everything anyway. She noticed that I was trying to peel my face off and told me that she was going to get some Nubain to make it go away. I told her I didn't want it - that it would make me sleepy and wasn't worth it. She essentially said too bad and went to get it. I demanded that she only give me half the dose. She said no ..and gave me the full dose anyway. I did get sleepy ..but the damn itching went away. And I have to say ....I think that took a lot of guts on her part. I don't know if I would have had the guts to do something like that - but it was exactly what I needed. She really was wonderful. Monk is still amazed by her. Because I was still paralyzed from the waste down, she taught Monk how to change the baby's diaper when he had his first meconium yuck. She was very patient with him. My mom and the golden child came into the room ...I nearly passed out from the Nubain ...Monk went to get some food ...and my mom held the baby while I slept. Eventually she took the golden child home and we were alone with the baby for the first time. It was all very surreal. He {the baby} moaned almost the entire first night with every exhale. I don't think we slept for 3 seconds because we were so worried.

At 4 am they got me up, took out my catheter, helped me to clean the betadine off all the parts that needed to be cleaned. I walked the halls (umm...9 hours after birth!) pain free and had very little bleeding. My only complaint - albeit a huge one - is that the air conditioning in the hospital wasn't working and my room was literally 82 degrees. It was beyond miserable. I was sweating from birth changes anyway ...and I spent most of the time we were there totally drenched. It was so so so so freaking hot.

The morning after the birth, the baby went for his kidney ultrasound ...kidney was still very enlarged. He peed a ton right after delivery ...but then hardly at all after that ...like twice a day. So I was freaking out about that.

The pediatrician came in and explained the process for the kidney work up. He would need to be on antibiotics and repeat the ultrasound in 2 weeks. They came in for the circumcision. Monk is still mad ..because every time someone would come in and say, "You want to have the baby circumcised?" I would say "SOMEONE in this room does ...but not me!". The friend/OB had 4 deliveries the morning that I was going to be discharged so her partner came in. I had never met him before ...and he was rather funny. He asked what I was going to do for birth control. I explained the whole, "I have PCOS and a history of multiple miscarriages and blood clots ...I can't take the pill" thing. I asked if I could start taking Metformin again. He said, "I'd start taking it right away ..wait 4 weeks then start having sex all the time and have another baby right away. Your body will be ready." I laughed ...thinking he was joking. The friend/OB came in later ...and he was apparently serious. He wants everyone to have 90 kids. Has 11 himself. Doesn't do any sterilization procedures. Hmm. Rather interesting! He ended up doing the baby's circumcision. I didn't realize that they slept for like ..8 hours afterwards because they were so traumatized. I'm still mad that we did it...even though everything turned out fine.

I did end up getting a little bit sore on the second day...but still never needed anything more than Motrin. The crazy stupid pelvic pain went away the second they took the baby out. I felt like I could run a marathon being pain free felt so good. The friend/OB wanted me to stay one more night ...but I couldn't deal with the temperature in the room so she let us go home. A little more than 36 hours after birth, we were all at home and cozied up together on the couch.

Blissful.

Still Home

2009-07-10T23:58:00.002-04:00

The Birth Story - Part Two. Will be coming soon. I promise. But first? A quickie type update.

So apparently having a new baby hasn't improved my blogging skills at all. I keep meaning to post ...and then I realize that I can't actually nurse and type at the same time ..and well...someone is always hungry so he wins. Life has actually been very, very good. I feel drunk on love. The oxytocin/prolactin/breastfeeding love drug is working it's wonders in ways I didn't even remember were possible. I feel all cuddly and lovey dovey towards nearly everyone. It's the part of me that has been missing for ...well ...years...the part that I couldn't figure out where it went or why it was gone. I'm more than happy to spend my nights with everyone right on top of me all in the same chair ...and I've devoted hours to bitching about that on this blog in the past several months. It's really been rather lovely to find this part of myself again. Very healing. I could wax poetic about it for years, really. I'm just desperate for it to not end. I've even told Monk that maybe we should have like 14 more children to make sure it doesn't go away.

I ended up with a nasty incisional infection that made me feel like I was dying for several days. By the time I dragged myself into the OB I was nearly delirious. I felt much better after 3 days of antibiotics. The baby has had an appointment literally every day between weight checks, kidney ultrasounds, jaundice checks, etc. It's really all I can do to leave the house by 11:30 a.m. ...which bodes well for going back to work. The baby had a nasty kidney test today that broke my heart ...the results of which will tell us if he's basically okay or if he has to have surgery. The strangest thing is that I'm not really all that nervous about it. He is soooo much easier to care for on the outside than he was on the inside. So much. He nurses like an expert and typically sleeps almost through the night - usually waking just once to nurse and goes right back to sleep. He's easily soothed, doesn't spit up, has no real elimination of body substances issues, and really only cries for good reason. I've had no nipple soreness or issues even though he nurses like 12 times a day. Life is so much better now that my anxiety is mostly gone. I didn't even realize how paralyzing it was until it wasn't there anymore. Physically ...I feel so much better. The absence of pelvic pain and being able to walk again alone makes me feel like a new woman. The golden child has been absolutely wonderful ...she is at least as in love with her brother as I am. This whole process has been so much easier because of her help . . . she's always willing to hold/cuddle/run for objects/allow me to shower and look human.

My weight is down 33 pounds ..and I only gained 13 during the pregnancy. I'm super psyched about that. I know a lot of it is fluid and the dreaded swelling finally resolving. ...but it does tell me how lovely life would be without PCOS. What to do to keep that under control?

The baby rolled over several times tonight ...from belly to back ..which um...is WAY early and terrifies me for what is to come! I had to take video because my own mother didn't believe me.

The new king of our household is stirring ....more tomorrow ( I hope!)

Home

2009-06-27T21:03:00.004-04:00

The Birth Story - Part One

I don't know if anything in my life ...anything ... has felt better than pulling into my driveway last night with my family. My entire family. All of us alive and breathing independently. The symbolism of seeing the white picket fence surround my yard as we pulled in did not escape my very hormonal self. Home. Safe. Healthy. All four of us. I think I'm still in shock.

I never stopped contracting after the amnio. They slowed down to seven minutes apart but kept increasing in intensity. On Wednesday morning I had a mini-meltdown because I was exhausted and the fear of going into a c-section that tired was terrifying. I hadn't slept since Saturday night. Around 7 or 8 I managed to develop crazy wretched diarrhea - which includes a story so flipping disgusting and funny that it deserves it's own post - and thought ..umm.... uh-oh. My blood sugars had dropped significantly. Even without any insulin at all, my after breakfast reading was 78. And I thought ..ummm..not good. Because the only reason for that to happen would be a sudden drop in hormones - so I'm either in labor for real, or there is something wrong. For some reason, I proceeded to run errands! Went grocery shopping for our "last meal", went and picked up some meds at the vet's office, stopped at the office for a second, and went to the pharmacy for Monk's medicine. On the way home, I timed the contractions and realized I was back to 4 minutes apart. I got really dizzy and lightheaded, called Monk, and we went to the hospital for the NST and BPP. Contractions continued to worsen. The NST was actually fine. The Biophysical profile looked a little worse ...the score went from 6 to 5. She measured him and thought he was probably 8 lbs 8 ounces which made me feel a LOT better. No attempts at breathing. Very little movement. We had a lot of "do you want to wait" and "I'm scared as shit about stillbirth" conversations. She knew this - because we talked about it endlessly at every visit. It was the reason for the frequent NST's, the hyper-management of blood sugars ..everything. She thought I had OCD about it and needed to relax for most of the pregnancy. The OB/friend decided to do the section that day. I, of course, had eaten lunch trying to improve the NST and BPP so she scheduled the section for as soon as possible after anesthesia cleared me. Anesthesia agreed to 7 pm. We called and told family. Contractions promptly became excruciating and 2 minutes apart. I thought ..Hmm. Maybe I should just Vbac?? I really didn't want a section and things seemed to be moving along swimmingly well. The OB came into the room to chat about the possibility ...and the baby promptly had some late decelerations. They decided to take him right then. The NICU team was called in for the delivery. They warned me that he might need to go to the NICU because of the kidney and immature lungs. I watched the isolette roll into the delivery room and started to panic.

Can I just say that spinal anesthesia with duramorph is the best invention EVER? Never hurt going in and I literally never felt a thing throughout the section. Nothing. No pressure, no pain. It couldn't have been more different than the golden child's section. I was amazed all the way through. I did, however, lose my blood pressure right after the medicine went in and that was less than comfortable. Someone asked if I was okay ...I couldn't talk ...looked at the monitor and saw 60/22 as my blood pressure. I started to pass out and throw up. I had a very real but fleeting thought that I was dying ...then the reversing meds started to work and my blood pressure came back.

Monk did amazing throughout the entire thing. He was nervous before the section ...tearful at times. Took xanax. Thought about maybe taking three. But in the room? He was extremely calm and reassuring. Even stood up to look when they pulled out the baby. He started crying immediately. Screaming, in fact. My OB/friend pulled him out and said, "He's beautiful, Shauna. He's healthy." Monk and I started crying. She handed the baby to the NICU team. I said, "How are his eyes??" which was supposed to be our code for "does he have Down's?" She said, "I didn't look that close!!" The anesthesiologist asked what was going on ...I told her ..she took our camera and went to take a picture of the baby's face and brought it back to me. He was fine. Absolutely fine. I kept telling the OB/friend that I loved her because I couldn't imagine a more comfortable birth.

All of a sudden the OB/friend said, "Ohmygod, Shauna. Ohmygod...this was the problem." And she held the umbilical cord up for me to see. It had the largest, tightest, true knot that I could ever possibly imagine. Ever. If my water had broken or if I had attempted a VBAC? The baby would have died. The months of early contractions? Likely due to his distress and not getting enough oxygen and nutrients. Even now, I can't stop thinking about what might have been. What easily could have been. It's overwhelming.

Continued tomorrow . . .

2009-06-25T14:30:00.002-04:00

Baby A2 ....

Birth Day

2009-06-25T13:02:00.003-04:00

Quick post ..still in the hospital.

After much drama, Baby A2 was born healthy and alive on 06/24 at 7:53 p.m. Eight pounds, 1 ounce. 20 inches long. He and I are both doing very well ...the c-section was the easiest thing ever ...the hours of labor leading up to it not so much.

Full story to follow.

The peace I feel? Indescribable.

Status Quo . . .

2009-06-23T15:11:00.003-04:00

I was supposed to go in for a non stress and biophysical profile at 3 ...but instead I'm already home. I started having contractions again around 10 this morning ...and when I decided to pay attention, I realized that they were 4 minutes apart. Monk had stolen my car keys this morning so I didn't decide to make a trip to Ikea (2 hours away) ...so he had to come home from work early to get me. When I got to the hospital, I was still contracting so they started an IV {again} and gave me a litre of fluid. My blood sugar was 75 ....so the MFM stopped my insulin. Ack. That makes me nervous. She wants me to be higher for the next couple of days and said to call if it hits 160. The contractions stopped after the fluid. The biophysical profile and NST were essentially the same. No better ...no worse ...so the kid is in until at least tomorrow barring some unforeseen run of labor again or something..

I'm soooo tired. Like ..crazy ridiculous super sleepy tired. I've taken like 3 naps and slept for at least 10 hours last night. I don't know what's up with that. I've already self diagnosed myself with all sorts of fun stuff ..when in reality, my body is probably making some attempt to get things ready. But my brain wouldn't be surprised if I ended up with cardiomyopathy of pregnancy or something.

I'm not nearly as anxious as I was last night ...but not exactly what I call comfortable, either. Everytime the baby doesn't move for 20 minutes I'm about ready to stroke. Then he kicks me firmly in the liver and I calm back down.

The golden child spent the night at a friend's last night and went to the beach with her family today. She's texting me about every 30 minutes to make sure everything is okay ..so I know she's still crazy anxious on one side. On the other, she's pissed because I won't let her and the friend spend the night here tonight. Umm....is that awful? I just don't see how it's a good idea to have a kid spend the night when we could theoretically have to leave them here in the middle of the night and go to the hospital? I must be hormonal because I don't feel like it's an irrational decision but feel incredibly guilty for saying no to her when I know she's stressing and the friend offers welcome distraction.

In other news ...there is so. much. freaking. drama in Monk's family right now that I could scream. And possibly become homicidal. His brother bought a lot and is almost done building a house behind his sister's house - like - literally in the back yard. It's such a long story ...but now the entire family is fighting non-stop. His brother and the wife are ....ignorant at best. It's about 90 degrees here today and they have my 70 year old father in law with a bad back hand grading their new lawn because they don't want to pay to have it done. My sister in law tries to cause drama wherever she goes. And I'm hormonal enough that I'm probably going to give plenty of drama back to her tonight. There's WAY more to the story than I could ever describe here. A good synopsis includes not having a mortgage and sponging off of your in laws for the past year, not doing your own children's laundry or caring about them at all, probably having an affair, and trying to drag people back into our lives that don't need to be there. I called Monk at work today to tell him that I don't want her evil demon skin touching the baby or showing up at the hospital.

He suggested that I was possibly over-reacting.

Hmm. I might be.

I consider it justified. :)

Chaos

2009-06-22T17:05:00.005-04:00

So. Today didn't go quite as planned. Actually, it started with last night when we started frantically getting all of our stuff together and moving assembled baby things where they would need to be when we got home. I walked into the bonus room to find the golden child curled in a ball with an upset stomach. Worried that I wouldn't live through the c-section or that something was wrong with the baby. She was still upset after several hours of reassurance and cuddling. Weird that I would have a medically anxious offspring, no?

Monk and I got NO sleep. None. Had to be up at 5:30 to get to the hospital on time. I might have dozed once from like 3:00 - 3:06. Soooo anxious. And nervous. And scared. And mournful. It's weird to say goodbye to a pregnancy you know will be your last. I wanted Monk to be all lovey dovey over feeling the last movements on the inside. Then I was upset that he wasn't concerned that I might die. Then I was sure the baby would be born with 12 eyes and no heart and 1 really screwed up kidney. It just went on and on. Why is this my last pregnancy? Because honestly? I don't do it well. I can't handle the anxiety that comes with it.

Went to the hospital. Had the amnio. Which seriously?? Was nothing. As in ..I've given myself insulin injections that hurt more. Which really pisses me off. Because it was sooo controlled and so not a problem that I really wish we had done the amnio way back when so I could have been less paranoid and more settled one way or another. After 2 1/2 hours, the results were back. Two of the three tests were "transitional" ...meaning ..lungs could be ready ..could not be. The third test was "absent" ..or not ready. I think the OB/friend was afraid to tell me. I grovelled a bit ..worried about still birth after 38 weeks with gestational diabetes. She agreed to do an ultrasound. The baby ...who was 5 pounds 7 ounces on his last scan FOUR AND A HALF WEEKS ago was only 6 lbs 3 ounces. And they were expecting 8 1/2 to 9 1/2 pounds. His kidney is still very goofy. His head size went from 4th percentile to 75%th. Abdominal circumference went from 95th% to 22nd percentile. Official diagnosis? Asymmetrical intrauterine growth restriction. Which is ...umm...not great with the lung immaturity. Sooo ...they had the MFM come over and re-scan to confirm the measurements. She wants the baby in until Thursday ...and then out regardless of lung maturity. She thinks that it might make the difference between NICU and mechanical ventilation or not. He also failed part of his bio-physical profile. His official score is 6/10. Umm. I'm not a math major ..but 60% doesn't sound great to me.

Why the IUGR? No idea. She thinks maybe not enough weight gain and too strict control of blood sugars? Umm..seriously? I'll kill someone ...because this was NOT easy, and the MFM doc RODE MY ASS at every single appointment about every ounce of weight gain and any blood sugar higher than 90 in the morning or 120 one hour after eating. Other possibilities include the kidney being worse than we think ...the measurements being wrong, etc. The placenta failing because of the diabetes. The gods conspiring against me.

So the current plan? Daily NST's until Thursday with a biophysical profile...delivery at 9 am Thursday if they stay the same and don't worsen.

Assuming we both live that long. And that I don't become addicted to some weird anxiety medicine that I don't have a prescription for. They don't make enough drugs for this kind of anxiety.

And this becoming a mama thing? Not for the feint of heart.

37 weeks

2009-06-15T17:42:00.003-04:00

Does anyone else see the irony in the fact that I refused an amnio that would have given me peace of mind and/or adjustment time out of fear only to have an amnio at 38 weeks for lung maturity?

LAST PRENATAL APPOINTMENT TODAY. Very likely the last ever ..cause umm..barring some unforeseen change I don't think I'm accidentally going to swallow clomid for a week and rape my husband on an every other daily basis for two weeks. That being said, I did get the "What are your contraception plans after birth?" routine from the OB nurse. I said, "Umm...infertility, PCOS, recurrent pregnancy loss, and breastfeeding." She said, "I'll just write declined." Okay then.

