Runnin' On

I Just Don't Even Know What To Do With This Information

2006-04-13T17:11:00.000-07:00

It was a pleasant evening here. Warm and balmy and such. Nathan and I walked outside and met the neighbor's baby for the first time as we all started emerging from our winter hibernation. My friend T. from across the street stopped over with her baby who is slightly older than Nathan.

If you recall, T. announced to me, with great love and concern, that she was pregnant just as we were beginning injections for the third in vitro, the one that brought us Nathan. T. and I have been running partners since she and her husband moved in a few years ago. (I should say she's one of my two dear running partners and friends, but more on that in a bit.) I was heartbroken at the thought of losing her as a partner. Then I got pregnant and we rejoiced together, spent last year pregnant and having babies together, and spent the fall together on maternity leave taking long stroller walks in the park. We've exchanged sleep horror stories, shared breastfeeding and baby food tips, and cooed over each other's babies. We talked about how our boys would play together. I showed her the wagon my dad bought Nathan for Christmas and looked forward to pulling them both in it in the park next to our houses.

So tonight, T. said she wanted to talk to me because she and her dh are probably moving, probably putting the house up for sale in May, probably traveling for a while, eventually buying another house.

I was in shock, but it didn't really hit me until I went back home.

Then I fell apart. (Poor Nathan probably thinks Mommy's insane.) You see, my other dear friend and running partner, MJ, is moving to California in a couple weeks. I've managed to be nothing but happy for her and her cross-country job promotion, as well as excited about the upcoming October marathon plans we've now laid. I've managed to keep my head firmly in the sand and ignore the fact that I will now run alone at lunchtime. But tonight's news was the straw that broke my back and right now I can hardly breathe. The world is spinning.

These are two very wonderful women. Wonderful friends. Wonderful, caring, Christian women who have shared so much themselves with me. Over miles and miles we've lived our lives together, with MJ for nearly 10 years, with T. for just a few, but the results are the same: they both have a big piece of my heart and my life. There's something about being outside, side by side, sweating it out together, that really shows you what someone is made of. And they are both made of beautiful things.

Right now my heart is breaking with the emptiness that's about to be left in both their wakes -- at nearly the same time. My feet will hit the pavement alone. I will breathe alone. I will be out there with only my thoughts, not hearing anyone else's, not bouncing mine off of them. I will be hearing my own feet, swamped in my own fatigue.

With the thought of MJ moving across the country, I at least hoped that T. and I would resume our runs together as we got more accustomed to our new post-partum and back-to-work lives. If we didn't, we'd still have our walks. Now my body will move alone. Really, truly alone.

I love my park. I love my solitary runs and my headphone runs and my intense painful runs. But I also love my partner runs, that time when I connect, reconnect, support, and receive support. I love the brief cooldown walks afterwards when we breathe easy, chat, and know that we have done something good for ourselves and for each other.

How do I run when I can't even breathe?

10 Real-Life Ways to Feel Sexy Again

2006-02-20T06:22:00.000-08:00

I just received my weekly Baby Zone news letter with an article on 10 ways to feel sexy again. It gives helpful information about why my libido might be busted (sleep deprivation, body image, the usual stuff). It also gives helpful hints, like catching him off-guard, trying something new, surprising him after Nathan's bedtime with dessert and drinks (actually, the article recommends "desert," which is entirely too uncomfortable for lovemaking in my estimation) in the bedroom, or surprising him by having the grandparents babysit overnight ("Hey, Mom and Dad, could you take Nathan overnight so Mike and I can get freaky?") ...

I'm sorry, but while those might be nice ideas, they're way too advanced for our current stage of baby development. When most waking moments at home are taken up by teaching Nathan to play in his jumper, tickling him, calming him when he's crying, and desperately folding laundry when he takes one of his micro-naps, trying something different or announcing -- though not in so many words -- to the grandparents that we need a good lay, is off the radar. While those things might be nice, I'm not even to the point of feeling sexy enough to take advantage of Nathan sleeping off-site.

I decided I need a more basic list of ways to feel sexy so that someday I might take advantage of Baby Zone's helpful, though logistical, list:

1) Get enough fucking sleep.
But since Nathan wakes up over and over at night (as delightful and friendly as he might be during the day), I'm not sure when that's going to happen. My boss frowns on naptime at my desk when I'm supposed to be working. Picky, picky.

2) Lose some fucking weight.
Oh yeah, that comes after you get enough fucking sleep because there's no energy left to exercise.

3) Hire the grandparents to babysit so you can take 20 minutes to shave your fucking legs.
Nothing says make love to me like a three-week-old forest. And you might even lose a half-pound toward goal #2.

4) Use some lotion.
At least in this part of the country in the winter with the heat on, nothing says make love to me like leg dandruff.

5) Comb your fucking hair.
I look like a mop every day, and it doesn't help that I haven't managed to get a hair cut since October.

6) Cut your toenails, but forget about toenail polish.
Trimming those daggers hanging off the end of your feet will be enough of an accomplishment. Giving your pedicure time to dry before your baby drools on the fresh paint?Impossible.

7) Laugh a little.
Maybe you'll burn a few extra calories. Just make sure your laughter doesn't turn into exhausted tears.

8) Do your laundry.
While this is nearly impossible, at least make sure you have clean underwear. Nothing says make love to me like peeling off old skanky drawers.

9) Kiss each other several times per day.
Do this even though you look like shit, you haven't flossed, and you're wearing puke-stained clothes. It might be the only thing to keep you connected during dry spells.

10) Always say I love you.
Ditto #9.

Nathan-ku

2006-02-19T15:09:00.000-08:00

Here are some haiku snapshots of life with my five-month-old pumpkin:

Watch you discover ...
How did you learn to put your
fingers in my nose?

That wide, gummy smile,
so happy, so unable
to contain the drool.

Butt cheek compression?
How exactly do you poop
up your entire back?

I cherish your squeals,
the way they pierce my eardrums
when I hold you close.

Your laughter: your joy
overflows and gushes forth
along with some puke.

And one last haiku. I might be venting just a tad:
"Does he sleep all night?"
they ask. Demoralizing
jerks with ugly kids.

Where the Hell Have I Been?

2006-02-17T14:45:00.000-08:00

This is my first blog entry from my palm pilot. I'm actually writing this while riding the bus.

First of all, I want to say thanks to you all for your good wishes toward my stepmother. She has started chemo, though she had a setback in January with an abscess and was in the hospital because they had to take her off of her blood thinners, drain the abscess, and then re-titrate said blood thinners. Then she got a second blood clot -- the first one being after her surgery -- and the fun just continued from there.

And may I just interrupt myself long enough to say that good God does this bus driver like to use his fucking brake pedal?

Anyway, thank you. She seems to be in good spirits and feeling positive, which is more than I can say for me because I've seen this shit before. Still, she got news that her liver tumors are shrinking after just two treatments, which is good.

So, if you're wondering why I've been gone so long (hell, if you've noticed that I've been gone so long), I started back to work December 5th and it's all been crazy since.

Here's a look at how pretty much every day goes (and I wouldn't have it any other way):

1) Wake up between 5:00 and 5:30 a.m.
2) Feed Nathan or pump, depending on how the night went.
3) Shower, eat (maybe), pack up pumping equipment and bottles to pump at work.
4) Swear about not being more organized.
5) Run out the door to the bus.
6) Work all day.
7) Never really take a break because I pump during my breaks and lunch. (When I can get out the door early enough in the morning I can take a long lunch and work out after I pump, but you're probably starting to see why I might be having trouble getting up early enough to do that very often.)
8) Ride the bus home.
9) Hop off bus, walk to house, hop in car.
10) Drive up the street to daycare. (Mike does the morning dropoff.)
11) Spend two to three hours with Nathan: feeding, playing, bathing ... also trying to eat our own dinner.
12) Put Nathan to bed around 8:00.
13) Wash bottles and pump equipment. Fill bottles for next day.
14) Decide to pack lunch, run the dishwasher, lay out clothes for the next day, straighten up, etc.
15) Collapse into a heap after about five minutes of above.
16) (and here's the painful part) wake up anywhere from three to twelve times in the night because we've created a binky addiction and Nathan hasn't figured out yet how to retrieve it for himself. In the middle of the night after 5-1/2 months of sleeping in one- to two-hour snatches, it's easier to trudge across the hall and plunk it back into his mouth, while at the same time understanding on some exhausted level that we're only compounding the problem.

It's just been too hard to let him cry it out. And both the cry-it-out advocates and the attachment parenting advocates use scare tactics, leaving sleep-deprived parents who are no longer capable of making a well-reasoned decision in the middle of the night to cry it out themselves instead.

The cry-it-out camp tries to convince you that if you don't leave your baby to cry and figure it out for himself, he'll never, ever learn to sleep on his own and he'll go to college with his teddy bear and his nightlight and will have insomnia that will make his mind foggy and his grades below their potential and he'll never get a good job.

The attachment parenting camp tries to scare you into responding to pretty much all of your baby's cries (once you've distinguished between the waking cries and the sleeping ones) because if you don't, your baby will learn that his cries aren't important, he'll stop trusting his instincts in crying (the only way he knows to communicate), his six-month-old self esteem will crumble, and he'll grow up to go to jail instead of college.

What the hell am I supposed to do with that? I reinsert the binky. It's simple, has an instant result, and isn't confusing. And I sleep in tiny spurts, praying for the day when he finds it for himself.

And yet through all this, through my bleary eyes, through my own exhausted cries in the night, I am so blissfully happy to have him. (I just wish he were a little sleepier.) In the middle of the night I want to both gouge out my own eyes with an ice pick and I want to squeeze and cuddle and coo. And that's really fucking confusing. I could never have predicted feeling this way: to be so in love with such a little person and yet to have to physically restrain myself from repeatedly bashing my forehead against our headboard when Nathan wakes up crying for the eighth time in three hours (no, I am not exaggerating). I dread the night.

And yet, when I see those eyes beaming and those gums flashing just for me during the day, all is forgiven. And that's where I am: sleep-deprived, unable to fix it, and head over heels.
I'm still trying to get the hang of pictures here. If it works, here's a recent one. Did I mention that he's huge? He turned five months old on Jan 27th. At his four-month appointment he was 17 lbs. 11.5 oz. and 26.5 inches long. That was 90th percentile for weight and 95th for length. The picture is from a week ago, at 5-1/2 months. I must be feeding him something good.

Happy Fucking Thanksgiving

2005-11-29T07:25:00.000-08:00

My mom died almost 13 years ago, on New Year's Day 1993. She had fought cancer for almost four years, with multiple surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation. The cancer would go away, and then it would come back. By the time all was said and done, she was also sporting a colostomy and a urostomy. The colostomy was supposed to be reversible if she went a year with no relapse, but that never happened. Her death at age 49 seemed ridculous for a kind-hearted woman who ate healthy foods and didn't drink or smoke and had no history of cancer in her family. The holidays were unbearable for a long time. By Christmas she was clearly not going to last much longer, on New Year's Eve she stopped responding, causing my brother to go on a drunken rampage in the woods across the street, and at lunch time on New Year's Day, after I spent a silent morning of taking down the Christmas decorations with my dad, she died.

About a year and a half after she died, my dad remarried a great lady and was happy again. After a 27-year loving marriage with my mom, he has now enjoyed 10 years with my stepmother.

So, just like in the soap operas, we can't let that last, can we?

My stepmother was diagnosed with colon cancer for Thanksgiving. By Saturday, she was sporting her own colostomy, again, hopefully reversible, and has a brand spanking new diagnosis of cancer in her liver as of yesterday, based on the biopsy during surgery.

Pardon me, but didn't my family already fucking do this once? And why do we have to ruin all the big, family-oriented holidays? Why couldn't it be Arbor Day? Or George Washington's birthday?

They did semi-emergency surgery because the tumor was close to causing a blockage in her colon. Now they have to wait several weeks to start chemotherapy so she can completely heal from the surgery. She's actually in good spirits and keeps saying it's in God's hands. Me, I choose to be in denial and make inappropriate jokes about the luck in our family. I think my brother is with me on that one.

What's disturbing about the whole thing is that she has been in pain since late summer. She went to the GP who said she had strained a back muscle. (Turns out in surgery the tumor was embedded in the muscle, which explains the pain she's had for MONTHS!) He gave her some pain medicine. When that didn't work, she went back but got a different doctor that day, who diagnosed her with a kidney infection without any other symptoms of one and without taking a urine sample. He gave her antibiotics. When those ran out they gave her more. She was still in pain. They did an ultrasound of her kidneys, which looked fine, and told her she had a "fatty liver," something the oncologist at the big-city hospital (hmmm...can't imagine why they chose to go to big city hospital after the Thanksgiving diagnosis ... can you?) said isn't even a term they use and looked puzzled.

She started having bleeding so they did a colonoscopy the day before Thanksgiving and found the tumor, which had infiltrated the intestinal wall. The biospy results were supposed to be released Monday. But on Thanksgiving night, while we were in the Detroit area staying at my brother's house during blizzards (therefore, neither of us could be there) she started having uncontrollable vomiting. They went to the local hospital, who diagnosed the cancer. That was when she requested to go to the Cleveland Clinic and was in surgery within 24 hours. They removed the part of the intestine with the tumor and the part of the back muscle that was involved. They also removed an ovary and a fallopian tube which had adhesions and may have been involved. They found other tumors in the fatty layer of the abdomen and removed what they could find. And they biopsied the liver.

Maybe the chemo will do wonders and she'll live for 10 or 20 more years. But I'm currently assuming the worst. I'm assuming a carbon copy of watching my mom wither away and die younger than she should in unbearable pain. I'm assuming that now there will be two grandmas on my side that Nathan will never have had a chance to know. I'm assuming that my dad's heart will be broken again.

How is any of this fair?

The Most Unusual Thing I've Ever Praised God For

2005-11-18T17:10:00.000-08:00

On Monday, my friend was coming home from out of town with her husband after visiting her parents. They got a phone call on the road that her parents had been in a minor car accident. It didn't seem that there were any physical injuries. However, her mom lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital. Needless to say, they turned around and went back.

When her mom awoke, she had amnesia. She knew her first name but thought she was single, it was 1974, and she was living in another state. She didn't know her family at all. She didn't remember the accident and believed she had fallen. Tests didn't reveal a brain injury or stroke. There seemed to be no explanation. They believed it was temporary but there was no telling when she would be okay again.

I found out about this in the middle of the night when I got up to feed Nathan and checked my e-mail, which I never do (because I usually want to go back to bed). I was horrified when I read about it. My mom died of cancer in 1993 when I was 22 years old. But she knew me. I can't imagine the horror of your mom not recognizing you or knowing you ever existed, not from the slow progress of Alzheimer's but in a sudden moment when you don't even have the chance to adjust to the idea. I can't imagine what my friend was going through. I just prayed her mom would come out of it and be fine.

The next day, Tuesday, I received a couple of e-mails saying that there had been no change and that there still was no clinical explanation. Then, yesterday, the family's prayers were answered. This time, there was nothing mysterious about it. God just worked in bizarre ways here.

Yesterday, she lost her balance in her hospital bathroom, bumped her head on the wall...

... and got her memory back. Every last bit, up to and including the accident. And nothing between the accident and that moment.

So everyone is shouting, "Praise God!" And I'm shouting right along. But I'm a little lost on the specifics. Praise Him for making my friend's mom clumsy in bathrooms? Praise Him for wiping out what would definitely be troubling to remember -- her errant jumble of memories during those two days? Praise Him for making the brain such an amazingly complex thing?

I suppose it doesn't matter. She was clumsy in the bathroom and it helped restore her mind and her life, even if it was in a soap-opera-esque way. So praise God for that!

After Nathan Kept Us Up Pretty Much All Night Long ...

2005-11-17T06:17:00.000-08:00

9:15 a.m.

Me: I want to put him in the swing and see if he'll take a nap but I feel like I'm putting him away.

Mike (grunting): Who cares? Put him away.

Will I Never Ever EVER LEARN?????

2005-11-12T18:13:00.000-08:00

I just told someone that Nathan has been really good at going to bed. It was 9 p.m. and I was downstairs with the monitor on.

Within five minutes, he woke up, started crying, and Mike has been working on getting him back to sleep for the past 15 minutes.

Why am I so fucking stupid? Please, people. Never let me speak. Or just give me a gun and help me aim it at my foot.

Music To My Ears

2005-11-12T07:36:00.000-08:00

In an addendum to the post below, because I was actually going to type it yesterday but Nathan had a bad day, I have to add something nice. Nathan had his first actual laugh last night. He's had a few times when I thought maybe he was laughing and decided that he was at least trying to laugh, but last night we were giving him his bath and he was smiling and wiggling. I sprayed a little more warm water over his belly with the hippo nozzle, and he just about guffawed. I think Mike and were both stunned for a moment. At least I was.

He just belted it out as if he's known how to do it all along.

We waited more than three years to hear that sound and as happy as it was, it almost made me cry.

... and then he slept nicely for most of the night but you didn't hear that from me ...

How I Know The Universe Hates Me

2005-11-12T07:22:00.000-08:00

I thought I had a bunch of Nathan's sleep problems licked. I had stopped intake of any dairy (something which is killing me) and cured his gas. But then I substituted soy and he didn't poop for days and days. No matter how much I read that it's normal for babies to start pooping only once a day or less often, I couldn't imagine that he was going through something normal because he would strain so much that he would cry out in the night. I called the nurse line at his pediatrician's office who informed me that my intake of soy can be constipating for him. (Did the first nurse who advised me to stop dairy and start soy tell me this? Heavens no. That might have been useful information!)

So I stopped all soy. I never have cereal, ovaltine, ice cream ... but it's for the best for him and it's only for a few months (well, nine or so, according to the pediatrician). So a couple days ago I did some really stupid things.

1. I told someone that he wasn't waking up gassy or straining anymore. He had been cured of the problem. He had been sleeping so well for a good week!

2. I told someone that after the first few rough nights in the crib, it seemed to be going better. It appeared that he was going to make the transition well.

3. I told someone that, though I thought he might have a reflux problem, his eating problem seemed to have gone away. He was no longer flipping to his back and crying while eating and wasn't spitting up nearly as much.

That very night, he was up for a good half the the night, fussing, gassy, straining. Although I swore I wouldn't be a binky mommy, we spent the whole night shoving it back into his mouth. Usually he stays asleep after it falls out, but because he was up straining, he would cry when it did. Back would go the binky, and back to sleep he'd go. No sooner would my head hit the pillow then he'd be straining again. At one point, Mike slept on the floor next to the crib for an hour, constantly replacing the binky.