Official last weight? Up a total of 13 pounds. Which honestly? I'm pretty happy with. I very honestly could have done a lot better. I probably could have gained a total of zero if I had worked at it. But ..I'm content with 13. Especially because she thinks the baby is going to be 9 1/2 lbs by next monday. Umm. Ouch. That's all I can say. He's going to be a teeny tiny head big bellied baby. Everything else still looks good. Blood pressure perfect ...swelling hasn't gotten any worse. Normal labs. No protein. Three days of work left and I made it without missing an entire week for bed rest though I had days here and there scattered in. And actually? I feel pretty good right now ...for maybe the first time this entire pregnancy. Now that baby has settled soooo low into my pelvis, the contractions have virtually stopped as well as the pelvic pain. Blood sugars are still perfect {with insulin}. I tried to bribe her into telling my husband that there was a secret twin during the delivery after watching that new show on TLC last night.

And this stupid pubic symphysis dysfunction? I had literally never heard of it before I got it and wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. It was the bane of my existence for the entire pregnancy.

Six days left. Six. I feel like I just peed on a stick on Halloween like ...2 weeks ago. Six days and we'll know what we know ...for better or worse. And then my still birth cord accident bad kidney huge baby Downs syndrome anxiety can move on in whatever direction it takes me.

Assuming his lungs are mature. And if they aren't ? At 38 weeks? I'll probably cry like a buffoon until the OB takes mercy on me and takes the baby out anyway. Diagnosis for early elective delivery with immature lungs? Maternal psychosis. That should work.

Wish us luck! I'll update as soon as I can.

36 weeks

2009-06-08T17:34:00.002-04:00

So the visit today went well. The baby has dropped ..really, really low ..which is likely why I feel so much freaking cervical pressure all of the time. I'm dilated to 2 cm. Lots and lots of contractions which...who knows? Maybe early labor ...maybe all braxton hicks. She scheduled the c-section for the 22nd again after an amnio to prove lung maturity. Assuming nothing happens on it's own between now and then.

Umm. That's two weeks. From today.

Holy Shite I have a lot of stuff to get done!

Mental

2009-06-06T14:20:00.002-04:00

Has anyone watched Mental on Fox? I don't know if it's the health care provider in me or what ..but I totally love it. Last night's episode was ...interesting. An OB/Gyn husband so desperate for a baby that he convinced himself AND his wife that she was pregnant ....and she had physical symptoms, a swollen belly, everything ..even though she wasn't. It was an interesting perspective of infertility from the male side.

Life in my world is pretty much the same. I continue to have false labor episodes on a daily basis ....contractions 5-8 minutes apart for several hours and then it stops. It'll be interesting to see if my cervix has changed at all at my appointment on Monday. Very, very frustrating on my end because it is soooo incredibly uncomfortable. I go from being sure that I should take an ambulance to L&D to ..umm..nothing. Bizarre. The golden child is desperate for me to not give birth until Thursday. She has her last 8th grade field trip (an overnighter to a huge amusement park in the next state) tomorrow and Monday ...graduation on Wednesday followed by a sort of junior prom. She's ecstatic with excitement about it all and terrified that the baby may try to steal her Thunder.

One of the few things that makes me more comfortable during the pretend labor sessions is a huge exercise ball. Last night ...I was sitting on it during some particularly intense contractions that had me feeling like there was a knife in my cervix. When I stood up ...my pants were completely soaked. Drenched. Wet. Didn't think that I peed at all. Monk flipped out and started running around getting ready to go to the hospital ...I convinced him to wait and see. I haven't really had any more fluid leakage so I'm assuming that I peed my pants. Lovely. Pregnancy is infinitely filled with glamour, no? I don't feel well today at all. I wake up super early every morning now ..which is NOT my style. I got ready for the day when everyone else was still safely tucked in bed and went to the grocery store. I had to abandon the trip half way through because I felt SO rotten. Contracting, about to have diarrhea, pass out, sort of short of breath ick. Thought maybe it was a blood sugar issue ...but that really has been very, very well controlled and it was fine. Came home to rest ...and I'm still having contractions every 6 minutes right now.

So ..do I run to labor and delivery ever 14 seconds and have them find out that I'm a psycho? Or blow it off and have it be the real thing and deliver on my living room floor? I'm just a nervous wreck all the time. I think I need to bring home some supplies from the office so I can do amniotic fluid checks and what not and feel better about the whole thing.

I still have so. much. to. get. ready. Every time I think we're set ...I remember about 20 additional things that we absolutely have to have. How many "last trips" to Babies R Us do you think I can make???

shadows and healing

2009-05-29T21:59:00.002-04:00

I live fairly close to a huge outlet center. Monk has been desperately searching for this specific pottery barn canvas that he wants to stretch and hang in the living room. He called the outlet tonight and they happened to have one in. So ...off we went trying to rush there before they closed. As I walked...well...to be honest, probably waddled ...into the store, I immediately flashed back to a trip I made there last summer. I've been there a million times since ...but for some reason it struck me this time. I remember hiding in one of the aisles last summer, eyes brimming full of tears. I was coming off of loss number three ...and it seemed like everyone in the entire store and outlet center was 8 or 9 months pregnant. It was more than what I could stand at the time.

Less than a year later ...it was me 8 months pregnant and wandering the store looking for baby bedding and cute shelving and decorations. I took a couple of minutes and looked around ...searching the shadows between the aisles for the old me. Searching for the women still hurting and aching for someone to fill their bellies, hearts, and eventually arms.

psychosis

2009-05-26T19:20:00.003-04:00

So I think I'm totally psychotic or something. I didn't get over my organic milk crisis until like 2 p.m. today or something. It's insane to have no control over your emotions at all.

I called the MFM this morning to ask about the teenie tiny head. He said he doesn't think that there is anything to worry about. Apologized for not saying anything at the appointment. He didn't notice how off the percentage was when the RN scanned me. He said that with the chaos of the appointment and the non-reactive stress test and then me passing out on the table it just got missed. That he would have normally re-scanned it himself to get a more accurate measurement. He went over the pictures again and said that it was a really bad angle because the baby's head is sitting directly on my cervix (comfy, yes). Anyway. He made me feel better. Or at least stop hyperventilating.

Then I had my OB appointment early because I started spotting again. She sent me in for more monitoring. Turns out that I spot during fairly intense contractions because umm..I'm trying to dilate or something. Then she told me that she was going to have to move my C-section date back by a week because of new hospital and keystone guidelines that forbid scheduled sections before 39 weeks. Okay seriously? I know I chaired a Keystone ICU best practice committee for several years. But umm..right now? I'd like to tell Keystone where to go. So anyway. I'm currently grappling with: 1) doing what she says and relaxing when contractions pick up and 2) attempting to run a marathon when I start contracting to force labor early. I think I'll compromise and go her way for another 2 weeks and then what's fair is fair. Right? Right.

Open message to the overly chatty somewhat older and very full figured woman in the OB waiting room (notice that I'm such a witch that I have to call her fat while complaining about how she called me fat):

Not everyone wants to be asked how pregnant they are, what they are having, when they are due. I realized my turn was shortly coming because you assaulted every new mom and pregnant woman in the room with the same questions and rude comments about their answers. Can I just tell you that it was not a good idea on my psychotic day to ask me how many children I was having? Two? Three? Four? And to "apologize" by saying that not everyone shows as well as me? Ummm...seriously lady? You're lucky you lived through that today. Seriously. If you had been smart, you would have asked my husband what happened when he suggested I buy non-organic milk yesterday before opening your mouth in my general direction.

tempting fate

2009-05-25T23:07:00.003-04:00

I don't know what's wrong with me ...but today was like ..an incredibly awful day. I don't know if it's pregnancy hormones or something else ...but I've been crying for about 12 hours and can't get myself under control.

It started with a fight with Monk about milk in the grocery store. Literally? Milk. I buy organic. He whines because it's like 4 times the price. And today? The regular stuff was on sale. So ..I felt my anxiety going up as we came around the corner knowing he was going to try and push it again ...and made a couple of incredibly bitchy comments. He got pissy ..whatever. In the check out lane, he said something else about the milk AGAIN ..and I freaking lost it. In public. Grabbed the keys and stormed out of the store crying like an idiot. And I haven't stopped since.

While I was sitting in the car, I found the latest ultrasound measurements which I hadn't really looked at. The baby's head circumference is in the 4th percentile. Everything else is at least 40th. Abdomen? 90th. Umm. I have no idea what that means but I've now spent at least 10 hours crying over it. Do Downs babies have a smaller noggen? Umm..google says yes. It also says lots of really wonderful things about what it means. If it weren't a holiday, I probably would have paged the MFM just because I'm being a psycho. I would like to think that he would have said something at the appointment if it was a big deal?!?!? No? I don't know. I can't get out from under the anxiety long enough to formulate a rationale thought. I just keep thinking that I know that something is wrong with the baby. Like ..when they hand him to me and he's not right ...I'll be like ..well. Yeah. I knew that was going to happen. And the thing is? Monk {and his entire family} has an impossibly small head. So ...I don't know if I was expecting a boulder or what ...but 4th percentile??

In the end ..I'm thinking that my emotions are triggered by tempting fate. I spent the entire weekend washing/folding baby clothes. Getting the room decorated. Putting together baby crap which I'm sure is mostly unnecessary. I mean seriously ..swings these days? I think they are designed for parents that never actually want to have to touch their children or interact with them or something. I could feel my anxiety creeping up with every object that got moved into his room. Car seat out? Palpitations.

All weekend, I kept thinking about my sister-in-law. She is Jewish, and when we had the shower for my brother's first baby, all of the stuff had to get moved to her mom's house. She didn't allow a single item in the home before the baby was born. Bad luck. Not a good idea in the Jewish faith or something.

I ordered a monogram of his name for his wall. A freaking monogram. With his name. Had it delievered to my house.

I feel like I'm asking God to punish me.

Feeling the Stretch

2009-05-24T10:00:00.001-04:00

This pregnancy has been so completely odd for me. The slow realization that it was REAL. Eventually thinking it might be a real baby that lived past 14 weeks. The belief that it would turn into a real live human being. My son. I've only recently - and by recently, I mean days - been able to visualize actually having a newborn in our lives. Seeing him in our home. Watching his room {slowly} come together. I've wondered, lately, what our relationship will be like. How it will change my relationship with Monk. And with my daughter. Wondering how and if it will compare to my relationship with my daughter.

She and I have been together - and mostly alone - for a very long time. There has never been anything that she had to truly compete for. Time, yes. Graduate school ...yes. But in all honesty? There was never a competition. If she needed something, everything else was trumped without question.

This week, with her sick and me with multiple appointments for the soon to be sibling, things got trumped that I would normally never have thought about. Although she's 13, it tore my heart out to leave the house and leave her here alone for a few hours with a fever of 104 and feeling like crap. But - at the same time - I was spotting and her brother's life could have been in jeopardy. It was a first for us. I gave her motrin. Loved her up {from a distance due to contagion} and called in a grandma to substitute for me.

So begins the next chapter in all of our lives.

She's doing much better this morning ...fever, cough, and runny nose all but gone. Eyes are bright again and she asked if she could run this morning. We still don't have the official results ...but I'm so glad that we got her on the tamiflu as quickly as we did. Even with it, her lungs sounded horrible for a while. Little reminders of our distant asthma past.

This weekend, because we're incredibly cheap, we returned all of the big ticket items to babies r us that we got at the shower and re-bought them with coupons. We ended up with an extra $300 and bought the majority of the rest of the stuff that we needed. Kind of tacky ..but umm...whatever. They should give people the coupons when they buy the stuff! Now we're going to spend today doing some more painting, assembling, washing, and trying to get everything else ready.

Four weeks left??!? Are you kidding me?

Moose. Pig. Dog.

2009-05-22T14:12:00.002-04:00

This is how I'll summarize my last 24 hours:

1. Moose: The baby is ginormous. Like...5lbs 7oz at not quite 34 weeks. Hmm. Imagine if I hadn't kept checking my blood sugars and started insulin? This morning was insane. I started out with a nonstress test which was umm...non-reactive. I left sort of against medical advice with a promise to come back so I wouldn't miss the appointment with the MFM. Because umm...if something is wrong with the baby, he'd have to come look anyway. And his office is across the street from the hospital. So I went there ....and promptly passed out on the ultrasound table. Which is cool when the doc knows that you're a NP and should have probably have mentioned that you weren't feeling great before the syncopal event. Laying on my back for the scan with a moose compressing my aorta and inferior vena cava didn't feel very good. I started to get light headed and sweaty. Ohmygod the sweat. And nauseated. But kept my trap shut because I wanted him to finish the scan. It ended up taking over 2 hours because they kept having me lay on my left side for five minutes to recover. The baby's kidney is still dilated, but minimally so. He recommended to re check after birth and see a peds nephro if still needed. My cervix was F.I.N.E. I mentioned that I had some spotting a couple of weeks ago and again this morning (like ..honestly 10 drops of blood on 3 occasions) prior to these contraction episodes. He thinks that I probably had a marginal placental abruption and that's what was causing the problems. Lovely. More rest. Re-check on Tuesday. Back to L&D to check the NST again. Nothing good happened until I ate a half of a granola bar and then he went insane. Which prompted lots of early fat kid jokes from his ever present and loving father. I'm pretty sure they were supposed to call the MFM to see if he wanted me to stay overnight but didn't. So I just left when they said I could. Now I feel guilty...but there was a pig and a dog to tend to. Fears of Downs? Not so much better ....I don't know why I thought they would be.

2. Pig: I ended up taking the golden child in last night because even with high dose motrin AND tylenol her temp was still 104 ..and I'm paranoid. We're still waiting for the swine flu tests to come back ...but she's on treatment anyway with antibiotics and antivirals. She's mad because Monk (who is ..strangely enough ...a germophobe) is chasing her around the house with a can of Lysol. She does feel much better today and is afebrile. Still has a nasty cough.

3. Dog: My little baby cocker girl has super bad congenital hips and needs major surgery that we can't really afford right now. I guess she must have fell coming up the porch steps this morning (no one saw it ...we just heard the tumble) and is now barely walking. Breaks. My. Heart. I'm trying to decide if I should take her in to the vet and waste the $200 or what. Or just wait and hope it gets better with some extra pain meds.

I did take the advice to not watch any baby story/episodes of deliver me ...because ..my God. I'd probably end up in the nutter butter house. Which...probably wouldn't be good for the Moose because I'd try and eat my way out.

And I can't help myself. Jon and Kate. Are you freaking serious right now???

Bed Rest and Ice Cream

2009-05-21T17:36:00.002-04:00

I want ice cream. In the worst way. Which ...you know. Isn't possible being diabetic and all. Especially because I'm getting more and more insulin resistant every hour and now even need a ton of insulin to eat a poached egg. Lovely. Fortunately, I have nothing but time to sit around and think about how much crap I want to eat but can't because I'm on bedrest for a few days again. I'm cool that way.

I've been having mini-labor episodes since Tuesday. I'll have super strong ohmygod my abdomen is going to split open and why does my cervix have a knife in it type sensations that last for 2 to 3 minutes and occur every 5 minutes for like ....an hour and a half ..and then it stops. On Tuesday when I was at work and realized that I'd had 5 contractions while I was in with the same patient, I decided maybe I should time them. Because I was either in with the patient WAY too long or the contractions were way too close together. I was already scheduled for a NST right after work ...so I just went to L&D and called the OB on the way. When I got there, there were so many women in labor that I had to wait like a half hour for a room. I drank a gallon of water and they stopped. When they hooked me up to the monitor, I was having contractions every 4 minutes that I wasn't feeling. Lovely. The baby was having some variable decelerations in heart rate ...to the 120's. They tried to tell me it was normal but I'm still paranoid about it. They decided I could go home and take it easy. Had another hour long bout of contractions. Yesterday, contractions were painful but very intermittent throughout the day at work and then got serious at 4:00. After they hadn't stopped in an hour and a half, I called the on-call OB and he put me off work. He thinks that it's essentially just uterine irritability (Umm..what? Part of me being irritable? Pshaw), but that even though my job is what I like to think of as sedentary, there's a lot of get up get down get up get down twist bend look at this. Oh. And the stress of having a psycho boss. Who's reputation now apparently precedes her. I cried for a bit. Whined on facebook. Tried to go to bed but started having contractions that were 7 minutes apart and lasted for four hours. It took everything I had NOT to wake up my entire house and go back to labor and delivery. I finally fell asleep around 3 am. I've had some here and there contractions today but nothing regular.