Then, at 6:30 a.m. I heard horrible crying so I ran across the hall and he had his arm stuck through the crib bars and couldn't get it back through. This isn't the first time. He's been in the crib less than a week and I've seen his hand through the bars a few times already. I must have caught it before his whole arm went through. He scoots around on his back and ends up at the side. But we stopped using the sleep positioner about a week ago because he moves around so much that he would wake up crying with his ass beached up in the air on one of the wedges. I tried to give him the positioner putting him the crib but he kicked it out from under him within about 5 minutes. I know bumper pads are supposed to be evil, murderous weapons of baby suffocation, but it seems like the risk of a limb injury in the crib bars would be greater than the off chance that he would suffocate in the pads. So just as I will follow cultural advisories like a sheep and not let him sleep on his back, I will not put those menacing bumpers in his crib. And I will no doubt be awake fishing his limbs out of the bars all the damn time.

Then, the next day, he was back to flipping in his back and crying while eating, puking all over his third sleeper outfit in 12 hours (the first two having been peed through).

I will never, ever again tell anyone ever that he's sleeping better, eating better, or pooping better.

Mike just said, "Repeat after me. 'We've cured him of his problem of sleeping through the night. We've cured him of his problem of sleeping through the night...' "

On Losing Sleep

2005-11-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

Me: I'm so tired I feel like the living dead.

Me: Well, maybe the living dead aren't necessarily tired. Do you think they're tired?

Mike: Well, I know they're dead tired.

Me: You know that's going in my blog.

Thank God They're Bouncy

2005-10-30T19:02:00.000-08:00

Today I saw my life flash in front of my eyes.

In what started as a perfectly nice day (Nathan's first outing to church), then descended into crankiness (Nathan's fussing in a restaurant), then recovered back to a perfectly nice day, my world fully disintigrated into agony and misery as I dropped my nine-week-old baby down the stairs.

God, it makes me shake and start to cry just typing that.

I went to my dear friend J.'s house, where she was hosting an extended-family pumpkin-carving get-together for the kids. I even brought Nathan's pumpkin, given to him by his grandparents, hoping to have a chance to carve a brilliant design into it. The kids were all out in the pumpkin-carving arena (garage) and I had gone upstairs to feed Nathan in private. As I came downstairs, wearing sleek socks on the hardwood steps, the very thing that had occurred to me an hour earlier as a possibility happened: my stocking feet (which should have had shoes on them, which I had thought of earlier and had not done) slipped on a step.

Here's what I think happened in that slow-motion misery:

I reached out for the railing with my left arm. Nathan, being top-heavy with his large infant noggin, toppled out of my right arm and plummeted toward the step head-first as I was sliding down and heading toward an ass landing. He landed beside me on the step, on either his head or his shoulder. I was desperately groping for him as I continued to fall beside him. He plunked to a stop, paused, then rolled down to the next step, paused, rolled, and so on, down four steps, including the floor where he finally came to a rest.

Pause. Then the wails began. I somehow got up and scooped him into my arms. Just about everyone was outside at that point and the house had been quiet. I was chanting, "Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God" and heading toward the garage, uncertain whether to call 911, drive to the hospital (the location of which I had absolutely no idea), or start screaming, "HHEEEELLLLPPP!!!" So I just kept saying, "Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God."

I couldn't stop. In that moment, there was no way I could ever undo what just happened, or even process what happened. I was stuck in my moment of horror, watching my baby slowly bump down the stairs and land, curled, somehow so adorable and so vulnerable and possibly so injured at the same time. Any damage that might have been done was done and I couldn't turn back time or change anything.

J.'s teenage son heard me chanting frantically along with Nathan's screaming and tore around the corner into the room asking what happened. I'm sure I told him I had just dropped Nathan down the steps, but I don't really remember it. The next thing I knew, I was at the other end of the room, holding Nathan, cringing, probably still chanting, "Oh God Oh God ... " I remember J.'s dad walking into the room and I remember him telling her son to go get her. She came in from the garage and immediately took Nathan from me, as I was useless at that point. She was such a calming presence, obviously an experienced and already-successful mom, and took him to get a flashlight and check his pupils while her dad examined all his joints.

I was pretty much in shock at that point, though once he seemed to be okay and had fallen asleep in J.'s arms, I started to fall apart, as much as I could afford to while still needing to be able to make the drive home. Somehow I believed he was ultimately okay and yet couldn't believe he was okay at all. I was afraid to hold him and wanted to hold him and never let go.

While I was still there, most of the parents drummed up their similar horrific tales. Most people had dropped their kids or otherwise nearly maimed them. I know it's bound to happen throughout his childhood. Sometimes he will bleed, and he will likely break a bone in his lifetime (though I have somehow managed to live 35 years without ever having broken one). But he's so tiny (well, he's a moose, but he's so new) and not ready to take such a spill as he did today.

Within a minute of the incident, he had stopped crying, and within five minutes he was asleep (back to the state he was in -- having just been fed -- when we first fell). But the torture for me goes on. By the time I got home, when he looked at me, gummy and farting, I had stopped panicking, but my terror hasn't stopped. I can remember the feeling of him leaving my arms and my lunging attempt to regain him. I can remember the look of surprise on his face. I can remember the sound of his cries.

We fought so hard just to bring him into this world, so how could I be so clumsy with him? Accidents are bound to happen. They're inevitable. If this happened to someone I knew, I'd reassure her that she was a good parent, that it was an accident, that her baby would still love her. But I have a hard time forgiving myself.

Just last week, J. was holding Nathan (cuddling him and absorbing his innocent baby-ness), and commenting on the profound level of trust that infants must have. We hold them in our arms, up in the air, and they never seem scared. Today, Nathan wasn't scared. He had just had a nice meal, burped his approval and thanks, and passed out in my arms -- eyes rolled up, mouth gaping, arms limp -- as if he had just finished an overachieving Thanksgiving dinner. We left the room and he slept, secure and trusting in my arms. And I dropped him.

After J. took him from me, I didn't hold him again until we got home. She cuddled him while I allowed myself to fall apart a little, she put him in his car seat, and her son carried the car seat out to the car and installed it. I was actually afraid that when I took him out at home, he would cry when I picked him up, remembering that maybe he shouldn't trust me unconditionally.

Fortunately, he has a short attention span. He let me hold him, change him, feed him, and love him. I just hope that I can get to a point where I once again deserve the unquestioning faith that he has in me. Because right now I don't even feel like I deserve to be his mother.

2005-10-24T18:43:00.000-07:00

I keep reading everywhere that babies get progressively more fussy until about six weeks, at which time the fussiness begins to decline.

Apparently Nathan hasn't read the same articles and books I have.

He turned eight weeks old on Saturday, and every evening is now a battle, every day is nearly napless, and every feeding is unsettling.

He did have a cold for two weeks and has just finally turned the corner over the weekend. He still sounds a little stuffy at night but it's mostly better.

A couple weeks ago, it was wonderful. He seemed to have quite suddenly figured out the night/day thing. He'd sleep longer at night (though not the four to six hours I keep reading about) between feedings, and, more importantly, after a feeding, he'd go right back to sleep rather than stay up and socialize or cry. What a miracle! I could put him back to bed after a feeding and go to bed myself! But now his naps have disintigrated into nothingness. I've read "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child," and he doesn't get the total amount of sleep he theoretically should. When he does fall asleep during the day, it might only last five minutes. Supposedly his nap ability will mature in another month or two, but for now I'm exhausted because I never get nap or a break during the day like I did before, when his naps were scattered all over the clock. I'm just holding out hope that he'll learn to nap, because the nap problem began just as the day/night thing was solved.

But also, when he feeds he gets fussy. He's even now fighting us with the bottle, where before he took it happily and could switch between breast and bottle without so much as a hiccup. We weren't bottle feeding every day, just a couple times per week. But suddenly he is freaking out at the bottle. He has an innate ability to make the "EEEWWW!!" face without ever having learned that we associate that face with "EEEWWW!!" So right now Mike is trying to feed him a bottle and Nathan is fussing up a storm. Tomorrow I'm going out to dinner with a friend (who is treating me to a grown-up night out) and Mike is going to have to feed Nathan. I feel sorry for the protest that is going to happen. And in addition to the bottle, every evening is now a fuss-fest.

Breastfeeding is equally confusing. He eats quite happily on the first side (doesn't matter which side I start on). Then I burp him. Then when he switches to the second side, he gets fussy, gassy, flips to his back, and tries to feed with his head cocked to the side. Sometimes he spits up. He tries like a hungry animal to latch on, sucks a couple times, then pulls off and gets fussy. I don't know if he's just full, if he has reflux, or what.

Last night, quite accidentally, he had the most miraculous of nights. We gave him a bath and I fed him at 9:00. He fussed for a little while and we laid him down around 10:15. He WENT TO SLEEP. (Shocking, I know.) About 15 minutes later he fussed for a moment or two, then ... WENT TO SLEEP!!! I figured he'd wake up at the usual one-something a.m. to eat.

He woke up at ...

get ready for it ...

4:00.

I have no idea what happened, but I'm eternally grateful, because I normally only get about two hours of sleep in a row on average. A really great stretch would be three hours or more. Bless his little heart for last night.

But I don't hold out the same hope for tonight. He is so fussy and agitated there's no way he'll sleep well. And he only ate about half the bottle, which means he'll no doubt be hungry in a couple hours.

I feel sorry for him and panicked at the same time. He has to nap. He needs sleep. He needs to take the bottle because I have to go back to work in a few weeks. He was fine with the bottle before, so what gives now?

This is officially my worst-written blog ever. I just needed to panic.

Runnin' On: Finally!

2005-10-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

For the first time, the runnin' part enters into this blog. On Thursday, I went for my first run post-c-section, which was actually my first run since I began Gonal-F injections last November. It felt so good it makes me squirm to think about it.

Mike called off sick from work, and we had had a decent night's rest. It was 50 degrees or so, cloudy, slightly breezy, late morning, October. The day tasted like cross country season.

Okay, let's add 30 pounds to my peak college cross-country competition shape, and let's add three minutes to my average training mile time. But let's also add the triumph over being less than two months post-having-my-guts-cut-open and the triumph over three hours of sleep per night for those two months. Multiply this by the fact that I still enjoyed the run and felt invigorated at the end of that one silly little mile, and I call the day a success, complete with blissful flashbacks of races, training, old friends and training partners. That one silly little mile was a huge milestone. It was slow. It was plodding. It was thrilling.

I have to say that I was encouraged by the fact that the one thing that was really holding me back from running faster was the incision area. I could feel pulling inside, where I know by the lumps that I can feel beneath my scar that things are still stitched together. My doctor said they would go away eventually. My lungs were a little out of practice but my legs felt fine (thanks to the stroller walks I've been taking). Of course, I was also slowed down by the fact that my doctor instructed me in no uncertain terms to Start Out Slowly or risk pain and incisional infections. That was deterrent enough for me.

I missed Nathan while I was gone, but no doubt he'll appreciate this next spring when I'm skimming him along in the Fancy Ass Expensive Jogging Stroller I intend to buy. This is with the intent of training him to enjoy fast speeds and hills while strapped into a seat so he'll ride roller coasters with me (as long as he doesn't also associate this thrill with learning to drive as well.) That run was the first of many, many steps toward cherishing my own body again after punishing it for so long with infertility treatments, and after losing trust in it because it betrayed me so badly. It finally brought us a baby, and now it will be rewarded with fresh autumn air and unleashed feet.

Six Weeks

2005-10-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

First of all, I can't believe it's been six weeks and this is only my third blog entry since Nathan was born. I have no idea where the time goes, and at the same time, it seems like we just brought him home yesterday.

He is huge. His newborn-sized onesies are straining between the snap closures and I can't bring myself to break out the next size. He makes eye contact and even smiles sometimes when he's NOT trying to poo. He sometimes sleeps for two to three hours in a row in the middle of the night ... sometimes. He has been to a three-week storytime session at his daddy's library, where he was the youngest in his class. He has also mastered the abacus, quantum physics, and gourmet cooking. Brilliant boy, mine.

I was also recently a victim of my first episode of childbirth snobbery. At the first storytime, a mom of a five-month-old sat beside me. We compared stories. Nathan was 8 lb. 3 oz. Her son was 8 lb. 5 oz. I said everyone was surprised by the size of the kid that came out of me.

Her: Was he a c-section?

Me: Yes.

Her (smugly): Mine was vaginal, honey!

Everybody was "honey," which annoyed me because she looked to be several years younger than I am.

Her (again, smugly): I was in labor for (X-number of hours but I had already started tuning her out so I forget) ___ hours and when it was time to push I wanted him out so bad I got him out in 10 minutes!

Me: Sooo...that makes you more of a woman than me?

Okay, I didn't say that last part.

But if we're going to get snobby, then I still win. She pushed for 10 minutes. I pushed for just shy of three hours, and then I STILL had my guts cut open. And her baby is four months older than mine and I STILL look better than her already!

Well, I might be venting a little bit there, but come on. Why does it always seem to be a championship to decide who had the Very Best Birth? (If anything, it should be a championship to determine who has the Very Cutest Baby, but that's another quite subjective issue.) Isn't any birth in which you come home with a baby you're in love with a Very Best Birth?

Speaking of babies I'm in love with, he's freaking out upstairs now. Cute little bugger.

How To Know Tonight Is Bath Night

2005-09-28T12:26:00.000-07:00

1) Remove diaper. Reveal mighty load.
2) Clean up mighty load.
3) Stand dumbfounded watching the fountain of pee. Allow it to sprinkle over entire changing pad, baby, and self.
4) Deflect fountain with bare hand. Allow pool of pee to accumulate in baby's belly button.
5) Finally decide to block pee with poopy diaper.
6) Stand dumbfounded as to how a new pool of watery poo is filling the waterproof changing pad when there was no noise coming from baby's butt.
7) Drop baby in new pool of watery poo.
8) Bathe baby's head of pee using diaper wipes.
9) Clean up poo from rest of baby.
10) Apply new diaper. Realize baby is still sticky.

Better Than New Car Smell

2005-09-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

Nathan Michael.

Pumpkin.

Prince Poopypants.

His arrival was not exactly as I had expected (sirens blaring at the side of the highway), and the getting-stuck of his giant head rendered all my fears moot. We certainly would’ve had plenty of time to get to the hospital as Nathan tried to stargaze himself under my pubic bone. But he’s here and I couldn’t care less about the method of arrival. I just want to spend all day smelling the sweet baby head I dreamed about for so long.

(Notice I didn’t say “all night.” But since my pumpkin doesn’t have a vocabulary yet, he’s just taking a wild guess that night is my preferred socializing time. We’ll have to work on that.)

The night before I was induced, my dad and stepmother called to say good luck. My stepmother told me that she had had a dream that week that a voice told her that my mom would be in the delivery room with me. My mom, Ruth, died of cancer on January 1, 1993, when I was 22 and she was 49. I, being completely unable to have an emotional moment over the phone at that point, made a joke out of it: “Well, as long as she doesn’t look!” We talked about how she was a nurse and she probably saw skankier people than me in her career.

The next morning, we checked into the hospital, signed the obligatory forms and answered the obligatory questions (no I don’t smoke, no I didn’t drink a fifth last night, etc.). I was sent into the little bathroom to change into my gown and goofy socks. When I came out, Mike was waiting and a new nurse was in the room looking at paperwork. She looked up and said, “Hi. I’m Ruth. I’ll be your nurse today.”

At that point I nearly fell over but managed to say hi and hold my poker face. As I was walking my clothes over to the corner where Mike was sitting with my bags, I walked behind Ruth and wildly pointed while mouthing, “RUTH! RUTH!”

A while later, after I was set up, she came back into the room and as she was fiddling with the equipment she said, “My daughter’s name is Laura, so you’ll be easy to remember.” Since my name is actually Laura (Laurie is a life-long nickname, which makes no sense since it has more letters than my actual name), I looked at her as if she were a ghost. At that point I decided my gaping mouth and bulging eyes were pretty obvious, so I told her the story and hoped she didn’t think I was a freak or think I was going to try to turn her into my mom during the throes of labor.

Thankfully, Ruth was very nice and helpful throughout labor until her shift was over, and she was hoping the baby would be born before it was time to leave. (Had his head not been stuck, he probably would’ve been.) Luckily, she was my nurse a couple days later so she was able to see him.

Labor itself was otherwise uneventful. When the hooked me up to the monitor they could already see my Braxton-Hicks contractions, which I had been having for weeks. The doctor broke my water at 8:30 a.m., which did start some more labor-like contractions. At 9:30 they added the pitocin. Throughout all the festivities, Mike and I played a game of Scrabble (travel board bought specifically for this day). For the record, I won. Well, I almost won until the contractions were getting too painful to continue. But I was ahead by a big margin and was about to end in a word with a Q on a triple word score space, so I’ll say I won. The anesthesiologist made fun of us playing Scrabble (seems we’re the only couple he’s ever seen do that in labor), then he gave me a fantastic epidural.

Over the next couple of hours, I continued to dilate and get ready. By 2:45 p.m. I was pushing my eyeballs out of my skull for all I was worth to get the baby out. Really, the beginning of pushing wasn’t all that eventful. On all those birth shows on TV, there’s drama, music, and a voiceover announcing that It’s Time To Push. My doctor had me do a test push, then they just had me keep going, between the puking, that is, which was really damned annoying. Do you have any idea how hard it is to puke when you’re lying on your back?

All in all, it seemed that everything was going smoothly, I’d push for a little while, and out would pop a baby. In 45 minutes (the end of Ruth’s shift), the baby was pretty much down at the end of the road, conehead emerging with each push. Mike was watching the top of the head for a good hour, he says. But between contractions, he would suck back up in and, according to the doctor, look around. He was stargazing, and when I was pushing, she would turn his head. But then he just kept turning it back. For the next two hours, we just kept jockeying him around the pubic bone, scraping his head against the bone and basically torturing him. My epidural wore off twice and they had to top me off, which, on the plus side, gave me the opportunity to let the anesthesiologist know that I had indeed won the Scrabble game.

I had always heard the argument against epidurals that you can’t push as well with one because you can’t “feel” where you’re pushing. Well, the anti-epidural camp can “feel” all they want. When I didn’t have any pain medication, I knew I wasn’t pushing for shit. Rather than four robust pushes at a count of 10 each during each contraction, I could hardly push and would stop after a count of three or four because the pain was so horrendous. Besides, even with the epidural working, I could feel where I was supposed to be pushing because the doctor was so busy rummaging around in there anyway.