So I'm off work and on the couch until at least tomorrow when I have another NST and a Level II ultrasound with the MFM to check on the baby's kidney. And my placenta. And my cervix. And ...can I just say? I have a lot of crap to do if I'm going to be home. Thank you notes to write for the shower. Baby clothes to wash. Nursery bedding to buy(because we still can't decide !?!?!), a room to decorate. Last minute necessities to make sure that we have in case he decides to make an early entrance. Honestly? It makes my cervix hurt to think about everything that MUST get done and all of the stuff that I can't do.

To top it off ...sitting on the couch has left me riddled with anxiety. I accidentally watched an episode of some TLC delivery show in which the parents were handed a lovely newborn with Downs that they weren't expecting and it set me off on a 3 hour crying tirade this afternoon. Can't. Stop. Thinking. That. I. Should. Have. Had. The. Amnio. To. Prepare. Myself. Then ..about 2 hours after the local news revealed that there is a local case of H1N1, the golden child called home sick from school (which hasn't happened since she was 6). I got off the couch to go get her to find a red faced febrile awful looking thing that had a sudden onset of sore throat, fever, headache, runny nose, body aches, fatigue, and cough ...that umm...looks like SWINE to me!! I brought her home, did a quick exam on her, sterilized myself, medicated her and quarantined her in the teenage haven she calls her bedroom. She's still in there sleeping 4 hours later.

My current train of thought goes something like this: swine, downs, NICU time, early contractions, ohmygod money if I'm off work 6 weeks early, downs, swine, golden child with asthma and swine, hubby (AND ME!) with diabetes and swine, flipping want some ice cream, etc., etc, etc.

It might be a long holiday weekend in these parts.

32 weeks. Or I suck at blogging.

2009-05-13T20:11:00.005-04:00

Honestly. The more pregnant I get ...the less my brain works. I feel like I have nothing to say, like, ever. I'm so boring it's painful.

The pre-term labor is essentially done, as far as I can tell. I do get the joy of weekly appointments from here on out supplemented with twice weekly non-stress tests. It's made work interesting. Scheduling and re-scheduling patients 3 times a week has become a full time job for our receptionist.

Oh ...and I'm huge. Did I mention that? I could totally wear my own pants until 3 weeks ago and now my maternity pants feel like they barely fit. It's insane. I keep looking down at my stomach and feeling like someone else has taken over. Weight is up 8 pounds total ...which sucks seeing as they want a 10 pound maximum.

I had my first shower ...it was actually very nice. I was very surprised that I wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as I thought it was going to be. We made 4 adults have a bottle drinking race which may have been one of the funniest things I've seen in a very long time. I'd highly suggest it at any of your showers....when you have them!

The bigger my belly gets, the less angst I feel about everything else. Monk and I are actually getting along again for some reason ...the awkwardness passed as quickly as it came and with no real conversation. I'm not sure what all of that was about. The nursery is finally coming together. I'm starting to have panic attacks about what it's going to mean to have a newborn again. My friend brought her 1 year old to my shower and I nearly died at all of the work it was to chase him around.

The golden child is doing really, really wonderfully. She had her last middle school orchestra concert and sat first chair for violin. I was very proud of her. I also cried when the 8th grade conductor stepped down half way through the last song and the high school conductor took over. Very emotional for a pregnant woman, let me tell you. She made me what is perhaps the funniest mothers day poster I have ever read ..which I will someday have to type the text of into here ..because well...it completely hi lites all of the wonderful and terrible things about having a teenager and being pregnant at the same time.

I get so much more out of reading and commenting on blogs now than I do from actual blogging ..so even though I'm quiet here ...know I'm still keeping track of everyone.

Please keep your thoughts and prayers will Mo & Will this week and next during the dreaded 2 week wait. Mo's at the end of her hope rope and could use us all. Send her a few extra feet!

30 weeks and counting

2009-05-01T22:03:00.004-04:00

So ..my life has been fairly adventurous lately. I missed 2 1/2 days of work this week because ..umm...I had Pre-term labor. After 2 days of super strict bed rest, my back hurt so much that I couldn't stand it for another second.

Oh. And I was ready to poke my eyeballs out with boredom. It did dramatically slow down the contractions. And my cervix length is {relatively} stable. So I went to work for a half day yesterday and then back to the doctor today. And can I just say? Being Diabetic when the doctor didn't even manage to diagnose it is a big pain in my keister??? I've had a single out of range blood sugar that I covered with more insulin and she yelled at me about watching my carbs closer. And ...my fasting blood sugars are ranging in the 90's to a max of 105 and she wants me to start long acting insulin at night. So I can ..umm...die in my sleep or what? Half the time I wake up and it's in the 70's. So I take insulin and hope to wake up with a blood sugar above 40? Argh.

Frustrating.

To add to the convenience? Being diabetic and having contractions bought me a free pass to labor and delivery twice a week for the duration of my pregnancy for non stress tests. Twice a week. And once a week visits in the office. I still haven't figured out how I'm going to actually ..you know ...make money and support my family with that type of schedule.

In good news ...I bought a new {and cheaper!} maternity support belt which, for at least today, has dramatically helped the back and pelvic pain. I was actually able to walk around a bit today and not want to die. Yesterday was NOT a good day. I had about 20 mini mental breakdowns because the pain was so severe I really wasn't in a place where I thought I could handle it for another 8-10 weeks.

Progress?

2009-04-25T10:41:00.002-04:00

Registered? I did it. Don't know if it's right ...but such is life.

Onesies? I bought 'em. And a take home outfit or two as well. I even threw in a couple of bottles and pacifiers.

Crib and baby furniture? It's in ...gotta pick it up from the store today.

Super cozy rocker/recliner? Bought one.

Name? We picked one.

Now if only I could decide on a nursery theme and find some bedding . . .

Holy crap

2009-04-24T13:12:00.003-04:00

I'm pregnant. Like. Really pregnant. Like...push myself up off the couch with my arms pregnant and this kid is coming our relatively soon pregnant. Yeah, yeah, yeah ...kind of late in the game to realize this? But umm..I have a TON of stuff to do. Suddenly, my shower is in 2 weeks. Can I tell you how much I don't want to have a shower??? My mom and sister have some ritzy fancy schmancy thing planned ...and I feel really uncomfortable about the whole thing. For one ..I had a shower with the golden child. Yes, it was 14 years ago. But I've already had a shower. For two? That's something that fertile people do ...not something that people with dead babies get to do. Bizarre. For three? Registering for a shower is a flipping nightmare as far as I'm concerned. I have no idea what I need. I'm completely freaking out about bottles, for some reason. I breastfed the golden child exclusively for 6 months ..and continued for 2 years. She never once had a bottle. I have no idea how to pump or store milk or bottle feed. That's a little intimidating to me.

This entire pregnancy has been so odd. The first time around, I literally didn't have hide nor hare of a complication. I read every book I could get my hands on. The thirst for knowledge was unreal. I might have cracked the spine on a pregnancy book twice so far this entire pregnancy. I still haven't registered for any childbirth classes or even pre-registered at the hospital - though I've made several trips to labor and delivery. I have a stroller and 1 sweater for the baby. Other than that? Nada. Haven't purchased one item. That's a lie. I ordered a crib online like 20 minutes ago. I don't know if I'm still in major denial or what my deal is??

I've had a gazillion complications. I'm completely regretting 1) having the triple screen and 2) not having the amnio because I have lingering worries that are at time paralyzing with fear about Downs. I think it would have been much better to either KNOW or be completely ignorant. I'm having ultrasound withdrawal because the MFM wants to wait until May 22nd to recheck the little guy's kidney ...and it freaks me out. My legs to my thighs are rock hard swollen with fluid which is disgusting. Pubis symphysis pain is so severe I walk to the bathroom on crutches every single night. I have contractions that last for about an hour and a half 3 nights a week. Oh. And I'm a full on diabetic on insulin ( a LOT of insulin). And I'm pretty much an emotional basketcase again. I cry at the drop of the hat. And not like ...I get teary. Like ...I'm wracked with sobs at the slightest disappointment or extra stress. Like my life is ending and I can't dig myself out of a hole. And then ...I'm fine like a half hour later. WTF??

The Diabetes thing weirds me out. I passed the 1 hour Glucose tolerance test. Passed outright. Didn't have to do the 3 hour. If I weren't a nurse practitioner that has OCD - they never would have checked my blood sugar again for the rest of the pregnancy. I wonder how many times I've done that to a patient??? Not two weeks after the test that I passed ...I'm already on 20 units of insulin per day and it goes up daily. This baby would have been 22 pounds. Or possibly died. That terrifies me.

Did I mention that I'm pregnant?? ACK! I think I have to go buy 600 onesies or something to make myself settle down a little.

Negatory

2009-04-14T20:08:00.001-04:00

Fetal Fibronectin was negative, which is most excellent. She thinks that my uterus is just super irritable and I need to stay overly hydrated. I don't know if it's possible to drink any more water than what I've been forcing down ..but I'll try. They didn't call to give me the results until this morning. So I went back to work. And promptly got in a huge fight with my still absent boss over the phone. I'm thinking a job change following a prolonged maternity leave is in order.

And to tell you the truth? I won't even feel guilty about it.

28 weeks and hypochondria

2009-04-13T18:59:00.003-04:00

So ...I must be a hypochondriac or something ...I swear.

I had my 28 week visit today. Weight stable at 6 pounds up ..which, frankly, I'm thrilled with seeing as Easter was yesterday and I ate enough for a small army. She claims that my 1 hour glucose tolerance test was "fine" ...meaning that I passed. But it was 129. When I explained that the fingerstick reading was 158 and the 2 hour finger stick was 171 she was concerned. Perhaps a little surprised when I said that I started myself on insulin ..but then again ..she knows me, so not that much. I'm sure this is what happened with the golden child who then grew to be 9 pounds 11 ounces 3 weeks early. So ..I'm going to keep testing. Maybe not so obsessively when I eat appropriately ..but at least twice a day and definitely if I screw up with carbs. She wants my goal to be less than 120 two hours post prandial or 140 one hour post prandial. I'm measuring 28. Visits go to every 2 weeks. Whoo hoo. My office manager is going to love me.

We had a really nice Easter yesterday ...even though I started out perturbed. Something that I still haven't figured out was up with my mother in law and she claimed she wasn't participating in Easter and was going to the casino instead. I sort of knew better and bought and made the dishes to pass that I would normally be asked to bring. At 6:00 on Saturday night she called to say that maybe she would make a ham and leave it at her house for the siblings. On Sunday morning, it turned out she was going to be there and could we show up with dishes to pass around 11:00 a.m.?? Umm....seriously ....I can't even tell you how pissed I would have been if I didn't pre-empt that. Anyway. Good day there ...good day at my mom's. A little awkward when my very newly married and not as newly pregnant step-niece and new husband got into a blow up fight in front of everyone. Yikers. I ate my weight in appetizers, dinner, and ...a first for me ...banana cream pie. Then injected insulin. I think I'm worse than a heroin addict.

I woke up at 3 am to pee and noticed I was really achy around my rib cage in the back on the right hand side ..I feared it was going to be another muscle spasm issue and tried to lay back down. The pain started to spread to the front. I went downstairs to try and lay on a heating pad. Pain got worse ...much worse. I got super nauseated and thought I was going to puke ...went to the bathroom ...pain spread to my chest ..like ..crushing ..elephant sitting on my chest ohmygod I'm dying chest pain ...I yelled for Monk ...he came to get me ...and it just kept escalating. I've never been so miserable ...ever. If I stood up the pain would go back under my ribs ...sat down ..crushing chest pain. I finally got into a very attractive tolerable pain-wise position of on my knees and elbows with ass in the air. Monk was freaking out. I was panicking ...I honest to god was sure I was going to die. I finally decided we had to go to the hospital ..called his mom to come stay with the golden child ...I stood up to put on a bra ..because ..you know ..even when I'm dying? I don't want people to kn0w that my nipples could get caught between my toes when I walk without a bra on ...

and the pain stopped. Just like that ...as quick as it started ...gone. WTF??!? When I was done hyperventilating, I decided it must have been a gall bladder attack caused by a stubborn heads up baby, cheesy potatoes, ranch dressing, and banana cream pie. Lovely. The OB agreed today but then got distracted by me having contractions in the office so I never figured out what to do about it.

She did a fetal fibronectin swab - which, if you haven't had the pleasure - is a cervical swab without lubrication speculum and all. Lovely. I'm supposed to wait for the call tonight. I guess it fairly accurately predicts if you are at high risk of delivering in the next 10-14 days. If it's positive ...It's all about bedrest and steroid shots. If negative...I'm off to work in the a.m.

OH ..and I got the day off today because there was no power in the building. The Easter Bunny does love me.

Holy scattered incredibly long post ...so sorry.

Gestational Diabetes - Take Two

2009-04-11T15:25:00.002-04:00

I finally gave up the ghost and went for the glucose tolerance test, take 2. I knew that I would fail since I stopped the metformin, and I really didn't want to find out that I was diabetic the day before Easter so I delayed in the a way only the truly practiced procrastinator can delay. I tested before I went in. 128. Fasting. Not good, seeing as you qualify for insulin if fasting is higher than 95. 75 grams of carbs and an hour later I tested and got 158. Holy sheezers. I went home and started sulking, then started looking up weight based insulin dosing so that I could get the ball rolling and hopefully not have a baby in a sugar coma. About an hour later I felt really, really crappy. Like....I can't keep my eyes open crappy. Tested again. 171. Lovely. Injected my first insulin dose about 30 seconds later.

In other words ...the birthday cake for my mom, the cheesy potatoes, and the marshmallow/fruit salad/cool whip salad that I made to take to my mom's tomorrow? All totally off limits.

It's weird ...because even though I knew from before the beginning that it would end up this way, I'm still incredibly disappointed that it ended up this way. It also puts a fairly modest fast forward on timing ...the latest they'll let me deliver will be 38 weeks. Or June 22nd. Which umm...feels like it could be tomorrow or something. And I still have exactly 2 (two) baby items in the entire house and no nursery.

Yikers.

So I'm a witch

2009-04-08T19:11:00.003-04:00

Maybe my pregnancy hormones are raging more than I would like to believe.

I live in a very quiet neighborhood ..but nearly everyone has issues on my street. We whimsically refer to it as Wisteria Lane. One neighbor is living with the other neighbors ex ..and the kids walk back and forth for visitation. Lots of drama, blah blah. My neighbor directly next door is the weirdest ...single dad ..2 kids. Except that he got remarried and moved to a different city 2 years ago and left his 15 year old in the house by herself so she could finish high school. So. My neighbor is a 15 (now 16) year old that lives alone in a $200k house. Um. I find it difficult to not call social services. Anyway.

The 16 year old is usually very quiet. Sometimes makes poor choices and we all watch out for her (leaving the garage door open all night, etc.). The last 3 nights, however, have been hellish. The first two nights, she had a few friends in the driveway and talked very loudly until 3:30 am. So loudly, that I felt like they were in my bedroom. I got progressively more annoyed until I opened the window and told her to take it inside because she was driving me nuts. Last night ..she had a party. 20 cars in the neighborhood. Music so loud the bass was shaking my house. Car horns? Honking non-stop. Just for the fun of it. Remote lock the car. Remote unlock the car. Outside running around and screaming like banshees. Until 6:15 a.m. I was pissed ..wanted to call the cops. Monk wouldn't let me. Neither of us slept for 5 minutes all night. I was LIVID by 6:30 a.m. and had to get up at 7:00 a.m. for work.

I had fantasies about egging the cars that were left over on the street. Then pulling in the driveway and honking my horn every 30 seconds until they were all awake and miserable. I was determined to call the abandoning father. Called another neighbor instead ...yeah ..they heard it ...only woke them up once or twice though. Another neighbor? Slept through the entire thing. WTF?

So I called another neighbor ..and had her call the dad to tell him that we were ticked ...and that he needed to be around to supervise more. He's all kinds of pissed off and is supposedly coming into town to deal with the whole situation. I'm sure his house is trashed.

And now I'm scared. And feel like I'm 90. Because seriously? When did I turn into the old lady that called and told parents about the party instead of the girl that's having the party??

Kissing the edge of viability

2009-04-05T17:29:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow we hit 27 weeks ...the blurriest edge of viability in my mind. If born now, the baby has a 90% chance of survival.

I'm still amazed that we've made it to this point.