Finally, around 5:30, after attempts at vacuum extraction and alternative pushing positions had failed, my doctor decided to call it quits. The baby was fine, I was fine, and she would let me keep pushing if she thought it would get us anywhere, but it was pretty clear to her that this baby just wasn’t coming out. At that point, I didn’t care. After how long we wanted a baby, I just wanted to meet him or her. I didn’t feel any kind of letdown or failure. I only felt relief.

Now, Mike, who doesn’t care to watch the birth shows on TV with me, will tell you that he’s impressed with himself that he didn’t faint watching his wife have a cesarean section. But it was beyond that. He was so cool. So cool that I now have a photo of my ovaries. He was by my head one minute, snapping pictures the next, sometimes under the direction of the anesthesiologist who was commanding, “Hey, you want a picture of that. See what they’re doing there? Take a picture of that!” Mike was the operating room paparazzi, thankfully having turned off the flash and not blinding the doctors. Meanwhile, the doctors were showing him my anatomy. I could hear them saying when they were sewing me back together, “These are her ovaries …”

Even the c-section wasn’t all that easy, though, as I could feel myself being jostled all over the table and wondered whether they’d catch me if I fell off. For as wedged as Nathan was on the way out the “normal” way, they had to fight to un-wedge him and take him back out the other way. Mike sat back at that point trying stay out of their way as elbows and body parts collided with the drape that was obstructing my view. But in one final moment, one quick camera snap, Mike accidentally got the most amazing picture of Nathan’s face popping out of my belly. He got more Husband Points than ever before for managing that.

I had to take a guess that it was a boy, only because one of the doctors said, “Hi, buddy!” and it seemed like forever before they actually said it. I heard one sharp cry and was actually surprised and perplexed over this new noise in the room. There was a part of me that didn’t understand what it was, and a part of me that knew what it was but felt like I must have been watching TV, because there was no way this could ever be my own story.

Mike said it seemed like forever before Nathan cried again. He watched them working on him, administering oxygen, pulling on his arms and legs, which were limp. I just remember hearing more cries, crying myself, feeling cold, puking, and apologizing to the doctors for puking while they were trying to stitch my parts back together. I also remember waiting for them to show me the baby like they always seem to on TV. However, I never did see him until we got back to the labor room, when Mike got to wheel him in. Thanks to digital cameras, however, I had already seen a picture while I was still in the operating room.

I think what astounded me most was how freaking big he was. I was guessing low 7’s, Mike was guessing 6’s. I didn’t think I was that big. Some people in the operating room seemed astounded. They were taking bets on the weight. No wonder he wouldn’t come out.

And yet now he seems so tiny to me, and as much as I’ve forbidden him to ever grow or change, he’s doing it already. His newborn-sized diapers are already tight, and before he was two weeks old he had already regained to his birth weight and higher. He had some jaundice and spent time in the bili-lights at the hospital. And yet at each of three doctors appointments since we’ve come home, he’s gained about 1.5 ounces per day (they want to see them gain .5 to 1 ounce per day.) He is defying my orders and growing. There really ought to be a grace period of about three weeks after a baby is born in which he doesn’t grow at all, just so the parents have enough time to take in all that precious tiny-ness. Now I spend a lot of time trying to memorize so many things about this fleeting time: his hairy shoulders, his huge feet (we never got the chance to admire his tiny feet because they were big when he was born), the way he interferes with his own feedings by putting his hands in the way, and the way he curls himself up when I’m holding him to my chest so that his feet are practically in his armpits. We’ve burned through three sets of batteries in the camera already, and he’s only two and a half weeks old. But there’s no way I can lose these moments.

Since we've been home I've recovered pretty well and can do most things on my own. I think it definitely helps to be in good shape before the baby is born to recover from a c-section. He's two and a half weeks old and I've lost 21 of the 35 pounds I gained, and a few days ago we walked 2-1/2 miles. I was totally exhausted but I did okay. I'm looking forward to running again and investing in a top 'o the line jogging stroller. And by the way, it's official: I made it through the entire pregnancy without stretchmarks, so I officially ruined things by burning myself with that iron.

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS

It takes three hands to breastfeed a newborn: one to jam the boob into his mouth, one to hold him, and one to control his jelly neck. At last count, I still only have two hands. Evolution has failed us.

During my entire pregnancy, I had developed a sneezing pattern for the first time in my life. I almost always sneezed twice when I sneezed. Since I was so paranoid about my lack of pregnancy symptoms, we decided that that was my pregnancy symptom. Whenever I would sneeze twice in early pregnancy, Mike would say, “Oh good. You’re still pregnant.” When Nathan was two days old, I realized that I hadn’t sneezed at all, and he almost always sneezes twice.

We should’ve just named him Pumpkin-Munkin-Cutie-Sweetie-Pie instead of Nathan.

I’ve always heard stories about baby-swapping or kidnapping in hospitals. Invariably, the new mother would be brought a baby and she would say, “This isn’t my baby!” I always thought that was silly. How would she know? They all look alike and they change so fast. But that first night, I knew that there was no way I would NOT know my own baby. It’s so blatantly obvious.

In the hospital, everyone acts like your milk will be delivered by the milkman. I had nurses and doctors constantly saying things like, “Your milk should come in tonight or tomorrow morning,” as if I had placed an order that could be tracked by UPS. Like, someone would knock on my hospital room door and say, “Pardon me ma’am. Here’s the milk you’ve been waiting for. Enjoy your cereal.” However, when my milk did come in, it was nearly that sudden. The night before, I still had colostrum. The next morning when I was in the bathroom to take a shower, I removed my hospital gown and happened to be standing in front of the mirror. I actually gasped to see these gazongas.

The most emotional part about having a baby is not when they say, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” It’s when they cut you loose and send you home, trusting you to take care of this tiny life and acknowledging that it’s yours forever.

Nathan

2005-09-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

I could never, ever possibly kiss that precious little head enough.

More to follow. Time for more feeding and kisses.

It's a Boy!

2005-08-28T19:51:00.000-07:00

Hi All,
This is Laurie's husband, Mike, filling in for her. We'd like to announce that Nathan Michael was born yesterday, August 27th, at 6:16pm EST weighing in a mighty 8.3 lbs and 20.5 inches. He was delivered by c-section after Laurie did her best to push a big-headed baby through a not-so-big pubic bone. I'm sure Laurie will be back in a few days to tell about about her experiences delivering and motherhood. In the mean time, here's a few pictures for your enjoyment.

Labor Strategy

2005-08-26T17:49:00.000-07:00

It's funny how different I feel now that the edge-of-my-seat anticipation is gone. For the past few weeks, I've constantly wondered when it would happen, and where it would happen. No matter what I was doing, there was always an undercurrent of labor-could-start-two-minutes-from-now. Now, that's gone, though I'm starting to have some terror and disbelief that this IS going to happen TOMORROW.

So I've been finalizing my idealized, naive labor strategy. Having never done this before, I was hesitant to mention it to anyone who has ever had kids, but my friend J., who has had two, didn't laugh at me, so I guess I can put it out there for the public to see, while also reinforcing it in my mind.

All of my strategy comes from almost 20 years of running and racing. While I recognize that labor will hurt a thousand times more than running quarter repeats or gutting out a collegiate 5K, I hope that the mental strategies that by now have burned themselves into the synapses of my brain will help keep me under control.

Part 1: early, active, etc., labor
I used to get keyed up and tense before races. That does nothing for you except give you tight muscles that then shorten your stride and slow you down. The more relaxed you run, the faster you run. In college our sports psychologist pointed out that some people need to psyche up and some people need to psyche down. I am definitely one for the second category. The routine he gave the psyche-downers was to stand at the starting line, close our eyes, and lower our heads, then take a deep breath while feeling the lower halves of our bodies sink and relax, then let the deep breath out while feeling the upper halves of our bodies sink and relax. While I may not be allowed the chance to stand, being hooked up to lots of stuff, I'm going to try it. When it gets more intense, I think I'm going to mentally go to yoga and visualize myself in chair pose ... over and over.

Part 2: pushing
Now the race starts. Or, from what I've devised, a soul-crushing, leg-numbing, day-long series of quarter repeats. From what I've read, the duration of the pushing contractions and the intervals in between will closely approximate that most dreaded of track workouts. Thanks to the relaxation I learned from the sports psychologist (outlined above), I finally learned in college how not to grimace and grunt and tighten up and, most importantly, how to concentrate and relax while pushing my body to the limit. So tomorrow, I'm going to be doing mental quarter repeats. God knows I've done enough of them over the years to have the pattern down in my head. If I go there mentally, I think my body will automatically respond with the relaxed force I've taught it to use.

Part 3: afterwards
Give me a big fucking bottle of Gatorade.

I was joking the other day with Mike that my focal point (that I hear so much about), instead of being a picture of a loved one, should be a finish line tape suspended in front of my face. But if I'm pushing for three hours, I might get discouraged that the tape is still so damned far away. So I nixed that idea quickly.

So that's my strategy. Please don't laugh. I'm feeling bad enough about inducing, the beginning-of-life equivalent of ripping off the covers, turning on the light, and shouting, "Time to get up!!!!!!" I hope little bookworm is happy to meet us and eventually forgives us for this slight.

And the Countdown Begins

2005-08-25T17:23:00.000-07:00

We have a date.

This Saturday I'm being induced.

Holy shit.

As of yesterday, I'm now (Jerry, stop reading here) 3 centimeters, 90% effaced (same as last week) and -1 station (same as last week). In three weeks, I've gone from 1 centimeter and 50-60% effaced to 3 and 90%. So, given my mom's history of very short labors, our very long drive to the hospital, and my oh-so-successful progress internally, my doctor doesn't want to push our luck and risk a highway birth.

(Jerry, you can start reading again.)

In fact, last week she called me on Friday after the previous appointment to offer me the opportunity to be induced last weekend if I wanted to. She wasn't going to be on call but she told the doctor in her group who would be there about my "situation" and that doctor said she'd be happy to take me. But I didn't have any rumblings (contractions, anything) so we didn't go. Mostly, I didn't want to appear to be high-maintenance. Even now, I feel like I am, and a little bit feels lost in the induction. For one, I'll be dying to know when it would have happened if it were to happen on its own. Would I have gone into labor on my due date? Would we be a week late? Already, we've surpassed my brother's and my own early dates (my brother 3-1/2 weeks and me 2 weeks early). Saturday will be 39 weeks 4 days. Now I even feel a little silly having ever told her about my mom in the first place. But I guess it's good that we're being safe, given how much my dilation, effacement, and descent have increased in the past couple weeks.

Suddenly, though, I'm freaking out. I have been so enthralled with this pregnancy -- it has gone so smoothly other than the scare at 13 weeks that turned to be nothing and fine -- and it's been such a miracle that I wish I could freeze this part of my life forever. But holy crap, probably 48 hours from now there will be a baby, it won't be just the two of us, and we'll be responsible for another person's well-being forever. I miss Mike already. I am officially off work now, having called off for today and tomorrow pretty much at the last minute (the news that it will be in two days caused me to finally give up trudging and limping into work every day), and tomorrow will be the last day ever that we will wake up as just the two of us. Well, we will on Saturday, too, but that'll be early and with a mission to get to the hospital around 8 a.m. Tomorrow will be leisurely and relaxed and involve pancakes (and probably bacon). We're venturing into something we've never known before. And it will be wonderful and scary. I know logically that we will, someday, maybe even in a few months, go on a date and spend time with just the two of us. I know that in a few years we'll send little junior to spend the weekend with the grandparents and we'll have time alone. But for the moment, I miss him in my state of panic.

So how did I go from agonizing over our infertility, praying for a baby, and crying every month when it didn't happen, to panicking now that it's almost here? I suppose it's because I've been so conditioned to think of us with a baby in the abstract, even with my belly jumping and morphing and hiccuping right in front of my eyes, that I temporarily forgot that someone else will be living here soon. We set up the Pack N Play bassinet in our bedroom last weekend, and no matter how much we stared at it, I couldn't picture a real live anything in it. It's still there, empty and waiting, batteries in place and at the ready to vibrate and lullabye our little one to sleep, but so far I can't picture a warm, breathing creature in there. (Zuzu hasn't even tried to get in it. She's always more content to crawl under new things.) But in a few days, there will be, and it'll be real, and it'll be ours. Our new life.

But I have always loved our old life. And maybe that's what has made us strong. We kept reminding each other that we didn't want a baby because there was anything missing in our marriage, and that if we never had one we were perfectly content with each other ... at least, once the grieving of infertility was over. We've been married almost five years, and there is still never a day when I don't think about how grateful I am to have found him, and there is never a day when I don't look forward to seeing him when I come home from work. Even in the deepest, most painful point of our infertility saga (that would be last year when Blue died of cancer right after the second in vitro failed), I still loved being with him.

I'm logically sure that our new life will be the happiness I felt with Mike already, but multiplied by the life we (translate: the embryologists) created. We'll probably have all new things to laugh about together -- like, about how neither of us knows shit about diapering, feeding, clipping baby fingernails, or the perils of spit-up -- because that's what we do. Even in the crappiest of crap, we coped with inappropriate humor. Now, in the happiest of crap, I'm sure we'll do the same. And I can't wait. But I also would like to freeze tomorrow morning in time, when we wake up, cuddle a little, mull over our last peaceful breakfast together (under consideration is either Dennys or IHOP), and just be us.

Finally. Pictures.

2005-08-20T03:31:00.000-07:00

I've finally gotten some nursery pictures together. It makes me nervous to put myself out there like this because there are also lots of belly pictures in the same place, but since I'm miserable at actually getting pictures into my blog, here's a link to my Yahoo! album.

No snickering at the belly pix.

The nursery pictures are pre-placement of most of the "stuff". There actually is "stuff" in there now (the changing table is organized, there are little books and baskets in the bookshelves, etc., but I haven't done updated pictures because we won't be totally done until after the baby is born. At that point we'll "girlify" or "boyify" the room a little more with our selection of curtain style, small rug for under the rocking chair, and probably a couple other details. Also, we haven't put any decorations on the walls yet.

But there you have it, anyway, our blue-green-squishy-carpeted soothing nursery.

2005-08-18T15:55:00.000-07:00

I've never been so in love with a foot.

Little Bookworm, who I suppose is now big, chubby bookworm compared to the early ultrasound printout incarnation, has a new habit, and now that I've asked my doctor and figured out what body parts are where, I've figured out what that habit is. It seems that LB likes to sssttttrrreeetttccchh his or her little legs out as far as possible. Given that there's not much room anymore, a little foot presses out my right side, which pushes LB's whole back to my left side. As a result, both sides of my belly push outward as far as it's possible for me to be deformed without bursting. But the best part is the feet.

Little Bookworm never was a big kicker. I've long since decided we're having a gymnast instead of a soccer player because there's always been so much tumbling in there. Even now, this new little game of footsie isn't kicking. It's a slow pushing out of my belly. And then I get to play with a foot for a moment before it recedes like the Loch Ness Monster sliding back under the surface of the water. I've even caught myself saying hi to the foot, and I reach as quickly as I can to catch it and rub it before it disappears.

As greedy as I feel about carrying this baby forever (though Mike has now started to protest: "But I wanna play with it, too!"), I can't wait to play with these little feet in person. I can't wait for the first time I get to kiss them all over and blow raspberries on them because they're soft and babyish and haven't yet had the opportunity to run around outside in the dirt.

For the moment, though LB seems reluctant to leave a foot out there for too long so I can play with it. I still think he or she is a reincarnation of our perpetually scared cat, Blue, who died of cancer last year. As soon as she knew someone was watching her she'd freeze, then quickly disappear. LB seems to have the same personality. Kind of reminds me of my friend's daughter, who was so shy several years ago that she'd hide behind the couch when I came over. So it might be a while before we get to meet Little Bookworm.

The doctor, however, is predicting that we won't make to our August 30th due date. At my appointment yesterday (38 weeks 1 day) we had made some more progress: 2.5 centimeters, 90% effaced, and -1 station. I can tell the baby is moving down lower and lower, because I can't walk very well anymore. I'm still not quite waddling, but I have groin pain that stabs through every step like a vicious sports injury. My shoulders and hips are sore from sleeping on one or the other side all night, and last night even my ribs hurt from lying on my sides. And I wouldn't trade any of this for the world. Just to play with these silly little feet makes it worth all the aches and pains.

WTF? Spam???

2005-08-15T03:23:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else gotten spammed in their blog comments? See the final comment in the previous blog entry. There's an AD in my comments? How do I lodge a complaint with Blogger about that?

Do they seriously think I'm going to buy something from them now? I can't belive any spammer (I'm just thinking of e-mail right now) thinks that someone would buy something after they've been spammed, anyway. I feel too offended and trespassed upon to patronize a spammer. But I guess some people do, and that's why they do it.

No baby yet, but we now have a videocampera. We're making progress. And no, the birth itself will NOT be videotaped! *shudder*

2005-08-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

Oh dear.
Panic.
2 cm. 80% effaced. She found the heartbeat really low down. EEK!
Given my mom's history, if I continue to make progress like this by next week's appointment, she might send me over to get things started.
So much to do. If we weren't finishing a book it would be easy. Gotta get the book done. Gotta get the book done!

2005-08-04T03:07:00.000-07:00

I think I can finally admit to myself that I'm having a baby soon. Really having one, and 99% likely to bring it home. Yesterday its heart was thumping away at 140 bpm and I finally remembered to ask the doctor what body parts I was feeling where, and now I can picture the Little Bookworm curled up under my ribs, back toward my left side. I guess that makes sense since most of the jabs take place on the right. That must be where the feet are. So I spent last night doing the most obvious activity: annoying the hell out of the baby by pushing on my tummy trying to identify everything I was feeling.

As for the "soon" part of having the baby, there are technically only four weeks to go. But I also found out yesterday at my first internal exam that I'm already a centimter dilated and 50-60% effaced. This had me freaking way the hell out, given my mom's history. But since my doctor was on vacation and I was seeing a different one, I didn't ask to be sent straight over to the hospital. Maybe I should have, but the big family baby shower is this weekend. But if my brother was born three and a half weeks early (the first baby), that puts me firmly into labor or post-delievery on Sunday. Even more importantly (well, besides the advantages to cooking longer in there and having stronger lungs, etc.), Mike's book is not quiiiiite done and he needs a couple more weeks. So do I. I'm proofing it.

Of course, the doctor and everyone else has assured and will assure me that lots of women walk around partially dilated for weeks. I've known many of them personally, so I'll try not to panic too much, but I know I'll be nervous for next week's appointment. I didn't expect to also be partially effaced. Maybe I should get some of those anti-gravity boots and hang around upside down for a while. That would also help my ankles, which started swelling exactly on the 36-week mark.