Mawwiage

2009-04-03T22:42:00.003-04:00

So ...I didn't make it to work today. Strangely enough ...the weird pain is gone. I'm not sure if it was some kind of weird muscle spasm ..because a heating pad did actually seem to help ...or something with my liver ...or my gall bladder ...or if my son is growing a bowling ball sized head and tried to ram it through my liver into my throat last night. I'm thinking not gall bladder ...only because I had an extremely thorough gall bladder testing thing done about 3 months before I got pregnant and it was pronounced crazy healthy. Who knows. Maybe making it all squishy changed it or something. Either way...the pain is gone ...and I'm a happier though less fully employed girl today. I officially stopped the 2nd job ...with no real notice ...which sucks. I'll miss it dearly. It was challenging ...and different ...and I was surrounded by completely sane co-workers. So ..other than the challenging part? The complete opposite of my current full time job. Ha!

This post may be a little crazy ...because Monk and the child and I went to get custard a bit ago and I accidentally discovered a chocolate custard with marshmallow cream mixer thing that is conceivably the best thing I have ever tasted in my entire life. Ever. Not only am I a hyper spaz from the huge carb load ...but so is the 1/2 way there child. I think he might be trying to scratch his way out of my uterus with his toe nails.

My cervix is essentially the same thickness/size/what not today as it was a few days ago ...which is good. But she still wants me mostly on bedrest for the weekend and to come in for a check on Monday. I'm definitely still having contractions. This baby needs to stay put for quite a few weeks still.

So. Marriage. That still makes me giggle. Because when the hell did I get to be old enough to not only be married but to be analyzing my marriage? I still hear "Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togetha today..." from the princess bride every time I say it. Anyway. Monk and I are NOT connecting. I don't know why. I assume it's mostly me. There's the mostly non-existent sex life which is 99.8% my fault. But more than that ...there's suddenly this absence of hello/good-bye/goodnight kiss sweetness tenderness thing ..which is at least 70% me. He's been following me around like a lost puppy and I keep pushing him away every single time. I go upstairs ...he follows me. I come down ...he comes down. He tries to hug me when I'm making breakfast and I get irritated and mean. I've been quite literal and actually said, "I seriously need 5 inches of space. Please. Be less available for like ...an hour. Let me pee upstairs ALL BY MYSELF. Give me a chance to miss you and come to find you." And umm...nothing changes except the hurt in his eyes. I don't like that it's changed and I don't know why ...but I can't make myself work through it either. I'd be happy for any suggestions you can give.

Two AM Ramblings

2009-04-03T01:55:00.002-04:00

It's currently 2 in the morning ...and I have to be up and at work in 5 hours. I can't sleep. I slept for about an hour and then woke up in quite excruciating right upper quadrant abdominal pain that immediately made me think "HELLP" syndrome. Now that the thought is there ...the anxiety is preventing sleep more than the pain, even. It's stupid. I don't know what possessed me to watch ER tonight other than the fact that it was the last episode ...but it's never good to watch a pregnant woman die during delivery when you are ...you know ..pregnant.

The last couple of weeks have been interesting. I went into some pre-term labor last Sunday for a little more than an hour ...contractions every 3 minutes or so for an hour that were fairly uncomfortable. The next day my cervix had started to thin and I've been a paranoid freak ever since. I've had a couple of random contractions here and there which I always immediately drown with about 2 quarts of water.

The pain is actually much better now that I'm sitting up and hunched forward with my elbows on my knees. Maybe I'll try and catch some quick z's like this. Otherwise ..I'm going to have to call in to work in the morning ...and I can't stand that idea :/. Wish me luck.

Week 25 Appointment

2009-03-24T20:15:00.002-04:00

Is it me ...or is time flying by? I think it's rather amusing that I'm 25 weeks. Because I feel like maybe I'm 7 or something. Umm...perhaps time to get cracking on all things baby preparation ...no?

More for my records than anything else ....Week 25 appointment stats:

Weight up 6 pounds total. Bleh. I'm thinking I'm not going to make my 10 pound maximum gain goal. In my defense ...I'm going to guess I have at least 4 pounds worth of fluid still hanging around judging by the 3+ pitting edema that I still have. It's sexy. Seriously. I don't know how Monk keeps his hands off of me....what with the ankle rolls and all. My blood pressure when I got there was 140/90. She had me lay on my left side for like ..90 seconds ..and re-checked it and it had dropped to 115/54. Hmmm. She threatened me with bed rest. I assured her that I had stopped call and will work zero overtime. I'm going to have to talk to my second boss about taking a leave of absence until after my maternity leave. I hate the very idea of it if you want to know the truth. Heartrate was 156. I either don't remember or she didn't measure me. Strange. The next Level II ultrasound is scheduled with the MFM to re-check the baby's renal pelvis. She ordered physical therapy for the out of control pelvic pain as well as a molded pelvic support brace thingie. I have to get another glucose tolerance test but had her order glucose strips so I can check my blood sugar on my own because I'm incredibly paranoid about stopping the metformin. So much so that umm..I haven't stopped but am instead weaning myself off. I don't like change much.

In extra good news, the IRS sent me a very pretty letter today telling me that I owe them over $14k for my 2007 taxes because I failed to report $30k in income that I received from an insurance company that 1099'd me. Umm...after I picked Monk up off the floor, I realized that one of the insurance companies that I bill for services reported the income under my personal social security number instead of the business tax id number. Which um...is going to be a massive clusterf*** to try and fix. And ..strangely enough ...no one in my office remembers ever seeing a 1099 in my name. Or so they say.

Any bets on what my blood pressure was after reading that letter???

Sometimes ...

2009-03-23T21:47:00.001-04:00

Having a day off makes me think I should take them all off. :)

MFM Love

2009-03-20T13:05:00.002-04:00

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I think I'm secretly in love with my MFM doc. Which is odd. Cause . You know. I graduated with one of his 16 children. Some physicians are extremely knowledgeable and have the bed side manner of a stone. Others have the bedside manner of a saint and little knowledge to back it up. He is the perfect combination of the two. Very personable and honest. Extremely well read. His essence oozes knowledge and comfort.

I ended up calling the office this morning and explaining my addiction to Dr. Google and wondered if he could possibly call me back at the end of the day. He called at lunch and I asked a lot of questions about the enlarged renal pelvis and what that does to the odds that baby has Downs. He said that there were 1 or 2 studies that reported that it increased the risk, but several more that found no association at all. It's too late to do an amnio either way. He feels confident that the baby is fine. The renal pelvis is very minimally enlarged and there are no other markers anywhere. The baby is growing perfectly without any other abnormalities. In the end, we won't know for sure until he or the OB pulls the baby out { he offered to do my c-section if I want }. And I need to relax. Because. You know. Hypertension isn't great for the little bean with or without Downs.

I took the day off today and Monday. I think I'll even skip a couple of classes at the conference I'm going to this weekend with my best friend and spend a lot of time shopping at Pottery Barn Kids and other overly priced baby boutiques and take care of myself a little bit better.

I do remember a time when my life wasn't ruled by anxiety. Wonder if I'll ever meet that person again?

overwhelmed

2009-03-18T18:15:00.002-04:00

That about it sums it up. Totally overwhelmed.

Yesterday? Work totally sucked. My boss, who suffers from a fairly serious mental illness that is completely untreated, has been in a bad cycle for a while. A death in the family in February set her off and she really hasn't worked much since then. Which means that it's me managing everything in the practice and being overwhelmed in general. Yesterday, she had a particularly bad day that she described as a migraine, and insisted that I leave the office in the middle of the day, an hour before my scan, and come to her house to give her injections for the migraine. Fine. Whatever. Other side of town from where I'm going and a huge time crunch. Rushed there ...and instantly became overwhelmed at the state of disarray of her home. Seriously. Overwhelmed.

Left there and went to the MFM appointment. I started to feel really weird in the waiting room. A female OB resident that I'm extremely fond of/have lunch with often because she used to be a student in my room was rotating with the MFM and came in for the scan. Her presence is always so reassuring. Very calming. However, by the time I got back into the u/s room, my blood pressure was 170/94. That, combined with 3+ pitting edema to my thighs and a crazy 9 lb weight gain in 2 days made him not very happy with me. They re checked my blood pressure at the end of the visit and it was 157/86. Still way too high. He felt that I was okay ..asked me to check my blood pressure twice a day, dip my urine daily to check for protein, and call to let the OB know that he wanted me to be seen there this week. The scan went okay. Baby is 1 lb 9 ounces. The parts of the heart he couldn't see before were fine. Placenta insertion site was fine. He's still very stubbornly breech and I was shocked at how high his head is up under my rib cage. The only abnormality he found was a very mildly enlarged renal pelvis in one kidney and suggested a re-scan in 4 weeks. Assured me that it's very common and nothing to worry about. Interestingly, he asked me to stop the Metformin because 1 study demonstrated an increased risk of pregnancy induced hypertension and he would rather that I be on insulin if I should need it. Hmm. I feel weird about not taking it ..but will obviously stop.

Left that office ...called the OB to let her know about the blood pressure and swelling expecting an appointment in her office this week and a serious discussion about my work schedule. Instead? She admitted me to labor and delivery for a PIH screening. Hmmm. Wasn't expecting that. After several hours, my blood pressure came down on it's own to 115/70 and all of my labs/urine were fine ...so they sent me home. Surprisingly? That 5 hours in the hospital was the most relaxed I've felt in months. They've restricted my work schedule and gave me a prescription for seriously attractive compression socks. I came home and went to bed.

For some stupid reason I decided to google enlarged renal pelvis and read "is a soft marker for Downs Syndrome" in the first line. I couldn't click a single link and have spent the last 2 hours in a total panic attack not able to cope with anything. I feel stupid ...but reading that one little line was enough to push me over the precarious edge I was sitting on. I spent a stupid amount of money on super cute maternity clothes from gap and old navy and banana republic. It was delivered today and I can't even make myself open the package and look at them.

I want a bottle of wine, a dark room, and a 3 month long nap. Instead, I have to make dinner, pretend to be functional, and take my daughter to track try outs. This will be considerably more difficult because I was so upset after reading that search result at work that I left without my purse, wallet, or cell phone. Hmm.

Lost: Two Ankles

2009-03-16T21:36:00.003-04:00

I'm a very bad blogger. My life is sort of crazy right now. I'm in the middle of a 19 day stretch of work without a day off ...and umm...I hate it. I guess I hate work in general. I need to go back to school. I'm a much better perpetual student.

Anyway. I had hospital call on Saturday and Sunday and it ended up being insanely busy. When I finally got home last night after 7:00 and sat down, I noticed that my feet were crazy swollen. This morning when I was getting ready for work, I couldn't put on any of my rings that fit fine yesterday. I jumped on the scale and my weight was up nine pounds since Saturday. Hmm. That can't be good, right? I got home tonight around 6 and discovered that I have pitting edema up to my knees.

Between that and the sort of self diagnosed symphysis pubis dysfunction that makes it impossible for me to walk after laying down ....pregnancy is a wonderful experience for me! In all seriousness ...I love the wiggles and kicks and what comes afterwards ...so I'll deal with the rest.

Of course, because my only coping mechanism is anxiety, I have myself convinced that I'm going to be diagnosed with pregnancy induced hypertension AND cardiomyopathy with a side order of HELLP and will be put on bedrest at 24 weeks and 1 day.

I guess I'll wait until the appointment with the MFM tomorrow and go from there. Right?

It's All In A Name

2009-03-05T20:03:00.002-05:00

Two or maybe three weeks ago, Monk and I were laying in bed, talking. He had his head laying on my stomach and the baby suddenly kicked him right in the ear. It was the first time that he was able to feel the baby - any of our babies - move. He jumped up, surprise apparent on his face and then immediately laid back down and waited. After the second kick, I watched the amazement cross his face. I wasn't entirely sure that I would be allowed to move without his head attached to my abdomen for the rest of my pregnancy. It was more heart-warming than I could ever describe or explain. For all of his "meh" type attitude about the previous pregnancies and losses, feeling the movement sold it for him. And for me, I think I realized that he was more hurt by the losses than he had let on, that he was feeling more nervous and reserved about this pregnancy than I could ever have guessed. It took two kicks and he was suddenly running around town buying baby clothes and paint for the nursery. Two. Kicks.

We've spent the better part of the last several weeks discussing names and we've gotten nowhere really fast. He's referred to the baby as "Emmet" since conception. He has wanted to name a baby Emmet for as long as I've known him. I have no affection for the name, and definitely dislike the idea of naming a baby after a football player. So ..umm...I conceded several years ago and let him name a fish Emmet. So anyway. He's suggested all sorts of names that I hate ..and I've suggested several more that he can't stand. We'll probably leave the hospital with a blank birth certificate - seriously. That's how far apart we are.

Tonight, we started discussing names again. Monk started talking to the baby who appeared to be in a deep sleep as far as I could tell. The conversation went something like this:

"Baby? We need to talk about your name. You can help us pick your name. I want you to kick mama when you hear a name that you like. Okay? Any name that you like ...you kick mama. Okay. Ready?? Gavin? Noah? Elijiah? Jonah? Kaeden? Liam?" And the baby? Said nothing. He went through another 15 or 20 names and eventually came to "Emmet?" And the baby? Said, "Kick. Kick. Kick. Kick."

Monk was incredibly elated. Even I thought it was hilarious. For like two minutes. Then I was forced to point out to Monk that babies want lots of things that aren't good for them and don't have the best judgement.

21 weeks and counting

2009-02-27T02:26:00.002-05:00

I had my 21 week appointment today and all is mostly well with the world. I personally decided that it was much, much easier to be pregnant when I was 20 and mostly stupid. Heart rate is fine ...no swelling ..bp perfect for the first time there although it's always normal when I check it at work. Weight is up 2 lbs ..which sucks ...because I'm going for a maximum of 15. Logically, 2 pounds half way through is actually very good, I think, but now is when the beebe starts to pack on the pounds so I am nervous. Measuring 1 week behind.

I've been having a myriad of symptoms which are driving me mostly nuts. I have this very intense low pubic pain that is present whenever I stand or move my legs in any way. The friend/OB thinks it's because I had a complete diastasis with the golden child ...so my uterus tipped forward through the muscle and is sitting on the bone. I don't know if I agree with that ..but ...whatever. We'll see. Last week, I had this very horrible accident while peeing. Seriously. That is a dangerous activity, apparently. I tried to stand up and had what I thought at the time was a massive either 1) blood clot in my right lung or 2) the most intense muscle spasm I've ever had. The pain was so severe I couldn't breathe or move or walk or get off the toilet without assistance. Had I been able to move, I would have gone to the hospital. Once I decided it was muscle, I called the OB and they had me take a muscle relaxer and I spent the rest of the day alternating between coma and thinking that the baby was most likely dead from the med. Fun times. So ...then the pain mostly went away but I still felt kind of tender ...like I'd been hit in the ribs with a baseball bat. Fast forward to today ...

My OB always has you carry your own pee cup and pee before you get there. At some point and time yesterday, I realized that I was peeing approximately 2 teaspoons at a time and nothing more though there was no pain or anything. So at work this morning, I dipped my urine and almost had a stroke because it was full of protein, blood, and ketones. Like ..crazy amounts of all of the above. So then I pee like 2 hours later in the OB's cup, drive to the appointment and there's only a trace of protein. Whatever. I'm puzzled. She's thinking that maybe all of the symptoms are related and I have a kidney stone or two. Fun times. Lots more testing ahead.

They made an appointment to go back to the MFM for a repeat scan. She wrote "cardiac views" on the order but I'm thinking she'll cross that out and write "crazy mama reassurance" before I actually get to the appointment.

I have approximately 22 posts half written and not published about ..you know ..non-pregnancy related things but can't seem to find the motivation to finish them. Some day.

Strollers

2009-02-15T21:11:00.003-05:00

I've made no decision about the amnio. Which, I guess, is a decision. It doesn't look like it's going to happen.

In happier news, I've actually started to think about making preparations for his arrival. Strange. I'm currently trying to figure out a plan for the nursery. AND ...I'm super excited. We had a family birthday party last night {yes - on Valentine's Day Monk's family } and my sister in law's sister's boyfriend is a manager at M.oosejaw. They're clearing last year's stuff out and have the Bug.aboo Frog stroller on sale for 85% off. Now ..mind you ...I have never, ever heard about this stroller before ..but it is apparently the shit in the Stroller World. I did some quick online research and it seems to get really good reviews.

Long and short of it? I just bought not one - but two - $900 strollers for $130 each. What the hell??? Who needs a $900 stroller??? The current plan is to sell one on e.bay to pay for the other plus some extra left over.

The important part for me? I actually purchased something for this baby. For my baby. My baby that is - at this point - half cooked. And still alive. And kicking. Often.

Amazing.

Randomness

2009-02-13T17:30:00.003-05:00

I'm super scattered ...because life has been super scattery this week and I'm on call this weekend. Thus ...things I need to get down will have to be done in bullet format because I don't have enough functioning brain cells to form an actual, you know, sentence.