I just hope this baby hangs around in my tummy a little bit longer. There's still so much to do. I haven't had a chance to get the nursery pictures organized in the computer, but I'll post them soon.

A Place of His or Her Own

2005-07-31T18:05:00.000-07:00

I think I can say the nursery is 99% done. I'm also 99% crippled, but my God, does the room look beautiful. There are some essential things missing, like, say, a mattress in the crib (minor detail) and any diapers in the room, but the basic structure are there. My dad and stepmother came over yesterday and we installed a ceiling fan, cut the bottoms off the closet doors (because we had extremely squishy carpeting installed) and put them back in, put together the crib and changing table, and mounted the beautiful shelves my dad and stepmother built to go over the windows. The rocking chair they bought us is now in place (no more tripping over it in the living room doorway!) and I am in love with the complete scrumptiousness of this room.

A month ago, it was a storage room, with old wallpaper glue on the walls (we had long since torn out the old wallpaper) and the old carpeting ripped up to reveal ugly wood floors. Now it is the baby haven I dreamed about through 2-1/2 years of trying and agony and sadness and no hope left. This is the nursery I've wanted to have for so long. And it's done a month ahead of the due date. That's a miracle for me and my procrastinatory nature.

We had a shower at Mike's work on Friday night and received lots of nice things (which can now go in the room - see me jumping up and down with joy?) and it was nice to thank his co-workers for all their support during our infertility saga. He's a librarian and works with nearly all women, so of course they all knew the story and were aware of our various treatments. Those he didn't tell directly surely heard through the grapevine. And they had a lovely shower for us. I want to unpack all the gifts into the nursery, I really do, but I can't seem to stop staring at them all in the living room. Maybe this week, when we hit "full term" (36 weeks) on Tuesday, I'll feel bold enough to take it as a given that we will actually be having a baby and begin to fill this pristine room with all the objects that will make it look vibrant with life. Because, soon, very soon, there might actually be a vibrant life living in there. And I hope we've made a home that he or she will like.

Still Not Ready To Let This Baby Out

2005-07-26T18:15:00.000-07:00

35 weeks today and I'm pretty much crippled.

Since last weekend, we've been working pretty much nonstop on the b... b... baby's room. It started in little spurts before that, with my dad and stepmother building little book cases into the dormer walls and with me starting to scrub the old wallpaper glue leftover from when we first moved in almost five years ago. (The old woman who sold us the house really did love her wallpaper.) All of that was really fatiguing my back/rib area that's been a problem.

Then we went to childbirth class on the 16th and my back was really sore after sitting in class all day. Then on Sunday, the renovations began. My MIL came over and we spent several hours scrubbing the walls. On Monday evening, we finished the last of the scrubbing and washing down. On Tuesday, they came over during the day and started painting. (We had five different wall colors plus a woodwork color.) On Tuesday evening, I did some more painting with one of my SIL's helping. On one other day (who knows anymore) my dad and stepmother came back to finish their construction projects in the room. I took one evening "off" to drive around and get carpet samples. My in-laws came over on one other day for more painting, my other SIL came over on Friday night after we impulse-bought carpeting, and the first SIL came back over on Sunday afternoon.

So many man hours. So much back pain. I have sciatic trouble for the first time, my mid-back hurts just as bad as it did several months ago, and my right foot has been cramped for two days now. My left hip hurts (the sciatic pain side) and yesterday I tried to jog the last 100 meters down the sidewalk to catch the bus after work and I could barely walk for the rest of the evening because I exacerbated the groin pull circa six months gestation. I've gone to bed close to midnight for almost a week, until last night when I gave up and went to bed at 10:00, then woke up all night anyway. Sleeping has been horrible because I can't roll over and switch sides without pain. A couple nights ago I almost had to wake Mike up to help me out of bed so I could go to the bathroom. This morning, thankfully, I was back to my baseline pain rather than the pain from yesterday evening where I truly thought I was going to have to take a leave of absence from work.

But tonight the nursery is done and emptied out, waiting for the carpet installers to arrive on Thursday. All we have are a couple finishing touches: hanging the new decorative shelves my dad and stepmother made, rehanging the closet light fixture, buying new outlet and lightswitch covers, installing blinds, buying and installing a ceiling fan. But the stuff that has to be done before the carpet can be installed (thereby undoubtedly scuffing some of the brand new paint job) is nearly done. Tomorrow after work I will detail the floor cracks with the vacuum cleaner and Mike will fix a couple squeaky floorboards, and the carpet can arrive. Then on the weekend my dad and stepmother are coming up to help assemble the crib and changing table. My beautiful new rocking chair (gift from them, which is currently in the living room) can go into the room as well.

Oh my gosh. We're probably having a baby.

For as much pain as I'm in, though, and even with our 100+ degrees heat index today, I still don't have that I-can't-wait-to-get-this-baby-out-of-me feeling. I can't imagine a time when I won't feel that movement. It's weird. I can't wait to meet him or her, but I'm not ready to give him/her up yet. It's got me already planning for IVF #2.

The nursery is going to be awesome, though, and I was pleased to find that I still absolutely loved the paint colors once they were on the walls. Whenever I redecorate, I always have a nagging fear that once it's all done I'll be slapped upside the head with the realization that my plan was stupid and ugly. But this looks really great. Now all I have to fear is that the carpet will turn out to be all wrong.

On another note, I can't wait to see our electric bill this month. With all the painting, the windows were open in that room for most of the daytime each day, with the air conditioner running in the house because the weather has been so atrociously hot and humid. Since the room is upstairs in our 50-year-old until-now-uninsulated bungalow, it gets mighty stuffy in there. There goes Little Bookworm's college fund, out the window.

Special Delivery

2005-07-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

Isn't anyone up for a surprise anymore?

Today was our childbirth class. Due to locations and obligations, we chose to do one all-day class instead of a 5-week class once a week. There were 9 couples in the class. Out of all of us, we were the ONLY ones who didn't find out the sex of the baby.

I didn't think we were being old-fashioned at all. And I have certainly had my moments when I thought maybe we should've found out, such as when we were picking paint colors or trying to come up with names (to only have to decide names and alternates for one gender would've cut the work in half). But I thought there were still a lot of people who didn't want to find out the sex. Am I wrong?

I just want that moment, the moment when the baby comes out and all that we've been through is rewarded with a shout of, "It's a boy!" or, "It's a girl!" I know when you find out at an ultrasound it's still a surprise, but I can't imagine that it can possibly be as climactic as finding out at the moment of birth.

For all the people who have asked if we know the sex who have said it's so much better the way we're doing it, I would've thought more people would not have found out, then. So now I think that all the people who have said, "Good for you! It's just so much nicer that way, to be surprised at the birth!" were feeding me a line, and that if I had said we knew the sex they'd have said, "Good for you! It's just so much nicer that way, to be able to prepare in a special way for a boy or a girl!" People are so full of shit.

I have nothing against finding out the sex, and when someone knows the sex of their baby and tells me I get excited for them. But I was shocked to find out that every single other person in that room had peeked. We weren't sure if we were lame or if everyone else was.

Otherwise, class was fine. I am now officially afraid of childbirth, something that had not happened yet. I was just explaining to someone the other day that I wasn't nervous about it yet because I was freaking out so much about how much there is still to do in the house and the nursery. But on the tour at the end of the day, we walked into the delivery room and I froze for a second. In the middle of this pretty, homey room with its wood flooring, soft lighting, and delicate valences and paintings was an unmistakable hospital bed at center stage. I realized that in about a month and a half, that bed will be Just For Me, and there will be no turning back. It's going to hurt, no matter how the baby comes out. If it came out even today, right now, it would hurt. In a month and a half, the baby will be bigger and it's going to hurt even more. It'll hurt more than all my laparoscopies egg retrievals put together. I'll take it, because it can't be more gutwrenching than the emotional pain during 2-1/2 years of infertility, just gutwrenching in a different and charmingly visceral way. But I'm still suddenly scared. I saw that drawing of 10 centimeters dilation and I can't quite believe it's possible.

In the meantime, I'm going to concentrate on preparing the house and nursery as much as possible, while helping with Mike's book which is due before the baby, to completely repress the fact that I'm going to squeeze a watermelon out of my cootchie. By the time we get there, I'll have visions of Classic Pooh dancing in my head, skipping over the part where labor will hurt and planning to show up at the hospital, buy our baby in the gift shop, and head home to the lovely, finished nursery.

Decisions

2005-07-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

Today we started the process of looking for Quality Childcare. We visited two day care centers.

There are so many options out there. But I know a couple things for sure:

1) I do not like the idea of in-home day care. It seems like whenever you hear on the news about a kid being abused, it's at an in-home day care.

2) While I used to be opposed to day care, I have changed my thinking over the past few years as I've had friends whose kids have loved the day care center they're in. One friend's toddlers used to cry when it was time to come home because they were having so much fun with their friends. So, I've decided that if you find the right day care, it can actually be a nice thing for your child.

Which brings me to finding The Right Daycare. I've read lots and lots of articles with lots and lots of questions to ask. But, really, if you ask a day care worker if they wash their hands after they change a diaper, what the hell do you think she's going to say?

"What? Wash my hands? Oh no, ma'am. I find that it's much more efficient to just leave the poop on my hands as I travel down the line from baby to baby changing all their diapers. It saves time so I can plop them all back into their mindless bouncers and let them get back to staring at the television for a few hours."

Of course the standard answers are going to at least reflect the state mandates.

One article told me to follow my gut instinct. Great idea, if I wasn't so gullible and trusting of everyone.

Truthfully, though, I think today was moderately successful. One day care (I'll call it "day care A") gave us warm fuzzies. The other day care ("day care B") was okay, probably safe, but a little ... institutional (word provided by my friend who had also visited day care B and took her children to another facility -- the one that they cried to leave at the end of the day).

Day care A has only been around for three years and is run by a church. The short duration seems a little scary. But the facility was very nice and there were two lovely grandmotherly types taking care of the babies in the younger infant room. In the older infant room, workers were sitting on the floor playing with the babies, who were crawling and toddling around. One infant was crying and didn't want to eat his oatmeal and a woman was making funny faces with a napkin on her head trying to get him to smile and eat.

Day care B is part of a large system that has been around for a while, though the local branch has been around for about five years. The baby room was very warm and the babies were in pens on the floor. The room was bigger and didn't seem as comfy. What did dismay me was the older infant room. They had feeding tables -- sort of half circle tables like you'd find in a kindergarten class -- with infant bucket-type seats built in (recessed) into the table top. So it was like a half moon of babies. Makes sense. You can feed a bunch of babies at once. But why were all the babies sitting around in their bucket seats while the person giving us the tour told us about all their meal times and nap times, none of which were the time we were visiting? I'm trying to be charitable and think that maybe they had all just had a snack and the workers were cleaning up, but I didn't notice any food remnants or cleaning-up activity. They were just kind of walking around. The babies were playing with spongy toys, if they were lucky enough to have someone throw them back to them. It seemed more like a convenient place to corral the babies, rather than to have them play in that room's particular corral. Maybe we just came at a bad time (and, conversely, a good time at day care A), but it didn't seem like there was a lot of interaction.

There was one other thing that alarmed me, but not until after the fact. When we got home, Mike asked if I noticed that when we were in the older infant room, the music playing in the background was rap music.

I had not. I was listening to the tour-giver telling us how they learn structured play like tea parties in the play area (corral) while we were standing next to a table full of inert babies.

Rap music? My personal feelings about rap music aside, isn't that a tad grown-up for babies?!?!? I mean, I may not like rap music, but I do like heavy metal. And I wouldn't dream of entertaining my near-toddler with it. As much as Barney annoys me, I'd certainly rather have my child listening to hypnotizing round after round of "I Love You, You Love Me" than rap music!

In the younger toddler room, there were multiple corrals. While some of the kids were playing outside, I got the impression that there could be as many as five groups of kids (state ratio 7 to a worker, I believe) in separate corrals in the same large room. Seems like a tad bit of overstimulation to me.

I seem to have convinced myself of which day care I liked better.

Both facilities assured us that they try to follow your individual schedule for your baby (napping, feeding, etc.) as much as possible, but I think I believe it more in a smaller, less chaotic setting. The facility itself (day care A) even felt less institutional and more comfy.

Both centers gave us sparkling answers as far as child-to-worker ratios, sick policies, employee turnover rates, etc. Day care A, though, did say that with a fever, they won't let your kid back in even with a doctor's note. Sounds like a pain, but it also sounds like they mean business. The way she explained it was if there was a fever (over 101 degrees, per state mandate, I think because both facilities quoted 101 degrees), something was obviously wrong. They'll take doctor's notes about other things, as in, "It wasn't pinkeye. It was a blocked tear duct." or "It wasn't chicken pox. He was allergic to his new shirt."

Both centers also gave us sparkling reviews of their curriculum for each age group, the perfect age to start arts and crafts, etc.

Day care A has (for a nominal monthly fee) video cameras in each room so you can get on the Internet every day, while hoping to avoid being fired for spending too much time online, to make sure your kid isn't being beaten senseless in your absence. Nice perk.

Day care A did seem to be more secure, with punch codes to get into the facility, etc.

Day care A seemed to have smaller groups, with three toddler rooms instead of two. In the second one they start encouraging potty training. In the third one they start really pushing it so they can advance to the preschool room.

Day care A seemed less chaotic and more hands-on.

I think the answer seems obvious between the two centers, even if we only got a snapshots. While I was trying to give day care B the benefit of the doubt today, my friend told me she felt the same way (too institutional) and Mike said one of his co-workers visited another branch of the same facility (day care B) last year when she was looking for day cares and also didn't like the pens. It seems we all noticed that it was a convenient way to corral the kids and not have to do much with them. So really, that's three snapshots.

One of Mike's other co-workers had also checked out day care A and liked it, though she ended up not using day care at all.

Once we finished our tours, part of us wanted to call day care A back and enroll right then and there. But the responsible part of me wants to be, well, responsible, and at least check out another couple centers. My friend (the institutional one) used a different day care that is very near Mike's work. Her kids liked it, so we should check it out. But we did make some headway.

I don't know how to make decisions like this. I only know how to make decisions about infertility treatment. Subject myself to more anesthesia for egg retrievals? More injectables and risk OHSS? Put our fragile psyches at risk with another failure? Sure! Figure out what facility I should trust my child's life to? That's enough to send me into the corner trembling, curled up in a ball.

But for the moment, I'm going to enjoy the warm fuzzies we got at day care A. And make some more phone calls just to add to my indecision.

Then we start the search for a pediatrician.

Things I've Learned This Week

2005-07-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

1) Neosporin is okay in pregnancy and good to use on iron burns on the tummy.
2) The baby seemed unaffected by my stupidity.
3) My belly button is popping out more now and because of puckering due to laparoscopy scars, it kind of looks like my cat's butt.
4) I am totally embarrassed by my cat's-butt belly button.
5) I am capable of killing a large centipede with a small shoe if I'm desperate.
6) Today is National Ice Cream Cone Day.
7) Our veterinarian also warms up food for his cat in the microwave when it's been in the refrigerator.

Hello, I'm Stupid.

2005-07-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling proud that I hadn't lost my sense of balance or anything. I don't think I'm waddling, but I'm not sure. I think I seem 95% normal in my walking, except when Little Bookworm is stomping on my bladder. I haven't been any clumsier than normal, which isn't saying much if you know me, but at least I'm not any worse than usual.

So why did I iron my belly this morning?

It was early, yes. But I got practically a full night's sleep (minus getting out of bed three times to pee). I wasn't totally groggy. I really wanted to wear the white blouse today. But I had left it in the dryer and it needed help. So as I usually do, being the procrastinator that I am, I ironed clothes that I was about to wear. So I was standing there in my bra, blouse on the ironing board. I thought I was standing really far away from the board, because I certainly had to reach far enough to get to the blouse.

Suddenly, I couldn't figure out what was hurting. My stomach, unbeknownst to me and without permission, had bellied up to the bar, and I had run the side of the iron right against it.

I am the stupidest fucker I know.

It hurt so much I had to stop ironing so I could go put ice on it, and I never went back. I just got a different top out of the closet that didn't need ironing. I'm afraid to ever go back again. I now have an inch-and-a-half-long and centimeter-wide red burn on my stomach right beside and onto the edge of my belly button.

And it really fucking hurt.

I think about a normal burn like that, say on your arm, where there's an instantaneous meeting between iron (or curling iron, or hot pan, etc.) and skin, and usually it doesn't hurt several hours later unless you bump it. But this hurt for most of the day. I suppose it's because my skin is taut and stretched and sensitive anyway. I can't imagine what the scar will look like when all is said and done. And if there's a growth spurt while it's still healing, what's it going to do then?

Of course, I would happen to have had a doctor's appointment scheduled today, just so my OB could get a glimpse of her dumbest patient ever. At least she gave my open pity and sympathy when she saw it.

stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid ...

Hot! Hot! HOT!

2005-07-05T17:43:00.000-07:00

Chicago was in the middle of a string of over-90 days, to include every single day we were there. One day, after breakfast, I never left the hotel room again until evening. On our one free day, as we museum-hopped, it reached 97 freaking degrees, and as we waited for the city bus to take us back to our hotel, for 50 minutes, in blistering heat, when the bus was supposed to come every 15 minutes, a woman offered me her seat in the bus stop after half an hour of standing there waiting.

I declined. I didn't want to make someone lose her seat. Mike decided I was being a martyr. But I also didn't want to sit among strangers and decided to stand with my sweetie. Plus, maybe I was a little annoyed that everyone ignored me standing there in the heat.

I'm not normally one to accept help from people. I bought two ladders this week, one for my dad and one for my brother, really cool fucking ladders, by the way, and I felt bad that the lady who helped me get them down from the high shelf carried them through the store and then out to my car. I tried to tell her I could carry them myself. Truth be told, I probably couldn't have in my current state (normally, I could), but I didn't want to inconvenience her.

But for once, I was big and pregnant and really fucking boiling hot and miserable with a sore back at this bus stop and everyone ignored me for a good half hour before someone offered me a seat, and then I was feeling snitty. I thanked her politely and told her I was fine while inside I was mad at everyone. Besides, there could've been someone there who was worse off than I was who needed a seat. It didn't look like it, but there could've been, and that's what counts.