My 85 year old grandma fell off her back porch on Tuesday and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. They did a chest x-ray and gave her pain medicine she told them she was allergic to. She was in incredible pain everywhere so they put a morphine patch on her and sent her home. No other testing, but pain they felt was severe enough to warrant morphine at home.
She called me 2 days later crying, asking for help.
I took her to my hospital ER. She had broken 2 vertebrae in her back, 6 ribs, and her pelvis.
Rage? Doesn't even begin to explain it. She nearly died from their incompetence. She could still.
Thank you for the help/advice with Amnio. I'm still lost. I had completely decided NOT to do it and then promptly came home today and had a panic attack thinking about it. I really think that the baby is fine but don't feel like dealing with the anxiety. I'll make a decision on Monday. I guess my main thought is that if the baby does have Downs, I want to process that now before I'm holding and cuddling him and trying to bond. Does that make sense? I don't want shock and disappointment to be part of that time.
I've been spending a lot of time on the to amnio or not boards and parenting a downs baby boards. Umm...holy painful.
My pelvis hurts really bad. Like ..I feel it separating. I can't decide if it's real or if I'm having sympathy pain for grandma.
There are at least 4 beta HCG's in the blogosphere that I'm anxiously awaiting this week. I think I'm more excited/nervous for their results than I was for mine if that's possible.
I'm going to have to have a name survey ...because we have nothing. No ideas. Nothing even close. I have a five syllable very Italian last name that's making first names difficult to me for some reason.
I was super sore like 3 days ago. I felt like I ran a marathon and trained for an Iron man all on the same day. I was convinced that it was the baby pushing things around. When I couldn't explain how sore my arms were, I decided that my sleep number bed was set wrong. Everything ached.
Then I realized that I walked the dog the day before. 2 miles.
Pathetic. How do your arms hurt from walking a 15 pound dog?
I hate this stage of pregnancy. Nothing fits. Maternity clothes are way too big. All but 4-5 of my work shirts are way too small.Regular pants fit. Sort of. Maternity pants look goofy.
Snow and 60 degree weather in the same week pisses me off.
I've all but given up hope of ever moving out of this dreadful city.
I forgot to mention that I had a fairly long discussion with the MFM about the usefulness of the quad screen. I told him I was sort of irritated that I had done it ...even more so that it was abnormal and stressing me out. He gave me a very educational lecture about how much good it actually does. Even with a normal amnio, the abnormal results often predict something wrong with the pregnancy - can predict pre-term labor, insufficient placenta, etc. He actually went through the different possibilities of every one of the four markers and what it could mean. Told me about a few patients where having the test actually saved the baby's life because he was able to start scanning on a regular basis and knew exactly when to hospitalize mom and when to get the baby out. Anyway. I found it very reassuring somehow as well as incredibly informative. So I'd like to retract my statement that I'd never do a quad screen again. I would. But I'd hate it just the same.

Umm....I think that's it. For now. Wish me luck at surviving another 12 days without a day off! I hate this part of my job. hate it. I love the part that got me out at 11:30 today instead of 7:00 tonight. Hmmm....I think maybe I'm just lazy and don't like to work at all.

Amnio Help

2009-02-10T10:12:00.002-05:00

Okay ..so I'm home from the MFM appointment. I have a very stubborn baby that laid on his tummy almost the entire time during the over 1 hour ultrasound. And yes ...I said HIS. Crazy. I can't believe it's a boy - still. I was somehow sure I would never have a son ...like ever. Monk was thrilled when they said he had relatively huge hands, long fingers, and an enormous penis.

Everything that they could measure looked normal. No soft signs for Down's. Strangely enough - the baby is measuring on for the due dates from my LMP and NOT from when I thought I ovulated based on OPK's, progesterone levels, and basal temp. Dammit. I don't see how I would have missed ovulation earlier than that. All my charting be damned. So ....he said the risk in the end is still 1:148 - about 4 times higher than average at my age, but still less than 1%. His personal risk of complication from amnio is 1:1400. He wasn't able to see the cord insertion site at the placenta because the baby was laying on the placenta. He also wasn't able to see the right atrium of the heart and one vessel. Because of that, he suggested that I wait on the amnio and come back in a couple of days for a quickie u/s to see if the baby is in a different position.

I have NO idea what to do. He said I didn't have to come back if I didn't want ...that although he couldn't see the insertion site he could see that it wasn't in a bad place. He doesn't feel like anything is wrong with the heart. Everything else looks fine. He said to only do it if it was something that I had to know. He has 10 children. His wife had 3 miscarriages. He's adopted 6 other children (crack babies and such that needed homes). One of his biological daughters has Downs. He did a really excellent job of describing the pros/cons of living with a Downs child. It was somehow reassuring and somehow terrifying. I guess what I wanted to hear was ....umm...there's a 0% chance ...but he can't tell me that.

What to do? What would you do? Amnio? Not amnio? What will knowing change?

T-14 Hours

2009-02-09T17:22:00.002-05:00

And counting. Until the ultrasound.

To say that I'm nervous would be the understatement of the century. Makes the pomegranate nightmare seem like a dream.

Because I'm brilliant? I watched an episode of Mystery Diagnosis last night that started with a quad screen positive for Down's and ended in some rare genetic disorder that 250 people in the united states have. Umm..wasn't so much helpful.

The silver lining? I obviously won't be sleeping tonight - so I will probably finally get somewhat caught up on blog reading and commenting.

What to do, what to do

2009-02-03T18:59:00.002-05:00

So ...the Caribbean is calling my name. Unfortunately, it's not, however, calling Monk's.

On Sunday, Monk was going to be pre-occupied with a boys only Superbowl party ...and I'm not much for football...so I cajoled the teenager into driving to Ann Arbor with me. Getting off the exit into downtown, I realized that I felt like I was driving home. You know the feeling most people get when they turn in their neighborhood ...or down the street? Yep. That's what I feel when I go to Ann Arbor. The only problem is that I haven't lived there ..in oh ...almost 14 years now. I know it sounds dramatic - but I swear my soul feels at peace when I'm there. Very similar to the feeling I get when I'm at the ocean. Any ocean. We had a really wonderful day. Lunch at one of my very favorite vegetarian restaurants. An afternoon of shopping in the downtown area. A stop at Whole Foods market. A quick visit with a cousin and an old friend. A stop at what could conceivably be the best deli in the state of Michigan for dinner at home.

The good day there left me thinking about how much I really don't enjoy living where I do. My family is here. Monk's family is here ...but umm...that's about it. No culture. Nothing but generic malls for shopping. Nothing but chain restaurants that are boring and repetitive. I need more than what this place has to offer.

Monk doesn't. So umm...where do you go with that?

The Caribbean as a compromise? He won't even consider it. Financially, it would be one of the best decisions that I will ever run across. With the salary increase and no taxes, we could easily save over $100,000 per year ...if Monk didn't work. I would have 4 relatively easy 8 hour days per week - no call. Dealing with what would essentially be coughs/colds and traveler's diarrhea type of stuff. Easy peasy. Lots of time to bond with the baby and virtually no stress when I'm not working. I called and let them know about the pregnancy and that there would be no way that I would start until a year from now. They said fine. They offered to fly us all down there for a formal interview and to see the clinic. They would give me four weeks off per year - paid - to volunteer at free clinics in the rural areas. Part of the companies "give back" philosophy. We'd live on the ocean and have enough money/vacation time to fly home for visits 4-5 times per year. I see nothing but perfection. Monk sees nothing but torture and missing his family.

This? Is where falling in love with and marrying your polar opposite starts to feel like not such a good idea.

25 Random Things

2009-02-02T20:44:00.002-05:00

Okay ...I give up. I've been tagged for this virus plague meme about 70 times in 4 different venues ...so I figure that I might has well join in. I'm not tagging anyone ....because seriously ...hasn't everyone done this?? If not ...please consider yourself tagged ...and let me know if you did it so I can read about you.

25 Random Things

1. My best friend delivered her first baby on Sunday ...and she's gorgeous. For the first time in 2 years - I felt absolutely no jealousy.
2. Sometimes my job makes me incredibly sad. Some people live insanely difficult lives.
3. Despite knowing this, I still find ways to complain about my mostly very perfect family and life.
4. I hate that about myself.
5. I have serious, serious self-esteem issues. As in ...one of the more troubling things about the appointment with the MFM to me is that my husband will see my stomach. Bare. Naked.
6. I do know that's pathetic.
7. I had a brief stint in high school with anorexia which resulted in a 60 pound weight loss in 8 weeks. I went to the doctor for headaches. She was sweet and polite and gave me headache medicine and asked me two questions max about the weight loss. She called my parents before I made it all the way home. She hadn't seen me in 2 years and had no way to know the weight loss was that fast/dramatic.
8. My dad met me at the door with a steak and baked potato and force fed me for a week. Three times a day. I've never had a problem since (other than # 5/6 above :D).
9. I think about that physician and her choice to call my parents nearly every day when I'm with patients and it greatly affects how I care for them.
10. It's amazing to have someone save your life with a phone call.
11. I have five siblings who are between 10 and 16 years older than me.
12. I miss my sister desperately - she became a born again christian about 6 years ago and everything about her changed. I want my old sister back.
13. My parents were both very strict Catholics until they were ex-communicated in the sixties for picketing the bishop's house in protest of racial housing issues. They became Quakers and raised me as such.
14. They sent me to Catholic school for 12 years anyway.
15. I feel like a Quaker but attend Catholic church with Monk and had the golden child baptized and send her to Catholic school.
16. My mom and dad were the hippiest of hippies in the 60's.
17. Martin Luther King stayed at my house overnight - long before I was born.
18. I have an adopted African American sister that I didn't realize was adopted until I was 12 (although I am the whitest of white Irish Catholics around). Twelve. Years.
19. Some might say I'm a little naive (see #18 above).
20. I both desperately want and hate the idea of going back to school for my doctorate.
21. The golden child's donor is a very successful lawyer making a ton of money in California and I've never asked for a dime.
22. I dread the day that she asks to meet him.
23. I used to think that maybe I was over dramatizing how awful what he did was ....but as I get older, it just becomes more horrible instead of less.
24. I hope to one day be brave enough to blog about that entire painful experience.
25. I dated my high school boyfriend intermittently for 8 years and he's still one of my best friends that I see at least once a week. Monk is okay with this. So is his wife.

Clarity

2009-01-31T09:28:00.004-05:00

The resiliency of the human mind is astounding to me. Specifically, I was thinking how laughable it is that after three miscarriages it took me precisely 2 weeks out of the first trimester to settle into the idea that my body functions perfectly and that there would be no reason to ever think that something less than perfect would be created in my womb. Seriously? Two weeks? Please remember ...it was not so long ago when I was turning pomegranate soap into blood. You would think that I would expect anything BUT perfection, right?

I have to say that I'm feeling immensely better about the entire situation after a couple of days worth of space and several prolonged conversations with the docs I surround myself with. I also called the MFM and asked his opinion about the difference in due date and what that implications it would have on the test results. He says that if the dates are truly off that much the test will easily correct out to normal. He still wants the Level II ultrasound (which I'm totally good with) to confirm the dates and says we'll go from there. I tried to weasel my way into an earlier appointment - but he's going out of town. I could see his partner ...but ..umm...I'm really partial to this guy so ...we'll wait until February 10th. I've had several really interesting conversations with both my friend/OB and other docs regarding how the wrong date was reported. The OB/friend swears she doesn't know ...that the correct date is in my chart and thinks it was a nursing error. A lot of the other docs think it was the OBs error and made several comments such as "they don't actually teach us to listen to patients in med school." We'll see. I guess it really changes nothing in the end. But I'd like to think that my friend that is my OB would listen to me. No?

So now we wait. Consciously, I'm totally at peace right now. Subconsciously I must not be because I've had MFM appointment/Downs baby dreams every single night. I'll take the conscious part for now and work on the rest later.

Confusion

2009-01-29T08:39:00.003-05:00

Thank you for the wonderful comments and emails ...yesterday was not a good day. In all honesty, I don't have an actual memory of writing that post or hitting publish. I'm sure it was during the point in time during the day that I was hysterical. I'm still worried today - but much more rational.

They called me at work to give me the results. The girls pulled me out of a room during a patient visit ..I picked up the phone thinking it was a doc that I had put a call in to...and heard this, "Hi Shauna this is Nurse Blah blah with OB/friend? Hon ..your quad screen is positive for Downs so we're cancelling your ultrasound here and sending you over to the perinatologist for a level II ultrasound and amnio." I honestly don't remember anything in the conversation after that.

Sometimes ...I think life provides us these lessons for a reason. I am frequently in the position to tell people awful things about their health or the health of a loved one. Daily. And while I have always considered myself to be extremely sensitive about the whole process and always schedule a follow-up 2 or 3 days later because I know they aren't going to process much after, "You have MS." or "You have brain cancer." or "Your wife has Alzheimer's disease." - I've never experienced the complete shut down that I did after that phone call.

I actually had to call them back to get the details again. Like..Umm....do I make the appointment with the specialist or were they going to? (they did). What is the actual risk ratio of the labs? (1:480, age adjusted to 1:148). What did they report as my due date on the requisition form? (A day 9 days prior to what I know my due date to be ...because ..please. I charted the day, time, and minute the OPK was positive and POAS obsessively 5 times a day until it turned positive). How much will a week or so difference in due date change the results? (a lot).

I really, really didn't want to have this test done. I don't believe in it because of this exact crap. It has a notoriously high false positive rate - but even then - it isn't a diagnostic test. It's a screen that gives you a relative risk. In my case? It increased the risk of this baby having Downs from 0.1% to 0.6%. Either way, there is still greater than a 99% chance that the baby does NOT have Downs syndrome. No matter how much additional testing tells us that the baby is fine - I will not feel comfortable until I actually deliver and there are no tell tale signs. I let the OB convince me because if the result is ..like...spina bifida ..they can do in utero surgery which can drastically alter the quality of the baby's life. I would never have the test done again in the future though.

So ..while the logical part of my brain is okay and figures..hey ..we get an awesome ultrasound out of the deal ...the emotional part of my brain is still mostly devastated. First because ...that would be incredibly sad. For our lives ...for the baby ...for the golden child ...it would change things in ways that I don't want to be changed. Secondly? I hate that I couldn't handle the phone call yesterday. I used to find myself to be incredibly strong and able to deal with just about anything. Over the past few years I've somehow turned into someone that can be knocked over by a leaf. I'm not sure when or why that happened. And third? I am very, very not proud of my immediate reaction. It was not a "I don't want to deal with this" type of reaction. It was a "I can't deal with it" reaction and I hate that. My mom has a brother that is severely, severely disabled with cerebral palsy and I have seen both her and my grandma dedicate the majority of their lives to his care. My grandma is 87 years old and still transfers him from his wheelchair to the toilet and back to bed. 87. It was honestly one of the first images that came to me when they told me the screen was positive.

They always say that we see people's truest colors in moments of crisis. I don't like what I saw in myself yesterday.

Quad Screen

2009-01-28T15:51:00.001-05:00

Positive for Downs. Appointment scheduled with MFM for 4d ultrasound and amnio.

Not good news for the anxiety queen.

No other words.

4 month check-up

2009-01-26T19:41:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, it is really, really nice to work in health care. I waited 0.5 seconds for my OB appointment today - as in they took me straight back from the desk. I'm down another 3 pounds - which is awesome considering that I've been eating like someone that's been on survivor for 8 seasons without a break and was just introduced to a buffet line. Cripes. The hunger is crazy. I made a 2 scrambled egg and cheese bagel sandwich yesterday and could easily have consumed 3 of them without blinking if I had let myself. Anyway. BP was great. Labs were fine. Heart rate still 164. I told her my theory about water pica. She told me um...no. Probably still building up blood volume and I'm fine. Keep drinking. Work less. Max 10 hours/day 60 per week for now and we'll work on restricting down farther at the next appointment. She's all about a Vbac if the baby is a normal size and not a moose like the golden child. 3D anatomy scan scheduled for 2 weeks from now. Against my better judgment, I did the quad screen and CF screen. We'll see what kind of anxiety that sets me up for in the next week. In and out including the blood draw in 22 minutes. Not too shabby.

Talking about delivery options at 17 weeks? It's so weird to feel ....normal.

Crying It Out

2009-01-25T10:43:00.002-05:00

Cocker Spaniel Style

We have a red Cocker Spaniel that is 2 years old. She was a consolation prize for me (after the first miscarriage) and for the golden child who desperately didn't want to move into this house. She is overly loved and very spoiled. Incredibly well behaved. She rings a bell to go outside, doesn't bark, and is cuddly and playful. She has Monk wrapped. Tightly. When we first brought her home and put her in crate at night for bedtime, she howled for hours and never really stopped. At some point, I came downstairs to find Monk sleeping on the floor in the kitchen with a few fingers through her crate. Crazy. At some point, he gave up and put her in our bed - which I strenuously objected to. Bedtime is easily her favorite time of the day. She has a whole routine which involves flopping herself on her back between us and wagging her tail while alternating her gaze between the two of us and waiting for the affection she knows is coming. It's rather endearing - but I still don't want her in our bed. Monk feels like he can't sleep without her there.