I went back to work immediately after our trip, where normally I would take an extra vacation day to stay home, do laundry, sleep in, and relax. But I'm hoarding my paid time off for maternity leave, so I dove right back into work. But not only was I weary from travel and a time zone off, but my father-in-law had an emergency the night we came home, so I didn't get much sleep, either. I won't complain because he certainly had it worse than I did (he had come home from a rather extensive back operation only to develop a fever the next day and be taken back to the emergency room, where he and my mother-in-law waited from 5:30 p.m. until 2 or 3 in the morning for him to be admitted to a room, where he stayed for two more days). But I'm finally back on even keel, I think.

My dad and stepmother came up this weekend to do a little construction in the b... b... baby's room (built a couple built-in bookshelves) and then took me shopping for a rocking chair. What a nice gift. I didn't realize that practically nobody carries rocking chairs (even Babies R Us!). Apparently everyone likes gliders. But I think gliders take more work. With a rocking chair, you just kind of tap your toes on the ground. With a glider, you have to work your legs constantly. Now, I'm all over fun runs of several miles at a time or stacking an extra couple weight plates on the bar to make my squats more difficult. But at 3 a.m. when I'll be trying to feed a baby, or calm a fussy baby, I don't really care to be doing extra work on the side. After going to quite a few stores, we found a grand total of two that had rockers, and at the last place we were going to try that day (which means the last place we would be trying for a while since my folks live almost an hour and a half away), we found three styles, all of which were nice, but one of which fit me perfectly. I had no idea what variations there could be in fit, and what felt great to me felt different to my taller father and stepmother. I took the liberty of selecting based on fit because Mike is just a little taller than I am, so I figured it would work.

I just can't believe I'm to the point of picking out rocking chairs. When did this happen? (I guess it was bound to happen soon because we are 32 weeks today!) The next day, I went out and bought the crib and changing table. I ask again, when did this happen?

I've been realizing that I've passed the point of being afraid of pregnancy failure, as in miscarriage or stillbirth way too many weeks before the baby would be viable. If it were born now, thanks to modern medicine, the baby would have a good chance of being just fine. I realized after this past weekend's purchases that I now know that we're actually having a baby and I'm *gulp* even assuming that part. Suddenly, I'm panicked about whether it will be healthy. Like any other expecting parent. I think that I am officially down to a normal anxiety level (down from my prior hyper-freakish-psycho anxiety level, that is). When I bought the crib and changing table, I only had a fleeting moment of jinxiness and mostly a feeling that I needed to get this done because the baby is coming in just under two months. IS coming. Well, most likely, anyway.

I also can't believe this is almost over. I waited for so painfully long to be pregnant. We went through so much to get here. I cried when it happened for other couples and secretly grumbled at the good fortune of total pregnant strangers on the street. I know that the pregnancy isn't the child, and if we had adopted (which may still have to happen in the future anyway!) we would love our child with all our hearts. But the wedding isn't the marriage, either, and yet most women still want the wedding day, right? I wanted the "wedding day" of parenting. I wanted to feel my baby kicking and hiccuping. I wanted to watch my tummy getting rounder each week. And it's finally happening. And now, after so many weeks of anxiety and fear of loss, I have come to enjoy every moment. Even when my back hurts or I'm about to pass out at the bus stop, I am in love with this experience and enthralled with what is happening inside my body. And I'm not ready for it to be over. I can't wait to meet our baby, but I'm also not ready for this part of the process to be over forever. Each day is a new discovery, a new feeling, and a new experience. This will never happen for the first time again, and it may never happen again at all. So I'm cherishing every moment and trying to suck every second into my memory and trap it there.

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

2005-06-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

... actually, I hate that song!

Tomorrow morning Mike and I are leaving for Chicago for six days. Some fun, some work. Mike has a convention and I'll be proofing his book on a borrowed laptop in the hotel room. But there should be plenty of time for fun, too.

We hit 30 weeks yesterday. I can't imagine where the time has gone. The first trimester was so painfully slow. I was so desperate to make it to a "safe" point. Now it's almost over and I'm not ready for it to be. I'm not talking about not having the nursery remotely ready or anything (which we don't) ... it's more that I'm not ready to not be pregnant. Since the intense paranoia stopped, I have been loving this so much. I love feeling the baby moving around and could be endlessly entertained by it. I love seeing my round tummy and everything I've dreamed of through our whole IF battle. As a friend said to me while she was pregnant with an IVF baby (who was born in March this year), I'm not ready to share this baby with everyone else yet. I like having him/her with me all the time, even if sometimes it means my bladder is used as a pillow. I love feeling twitches and kicks and hiccups and tumbles and rolls. And when I think that this could be the only time I'm ever pregnant -- because look what it took to get this pregnancy -- I get sad when I think about this phase being over. I can't wait to meet our baby, but I'm not ready to give it up yet, either.

In the meantime, I'll try to relish each and every moment we have left together, before this phase of our life together is over and a new one begins. Actually, that sentence could apply to the baby and me, or to Mike and me. I always relish moments with Mike, so I'll let that sentence stand with its original intention and thrill over every movement and every change in my contour.

2005-06-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

Mike and I went to hear a talk by Brian K. Vaughan, a comic book writer. Mike actually gave the intro to his speech. Great time, good talk, and I'm all inspired to do some writing. Not that I am a comic book or fiction writer. Poetry and essay writing was always my thing. I left the affair all revved up to dust off my English degree and take some time to write, which I haven't been very prolific at lately.

We came home and I read my weekly e-mail from Babycenter.com, which this week advised me all about hemorrhoids. As I read all the remedies to Mike, he said, "What's witch hazel?"

Me: "Uhh...it's....somethin' "

I think he was astounded by my vast language capabilities. And it's time they revoke my English degree.

In other news, as we were chatting before the speech, Brian mentioned that he saw the rough cut of Serenity ... BECAUSE JOSS WHEDON CALLED HIM UP TO SEE IF HE WANTED TO COME SEE IT! So it was him, Joss Whedon, and, oh, just all the Buffy and Angel writers. I nearly wept right there in front of him. That's, like, two degrees of separation from Joss himself!!!!! And Joss has NO IDEA!

2005-06-10T14:29:00.000-07:00

I learned something disturbing about my husband this week.

He has never, ever, in his entire life, EVER eaten a Nutter Butter.

EVER.

What kind of good, upstanding, middle-class American is he, anyway?

We have now resolved the problem, with milk to boot.

More Tidbits

2005-06-07T03:13:00.000-07:00

28 weeks today.

Holy crap.

And Little Bookworm has definitely become a bigger bookworm and moves around a lot. I feel kind of bad because when I'm having fun watching him/her move and then s/he settles down for a nap, sometimes I push my stomach around to make him/her move again. (Just one more time ... thank you! ... Okay, just one more time ...) This baby will be born sleep-deprived. I really should stop that.

Up 23 pounds as of today. There's been some question in the past couple weeks because our scale got out of whack, but it's fixed now. Still, in the past month I haven't gained as quickly as in the previous couple months. But that might not be a bad thing. If I'm supposed to gain a pound per week, I'm on target now. I gained about six or seven pounds for each of the previous two months. I'm relieved to find out I'm not panicked about gaining weight, but like the overachiever I am, I want to gain the PERFECT amount of weight and earn a gold star on my medical chart. But with 12 weeks to go, I seem to be on target for the upper end of the recommended 25-35 pounds.

So, I'm not sure where the cutoff is, and I've read different things in different places, but at 28 weeks I'm guessing I'm now in the third trimester. I'm also firmly entrenched in a pattern of getting up to pee twice per night. And somehow there's plenty available for first thing in the morning. As one of my co-workers chuckled the other day, "Welcome to the world of the middle-aged man." At least he understood.

My belly button hasn't popped, but thanks to two laparoscopy scars, it's deformed in such a lovely, off-kilter, off-centered way. I'm not sure it's ever going to pop. It might even close itself up completely instead. I've never seen such a sad and tiny puckered belly button.

My friend across the street (my running partner neighbor) had her baby on Saturday. I can't wait to meet him, especially because this time it won't make me cry to meet someone's baby. When I found out she was going into the hospital, I was almost completely like the old squealing, excited, pre-infertile person I used to be. Then when I realized that it wasn't making me cry as if I'd been stabbed with a knife dipped in grief juice, I cried with relief that I might have hit a happy turning point instead.

correction and tidbits

2005-05-31T03:24:00.000-07:00

I knew I was leaving something out. Everything listed on Monday the 23rd and Tuesday the 24ths actually happened on Monday the 23rd. On Tuesday we went to see Star Wars (my first time, Mike's second).

Jen P. asks how I did it all.

It involved a lot of whining about how tired I was and falling asleep on the bus during my work commute.

Oh yeah, and I had my monthly appointment on the 17th and found out my iron was low. Maybe I could've withstood all this better if I had my full iron stores.

Today marks 27 weeks. I'm stunned about this. How am I getting into the late 20's? How has my luck held out this far?

27 weeks, 22 pounds so far.

Jen, as for the flowers, I'll let you know if it actually works. I've never done it before! My stepmother basically told me what to do and I hope it works. She makes homemade greeting cards and her latest thing is putting dried flowers on them. Basically, she said to put them between layers of tissue paper and that it works well to put them in the phone book (but also between tissue paper in the phone book) and put a big brick on top. I think she said it takes a few weeks. As for turning brown, she said that some flowers/weed flowers hold their color better than others. As for which ones those are, I am clueless. I'm experimenting with what we had in our yard (dogwood blossom, columbine petals, coralbell, phlox, some blue thing that I couldn't identify ...) I'll keep you posted.

Unintentional Hiatus

2005-05-30T06:22:00.000-07:00

I just want to see if I can get a grip on what I've been doing for the past couple weeks since I haven't blogged. I get busy sometimes, but I could not catch a break, for one evening after work. Let's see:

Saturday May 14th: Yoga class. Spent 2 hours at the garden store picking out stuff for our house and the perfect miniature roses for my stepmother for a Mother's Day gift (would be seeing her on Sunday). Cleaned out flower beds in the rain.

Sun. 15th: Went to hometown (hour and 20 minute drive one way) in the morning to sing in my old church choir for the centennial celebration. Lots of singing, recorded for a CD. Hopefully the CD will sound good. Went to lunch, toured my stepmother's mother's in-laws old house that she hadn't been in for 50 years but is now for sale. Went to back to dad's/stepmother's house, hung out a little while, drove home. Now late afternoon and I was exhausted.

Mon. 16th: I forget right after work, but 24 was on at 9, which means that after it was over at 10 it took me a while to get to bed.

Tue. 17th: Grocery store. Made big batch of salsa for my friend's going-away party at work on Wednesday. Said friend came over to bring us baby gifts because she's moving to Virginia (today).

Wed. 18th: Planted flowers. Back. killing. me.

Thurs. 19th: Went to jewelry party with SIL. Got home around 10 or 10:30.

Fri. 20th: Spent all evening making Darth Vader and Clone Trooper cakes for Mike's Star Wars program at his library on Saturday. (He's a teen librarian and does SW programs and Harry Potter programs for the kids when new movies come out.) Thankfully, he started baking a couple of the cakes before I got home from work so they'd be cool and ready to start decorating after dinner.

Sat. 21th: Yoga class. Drove around getting last-minute supplies for Mike. Went to library around 1:00 to help with the program (mostly took pictures). Stayed after closing for cleanup. Got done after 6 p.m. Feet and back were crying. Went out to eat with some of the storm troopers who came to the program. Went home, collapsed, and watched "Team America: World Police" (uncensored version).

For pictures of the really cool SW program, see http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mikepawuk/album?.dir=d2c3&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Sun. 22nd: Attempted to cleanup a little from a week of coming home after work, tossing things down, and leaving. Even though I was exhausted, I seemed to think it was a good day to drive to Babies R Us and Target and start a registry. Had no idea what I was doing. Feet were actually a little swollen.

Mon. 23rd: Tried to clean up a little more. We cooked on the grill (Mike) and I picked flowers from the landscaping to press and dry for my stepmother. Compressed them into a phone book while the corn-on-the-cob was at a rolling boil. Season finale of 24 from 8-10. Collapsed into bed.
Tue. 24th: Rode home with friend who is moving. Saw the black permanent marker stains on the carpet, courtesy of her toddler. Big areas. Permanent maker slashfest. Gruesome sight. White carpet. Black marker. Middle of the room. House has already been sold. Holy crap. Came back to my house. I'll be damned if I can remember the rest of the evening.

Actually, Monday and Tuesday might be flip-flopped. It's all such a blur that I can't remember anymore.

Wed. 25th: Went to friend's house to attempt to clean marker out of carpet. Oxyclean? The stain laughed. Bleach pen. Didn't touch it. Carpet shampoo, not worth mentioning. Got home by 9:30.

Thur. 26th: Finally got to actually clean, which involved lots of laundry hauling. Back hurts.

Fri. 27th: Went to hospital because FIL had a pacemaker put in. Babysat niece so her parents could go as well. (The hospital recommended not bringing the baby with them so she wouldn't get sick.)

Sat. 28th: Yoga class. Made strawberry-rhubarb pies (FIL's favorite). Did more cleaning. Went to MIL/FIL house to deliver the pies, visited for a couple hours, went for a quick look at cribs, got carry-out for dinner, ate at home, collapsed.

Sun. 29th: Cleaned again. House seems to finally be in shape again. Went back to BRU to work on registry again. Visited moving friend, who is leaving today. Despite my best efforts not to, I cried when it came time to actually say goodbye, even though she'll be home for two weekends in July and has transferred to another office of where I work, so she'll be easy to find. In the evening, Mike made wings and SIL came over to eat with us and hang out for a little while.

Today: I'm about to go to the store, buy lots of ingredients, and make stuffed shells for my neighbor across the street who is due in a week, so they can freeze them and have meals at the ready, and for my friend who was in a horrible car accident and is having trouble cooking. I was going to do this last weekend, but I guess I see now why it never happened. And you can see now where the hell I've been.

A Fine Whine

2005-05-12T16:05:00.000-07:00

Mike wins the prize for the best whine of the year. Really, if we hadn't been on the phone, I would have grabbed his face and kissed it for the cuteness of it all, particularly because the part he was whining about wasn't even true.

The past 24 hours have been insane, trying to make a health insurance switch during Mike's open season, but I can't drop my insurance because it's not my open season, and we want to be on Mike's, and they'll take me pregnant right now because it's open season ... oh, it's along story and I'm tired of talking about it. I'm just amazed by the bureaucratic minutae of it all. So we've been really mentally strung out on it all week trying to figure it all out.

In the meantime, we have one car. It's a long story, but I'll state briefly that I take the bus every day to work and rarely use my 10-year-old car. My friend got into a desperate car situation and I've been loaning her my car for the past 2+ months. She's moving out of state at the end of the month and I'll get my car back then. There have only been a couple times when it's been a hassle, and we've worked it out, everyone had a car when and where they needed one, and it's been fine.

Until today, when we were doing the last of the health insurance stuff, grumpy from that, and Mike's car died yesterday. Well, it ran fine, but it sounded like there were cowbells hanging underneath it. I dropped the car off at 7 a.m. today down the street from the house and hopped on the bus to work. I had already cancelled my hair appointment for tonight. Mike didn't have to go to work till 1:00 today and the car was only supposed to take an hour or two.

Supposed to.

(He ended up walking the three miles to work, which is fine and healthy but he had a lot to do and didn't get to do any errands.)

At one point during the morning when the car shop hadn't called yet, I said, "Too bad my bike tire won't hold air. You could at least ride my bike."

Him: But it's piiiiink!

Me: No it's not! It's blue!

Him: But it has a girly seat!

Me: No it doesn't. It has a black gel seat.

Him: But isn't your bike helmet pink or something?

Me: No! It's black! ... Actually it's a rollerblade helmet. I don't have a bike helmet.

Him: Well that's stupid!

Me: It's a blue bike with a black seat.

Him: But it has that giiirrrly bar!

Okay, he wins.

Tonight he's getting a backrub because the frustration got to him more than it did to me.

The car is home and is feeling better.

So Much for Fluffy Bunnies and Kittens

2005-05-10T18:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve read many times over the years that it’s common for pregnant women to have dreams about baby animals. Leave it to me to distort everything. Last night I had the second dream in as many weeks about baby dinosaurs.

Huh?

I suppose it makes sense since Mike is a dinosaur fanatic, but still …

Last week I dreamed that there were two giant Godzilla monsters (which Jerry reminds me are not dinosaurs) taking over the town. It was one of those morphing dream things where sometimes it was my current town, sometimes it was the town I grew up in, and sometimes it was the parking lot of a strip mall looking out over a parched, flat landscape, at the edge of civilization.

One of the Godzilla’s was orange and one was green. And there was a baby Godzilla (as tall as I am) living under our kitchen sink. (Sometimes it was my current kitchen, sometimes it was the kitchen I grew up in, sometimes it was my dad in the scene, sometimes it was Mike, sometimes it was my mom). The baby Godzilla had dog food to eat under the sink. Somehow we knew that it was going to grow up and try to kill us just like the giant Godzillas were trying to do, but we couldn’t let it go.

Meanwhile, the giant Godzillas were threatening to destroy everything. Then I found myself in the parking lot of the strip mall with hundreds of other people, watching the Godzillas walking away across the landscape. I thought we were safe at last.

Then everyone banded together and started singing the Star Spangled Banner. Shut up! I thought. They’ll hear us! I knew that these Giant Godzillas hated the Star Spangled Banner and that they would come back and kill us all. I watched them looming on the horizon to see if they would turn back around. The people wouldn’t stop singing. I couldn’t get away, so I pretended I wasn’t with them. I looked around, hands in my pockets. I bent over to tie my shoes intently. Maybe they’ll leave me alone.

I never did find out how that dream ended. But we still had the baby Godzilla living under the sink. I think maybe the Giant Godzillas were mad about that.

Last night I had a dream that we had a baby t-rex (taller than me) and a baby triceratops-rhinoceros living with us. Somehow we figured out that all along we were supposed to be feeding them rocks (pebble-sized). It was good for their gizzards. (?) We tossed a few pebbles on the ground and they dove at them like enthusiastic puppies after scattered snacks. When we realized how hungry they were for pebbles, I got a Tupperware container and was headed to a friend’s house to gather more pebbles. (Apparently, this friend’s yard had an ample supply.) I was horrified to realize that a small Tupperware container wouldn’t hold nearly enough, but it was certainly more than they had had up to this point and would do in a pinch.

By the time I returned with the pebbles, the triceratops-rhinoceros was dead, and the t-rex was dying. It suffered listlessly in rhythmic, raspy breaths …

… until I woke up and realized Mike was snoring.

So … anyone want to take a stab at what the hell is going on in my head?

Maternity Style

2005-05-10T18:05:00.000-07:00

I have always sworn, since years ago when it was a popular fashion, that I would never, EVER wear one of those stupid-ass tee shirts that announces, “Baby” with an arrow pointing downward to an obviously swollen belly.

But I’ve decided that if they come up with a maternity tee shirt that says “I’m with stupid” with an arrow pointing up, I’d wear it.

Don't Even Make Me Celebrate Mother's Day!

2005-05-08T05:07:00.000-07:00

I've had a couple people wish me a happy Mother's Day. It kind of made me want to go all Dracula, you know, when he hisses and backs away when someone flashes a cross at him in all the cheesy movies.

I've made great strides in recent weeks toward not being consumed by paralyzing paranoia and have actually been enjoying being pregnant and being congratulated, and I can even accept congratulations excitedly, without flinching. But celebrating Mother's Day is just WAY too big a leap for me. That's just tempting fate, there. Next year? Bring on the roses and candy and cards and wishes. But this year, let me be quietly cautious.

I was shopping for Mother's Day cards for the other mothers in my life, and I saw that there are mother-to-be cards. I was surprised that anyone would feel brave enough to receive one of those, but I guess I come from a more freakishly paranoid segment of the population. I suppose that for women who conceived easily and haven't been so battle-scarred by infertility or miscarriage that they don't trust their own bodies anymore, a mother-to-be card would be an exciting thing to receive. And I'm happy for them, and jealous that some people can be so unfettered in their excitement. Meanwhile, I'm excited, and finally feel free enough to be happy without worrying that I've just jinxed anything by my happiness, but not so reckless as to be celebrating a milestone I haven't gotten to yet. (Now, if I got one of those "from the cat" Mother's Day cards, I would proudly display it on the mantle because I'm just about as loving a kitty cat mommy as there is.)

Besides, Mother’s Day is a mixed bag for me, anyway. My mom died of cancer on New Year’s Day 1993, when I was 22 and she was 49. I don’t spend every Mother’s Day weeping anymore, but there was a while there when I would get angry to be cheerily wished “Happy Mother’s Day!” by total strangers (cashiers, etc.) who assumed I either was a mom or had a mom, when I had neither. Add the Mother’s Days of the Infertility Years to the mix, and I can tend to feel a little hostile at times. Last year, our first IVF failed just after Mother’s Day. That means that on Mother’s Day, we were futile-ly awaiting the results, already feeling depressed and defeated. One cashier (whom I’ve seen a bazillion times but don’t know beyond the superficial-greeting level) at lunch wished me a Happy Mother’s Day. It was noisy there, so I pretended I didn’t hear her as I was digging for change in the bottom of my purse, trying not to cry. So she said it louder and more forcefully. I feebly said, “Thanks, you too.” (Note to self: bad strategy. Just say thanks right away to get it over with, and cry later.)

It really made me ponder the superficial crap we say to each other. You can’t just assume someone is a mother (or wants to be a mother), or that she even has a mother. I have a stepmother now, and she’s great and I’m glad to see my dad happy again, and I give my stepmother gifts for this holiday even though she never had children herself, but it doesn’t mean I’m not pained a little each year at Mother’s Day. And it extends beyond that one holiday into all aspects of our lives. How many times have you been part of or overheard a conversation between strangers where one person insists that the other person “Smile! It can’t be that bad!” without knowing that possibly that person is going through a divorce, or that their best friend just died, or any of a myriad other dreadful things?

So I’m trying to keep quiet and out of the public today, because I don’t want to be wished a happy Mother’s Day by total strangers who don’t know or care about my particular brand of fears, no matter how benevolent their intentions may be. Now that I have a tummy that has recently evolved into being obviously identifiable as pregnant and not just the result of too big a lunch, I’m sure I’d get it even more. I prefer to be calm and cautious, enjoy the little kicks and rolls I’ve been feeling this morning as a subtle Mothers-to-be-Day present from the Little Bookworm, and feel safe.

Insecurity or Insanity?

2005-05-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling better now that I've decided I don't have rib cancer or a pulmonary embolism. But I still have stabbing pains in my back. Yesterday at work, in the absence of being able to lie on the floor in my cubicle and making myself look like an ass, I tried gently shoving my stomach over to the left (opposite the side of the pain), and amazingly, it worked for a few minutes. There must be something to that pressing-on-a-nerve thing, or, as my friend Jerry said, the baby might be twisting the fluffing the nerve up into a nice comfy pillow. So I might try that more. I don't want to make a habit of it, though, in case my baby comes out in a few months with a big palm-shaped dent in his or her forehead. I'd feel bad if that happened.

I had a really weird dream a few nights ago, and quite upsetting. I'm glad I had the presence of mind to recognize that I woke up sad from a dream and I didn't actually get upset with Mike in real life. Before we started dating, he had dated a girl, M., for close to a year. I had just gotten divorced. She broke his heart, and we were both in a state of heartbrokenness when we met (through a friend because we happened to attend the same party at her apartment - to this day we're thankful to her for getting her Master's degree and throwing a party). For several months, we just occasionally e-mailed and each dated other people. Nothing panned out. Finally, just before Christmas, we went on a date, though he was still hung up on the previous significant girlfriend who kept waffling on how she felt about the whole situation, and I was still hung up on the guy I dated in the interim. After a little while, we both realized that DUH! we were crazy about each other, and now we're married and still crazy about each other, and that's that. I never worried about M., and this all happened more than six years ago.

Well, I had this dream that Mike ran into M. and she had finally decided that she did want to get married after all. So Mike was going to marry her, even though he was still married to me. Obviously, I wasn't happy about this. I had tried to talk him out of it but it didn't work. My feelings were just a little hurt. To make matters worse, a friend of mine was also getting married (never mind the fact that she’s married and lives in New Jersey in real life), and she and Mike were having a double wedding. Since my friend was getting married, I was to be a bridesmaid – in my own husband’s wedding to someone else! There I was, waiting in the back of the church in my bridesmaid’s gown, dreading the event and feeling deeply hurt that he was going through with this. Why couldn’t he just tell her no? That she was too late?

Neither of them had shown up yet, and the ceremony was being held up. Then, M. arrived. I could see her horse and carriage pull up in front of the church. Bitch. She didn’t even care about how I was feeling.

What was interesting was that when she got into the foyer of the church at the back of the sanctuary, I couldn’t see her. I never did actually see her. In real life, there are glass doors and you can see into the foyer and out the other set of glass doors to the outside. In my dream, there were big, tall, heavy, old, carved wooden doors. I knew that she was behind them, waiting to come into the sanctuary.

Mike hadn’t shown up yet. We all continued to wait. Then the priest announced that Mike’s brother (who was also in the wedding) told him Mike had just called and said to say he was stuck at the train station in Painesville (about 45 minutes away from where we live) because he had been to a Buffy convention. Somehow, telepathically, I knew that he had only called his brother to tell him to stall for time because he wasn’t sure what to do, and I knew that his brother had made up the details. The priest said he had made Mike a new appointment for Monday and they could have the wedding then.

I was relieved because Mike might back out after all, but still upset and insecure because I had had to try to talk him out of it in the first place. That meant he might still decide to marry someone else. I pictured our conversation, in which I knew (apparently I was psychic or something) that he was going to say, “You’ll just have to deal with it. I’m married to M. now,” to which I was going to reply, “No you’re not! You just committed bigamy!”It was all quite distressing, and the truth is that even though my Ex violated my trust repeatedly in the fidelity department, I’ve never worried about Mike. And I’m still not worried. But the dream was quite distressing. I’ve heard that when you’re pregnant, you start having dreams about your fears and insecurities. But why this, when I’m not actually insecure about Mike’s faithfulness? I felt guilty for even having the dream, though I was mildly entertained by my creativity. (I won't even get into the vivid Godzilla dream I had the next night, which was far more entertaining.)

I told him about the dream the next day and he said, “Um…I’m sorry? … I’m sorry … for something that never happened … and won’t happen …” He said this with a chuckle that said, I believe, “I love you” and “you’re fucking nuts” at the same time. I love that man!

Do Hypochondriacs Make Good Moms?

2005-05-02T18:39:00.000-07:00

I really shouldn't read so much.

I've continued to have this weird back/rib pain for, what? Over a month and a half now, I think? At my last appointment, I just kind of glossed over it to the nurse in an I-have-this-strange-pain-back-here-in-my-back-but-I-figure-it's-par-for-the-course kind of way. After all we went through to get here, I don't want to be a whiner. But in truth, when it flares up, which is a few times per day, it feels like I'm being stabbed between my ribs. Kinda makes it hard to breathe. I've tried to rationalize it as a kink in my back from sleeping in weird contortionist positions, as a weightlifting injury, and even as intercostal muscle cancer, but, really, it's too weird for any of those simple explanations. It's positional (standing or sitting upright), one-sided (right) and intermittent. If I lie on the floor (not an option at work) it will eventually go away. At work, I instead bend in all kinds of weird positions (almost 20 years of being a running never taught me any good rib stretches), with my fingers jammed in between my ribs. The usual scenario is that I'm trying to talk to co-workers intelligently while standing somewhere, and I break out in a feverish sweat, trying not to whimper or act like I'm dying, when I really just want to ask them to please stick their fucking fingers in between my ribs back there as hard as they can. But depending on who I'm talking to, that could just qualify as sexual harrassment.

Finally, on Friday, I hit a diagnostic breakthrough, one that scared the crap out of me enough to call the doctor's office. Never mind that I didn't actually have any of the symptoms. I have pain in the same region of my body that was mentioned in the article, and that's good enough for me.

I was on the bus reading my brand spankin' new issue of Fitness magazine, one of those women's magazines that frequently runs articles designed to scare the shit out of us: "The Top 10 Symptoms You Shouldn't Ignore Lest You Die a Festering Death," or "Don't Delay Your Mammogram Another Minute Because This Woman We're Going to Tell You About Did and She DIED and It Could've Been Prevented If She Had Gone in One Day Sooner." The current panic button article was about deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolisms.

It doesn't matter that I have absolutely no symptoms of DVT. It doesn’t matter that I exercise regularly, that I’m young and healthy. (The featured woman in the article is young and healthy and exercises regularly, and she could have DIED!) I have one risk factor: pregnancy.

DVT’s can, of course, break free, travel to your lungs, and KILL you. But let’s just forget about the part where I’m not coughing up blood and don’t have constant pain in my lungs, shortness of breath, or lightheadedness. I’m trying to have a panic, here. I went to work and checked the medical references at my disposal, as well as the brain of one of my nurse co-workers who – unfortunately for her – showed up at my desk just in time for my crisis. I hit the jackpot during my research. In some cases, okay, not most cases, but in some cases, the only symptom might be chest wall pain. Well, isn’t the back and side of my rib cage part of my chest wall? And the pain may very well be one-sided. BINGO!

In complete disregard for logic (and the fact that if my stabbing rib pains really were a PE, the severity of the month-and-a-half history of stabbing pain would lead me to believe that the alleged PE would’ve killed me weeks ago), I called my doctor’s office and left a message for the nurse.

“Hi, um, I have a question about a weird back pain that I’ve been having and wondering if I can do anything about it … if you could call me back when you get a chance I’d appreciate it.” Well, I wouldn’t want the nurse to know I was completely insane before she even returned my call. I’d just pull out the trump card, the words “stabbing pain,” when she called back. That would be enough of a warning sign, wouldn’t it?

So she called me back shortly after I left my message, and I got right to the point: “I’m a little concerned that I might have a FUCKING PULMONARY EMBOLISM!” Except that it came out more like, “Hi. Well, I guess it’s not so much of a back pain as it is, I guess, a rib pain. Um, I mean, it’s probably nothing serious, and it only happens when I’m sitting or standing and I can get it to go away if I change positions, but it is kind of a stabbing pain and only on the right side. But it’s probably nothing. I figure it’s something I’ll just have to live with, right?”

To my simultaneous relief and dismay (because I really wanted to be checked out in case my atypical set of symptoms could add up to something), she basically said, “Yeah, that’s normal. The baby probably likes to lay against a nerve that leads up to that area. In some women the pain goes down instead and they get numbness in one leg. You can try to reposition the baby by lying on the opposite side …”

As we covered the rest of the scenario – such as, I CAN get the pain to go away by changing positions – it began to sound just like she said. The baby is just in a weird place and I’m not actually dying in several minute-long spurts per day. (I’m also not, apparently, having premature labor in my right rib cage.) I decided not to mention the article I had read, but I just threw the idea of a pulmonary embolism out there, just to make sure my bases were covered: “Okay, thanks. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t dying” (insert nervous giggle here) “or had something like a pulmonary embolism or something” (said in a tone of voice that said I thought the idea was ludicrous but someone had insisted that I ask about the possibility). She didn’t skip a beat, “Nah. You’d be coughing up blood and the pain would be constant.”

“Yeah,” I said with a guffaw. “That’s what I thought!”

Fun Is Finally Outweighing Paranoia

2005-04-23T16:25:00.000-07:00

Well, it's freaking freezing here again - we're about to have an April winter storm. BUT that also means that I haven't seen a centipede for two days! What a great reprieve.

AND some more fun has gone on with the critter inside! Last night, the flutterings I've been feeling for a couple weeks now were stronger. I was leaning back lazily in the computer chair, thinking it was fun to feel that. I finally decided it seemed really strong, so I lifted up my shirt and I could see my belly moving! It looked like someone was behind my belly button and poking it intermittently from behind. There were also some other areas that occasionally twitched and shifted. I watched, mesmerized, for several minutes, but then Little Bookworm seemed to decide it was naptime.

Unfortunately, Mike was out of town, so he missed the show. He should be back later tonight, so I'm hoping there will be a repeat performance. I had banana peppers and crushed red peppers on my pizza for dinner last night, so maybe I'll do that again tonight just to liven things up.

2005-04-20T03:44:00.000-07:00

We had our regular monthly appointment on Monday. Even though we had just had the ultrasound on Friday, I was nervous when she couldn't find the heartbeat at first. There was a pregnant paus ... ew. That was bad.

Heartbeat was in the 130's. So even though the heartbeat thing is an old wives' tale, I'm absolutely certain it's a boy. Stay tuned next week for the latest mood.

I talked to the doctor about my mom's labors. She said as she wrote, " ... precipitous ... nonpainful ... labors ... " That would just about describe it, I guess. She said that if I'm at a weekly appointment and I'm dilating and effacing, she'd just send me over to the hospital to get things started under controlled circumstances. That's just what I needed to hear. And I'll remind her as time gets closer how far away we live.

In the meantime, I've been compiling a list of extras in case I go into labor between weekly visits. The regular old hospital bag won't do for delivery on the berm. I think we'll also need:

1) Tarp
2) Jaws of life
3) Suction
4) Hazmat suit for Mike
5) Roadside flares
6) Propane burner, pot, water
7) Spray paint for painting "HELP!" on the ground

New topic: there's another big fucker centipede in the dining room this morning. See below for the beginning of this saga. I took a shower last night so I wouldn't even have to worry about it this morning and there one was anyway, on the curtain. Rule Number One: I cannot kill leggy bugs on curtains. Too much risk of them falling on my feet and devouring me whole, toes first.

It's Aliiiiiivvee!

2005-04-19T03:26:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again. The centipedes are celebrating spring in our house.

Fuckers.

I spent all my life cultivating my fear of spiders and hardly ever saw a centipede but maybe once or twice per year. But move to this house (in a new town) and you could put a saddle on the bastards. I never dreamed that it would be possible for me to be more afraid of centipedes than I am of spiders.

This is the time of year when I get up in the morning in the dark and turn on a light in the bathroom but don't go in there for at least five minutes to give them a chance to hide. I'm trying to give them an opportunity to practice their survival instincts. But once a week or so, one is bolder and scurries around my feet after I've finally entered the room. It's always the big fuckers. I know they're big if I get Mike and he goes in to kill it and he says, "Holy shit!" or "EEEEWWW!" That always makes me feel validated and supported.

In the past few weeks I've killed a couple baby centipedes. This morning was the ceremonial beginning of spring, however. The bathroom light was on for a good 20 minutes. I decided it was finally safe to take a shower. I threw back the curtain ... nothing. Whew! Hang up the robe, turn on the water ... suddenly there's this huge motherfucker of a centipede in the water, trying to climb up the side of the tub. And with the amount of soap scum available, he just might get enough traction to do it.

This is the point where I always freeze. Obviously, I need to do something about this. I will NOT take a shower with the Godfather of centipedes. I can't kill him with a mere kleenex or toilet paper. Last year, in the same situation, Mike tried to wash one down the shower drain and it got stuck in the opening!) But if I leave the room, he might escape, and if I can't find him, I will NOT be taking a shower this morning, nor will I brush my teeth. I can't turn my head the other way and let him disappear because he'll just reappear later.

So I made a break for it, sprinting through the house to the front closet to get a shoe (requirement: it must be a shoe I don't care about) wondering why I didn't put my robe back on and hoping that this is not the first time someone ever comes to the front door at 6:30 a.m. I got the required shoe (big, sturdy running shoe, but old enough that it's been retired to mowing the lawn) and streaked back to the bathroom. The centipede was still struggling, back half of its body submerged. I turned off the water, and just when it had receded enough, I smacked him. Five times. In several places because he went everywhere. Not a leg was left wiggling.

I then went to the kitchen (with a robe on this time) and got two paper towels to clean up the mess. Finally, I took a shower. Really fucking quickly.

Sadly, this story is doomed to repeat itself over and over for the next two months until it is really hot outside. Then, in mid-September, it will start again. I must confess that I was hoping Mike would hear the big smacks and come downstairs to see what was happening so I could get some sympathy, but he seems to have slept like a baby. And now it's time to go down to the basement to turn on the iron, and most likely have the same thing happen down there. I should just bring the shoe with me in preparation.

It's A ...

2005-04-16T07:40:00.000-07:00

... baby!

It turns out that despite our month or so of temptation, we stuck with our original instincts (the ones we'd been cultivating throughout 2-1/2 years of TTC) and did NOT find out the sex of the baby yesterday. And I'm happy that way, though last night I referred to it as "It" when we were at my in-laws' house and felt a little guilty calling it that. But that was mostly because I still feel a little jinxy saying "The Baby." I still can't wait to find out the sex when It is actually born.

It was so nice to see him/her again after several weeks. He/she ... okay, IT ... wasn't moving around as much as at 13 weeks 6 days when we went in for the bleeding scare, but maybe it was sleeping. If it was, it also has restless leg syndrome because just when the doctor was measuring the femur, he had to chase it around because the baby made a couple big kicks. There was a time when he was looking at the heart, went away for a second, then came back. The doctor said, "There. Thank you for that flip. That's better." So the baby must have moved, but I didn't have a very good view from my perspective, so a lot of it was just a big blur.