Fast forward to me being pregnant and refusing to have sleep interrupted by a dog in the last precious months before I won't sleep for months compounded by the fact that I will likely have the baby in bed at least to nurse and won't let a dog be there ....and well ....we have an impasse. So anyway. The cocker got shifted to sleep with the golden child ...and by her behavior, you would think she was shipped off to the fiery pits of hell. She did okay the first few nights but you could sense her anxiety building every night as it got to be bedtime. Last night (because we're so exciting) we were all headed to bed at the same time. The golden child started to herd the cocker upstairs and the cocker started going psycho - running 100 mph around the house so she couldn't be caught. We all found it very amusing. Finally got her upstairs ...we're all in our respective places, and the golden child got up to pee or something and we heard the dog run downstairs at mach speed and then run back up and down again frantically looking for us. Monk opened the door to our bedroom a crack and her 15 pound self came bounding into the room as though she had just been tortured by pirates for hours on end. Jumped in the bed ..ran around it 40 mph and then promptly buried herself under the covers and started shaking. Ha! No way we could see her there. Under the covers and all. Monk fished her out - carried her back to the golden child, set her on the bed and she came running back into our room faster than he could even turn around. This time she curled into me and started whimpering. It would have been pathetic if I wasn't laughing so hard. Four tries later and he finally managed to close her in with her torturer.

This morning? She was crying outside our door so Monk let her in ...she came and curled into my neck and was whimpering like a toddler that has hyperventilated from crying for so long. I looked at Monk ...he had tears in his eyes.

I sense bad things coming for when the one that is crying is ...you know....actually human.

To blog or not to blog

2009-01-24T01:35:00.003-05:00

So ...I'm thinking that maybe I have pica. The water thing is getting a little silly. I had pica when I was pregnant with the golden child, and thankfully, I craved ice and not ..like ...cigarette ashes or dirt or anything. To say that I craved ice is an understatement. I would drive 35 minutes to a specific hospital and go to the fourth floor and steal ice out of the ice machine in massive cups because ...well ...clearly they had the best ice in town. I would chew ice nearly all day long ...but more than that was how much I thought about ice. I should preface this by saying that I DID finally call and get my own lab results because I never got them ...and my blood sugar after the glucose tolerance test was 104. So ...I'm not thinking it's a blood sugar issue. I realized today during a lull between patients when I found myself fantasizing about different types of bottled water and where I would go to get the coldest (Fiji vs. Smart Water vs. the ice cold Brita pitcher in my fridge - Fiji won) that perhaps the drinking wasn't so much about thirst as it was about pica. I don't know if people actually get pica with liquids and I refuse to ask Dr. Google ...so I'll just ask at the prenatal appt on Monday. Anyway. In the meantime? Guard your faucets.

When I first started this blog way back in ..oh ...September (ha!) ...I was mostly confident that I would never have another baby. I was terrified of another miscarriage ...had completely stopped ovulating ..and had a husband that refused to engage in any IVF type activities. More than just feeling infertile, I was deeply unsettled about everything. I always saw myself as spending the majority of my 20's in the peace corps saving the world and instead I found myself approaching my mid-30's living in a somewhat ritzy suburb driving to basketball games with a somewhat fulfilling job and being ...well...ordinary. I had {almost} everything anyone is supposed to want in the world but found myself struggling with wanderlust and needing something more. I didn't know where my life was supposed to go or how to be happy with all of the amazing things that I had. I was paralyzed and decision-less. When I first started reading infertility blogs, a new world opened up to me and I realized that the recurrent losses and pcos were affecting me more than I let on to myself. Shortly after starting to blog and actually acknowledging how desperately I wanted another baby to happen, I made the decision to make an appointment with an RE ....and then ...to tie me over until the appointment ...use some leftover Clomid as a last ditch effort. Lo & behold ...Halloween rolled around and my pee stick had 2 lines. Hmm. Yeah. I really, really wasn't expecting that. More than that ...I had zero expectations that this baby would live to see the second trimester. None. So ...now that I've spent a couple of weeks here in the second trimester with reassuring fetal heart tones and ultrasounds? I'm settled. More so than I have been in a very, very long time. My home feels peaceful. I don't have fantasies about quitting my job and dragging my teenager off to a 3rd world country. I'm okay with paying a ridiculous mortgage. And while I haven't bought a single thing for the baby yet nor started to prepare the nursery in any way ...I'm mostly happy to stay home every night and rub the ever growing baby bump. So ....how do you blog about contentment? I'm not sure. Do I need to?

Then again. I just got an offer to work at a 5 star resort in the Caribbean for $40k more than what I'm currently making plus room and board ...and umm...no taxes. Maybe the wanderlust isn't totally squashed.

Day 11 of 12

2009-01-22T19:28:00.003-05:00

Or ...why I might go insane before tomorrow.

I'm seriously fried ..tired...done...cripsy. Exhausted. With a capital E. Day 11 of 12 in a row without a day off is not my friend. And the idea of doing this 8 or 9 months pregnant? I don't see how there will possibly be a way. I'm almost punch drunk goofy. Since I now pee like ...5 times a night ...the sleep that I do get is not great. And that? Is totally my fault. I think I was massively dehydrated going into this pregnancy and I'm still playing catch up. I'm drinking at least 3 liters of water a day ..and before I was existing solely on diet pepsi. Anyway. If I stop drinking (mostly) by 7 or 8 ..I sleep all night. But I never stop. I even drink when I get up to pee in the night.

Saturday was a really bad day. I was irritated about having to go into the hospital ...woke up ..got ready ...checked my census ..they're were 7 new patients already ...went to start my car. Umm..nope. Wouldn't start. Got mad. Tried to start Monk's car. Nope ..wouldn't start. Tried to open the garage door to find a neighbor ...nope ..wouldn't open. Umm... Michigan is cold right now. So anyway ...we got a jump from a neighbor ..I took monk's SUV ....spent the Day at the hospital ..came home around 8 at night after I slid into a ditch and promptly locked Monk's only set of car keys in the car which I discovered early on Sunday morning going back to the hospital. Yeah. Umm....Those were kind of the highlights of the day.

Everything else is pretty much quiet. I'm settling into the idea that this baby might live. He/she moves several times a day that I can feel. My next OB visit is on Monday and then we'll schedule the anatomy scan. I'm definitely starting to show. Yikes. I bought some maternity clothes but they are definitely still WAY too big ...so I'm in limbo there ...I'm down to about 3 pairs of pants that actually still fit and are comfortable.

I didn't do ICLW this month because I know that I'm going to be way too busy. And I've been awful about commenting on every one's blogs ....just know that I'm reading ...and following ...just silent. I've been seriously contemplating closing down the blog ...because I don't know...I don't feel like I need it anymore or something? We'll see. I make no decisions when I'm punch drunk with sleep deprivation.

Attachments & Heels

2009-01-16T19:10:00.004-05:00

A very long time ago, when I was pregnant with the golden child, I discovered the attachment parenting phenomenon. I bought a couple of books by Dr. Sears and cozied myself right in. I did cloth diapers, the sling, nursing on demand, the family bed. All of it. Hook, line, and sinker. And I have to say that I do think it was a tremendous success. I was a stay at home mom and it made perfect sense. So here I sit ...13 years later, and I feel like a total heel. I don't know exactly what's up with me, but I used to love to cuddle and be close and be loved up. I was always the chaser in the relationship between Monk and I. Nearly begging to cuddle, "Hold me?" was something he heard on a nearly hourly basis. I think I mostly drove him insane. I have felt strictly hands off for the last 2 years at least - with both Monk and the extremely attached one. I'm not sure what it is ...but I'm pretty sure I could nearly poke my eyes out when I come home from work, wanting to relax for a minute, and Monk plants himself on his knees directly in front of me and becomes a close talker 2 inches from my face and wants to just lay on me or something and then the attached one slips into the chair half on me and they both just ....suffocate me. I bear it for as long as I can stand it and then I usually have a big freakout and am mean and yell that I need my space and they back 3 feet away for like ..20 minutes ...and the whole process starts again. I dread coming home because of it, even. I've tried forcing myself through it ...grab on to them both ...cuddle them for like 15 minutes a piece when I get home and hope for the best ...but they seem to be insatiable. At least by me. And it makes me sad ...because the old me? Would love it. The old me? Trained them both to love it. And what if I'm still like this when the next baby is born? How could I not snuggle a newborn? I don't know what happened to me.

The attached one seems also to be going through some minor sort of weird regression right now which I have to believe is somehow related to the baby or her fear about starting high school next year...because it hasn't happened since she was like 5. Aside from the aforementioned snuggle fest, she's become uncharacteristically needy. She follows me from room to room to the point that I went upstairs to change into my pj's and she came running up the stairs behind me and actually screamed, "MOMMY! Wait for me!!" frantically because she didn't want me to ....I don't know ...lock myself in my room without her or something. She hasn't called me mommy in years. I explained that I was changing and would join her in a sec, and when I opened the door to my bedroom she was sitting on the floor outside of it waiting for me. WTF? Seriously. The old part of me buried somewhere recognizes that 1) she obviously needs something more than what she's getting from me right now 2) they're aren't many moms that have a 13 year old that still wants to cuddle and 3) even my attached one won't necessarily want to cuddle with me for very much longer and I shouldn't take it for granted much less reject it.

In completely unrelated and random news:

I essentially do a prenatal visit on myself every week when I'm at the family practice clinic - because I'm that insane. Weigh myself, check my urine, my blood pressure, measure my fundal height, and doppler myself. I spent about 15 minutes with the doppler today before I found a strong heartbeat at 160 ...but I almost stroked from minute 5- 15. I considered running to the other wing of the office with my pants around my ankles to get a doc to look about 27 times. I'm fairly certain this child will have anxiety disorder or something. Good god. Please keep in mind that I felt the baby move not more than an hour before I was looking but was still completely convinced it was dead when I couldn't find the heartbeat. I'll never be not crazy, I swear. I will say that I still feel not pregnant. I forget about it for almost an entire day at a time. Even the movement which I feel on a fairly regular basis now I could pass off as something else. I develop more compassion for those weirdos that deliver without knowing they were ever pregnant all the time. I will say that I have developed a tiny bit of attachment to the monster in my stomach - that Monk refers to as "Emmet" - (a story for another day). When I finally found the heartbeat today ....it was the first time I actually felt something close to love and not fear for this pregnancy.
I'm on call this weekend. Again. And I hate it more than close to anything else in life. My work week this week will be 90 hours long. I'll work at least 140 hours in a 12 day stretch without a day off. That's not healthy when you aren't pregnant. My problem is that I committed to all of these speaking engagements and what-not before the baby and now it's time to pay the piper, so to speak. Bad timing on my part.

2009-01-09T21:26:00.005-05:00

I worked at the family practice clinic on Friday. Things went mostly well. I had a patient come in and they always print the reason for the visit on my schedule. It said "possible pregnancy". It always astounds me that some women still don't use HPT's ..but whatever. She was, in fact, pregnant. But, as it turns out ...she was around 25 weeks with her 3rd baby and just showed up for the first time. She could feel/see the baby move but still chose to pretend that she wasn't pregnant. I became ...irrationally angry. I held it together for the visit and took the opportunity to educate ..but I was livid. The carelessness is something that I cannot even begin to fathom. It makes me ache for those of you still enduring the painful, painful struggle of infertility. I still haven't figured out how to deal with that professionally. I don't know if I ever will. I spent the rest of the day feeling mostly bitter and angry and incredibly jaded.

For some reason, it made me flash back to a patient I had when I was still an ICU nurse. She came in 7 1/2 months pregnant and got instantly very sick. They must have diagnosed her with 100 different rare pregnancy disorders before she finally underwent an emergency section because she was fairly near death. The baby was beautiful and healthy - though tiny. The mom continued to get worse and they couldn't figure out why. It was like an episode of House. They would bring the baby into the ICU to visit her ...and I would hold the baby next to her because she was too weak to hold her. They finally took her for an exploratory surgery and found that she was full of cancer. Everywhere. She died a day later. It broke my heart. It was one of the hardest experiences that I ever had as a nurse. The baby's father left the baby at the hospital and never came back for her. He was beyond broken. We kept her in the special care nursery for weeks beyond when she needed to be there for health reasons - sure that he would come back when his mind settled. He never did. I actually applied to foster the baby and bring her home but couldn't get approved in time. I never found out where the baby ended up.

At the end of the day today, a patient that I hadn't seen in about 3 months came in. She had been trying to get pregnant for over a year with no success. She was, sadly, getting no help from the physician. I took her on as a special project because I was concerned about her being off of a life saving medication to attempt pregnancy for that long and getting nowhere. We did a lot of testing and some starter meds. She came in, crying, to tell me that she was pregnant. I honestly think I felt at least as much joy for her as I did when I got my own positive this time. There is little that has been more rewarding to me.

I'm not sure why these stories are connected for me ....but they are. Closing in on week 15 with everything apparently going well with this pregnancy is bringing me to the realization that this baby may actually live. Listening to the heart rate today was the first time I didn't feel anxiety when touching a doppler. The baby moved so strongly today for such a continuous time that it was actually distracting for a few seconds during a patient visit. I'm thinking about my career and what it's going to be as a mom to a newborn. I hate change. Hate it. But when I was pregnant for the golden child, I never hesitated for a second at dropping out of med school. I knew I needed more time with the baby than med school or being a physician would ever allow. I'm sensing a career change for me around the corner ....and maybe a drastic one. The passion that I feel about infertility and pregnancy and pregnancy loss is intense. I have to believe there is a place and a way for me to put that to good use. It's just a matter of finding where and when.

Living la vida teenager

2009-01-04T18:08:00.003-05:00

I've been nearly ready to kill the golden child for the past week. She might have to have a new blog name - because she is not being golden. Her infractions are, in the grand scheme of things, incredibly minor. What distresses me, however, is her lack of remorse for the infraction to begin with. As an example, she's had braces for about a half of a year. $6,000 worth of braces and they need to be on for another year. Her teeth were awful. About two weeks after the braces went on? The two most horrendous teeth magically dropped into perfect position. I would have taken them off right then if I could have gotten some of the money back ...but no. So anyway. I'm fairly strict about the braces rules, because, in my world, six grand is a lot of moula. One thing that is absolutely forbidden is popcorn. She's been swearing that she hasn't had any. She had a friend over and it came out somehow that she has it all the time. I almost twisted her ears, I swear. Not really. But I wanted to. Then I caught her lying about a new t-shirt that she had on. I asked her where she got it ...she said, "So and so friend gave it to me for Christmas." That same night? Her friend said something which clearly meant that the golden child had bought it for herself. And umm....I really couldn't have cared less if she bought herself a shirt. She babysits. She makes her own money. So why the lie? I have no idea. But it concerns me. And she thinks it is funny. So ...I'm struggling with how best to handle it right now. I'm feeling the urge to lock her in the basement and tie her up with chains instead of letting her go to high school next year because of what could be around the corner. I don't really want to over react but I do want her to get the impression that I'm serious and don't like being lied to. In my mind right now lying about popcorn means she might be shooting up heroin in the next year or so ...and while logically I know that's not rationale, emotionally convincing myself of that is something else altogether.

As for pregnancy ...umm...I don't so much feel pregnant. Bizarre. Now that the wretched morning sickness is all but gone and I don't feel like passing out if I walk more than 10 steps, I can actually see how women would not know they were pregnant. Cause without the beta hcg's that I was compulsive about ordering for myself? I could totally assume it was just lymphoma or a prolonged viral illness or something. With every pregnancy before this, I've been totally focused on the baby. My general train of thought would be something like "Hmm...to do(baby) list for today (I'm pregnant!!)...I need to go renew my license (baby) buy some (MY baby)" blah blah. This time around, I feel like I'm following another infertile bloggers pregnancy. Very detached and distant. Happy. Amused....but not really my life. Just like I get excited when I check in on Allison and see that she's already 32(!!) weeks pregnant ...I log into my own blog and think "Wow! 14 weeks already? Time flies. That's so cool for her." Umm..okay psycho. It's not "her". It's me. Maybe I'll grow attached at week 15 ...a week I haven't seen in the pregnancy world in 14 years. If not? Someone is going to have to kick me in the assno to get me to get the nursery ready before the nugget is born.