As far as I know, everything is good. At least, he didn't tell us anything was wrong. Since it was a doctor (though not my regular doctor) and not an u/s technician, I'm assuming he would've told us if there was a problem and in the absence of telling us anything, it must be okay. (I said that to my friend J. yesterday and she was stunned. "Wow! ... That was a big leap for you!" She knows me -- and my paranoia -- too well.)

Now, I'd like to take this opportunity to speak to the obstetricians of the world: When you are performing the frantically anticipated ultrasound, speak in complete sentences until your thought is finished. And find out ahead of time whether your patient is familiar with any medical terminology, because if she is, you can scare the living daylights out of her.

We were looking at the 4-chamber view of the heart. Lovely thing, in which I could mostly understand what I was looking at. (I think It has my heart but we decided It has Mike's chin.) The doctor, with one hand running the u/s thingy over my belly and one hand on the computer keyboard while studying the screen and concentrating, said, with no discernible alarm in his voice at all:

“There’s no septum …”

... pause ...

... pause ...

... pause ...

This was now a long enough pause that I was getting ready to say something. There’s no septum? What do you mean there’s no septum? I can even see a septum! Why do you sound so calm? What the fuck do you mean there’s no septum?

“… defect.”

Whewshit.

Lesson Number the First in talking to your nervous patient: Never make it sound like a really fucking important body part like the septum in the heart is completely missing, no matter how much you’re multitasking while trying to say the sentence. We got a videotape of the ultrasound, so you can be damn sure that I was checking for a septum last night when we replayed it. I’ll probably watch it again today. And when I go for my regular appointment this coming Monday, I’ll be scrutinizing the sounds on the Doppler and asking my OB to confirm that there is indeed a fucking septum in the baby’s heart.

Assuming that there is a septum, of course, then I’ll ask her to give me a permission slip for the prenatal yoga class I just signed up for. I can’t wait to go, hoping it will help my back problem (which is still there), and also to find out how many other mothers-to-be have babies whose hearts include a septum.

In any case, it was such a relief to see that everything looked good and alive and was even moving a little bit. I wish it had been moving more, because I’ve heard other people say they saw their babies sucking thumbs, rolling around, etc. I haven’t yet felt anything as obvious as I did several days ago. I’m now at the point of poking my belly every a few times a day in a while trying to get the baby to say hi. I’m out of my regular clothes. I’m getting a visible belly. The ultrasound has been done. Now I’m just waiting for all the movement to begin. I think the feeling of companionship will be fun and I want as much time to enjoy it as possible, in case we never get this opportunity again. I want to relish every moment with It.

I Am SO Confused!

2005-04-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

Baby Center is messing with my head.

Two weeks ago: Large sweet potato (5-1/2 inches crown-to-rump)
Last week: Small zucchini (6 inches c-t-r)
Today: Large sweet potato (6-1/2 inches c-t-r)

I'm starting to understand why I was confused last week when I thought a small zucchini should be smaller than a large sweet potato. Suddenly, it's a large sweet potato again, and apparently a different strain at that. Perhaps they meant small sweet potato two weeks ago.

So I've decided to go with Your Pregnancy Week By Week, which says that this week that the baby is the size of a large banana. I like bananas much better than sweet potatoes, anyway.

In the meantime, this large banana is still causing me that horrible mid-back pain. I wish I had a little mat on my cubicle floor so that when it gets really bad I could lie on my back for a minute till the tightness goes away. It's the only position that really seems to help. Of course, in a few months when my belly is heavier, I won't be able to do that, either.

Yesterday was the first time I felt flutters strong enough that I felt confident in saying I really really thought it was the baby moving. I've been feeling things for a couple weeks now, but it was never decisive enough that I could say it was the baby for sure. The flutters seemed unusual, and not like usual intestinal rumblings, but how could I be sure that I didn't always feel those feelings and just didn't know it? I certainly was never actively looking for it in my life until now. But yesterday before lunch, I think there were acrobatics going on in there, and it was even kicking, or rolling over, or tickling my bladder. I'm 99% sure I was feeling movement, which was the most certain I've been. Of course, I can't say 100% because that would jinx things for Friday's ultrasound. And today, things were much quieter in there. I felt a couple flutters during the day, more along the lines of the uncertain things I've been feeling. I'm hoping for a more emphatic "Here I Am!" tomorrow, just for some encouragement that things are going okay in there.

And now I'd like to extend my sympathy to my friend J's son, who got his brackets placed on his teeth today for braces. I've been there. Mike has been there. I'm sure some of you have been there. The best two things in the world when you have braces: wax and ibuprofen. Since my friend J. never had braces, I was trying to give her the heads-up on what things he should avoid, but it's been so long since I had braces (let's see ... they were removed from my teeth ... 18 years ago!) that I couldn't remember. So if anyone has any suggestions, I'll be sure to pass them along. I remember:

-No apples.
-No celery.
-Change your toothbrush more frequently than ever because it'll get shredded by all the hardware.
-Brush your teeth carefully and take the time to floss between the wires no matter how much of a pain it is because it's easy to get plaque and cavities around all those wires.
-Getting braces locked when you kiss someone else with braces is a myth. (Wait, let's not tell him that.)
-Don't chew hard candy.

What else? I know there's a lot. I received a whole page of things to avoid when I got my braces. What have I missed?

Glamor Girl

2005-04-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

I officially grew out of my last pair of regular pants, so I was down to two pairs. Total. My last skirt also stopped fitting. I had one maternity skirt, but nothing that actually went with it. I had bought one maternity outfit, but it's been too cold to wear it. Thankfully, last week we had two really warm days and I wore my new outfit on one day and a borrowed skirt and top the next day, and only had to duplicate one pair of pants. This week isn't shaping up to be a scorcher, so I went shopping with my mother-in-law yesterday. I am now the proud owner of pretty much an entirely new wardrobe (and one absolutely fantastic jacket that came from the maternity store but doesn't even look like it, so it'll last long after I'm no longer pregnant).

Now, it's well known in my family that I HATE HATE HATE to shop. I hate the people, the parking, the backache from carrying around armloads of clothes to match this pant up with this top halfway across the store, the figuring out what goes with what and what can be interchanged with what I already have at home, the trying on of endless sizes that never fit over my ass unless they're too big for my waist, the people, the trying on, the noise, the fitting room, and the people. I get cranky after more than an hour if I'm in good company, half an hour if I'm alone.

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, LOVES LOVES LOVES to shop and is devastated that her two daughters-in-law both hate it. She's crossing her fingers already that my nine-month-old niece inherited the shopping gene from her side of the family. She's always itching to go shopping and SIL and I try to avoid it at all costs.

But yesterday was a good day. It was one of my rare days (that happens once every year or two) when things click, I find things that will go together, many of the things I try on actually fit, and I don't get a shopping headache. It was quite productive and we had a nice time(approximately four hours of intense shopping in several stores, which was probably a record for me). I found casual clothes, work clothes, things that will interchange like crazy for several different outfits ... I think this is the first time I have ever gushed about a shopping trip in my life (not counting shopping trips at my favorite running shoe specialty store, which always leave me breathless with excitement at the latest biomechanics technology).

It probably helped that I stayed up the night before watching two episodes of TLC's "What Not to Wear," which really got me mentally geared up for trying on a lot of stuff and modeling it. When I got home, I had to model a whole bunch of it again for Mike because I was so excited.

I topped off the evening by running out and finally buying a body pillow for my miserable back, so we'll see what that does.

The strangest thing happened while we were shopping, also. We had just arrived at one of the last stores, so we'd been shopping a good long time by then, and all of a sudden I thought I was going to puke. I felt like gagging and I think I started to break out in a cold sweat, then my stomach started acting like it was about to lurch. Thankfully, we were in the maternity store, and they pointed me to the employee bathroom. (I would imagine I wouldn't be the first person ever to puke in the maternity store.) But after I stood in the bathroom, hovering near the toilet, the feeling started to go away. I drank some water (not out of the toilet! out of the sink!) and then I was okay, and it never happened again. I have to ask if that was my entire stretch of morning sickness for this whole pregnancy. I've never ever been sick this whole time (with the exception of the fire at work, but even then it wasn't like this). I suppose I hadn't eaten for a few hours and we had just hoofed it quickly from one end of the mall to the other. Maybe I had low blood sugar.

So now I've had my longed-for pregnancy symptom, and I'll look fabulous in my new clothes. Some of them even make me look pregnant, which is nice since right now I'm on the border between looking pregnant and looking like I just had too much to eat for lunch, depending on what I'm wearing. I'll hit 20 weeks on Tuesday, and I hope these clothes last me throughout. They say not to buy a whole lot of stuff at the beginning, but it's not totally the beginning. My butt has expanded a little bit. If I got clothes that were a little loose at 6 weeks, that might be bad. I hope that if they're a little loose right now at almost 20 weeks, they'll last. I exercise regularly anyway. But I suppose if my ass blossoms uncontrollably a couple months from now, I'll just have to buy more pants at the time. My boobs seem to have hit a plateau, so I imagine my blouses will continue to fit from here on out.

And I'm already trying to figure out what to wear to Friday's "Big Ultrasound." I could dress bright and perky, the picture of glowing pregnant optimism, or I could dress a little more somberly, just so I don't tempt the fates to give me disastrous news. Either way, I'll look fantastic!

Maternity Porn

2005-04-05T19:21:00.000-07:00

We had an unseasonably warm day today. I finally got to wear the one spring maternity outfit that I've bought, and it felt so good not to wear the same pants I always wear. But I've been noticing a disturbing trend in maternity clothes: sleazy cleavage.

A friend of mine had a baby almost 10 years ago, and at the time she complained that all she could find to wear was Peter Pan collars and puppy and kitten prints. She lamented, "I'm having a baby. I'm not becoming one!" (I do note that that trend is not complete. I found sleepwear at a store that consisted of nothing but nightshirts with cartoon diaper pins, or babies on clouds, or diapers all over them. PLEASE! Don't they know that I prefer my pj's to be covered in Eeyore prints?)

The outfit I wore today had a cute linen top with a tie-back empire waist. And the lowest v-neck I've ever worn. It would be scandalous on the red carpet at the Oscars! I couldn't bend over to pick anything up today unless I looked all around to make sure the coast was clear. I almost flashed a boob at the bus driver's rear view mirror on the way home from work when I slung my gym bag over my shoulder. I had to do a quick adjustment before he noticed. A couple of tops I've borrowed from my sister-in-law are just as scandalous.

I can only imagine two scenarios: (1) that they think all pregnant women have boobs big enough to fill out these tops (I know I've developed some incredible knockers -- for ME -- but they're still not so incredible compared to the general population); or (2) that they think all pregnant women suddenly want to show their cleavage, perhaps to distract onlookers from the size of their expanding asses. In either scenario, I was self-conscious, and will be bolstering my outfit with a small safety pin the next time I wear it.

PRODUCE UPDATE:

I forgot to update last week. Last week, the baby was 5-1/2 inches crown-to-rump and the size of a large sweet potato. As of today, it is 6 inches and the size of a small zucchini.

Personally, I thought a large sweet potato would be larger than a small zucchini, but then I never was very knowledgeable in the produce department.

Amazingly, I am actually alive ...

2005-04-04T15:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted for a while, partially because I'm having trouble getting possession of the computer. Mike is deep in the throes of draft #2 of his book and since his editor has given him a deadline, he kind of gets first dibs on the PC (August 30th baby deadline notwithstanding). I have a few spare minutes, so here's the quick rundown:

1) I am in maternity pants full-time beginning this week. Last week I grew out of the last of my regular pants (which were low riders, so I got away with them longer than the others). Unfortunately, I have only two pairs of maternity pants. I have one skirt that I can work into the mix. Things are going to be rough at work because it's too cold to break out any of cute and dressy warm-weather stuff that my sister-in-law has loaned me. I need to go shopping, yet it seems pointless because winter is hanging on in these parts like a barnacle on the Titanic.

2) After much fretting on my part, we finally decided to go ahead and have the triple screen test. It was a big gamble in that I was hoping and praying that I was doing it for reassurance. If it had turned out badly, we still wouldn't have had the amnio, so I would've spent the next 22 weeks fretting. Thankfully, all was well.

3) I got an adorable new haircut. It's on my same old boring stupid face, but the hair itself if cute.

4) I am now able to completely breathe through both (count 'em, BOTH!) nostrils. However, I have this annoying little wimpy, tickly cough that pops out of nowhere just about every 32-1/2 seconds. It took about twice as long as normal to recover from that nasty cold.

5) Tomorrow is 19 weeks. I haven't felt any movement yet that I can identify for sure. I have felt a few little flutters, but I can't guarantee that it's not something I'm just looking for. Maybe it's been there all my life as intestinal gurglings and I never noticed. Suddenly, when it's time for me to start feeling something, Presto! My own imagined baby flutters!

6) I'm not sure if I'm having my first bona fide pregnancy ache'n'pain, but I'm pretty much miserable. A history: Last fall, I tweaked a muscle on the right side of my back just under my shoulder blade. I did it while lifting weights. Eventually, things felt fine. I also have a chronic, recurring problem with muscle spasms in my upper back and neck. But now there's something new. I'm assuming it's related to the muscle pull, but I can't say for sure. I get a tightness in my back across my rib cage for the entire amount of rib-cage-ness that is below the level of my shoulder blade. It runs in a swath from close to my spine, around my side, and sometimes all the way to the front where it ends in a sore muscle at the very upper-ness of my abs not too far below my sternum. I can exercise and it'll be okay, but it's when I'm standing still, walking slowly (so practically standing still in terms of upper body movement), or sitting for long periods (more than a couple/few minutes) that it suddenly tightens up and hurts. Sometimes, if I push on the upper abdominal muscle, I can eventually get the back muscle to relax. It is completely stupid and not anywhere I would ever imagine a pregnancy ache: on the right side of the lower half of my rib cage. I suppose it's logical to think that I had a minor injury that is now having trouble healing because all my ligaments and joints are trying to relax and stretch, thanks to pregnancy hormones. It's also logical to consider that I'm sleeping in weird positions now. I'm trying to be a good little soldier and sleep on my left side, and sometimes I wake up and that spot on my back is almost cramping. What's so upsetting is that sometimes the tightness (and therefore pain) gets so bad (like right now because I've been sitting at the computer for the last 15 minutes or so) that it's hard to breathe.

7) We're actually working on names, but it'll be a suprise, so I can't divulge the details.

8) Last night we had build-your-own-taco night for dinner for the first time in many months, and it was so wonderful that tonight we did it all over again.

That's the past couple of weeks in a nutshell. Now to do the taxes, because I can't quite procrastinate enough.

The New Panic

2005-03-24T17:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a much-anticipated (translate: dreaded) appointment with my OB. Even with no reason to think anything is wrong, I somehow always manage to be afraid of some sort of disaster. But once again, disaster didn't strike and I heard the wonderful sound of whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the baby's heartbeat. If I wasn't such a cheapskate I'd probably rent a doppler so I could hear that every day. Of course, I wouldn't get anything else done around the house, and it would probably freak out the cat.

The heart rate was 145 to 150 beats per minute. This, of course, was meaningless to me. I know that's a good heartrate when I'm doing nice hard tempo run, but for a baby the size of (CUE WEEKLY PRODUCE UPDATE!) a large onion, I have no idea whether it's good or bad. She said it was very good, and that later on, if the heart rate stays high they tend to see more girls and if it drops more to the 130's they tend to see more boys. My first thought was, HUH!?!??!?! I wonder why the hell that is.

I left that appointment suddenly feeling like we're most likely going to have a baby. The little bookworm seems lodged in there for the long haul. How can this be?

It was time, I decided, to find out something that's been on my mind. Now it's even more on my mind and I'm just a titch FREAKIN' PANICKED!

I do know that I was born pretty quickly. My parents lived a half mile from the hospital. My mom apparently slept through labor, didn't even know it, and when they got to the hospital I was born a few minutes later IN THE HALLWAY! My dad told me that years ago, but I thought he was exaggerating. I confirmed it last night. He brought my mom into the emergency room, left to park the car, came back to check her in, and by the time he got up to the L&D floor, I was already born. Again, in the fucking hallway.

This had me a little worried, since Mike and I live 45 minutes from the hospital where we'll be having the baby. Sure, there are plenty of them between here and there, but I love my OBGYN, so when I moved to this side of the suburbs I didn't want to find a new one.

But I thought that maybe I didn't need to worry too much. After all, I was the second baby. Who am I to say my mom wasn't in labor with my brother for 36 agonizing hours? So finally, I asked my dad last night.

"Oh, he was much longer. We were in the hospital about 45 minutes before he was born."

This was supposed to be reassuring, I think.

"Crap. We live 45 minutes from the hospital," said I.

"Well, we lived 20 minutes away at that time," said my dad.

Great. I have 20 minutes' leeway. Let's not forget the part where my brother, the firstborn, was also more than three weeks early.

And what if I go into labor during rush hour?

I don't think I should panic entirely too much, because if it's really that dire, we can drive to the hospital a couple miles from our house and go to the emergency room. I'm sure it would be fine. I'm more worried that we'll figure out that the situation is dire while we're on the highway on the way to Our Hospital.

So my question is: Are labor and delivery tendencies necessarily similar between mothers and daughters?

Is there a good chance I'll take after my mom? Does my husband need to sign up for How To Deliver Your Baby On The Shoulder Of The Highway class? In addition to the normal hospital bag list, should we be sure to pack a pen knife, propane burner (for heating water), and a baby nose suction thingy?

I know that women have been sqatting and having babies in the jungles and plains and deserts for hundreds of thousands of years, and that it's totally natural. But for one thing, look at the infant mortality rates then. For another thing, they all watched each other, probably before they ever bore children even, so they knew what to expect. Nowadays, in our modern, repressed, medical society, we've been softened by lack of access to this natural event and by simplified fictional accounts of birth on TV where the mother with perfect hair and makeup and no sweat pushes a couple times, makes a couple faces, and out pops a perfectly swaddled baby with no slime, no suction needed, no umbilical cord, and no whisking away for cleanup and apgar scores. In other words, many of us have no actual clue what to expect until we're in the delivery room because we've never seen birth face to face. I daresay it was safer for a cavewoman to give birth outside without doctors than it would be for me to, since she probably at least had seen it before.

After all my fretting, I'll probably end up being induced two weeks past my due date, but since the hospitals don't seem to offer Prepared Childbirth Panic classes, I need to get into practice now. If I'm going to give birth outside, I hope we at least make it to the hospital parking lot.