Speaking of the nursery ...because I want this to be the longest post ever ...when we bought this house 2 1/2 years ago before the hell of recurrent loss, one of my favorite things (after the white picket fence) about the house was the ready made nursery. It was, essentially, perfect for me. Gender neutral ..inspired by pottery barn...I wouldn't have needed to change a thing. After the 1st miscarriage ....we threw all sorts of extra stuff in the room ..filled it from top to bottom and called it the "crap" room instead of the "nursery". After the 2nd loss, when we thought we had things figured out and the next baby would live ...we cleaned it out again. After the third loss? I closed the door to the room and refused to talk about it. I came home from work one day and Monk had painted the entire room adobe brown, moved in a dresser, and a queen sized bed and it became the guest room. So umm....at some point and time? We'll have to work on a nursery again. People wonder why I'm crazy.

More Sadness

2008-12-30T20:52:00.003-05:00

Remember how I was jealous about my MA that was pregnant because she was so hopeful and buying maternity clothes and set the crib up when she was 5 weeks pregnant? And because she's the sweetest person on the face of the earth? She miscarried. On Christmas Day. About 2 hours before she had a big reveal planned for her entire family. She had an awful experience in the ER and no one was nice to her. I feel awful. Even more so because EVERYone at our office knows. She spends the majority of her day sitting at the front desk where she encounters about 25 drug reps per day. All of whom will probably ask her how she's feeling and what's going on with the baby. I cringe thinking about it. After my first loss, the front desk girls cut everyone off and let them know about the miscarriage and let them know not to say a word to me about it. Um....who's going to do that for her??? It breaks my heart really.

I've been thinking for a while that she and/or her husband have some type of infertility thing going on. She's 24 ..he's 25. They've been together since they were 14. They have never, never used any form of birth control. Ever. I was shocked when she told me that. This was her second pregnancy in 10 years of activity. Umm...at her age? That can't be right. I want to point her towards some sort of testing but how do you suggest that to someone? Hey? Have you ever thought that it's not normal that you haven't been pregnant 500 times by now??

Hello 2nd Trimester

2008-12-30T20:32:00.005-05:00

I had my second OB appointment this morning. I was nervous, for a change. The friend/OB and all of her OB colleagues had this week off so the NPs and the CNM's were running the show. I originally scheduled the appointment with the friend/NP that I went to school with. She ended up calling in sick so they rolled me over to one of the other girls. Umm...if you're not familiar with nurses ....there are basically 2 different kinds. One is kind of old school. A nursey nurse if you will. Overly sweet, caring, touchy-feely, kinda frumpy, "yes, doctor" type. The other type ...kind of the "newer" school nurse ...usually much more assertive, empowering, ummm..hip? maybe. I don't know. I always think more educated but I'm not sure that's fair. I'm definitely not a nurseynurse. If you know what I mean. So anyway....I was somewhat surprised when the NP that walked in was very much a nursey nurse, older, hair in a million bobby pins ...and umm...wasn't incredibly informative. I labeled her before she really said 3 words if you want to know the truth. Her name is Myrtie. And umm...I couldn't get past that. Now I feel a little ass-like about that ....but such is life. I still hadn't gotten my lab results to find out whether or not they think I'm diabetic. She couldn't find them in the chart. Umm...huh? She looked for the heartbeat for about 3 seconds before she gave up. Umm..please. This early? You usually have to search around a little. My blood pressure was up again ...which freaks me out because I wasn't that nervous. She said it was "fine" ...and I said, "In what OB book?" Because I'm bitchy that way. I'll check it a couple of times a day and fax it to the friend/OB that actually has a clue.

Anyway ...she ended up doing a bedside ultrasound ...which was fine. The baby? Cracks me up already. It looks gigantic compared to the last time. GIGANTIC. It never stopped moving around the entire time ...flips, kicks, swimming, jumping. I've already pre-diagnosed it with ADHD. I'm kidding. It was very endearing. A little scary ..but very endearing. Heart rate is 165. Growth is a couple of days ahead. I officially gave up progesterone suppositories today.

The best part? I lost 7 pounds in the first trimester. I told you I was sick, dammit. Now if I could just keep up the stellar baby growth AND weight loss life would be perfect. Especially because I still don't have my lab results so I can still pretend in my mind that I'm not diabetic yet.

We have zero plans for new year's eve at this point ...the golden child has a sleep over so it'll be the two of us and the cocker spaniel. We must be like 80 or something. Happy New Year everyone!!!

Survival

2008-12-26T13:59:00.003-05:00

Things went better than I had hoped. I didn't end up having to work on Christmas Eve because we didn't actually get called ...bizarre. Monk's family and my mom came over on Christmas Eve for dinner and it was actually pretty nice. Everyone brought a dish to pass ...Monk's mom brought the ham ...the kids exchanged gifts and all was fine. Everything was cleaned up, packed away, and Santa came and I was in bed by 11 p.m. No tears, even.

Christmas day the golden child woke us up at 7 am. She was beyond thrilled with her take. We spent way too much money on her..about the only thing she didn't get was a new snowboard but she'll have to buy that on her own. I logged in to the hospital to look at my census and lo and behold there are 8 new patients on the list. Umm..great. I immediately got super emotional and crabby thinking I was going to be at the hospital all day. I get there ....do the first consult and one of the neurologists in our call group is there happy as can be. He's Muslim and doesn't celebrate Christmas at all. I had asked both my boss and the office manager to call him and ask if he would mind taking call for us on Christmas Eve/Day. They both assured me they did and that he had declined. He came up and gave me a hug ...asked me how I was. I said that I was crabby because of being there on Christmas ...and he said, "You should have called!! I would have been more than happy to take these days for you! I am going to be here anyway!" I could have killed someone. Namely? My boss and office manager. I have literally been stressed out about being on call on Christmas since last January when the call schedule came out. I smiled and said thank you and then promptly prepared for ways to kill the people that I work with. I checked on the next 2 consults and both of them had been cancelled. So ...I got brave ...called my boss ..and told her that I was leaving for the day. I told her that because she chose to lie about not being able to find coverage for the holiday, I was choosing to spend the day with my family instead of her. She was surprised, I think, but said, "Okay...then I'll see you on Saturday?" Yep ..you will. I haven't talked to her since. It looks like she's getting slammed today ...so I'm sure I'll end up working two 16 hour days this weekend ...but such is life.

I got home ...we went to Monk's parents and exchanged gifts and had Christmas lunch. I'm pretty sure his mom was upset because literally EVERY single gift that she bought people is being returned. His family is actually pretty rude about it ....they just announce that they hate it and it's going back. I'd never buy another single thing for any of them if I were her. We left there, stopped at home to get the food to take to my mom's and drove out there. Exchanged gifts, had a late dinner, and came home. All in all ...I survived. None of it was as awful as what I had anticipated it would be.

In other news ...I seem to be suddenly sporting a baby bump. I'm sure that it's not noticeable to anyone but me, and even with me it's a bit of a stretch. Definitely in the morning when I'm laying down I can feel a lower abdominal fullness/firmness that I definitely can't attribute to the 30 day shred video. Clothes still fit fine. I think I'm pretty much in denial that this is actually happening. I can definitely feel the 2nd trimester approaching ....constant fatigue, dizziness, and nausea seem to be abating. Two more scary weeks to go. I promise to stay away from the pomegranate body wash if you guys promise to get me through the next couple of scary risky miscarriage weeks.

Deal?

Here's to the New Year!

The Grinch Stole My Christmas

2008-12-23T21:03:00.002-05:00

Just to prove that I'm a psycho, I did actually squirt some pomegranate mango body wash into an empty clean tub to see what happens ...and ..voila ...instant blood clots. It's quite amazing how realistic it is, really. And that's coming from a former ICU nurse that spent a lot of 16 hour shifts in blood up to her elbows. Anyway.

I'm not feeling the Christmas season this year. I can't quite put my finger on why ...but all that I really feel is stressed. I'd much rather curl up in bed for the next few days and avoid everyone and the stress that comes with gift giving/receiving. Not very christian of me, I suppose ...but ...I'm just blah. I've actually never had to work on a Christmas and/or Christmas Eve before ..which is quite amazing considering how long I worked as a RN in a hospital. I'm not sure if it's that ...or being pregnant ....or missing my dad ...or the wretched cold/sinus infection that's taken over my head for the last week or what. I just find myself looking forward to January 2nd when everything is done and over with. Totally NOT like me in any way. I usually love Christmas. My parents always way outdid themselves for every holiday. I don't remember one that wasn't perfectly Norman Rockwellish, in fact. Always the perfect gift, the perfect attitude, decorations, food. Chestnuts roasting over an open fire, even. I really want that for the golden child as well....but I'm not sure that it's something you can fake. This year I feel like it'll be a miracle for me to drag myself out of bed and give a half-hearted "merry christmas ..there's your crap." She should be ecstatic with the presents she gets ...but she'd be happier if she had a happy mom.

I've spent the last couple of days wondering if I'm in some sort of weird pregnancy induced depression or what. I have the most exaggerated emotional responses to the silliest stuff. I was watching the today show the other day and they had a show on about bone marrow donation. Cute show ...cute family ...yeah two people saved the life of a child. Normally I might get a little teary over something like that. I actually sobbed on the couch for 20 minutes over it and was late to work because I couldn't get myself together. I just feel like I'm right on the edge all the time. Monk - who, by the way - has had the last 2 weeks off - asked me to help him wrap presents when I got home from work last night and I launched into a 20 minute tirade about how he sucks as a human being for asking ..because umm..I worked dammit and couldn't he tell that I would need an hour or so to chill out? He was like ..umm...back off, psycho. Which, was honestly probably a fairly legitimate response on his part but pissed me off more anyway.

Not a great Christmas post ...sorry. I'll do better next year. Hopefully even next week.

Moment of Terror

2008-12-21T08:27:00.002-05:00

First ....Happy Birthday Monk!

I was in the bathtub yesterday morning and looked down between my legs to see pinkish/red clots floating in the water. At first, I saw 2 ...frantically started to look around ...and they were everywhere. I can't even describe the next five minutes except to say total panic. Eventually, I did some investigation. Umm...nothing coming from the baby maker that I could find. Maybe I cut my leg shaving? Ummm..no. What the hell? Got of the tub, crying, sure that I was losing the baby even though I couldn't find any direct evidence of that. Called for Monk ...asked him to investigate while I curled myself into a ball on the bed. I hear him start swearing ....look up ..

And he's holding a bottle of pomegranate-mango body wash that is umm...very pinkish/red ...that I was using to shave my legs.

Psssssyyyyyyyyycccccchhhhhhoooooo.

Whole lot of failin' going on

2008-12-18T21:52:00.002-05:00

I put my big girl panties on and went in for the stupid test. It was kinda crappy to tell you the truth. For some reason they made me drink 100 grams of sort of orange flavored syrup. I kept telling the woman it was only supposed to be 50 grams ...but she didn't believe me. Umm...I order the test all the time ...so I know. Whatev. I shut up and drank it. Spent the next 8 hours wanting to throw up...cause umm...I don't ever ..and I mean ever ...consume 100 grams of straight up glucose in 5 minutes. My blood sugar going in to the test was 74. Fairly respectable. I checked it about 45 minutes in to see if I was going to have to go outside and run a mile or something and it was 122. Hmm..fairly respectable considering the double carb load for a 1 hour test. Went in ..had the blood drawn. Went to my car ..checked my blood again ..132. Dammit. 130 is the cut off. I got pissed and went to taco bell and ate 2 burritos. Probably about another 100 carbs worth. Because I'm that smart. Anyway. My blood sugar an hour after that was 86 ..so I would pass a 2 or 3 hour with no problem.

Typically capillary blood will be about 10% higher than a serum draw but I'm not usually that lucky. So ..I'm sure tomorrow I'll get the call that they want me to repeat the entire thing over with a 3 hour test. I think I'll tell them to screw it and not lose another entire day feeling pukey and just call myself diabetic and be done with it. If the numbers are that close on 2 grams of metformin a day ...let's just call a spade a spade. Ya know?

We're about to get smacked with a huge snow storm ...we're in the 12 inch plus range predicted for tomorrow. I umm....haven't started Christmas shopping yet. Monk's birthday is Sunday and I have nothing for that. Saturday is my huge extended family Christmas so that pretty much knocks out that day for shopping. Monk's family is coming to celebrate his birthday on Sunday ..so umm....screwed there. I just found out that we're having his family here for Christmas Eve dinner. Umm. Yeah. And I'm on call. Christmas Eve. Christmas Day. Entire Christmas Weekend.

And I have an interview for a new job on Tuesday. With my boss' competitor and arch enemy. Ouch for her.

Bah Humbug.

Diabetic Schmiabetic

2008-12-17T22:05:00.005-05:00

I decided that I'm a pretty good nurse practitioner ...and a piss poor patient. I'm going to have to force myself to go get my labs done that were ordered well over 2 weeks ago. I'm forcing myself to make it happen tomorrow. If I thought there was a way for me to fake it ...I totally wouldn't go. I can't even tell you how much I'm dreading the 1 hour gestational screen glucose tolerance test. I *hate* insulin resistance and pcos. *hate* *hate* *hate* it. I have every intention of testing my blood sugar on my own before I go in and when I leave so that I know what the results are right away. I've been secretly plotting how to "fix" the results so they come out the right way. Umm..you got it. Crazy girl is back. My ideas for fixing the results? Running up and down the stairs for the entire full hour. Hiding in the bathroom and doing an hour worth of squats, lunges, and running in place...sneaking in insulin and taking some just in case ..umm...yeah. That might be taking things too far.

Okay seriously. WTF is wrong with me? Obviously the rational part of my brain knows that if I'm diabetic I need to take care of it and want to know about it at the earliest possible time. I also know that chances are more than likely that I will be since I'm starting out with insulin resistance and have been on massive doses of progesterone which makes insulin resistance worse. I limit and count carbs. Sort of. Seriously??? Sort of??!?Unless the 2nd piece of pizza at lunch today is calling my name or something. It's pathetic. I think I'll go lick Monk's chocolate ice cream cone to make myself feel better about the whole thing.

The health care provider in me? Teaches diabetic education a full 10 hours per week. To umm...gestational diabetics. I'm not even kidding. I have a certification in advanced diabetic management at a master's level that took me a very long time to get. It was a bitch of a test. You kind of have to be pretty smart about all things diabetic to get it. Wanna schedule an appointment with me?

The wife in me? Would probably be murdered and stuffed into a random crawlspace if Monk ever read this. Because umm... Monk? Is a Type 1 diabetic. On an insulin pump. And checks his blood a bare minimum of 10 times per day. And gets harassed by his wife probably 2 hours a day because I want him to wear a continuous glucose monitor in addition to his pump. So I'm sensing I wouldn't get a lot of support about being a pansy about the 1 hour GTT. Just guessing. In truth? I'm embarrassed to even tell him that I have to have the stupid test. And I'm pretty sure that he doesn't even know that I'm taking Metformin. Or what Metformin is for.

I've gotta go. I need to go find a phone book to look up "Treatments for crazy girls". Think I'll have any luck?

Fun Times

2008-12-14T16:42:00.005-05:00

The wedding? Was about 20 times worse than what I had imagined it would be. And ..if you need the reminder ...I went into it thinking it would be a better time to poke my own eyes out with a pencil. Twenty. Times. Worse.

The actual wedding was fine. We then spent FOUR hours on a drunk "boogie bus" complete with a stripper pole and about 15 more people than what should have legally been allowed on. Motion sickness, in case you are wondering, makes morning sickness even worse. I had been under the impression that we were going to drive around for a bit and then go to the groom's brother's house - which I was cool with - because he has a beautiful million dollar home and his wife is my friend. Instead ...we drove around with no destination in mind while the ex-girlfriend proceeded to get more and more drunk and make use of the stripper pole. Classy. Monk ...who was mostly terrified that I would spill the secret, I think, was overly attentive and pretty much glued to my side for any minute he wasn't contractually obligated to be at the head table.

Wait. The best part is coming.

During the dinner while Monk was sitting at the head table with the drunk/disgusting ex? I sat next to THE OTHER drunk ex and her husband. And she felt the need to tell me WAY too much about the fun they had in high school. I pretty much can't stand this woman anyway because I'm a petty witch ...but I was eventually forced to say, "Um...yeah. I'm good. I don't need any more details about how you almost had sex with my husband when you were 16. And he was dating your best friend." Umm...at least she moved after that.

Next? Virtually every one of Monk's friends eventually found out about me being knocked up and lots of questions/congratulations ensued. Favorite conversation from this tid bit?

Drunk guy 1: "Oh my god Monk ...you were set. You just ruined your life."

Drunk guy 2: "Wait. wait. Wait. How did this happen? Did Shauna have a canker sore or something??"

Drunk guy 3: "I'm guessing she found a used kleenex."

Ummm....yeah. I was sitting directly next to Monk during this entire conversation. He was laughing his ass off.

Lastly ...I was really kind of sad for a woman at the party who was forced to listen to all of the pregnancy talk and congratulations. She has been a friend of Monk's forever and is one of my best friend's sisters. She has been trying to have a baby since I met her. She originally started out with donor insemination to be a single mom by choice ..and it never worked. She eventually met someone and got married ....and proceeded to IVF to no avail. About nine months ago, she became a foster mom to a newborn that they intend to adopt. There's some weird legal issues with the dad who might not actually be the dad or something and they aren't sure if the adoption will go through. I honestly don't think that I'm that strong of a person to do something like that. I can't imagine losing a baby that I've loved for a year to someone that I know won't and/or can't care for him the same way I do. In the meantime, she was told that her eggs are too old and will have to move on to donor eggs. Her much younger sister donated eggs and she had her first DE transfer the day after Thanksgiving. I'm assuming it didn't work because she was drinking last night at the wedding ..but umm....sitting next to a table that was all pregnancy talk (albeit crude and annoying pregnancy talk) had to be incredibly painful. I just kind of avoided her for the entire night but felt miserable for her.

On to Week 11. One of the scary four weeks down ...three to go.

Oh...and I finally ate my five dollah foot long tonight. Vegetarian - of course. It was at least as good as I was imagining it to be. I still avoid meat like the plague. I have added dairy products back in. I'm pretty sure I could consume my weight in cottage cheese, yogurt, and cheddar without getting sick if given the opportunity. Apparently someone needs some calcium to grow bones or something.

Five

2008-12-12T13:46:00.003-05:00

Five. Five Dollah. Five Dollah Foooot Loooong.

I can't get that song out of my head. I haven't felt quite brave enough to get one yet ...but I think about it for about five hours a day. Zofran? Is probably the best thing in the world. Between that and a somewhat normal progesterone level now, I feel almost like a normal person again. I'm still smell sensitive and have waves of nausea but I don't feel like I'm on death row anymore.

However? It's going to take every single thing that I have to not poke my own eye out with a sharp object this weekend. Right now I'm about an hour late for an office Christmas party. I hate office Christmas parties. Monk is in a wedding this weekend where at least 2 of his ex-girlfriends will be in attendance. He is standing up with one of them. This pretty much makes me want to poke his eyes out. And because he's in the freaking wedding? It's going to consume the entire weekend. And I have a shite load of Christmas shopping and preparing to do. ARGH. If you had one inkling of how painful it will be to be around this group of people sober you'd probably volunteer to come here and poke my eyes out for me. They all started drinking at 11:30 am this morning and won't likely stop until Monday. Classy people. That's what I'm telling you. Classy.

And did I mention that my stupid husband is standing up with an ex girlfriend despite the fact that I'm pregnant and overly hormonal? Seriously. I wonder if his brain is the size of a pea. She's the sister of the groom. The groom is his best friend. No one knows they were ever together and he doesn't want to tell them. It was like 20 years ago. I might have to let it slip on the drunk bus ride between the wedding and the reception just to prove a point. Because I'm that much of a witch. But seriously. Would that piss you off?

1st Labor & Delivery visit

2008-12-08T22:18:00.002-05:00

Yes ...you read that right. I already made my first trip to labor & delivery. Because ..you know. I'm an overachiever that way.

So ..today is the 3rd day that I haven't eaten. That's a lie. I did actually have 2 hot cocoa flavored hershey kisses after they gave me 2 liters of fluids and a crapload of IV zofran. And ..in better news ....they've stayed down so far. I woke up this morning and my heart rate was like 130 and I was flushed and dizzy and still couldn't manage to hold down a couple of ounces of flat ginger ale ...so I called the office and they sent me in for fluids. I do feel markedly better after the IV fluids ..or the zofran ...or the combination of the two. I think the dehydration was feeding the nausea and I got myself into a really nasty cycle.

And of course now? I'm craving a $5 footlong from Subway. But I'm thinking maybe we'll start with some peppermint tea and if that works I'll up the ante and sip on some vegetable broth. My progesterone level is stupid high ...so either the placenta kicked in or it all caught up with me. I'm thinking that has something to do with the extreme hyperemesis. I get to give up the PIO shots and orals ..and we'll work with just the vaginal suppositories and watch the levels closely. Anyway. Life moves on. Hopefully it will move on through the next 4 weeks quickly and I'll be in the 2nd trimester with a living fetus and able to hold some food down before I know it.

On a lighter note ...Ms. April tagged me to list 7 random facts about myself.

Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about you.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end, and include links to their blogs.

I'm going to cheat because I'm sickly and super tired and just say ..um...if you're reading this ...you're it! :)

Random Facts:

1. Monk has never seen me naked. He' seen all the parts separately ...just never the sum of the parts in whole. Umm...you can also read that, "I have issues" if you'd like.
2. You'd think that I must be rather prudish considering number 1 ...but ..we actually have a great sex life. I still haven't figured that one out.
3. My stupid party trick? I can fold my tongue in half width-wise without using my teeth. It's supposedly genetic. The only other person I've met that can do it? Monk. Which ..genetically speaking...might be creepy but I prefer to think of it as fate.
4. I was accepted into Medical school as a freshman in undergrad at the University of Michigan. I dropped out of the program when I got pregnant with the golden child because being a mom was more important to me than being a doctor.
5. I recently found out that the golden child's donor is married and has 2 daughters. I'm really, really struggling with this information and all of it's implications for the golden child and his daughters.
6. I do approximately 6 patient visits on family members nearly every weekend. Part of me hates those members of my family for asking. I go to confession about these feelings on a nearly weekly basis but never manage to say no when someone calls sick.
7. I took 8 years of Spanish ...4 of them at the college level and spent a summer in Spain. I was very fluent in Spanish. I'm currently struggling to help the golden child with her 1st year Spanish homework. Seriously.

Gripes

2008-12-06T20:16:00.004-05:00

In which the formerly infertile woman makes everyone want to kill her by griping about symptoms of pregnancy.

Which is awful. I know this. But seriously? I am so flipping miserable. I do feel incredibly lucky to be this miserable for this reason ...but miserable nonetheless.

I feel like I've got the worst possible ear infection because I'm constantly dizzy. I've become vegetarian because all meat is rotten flesh that tastes and smells vile. And the passing out count? Up to 6. Enough so that I have to have some stupid work up because they don't believe me when I tell them that I did this with the golden child and everything was fine. My body just does not care for pregnancy. I spent a total of about 3.5 hours out of bed yesterday. I have no idea how I'm going to work this week if this continues. My standard dress for the last 3 days has been a nasty pair of old sweatpants and a batik/tye dye number that I wore when I was nine months pregnant ( 13 years ago)that I bought from my favorite vegetarian restaurant in Ann Arbor. Yep. All kinds of sexy. I'm not sure why Monk hasn't left me yet.

Now that I'm 10 weeks ...I'm feeling reflective. All of my losses have happened between weeks 10-14. So umm...scary times. But to be honest ...this pregnancy doesn't feel anything like the losses. I'm super sick. I have NO cramping at all ..none. Which feels strange for me. I didn't realize how much I had been cramping throughout the other pregnancies until it wasn't there. I've got to thank the progesterone ...but seriously? If all it took was a progesterone suppository a couple of times a day? I'm pissed about the other losses. I guess we'll see. I remember the golden child's first ultrasound ..and the sheer rush of adrenaline I felt after watching her bounce around inside me. I literally skipped out of the university of michigan hospital. Skipped. With this ultrasound, I was relieved ...but not overwhelmed with joy. Still sitting on pins and needles. Still fairly detached.

My medical assistant just found out that she's pregnant. She's literally the sweetest person that walked the face of the planet. She has a four year old that is so cute I couldn't be his mother. I think I might eat him or spoil him so much he'd be a serial killer. This pregnancy has allowed me to feel genuinely happy for her and excited ...and I'm not sure that would have been the case otherwise. But I constantly compare. She's 4 weeks pregnant - took the test at work on Tuesday - and already calling me to tell me about sales on summer maternity clothes ...and while I appreciate it? I'm umm...not quite thinking that far ahead. I miss the innocence.

We finally told my mom/siblings and Monk's family. My family was ecstatic. Monk's sibling's very congratulatory. Monk's mom? Umm...underwhelmed. Not sure what to think about that yet.

breathing ...

2008-12-02T15:36:00.004-05:00

Everything went really well.

I was a nervous wreck. Like ..ridiculously so. I'm starting to diagnose myself as having generalized anxiety disorder except that it's not generalized. It's pregnancy anxiety disorder. My blood pressure was sky high for me... 130/88. The nurse started to lecture me and I said ..umm...I'm visibly shaking. How about you recheck me after the ultrasound and I'll listen to the lecture if it's still needed then?? I was borderline schizo. So much so the friendly OB did a bedside u/s before the real u/s just to calm me down.

One little bean. In my uterus - not in a tube. One kick ass corpus luteum on my left ovary. Heartrate is 167. Due Date July 4th. Baby is all of 2.5 cm, and measuring dead on day for day from the day my OPK was positive. I'll stay on the progesterone suppositories until week 13 and then taper off for a week. I've got labs for the morning ....thyroid, HIV, all the standards plus the early gestational diabetes screen/1 hour tolerance test thanks to the pcos, insulin resistance, and my fat ass.

I feel like I just exhaled for the first time in 8 weeks. Or 3 years. One of the two.

Paranoia

2008-12-01T18:02:00.002-05:00

My first OB/ultrasound appointment is tomorrow at 2 ..and I'm freaking out. I took the entire second half of the day off so I have time to chill out before embarrassing myself by crying or something the minute the OB walks in. She's notoriously late ...so I'm guessing I'll get out of there somewhere around 5.

A drug rep/infertile friend of mine called the office today crying ...and I've been upset ever since. She was 1 week ahead of me ..she finished her clomid pills when I started mine. She had her first ultrasound yesterday and the baby is tubal. She's devastated. I'm devastated for her. They had her dated at 11 weeks ..which seems insane to me. She had literally NO pain and a ton of pregancy symptoms and normal labs. Now I'm back on the tubal paranoia train because I HAVE had pain and goofy labs and not very many symptoms. Most of all ...I'm heartbroken for her. This is her 3rd loss in the last 2 years ...and she was so confident this time that she was out buying clothes and such. She's scheduled for surgery in the morning ...I'm praying that they can do something to save her tube.

What I wouldn't give to be able to skip this part and be sitting at home nursing a healthy newborn . . .

Answers?

2008-11-29T22:04:00.002-05:00

It finally occurred to me that I am actually a nurse practitioner with a fairly well stocked office and microscope so I dragged myself into my office and checked things out. Definitely had a yeast infection ...which I still think is bizarre because I still only had symptoms right after the progesterone suppository. Anyway ...after treatment ..all is well with that part of my body again. TMI? Probably. Anyway. Thanks for all of the advice/support/encouragement.

As for the sex part ..I decided to hold off after it was so nicely pointed out that my husband might manage to absorb some of the progesterone. So ..umm...I offered him the opportunity for sore nipples and nausea but he declined. We'll wait another 3 weeks. I feel safer that way anyway. And also??....3 days until ultrasound!!?!?! I can't believe I actually made it without a paranoid freak-out this long. My latest paranoia is that I'm carrying 2 sets of identical twins or something. What's causing this particular paranoia, you ask? Umm...the fact that I SWEAR I can feel alien movement. And at 8 weeks? Umm...I'm either insane or carrying a small circus. But ..I have been pregnant before and it is a rather distinctive feeling. Seems to be happening every night around 7-7:30 or so. I wonder how hard the friend/OB will laugh at me when I tell her that?

Okay ..I have to run. I'm on call at the hospital this weekend ...managed to dislocate my jaw and can't do much about it without really good drugs that would kill any parasites...got in a *massive* fight with my boss which ended with me calling her names that included "psychotic" "nut case" and "bitch" as well as offering her inpatient psych admission for her loonie self...and I also managed to pass out in the intensive care unit in front of about 35 doctors which then forced me to admit my pregnancy to all of them. Umm...good weekend all in all!

Anyone doing anything more exciting than crawling in bed with a hot water bottle on their jaw at 9 pm on a Saturday?

Hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving!

p.s. Monk would like me to point out that the jaw dislocation? Has NOTHING to do with the no sex going on in our house.

Questions

2008-11-24T17:20:00.002-05:00

Does anyone out there that has had some experience with progesterone suppositories have some assvice for me?

They're starting to be a pain in the you know what. As in ...I feel like maybe I'm developing an allergy to them or a yeast infection (which I've never before had) or something. But the discomfort is only there for 10-15 minutes after I put it in. Is that normal?

And ..as a side note. Anyone know the rules when using these things? Can you have sex? Cause ..umm...Monk would like to know. I assumed no ..but ...in reality, I guess I'm not so sure.

The right sided pain is gone! It got SO bad that night and sort of radiated into my nether regions. I actually got up and got ready to go to the ER and it just suddenly passed. I don't know. I probably had a kidney stone or something which I've had before. My body never ceases to amaze me with all of it's issues.

I'm seriously not looking forward to the first OB appointment just because I know that she's going to do a breast exam and I pretty much feel like they should be protected by a force field right now. The slightest touch or brush against ANYTHING makes me want to cry.

Still worth it. All of the above. :)

Date Night with Monk

2008-11-22T21:55:00.004-05:00

I've been searching for a blog name for my husband ..because I hate typing "my husband" and finally settled on Monk. Umm..like the OCD detective. This is something that I call him in our real life ...because it fits. Not in looks ...but he certainly has his own OCD issues. I never knew how much it fit until after we were married (though we dated for 6 years before we married we never lived together). So ..Monk it is.

Anyway ...Monk and I had a date night tonight. Went out to dinner and to see Role Models. It was tough to be out past my appointed 7:30 pm bedtime ..but I figured that I either had to put forth the effort or committ murder. Heheh. The movie? Very funny. Vulgar ..but very funny. I'm still trying to convince Monk that he needs to be more supportive and that it is not in any way healthy for me when he acts as though this baby is going to die with certainty. I obviously have the same fears ...one of us needs to fake it. And with the tears I'm sensing that I'm the more vulnerable one ...so it's his turn to man up. And that's that. :)

I suppose I should explain a little about where we started since I chose my first ever IComLeavWe to post about him being an un-supportive ass. I would love to pretend to the world that our relationship is perfect ...but it's not ..and so I don't. We first met when he was dating my best friend. Umm...yeah. They ended things on their own ..and he and I picked up a while after that. Even in the very beginning, we both knew that we had literally nothing in common. Like ...nothing. And I'm not kidding. I love travel and the outdoors and school. He'd be content to never leave our house or neighborhood for that matter. Monk literally counts how many glasses the golden child and I drink out of during the day because he thinks it is excessive. I choose a new glass per hour just to irritate him. He frantically cleans the house on an hourly basis. I have a pile of clothes four feet deep in my walk in closet and honest to God don't know how to turn on the vacuum or where we keep the garbage bags. He shops at 3 different grocery stores to save money. I don't even look at the price tags or look for sales when I go. I would love to move to Africa for a couple of years to work in a clinic and bring home adopted babies Angelina style. He says, "Have fun. I probably won't be here when you get back."

A year or so into the relationship, my dad died. And I went more than a little loonie over it. When I looked around - he was the only one standing that was still making sense. He kept me grounded through the most difficult thing in my life. Because of the lack of commonality, I tried and he tried to end things several times in the beginning. On one such incident, I honest to God freaked out and held on to his legs as he was walking away. He still teases me about it today. Embarrassing? More than you know. But it's honest and true and me. I can't live without him. I think that there were things that we both wanted in a relationship that probably aren't here ...but the basics are. So ...just know. He's not a creep the vast majority of the time. He is, in fact, a husband that many, many women would dream of having. Do dream of having. Tell me they dream about it, even. In the last 8 years, we've been through pretty much everything. Three dead babies. In my ideal world ...he would have been equally as heartbroken as me over that. He wasn't. He would have ached for a child the same way that I do. He would have shared in the total bliss that I felt when I first saw this last positive test. But in truth ...he doesn't. It's just one more thing that we don't have in common. He's much more reserved about giving love than I. Much more guarded. I don't expect him to really accept that the pregnancy is really happening and healthy until he sees the ultrasound. I do, however, expect him to shower me with love and respect and kindness. That part? He occasionally needs a little extra nudge in. This week was one of those times. He responded well to the nudge. Eight years later ...we're still learning.

I've had this really incredibly disconcerting pain in my right lower abdomen and can't stop thinking ectopic. It's a pain that I've had before ..but I can't remember when though I've never had an ectopic. I'm going to take some tylenol ...lay down...and try to avoid the emergency room. I'm almost certain I won't make it until Dec 2nd without an ultrasound.