Divine Intervention

2005-03-20T04:52:00.000-08:00

Since I am entirely too sick to go to church this morning and sniffle, snort, and sneeze all over my hymnal, I thought I would ponder something good that God has done in my life.

You know how when you're really sick, and your nose is running so much that you could use the Play-Doh Fun Factory shapes to make snot art, and what doesn't come out your nose travels down the back of your throat for you to choke on? And you know that ripe sinus breath that comes along with that?

Well, you know how that also means you're so sick that you can't smell your breath, but you can just kind of tell that you have made the entire house smell like stale gym shoes?

I would like to say "Thank You" for that right now. Thank you for creating us in such a way that when we are this sick, we aren't also induced to vomit because of our own foul oral emissions. That would be cruel.

Now, if only God could grant some mercy on my husband so he doesn't have to suffer.

2005-03-18T17:46:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Dawn for that Innocent Escapes link. I'm laughing my ass off right now! My favorite was, "Your Hair, It's Beautiful."

I seems Mike thinks I have made him look like a jerk. So, for the record, he is an absolute sweetheart. And if he had tried to feed me a line like, "Honey, you're beautiful," he would've been a big fat liar. I look like death, if death were congested, gaping for air with chapped, peeling lips, and had really fucked up sleepy hair left over from this morning. He's a wonderful man and is always complimentary, which is why I thought it was so funny that even he couldn't muster a line like that today. He would've known I would've seen right through it. :)

I Gave In

2005-03-18T12:35:00.000-08:00

I actually called off work today. It goes against my pride, as I mostly believe I'm invincible. Surely I can sit at my desk with a little bucket under my nose and get some work done, right? I could have tied it around my neck with a strap, given my head a little shake when more snot beaded off the end of my nose, and kept on typing.

But it was the two to three hours of sleep I got last night that finally did me in. That and the fact that I still am running low on oxygen. I had chicken noodle soup at 1:30 a.m. and took a shower at 2:15 a.m. It was meant to be steamy, with the idea of loosening up my "liquid boogers," as my friend Jerry says. But since we've been having water heater issues, the shower was disappointing, and I was left shivering. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to dry my hair or not, so I compromised and half-dried it. Even Zuzu didn't wake up. She was curled up in the bed next to Mike. I tried to go to bed after the shower, but I tossed and turned and sniffed for about 15 minutes, during which Mike lifted his head and looked confused three or four times, and I banished myself downstairs to the couch, where I got caught in the riveting history of "Saloons" on the History Channel's Modern Marvels show. Amazingly, it was interesting. Around 4:00 I finally started to drift off. By 6:00, the living room floor lamp, which was right over my head, switched on by the timer. That was a rude awakening. After that, I never truly slept again.

I finally gave in and let Mike go to the store to search for plain Sudafed. All he could find was extended-lasting-er-something and took the chance and bought it. I called the doctor's office, and the nurse said it was okay. I took it almost two hours ago and I'm no better. She said that Vicks is okay, too, so I might try some later.

I've finally come to terms with the fact that I'm sinus-ly debilitated, especially when I whined to Mike, "I don't feel very attractive," and he paused, panicked, and couldn't even muster a fake, "Oh, honey, you're beautiful" with patronizing sincerity. I'm not sure if it was the slept-on hair, the bright red nose, the droopy, watery eyes, or the gaping, chapped lips. Oh, or the bags under my eyes.

Tomorrow is the humungous Baby Faire in our area, which I have never had an excuse to attend. I got free tickets a week ago and made a date with my sister-in-law (the mother of the my fellow-germ-afflicted 8-month-old niece). For so long, I've wished I had a reason to go to this event. I finally have one. If I don't get to go, I'll cry. Just a warning.

1:56 a.m.

2005-03-17T22:56:00.000-08:00

I'm wondering how it's possible for there to be this much gunk in my head without actually forcing my brain to squeeze through my ears and out into the world.

I'm 99% sure I'm calling of work tomorrow.

It Finally Got Me

2005-03-17T15:39:00.000-08:00

After successfully avoiding sick people all winter, I 've been blindsided by a virus. Everyone in my area has had the flu. I can't get away from it. People stay home from work for a week and come back still sick and coughing. I didn't see my mother-in-law for at least a month and a half because she was so sick and had relapses. On Valentine's Day Mike went to see her and bring her flowers and I basically said to tell her hi. No offense, but what she had sounded nasty and I certainly didn't want to fight it with Tylenol and Sudafed. Last weekend we had a bunch of people over for a party (surprise party for my in-laws). Suddenly, I'm sick. Since that's the only activity I've done that's different (I go to work and ride the bus every day), I've chosen to blame the party guests. Somebody must have smuggled something in. Besides, my 8-month-old niece apparently has a cold, too. Coincidentally, she was at the party, being held and cooed at by the same party guests. *raises an eyebrow suspiciously*

So far, it just seems to be a bad cold. I don't have the great big body aches and rib-shattering cough that all the flu-having people seem to be suffering, so maybe I've lucked out. But the fact that I'm breathing like a fish that jumped out of its bowl and is lying on the floor, desperately gasping for life, is pretty pathetic. I've already forgotten what it feels like to draw air into my lungs effortlessly. My ears are blocked up. My eyes are watering. Yesterday, I was having chills. Last night, I woke up more than ever. If it wasn't to pee it was to gasp for air. I'm allowed to take plain Sudafed ... but Sudafed doesn't work on me. And I'm afraid to take it anyway. So I'm allowing myself to suffer and whine, and will somehow try to survive one more workday.

The party was nice, despite my aching back and feet from cleaning the house all weekend. Since we were entertaining my in-law's friends, not just having a few of our friends hanging out casually, I had to do real cleaning. As in, getting down on my knees and washing the bathroom floor. It was so strange, though to have someone ask me how I was feeling. When was I due? I am so used to overhearing someone ask that of someone else, someone more fortunate than I was, and then going home and crying because once again it was someone else besides me. When people ask me those things, I feel almost self-conscious, and almost confused. Why are they asking me that? Surely they're mistaken. Then I remember that it is me. On a good day, I feel giddy with the delight I longed for for two and a half years. On a jinxy day I tell them I feel fine and then try to explain myself. I feel fine, and that's making me paranoid. After all we've been through, I want stronger symptoms to reassure me. It's such a bizarre place to be right now.

On the other hand, even though I had no morning sickness and nearly no symptoms to speak of, I am finally getting more of a pooch and feel more deserving of my elastic pants. Even though I'm not throwing up, I am being reassured by the fact that my tummy is getting a little bigger each week. In the absence of weekly doctor's appointments, dopplers, and ultrasounds (because obgyns seem to think that women get pregnant every day or something and they only want to see you once a month!), my slowly growing belly is helping to reassure me. Not that it's really visibly a belly that most people would recognize, but people who know me can tell. Before this, I was fortunate to have a rather flat tummy (thanks to lots of running and weightlifting and ab work), and now it's not so flat. But it's not sticking way out, either. But friend are now commenting on the difference, and that's becoming fun for me. It was nice to see my mother-in-law this weekend after so long, because she was definitely able to see the difference. (Then she said hi to the baby, which was also surreal and fun.)

Baby Center told me this week that the baby is the size of an avocado. (We're definitely back on the produce track.) It made me realize that I'm on two different time continuums (or continua?). The first one is the one where I've been so desperate to get out of the first trimester and into the "safe zone," where maybe I could finally feel like a normal woman instead of the infertile without hope that I had been for so long, that time has dragged. I can't believe we've only just cleared 16 weeks. It feels like ages ago when Sally, the nurse, called and said, "Do you feel pregnant?" and I answered, too pessimistic to assume she was about to tell me good news, "I don't know ... do I?" How can we only be at 16 weeks? But the other time continuum can't possibly believe that the baby is the size of an avocado already? How could that have happened. Just over three months ago, at egg retrieval, fertilization, and embryo transfer, we had to look at it under a microscope. How, in about 14 weeks, can it be the size of an avocado, breathing amniotic fluid, sucking its thumb, and swimming around like a fish, flailing its arms and legs (doing functional motor things)? How is it possible? And it's going to keep growing. How, in nine months, can it go from being under a microscope to being 7 or 8 pounds? It's moments like these that send me scampering upstairs to weed through all the storage crap in what will be the baby's room if I can ever get myself to think we're actually having a baby.

Then I have to wonder, if it's the size of an avocado, swimming around like we saw it in the ultrasound a couple weeks ago, how can I not feel that? I know that any time now, I could start feeling movement, though first-timers supposedly feel it later because they aren't familiar with the movements. I'm assuming it'll be at least a couple weeks before I feel anything. But I can't imagine why I don't feel it now. It's a freakin' avocado! I'm obsessively concentrating on my midsection all the time now, waiting for that first reassuring flutter. Hopefully it's still fluttering in there. I'll find out at my appointment next week.

Why am I suddenly hungry for guacamole?

****

I did have a wonderful moment today. One of my co-workers told me she's seven weeks pregnant.

I never thought I'd be able to construct a paragraph of two sentences like that.

For so long, when someone would tell me she was pregnant, I would tell them how happy I was for them and then I'd go home and cry. In the beginning, I think I was actually happy, even though I was sad for myself. But as our infertility wore on, I don't think I was even able to feel true happiness for them. I'm sure on one level I was happy for them, but I was so mired in hopelessness and jealousy and despair that all I could think was that here was another person who was pregnant who wasn't me. It didn't help that they would feel bad and tell me they felt blessed. Why, then, did everyone else deserve to be blessed but me? I couldn't see through my pain to just be happy for them and nothing else.

That's not to say that I wasn't happy with my life in general outside of the infertility. I'm crazy in love with my husband and have an absolutely wonderful time with him, I could give my kitty cat kisses all day long if I didn't have to go to work so I could buy her cat food, I have friends who are wonderful and dear and enrich my life more than I could ever hope to give back, I'm healthy and strong and enjoy nurturing that strength ... but at the same time, we had such pain hanging over our heads. Sometimes we would do fine, but in the midst of another cycle, or after another BFN, or when we would hear about yet another pregnancy, the pain was crushing. Last year was the worst. Between a laparoscopy that didn't accomplish anything (other than allowing us to say we'd explored every possible cause of our infertility), two failed IVF's, and a summer filled with taking our now-passed-away cat to surgery, chemotherapy, hospitalization for a hunger strike, and finally to the emergency clinic on Labor Day to have her put out of her misery (all that in the midst of one of our IVF treatments and BFN aftermath), I was spent. I still feel like less of a person after that year. I get a lot of self-worth out of being there for my friends, helping them through their troubles, doing things for them. Last year I was in such a needy place that I felt like all I did was take, take, take. I hid when I was sad, and fretted to them when I was able to talk. I wasn't much use to any of them, I think. I couldn't see out of my own hole to help anyone else out of theirs. I know that friends lean on each other, and I know i was in a desperate place last year. But I feel like I leaned way too much. And I'm still reeling from that a little. I feel embarrassed by how needy I was, and like I don't deserve to have them continue to entertain my worries now. I'm still trying to work through that.

But today ... today was so different. This was the first time in (now) more than two and a half years that someone told me they were pregnant and I was absolutely nothing but excited. She said she's not spreading the word at work yet, but since she knew about my IVF happenings (poor thing had to hear all about it!), she wanted to tell me and was excited that there was someone else she could talk to about what she was feeling, worried about, etc. And I was EXCITED!!!!!! It was so incredibly refreshing to feel that way that I almost cried. For a moment, I was free of all the pain I had had for so long.

Of course, now I'm paranoid that since I got excited, it'll spell doom for me, and that posting that thought will make that doom come true, but hopefully it's just idle paranoia. In the meantime, I'm so enjoying her news that I can't even fathom it.

Elastigirl

2005-03-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

I made a new, bold, frightening step toward acknowledging my p...p....pprr....ppppreegnancy this week. As quickly as I burst out of my bras last month, I suddenly am running out of pants that fit. And I bought some maternity pants.

Now, they're not completely bona fide maternity clothes with the great big elastic pouch in the front. I'm not nearly ready for that. I have a pooch, but not even enough that people who don't know would be able to tell (especially at this time of year when we're all wearing big, bulky winter clothing). But I did buy the lower-waisted, soft elastic band around the waist kind. I haven't been so comfortable in jeans in a few months!

It was hard, though. I went to several department stores and browsed the maternity clothes, and even tried some on. To my dismay, it's the same shit as in my non-"p" life: Designers think that all women are fucking 5-foot-10. Why the hell is that, anyway? I don't know too many women myself who are that tall, at least, I don't know enough to be able to say that they make up 90% of the female population as they seem to in clothing. So I get stuck in the petite section. Here's the problem, though. I am 5 feet, 4 and a half inches tall. Petite at pretty much any store is 5 feet 4 inches and under. I'm just over the mark. But since my legs are disproportionately short and my torso is disproportionately long, the leg length in the petite section is usually good. BUT...BUT...petite designers think that all petite women have a 3-inch-high rise. I feel like I'm buttoning my pants just above my pubic bone.

So either way, I'm screwed. Risk indecent exposure, or trip over my pant legs.

In the maternity section, which in every store I visited was simply a few racks of clothing lost in the middle of the plus sizes, and not marked very well at that, I found that 90% of all pregnant women are also 5-foot-10. WTF?

So I finally, finally, after circling the doorway in the mall for several weeks, stepped into a maternity store.

I felt so out of place there. Not that there were lots of happy fertile pregnant women. It was late in the evening. There was a woman in the fitting room, her husband waiting in a chair, and one employee. (It's a small store.) But I felt like a cheater. A poser. An imposter.

I also felt scared to be there, afraid to disturb the cosmic balance that's keeping me pregnant. (Meanwhile, God is probably pacing and shaking his head saying, "I gave you the baby you've been nagging me about. Would you hurry up and buy some new clothes before you squish it in those non-elastic waistbands?")

I did manage to suck in my pride and gush to the very nice girl working there, "HELP!!! I'm 15 weeks and my pants don't fit but I don't need big pouchy stuff [cue her glancing at my midriff to confirm] but I don't know what I'm doooooiiiiiinnnnngggg! ... Oh, and I have short legs." She raced through the store, pulling dress pants, khakis, and jeans off of the racks and piling them in my arms. Thank goodness she knew what the fuck she was doing. I felt like I was in good hands.

Unfortunately, I was still at the mercy of the designers, who she agreed are a bunch of idiots because most people just aren't that freaking tall. All in all, after playing with the fitting room belly pillow (who knew?!) I found exactly two (2) pairs of pants that fit: one pair of jeans and one pair of khakis. No dress pants, which I desperately wanted for work. But she did recommend another store I could go to, bless her heart.

Now, I was rather traumatized by all the elastic. I spent last year losing 15 pounds, and here I am thinking, "Boy, this waistband is comfortable!" At least it's for a good reason. My ass hasn't actually gotten any bigger. It's just my boobs (which I'm still obsessed about) and a pooch in my belly. And I sure won't complain after all the crying (and medical intervention) I did just to get to this point. But I still felt chubby.

I must confess, though, that I have become completely enthralled with the little bump in my belly. When I'm standing up, I just look a little thicker around the middle. But when I'm lying down at night (or when I lie down on the hallway floor earlier in the day to look at it again and again ... at home, not at work ... that could get me fired!), there's a hill, a bump, a mound. I don't know what it is, but it's getting a little bigger each week. And I love to touch it. A few weeks ago I was sure I could feel the top of my uterus just where all the books said I would, just above the pubic bone. I made Mike verify it. I checked it constantly. I'd decide it was my imagination if I couldn't find it one day. But the next day, the hard bump would be there again. In the past couple weeks, it has grown significantly. Finally, tangible proof that there is something in there, actively growing. When I lie on my back I can now see my lower belly forming a hill. Mike took a picture for me last night, and it's not my imagination. It's my baby ... And that's the first time I've been able to say that. I am absolutely obsessed with rubbing my belly at night, even if it's barely visible to the daytime (clothed) world. I can finally feel it and see it, and what a reassurance that is between monthly doctor appointments. I talk to the baby. Mike talks to the baby. Mostly I just say, "Hi, Baby," because I can't think of anything better to say. But I'm enamored already. And I pray every day that the lump in my belly keeps getting bigger, because that means the baby is still growing.

*********************

Mike's reaction to my elastic pants was, "Holy CRAP!" That just confirmed that I was entering a new, chubby era. And he's having fun with it already.

The next day, he called me at work, talking low and breathing heavy: "What are you wearing? ... Are you wearing ... elastic? ... I looooovvve elastic ... I looooovve the way it stretches and conforms to your body ... "

I did laugh my ass off, but I had to tell him that if he says that to me a few months from now, I will cry.

Restocking the Produce Department

2005-03-02T18:03:00.000-08:00

I have now been advised by Babycenter.com that this week the baby is the size of a lemon. So we are consistently staying in the produce department. However, Your Pregnancy Week by Week said it's the size of my fist. So somewhere in between those two items is the baby, wiggling around not caring what size it is.

I did forget to mention last week that we strayed from fruits and legumes. I was informed that the baby was the size of a jumbo shrimp. That would be great except that I hate shrimp and seafood with a gagging fury. I nearly dry heaved at the thought of jumbo shrimp being inside me. So I'm glad we're back to produce, and that for once it's something I can picture.

*****

Mike has a new fear. He's afraid of those news stories about pregnant women who are kidnapped and killed by some freakish pregnant-faker who apparently reads C-Sections for Dummies. It happened in my part of the state a couple years ago. Then there was a story about it earlier last year somewhere else in the country, and then recently another story in which a women actually fended off her attacker. She said that motherly instinct allowed her to save herself and her baby. (I can't imagine that that is a reflection about the other victims' quality or quantity of motherly instinct. Perhaps the survivor's attacker was just weaker, or the survivor was stronger. I'm sure the others fought to the death or perhaps were taken by surprise.)

The three stories I mentioned are the only three I've heard about. I don't know if there are others, but if so, this is a creepy trend. I know that people might not want to flaunt a really expensive car in a questionable neighborhood or flash a lot of cash while paying for gas at 2 a.m. when there's a guy in a stocking cap in the gas station, but before these news stories it never would have occurred to me to imagine a world in which a pregnant woman would have to be afraid to be pregnant -- a rather natural temporary state of being in any mammalian species -- because it might kill her if she goes out in public and makes a new friend.

These freaks are even more disturbing than someone who jumps out of a dark alley and grabs someone by surprise. They actually cultivate some kind of relationship or trust, get the woman to come to their homes, and then kill them and take their baby (who knows in what order?). What kind of sick fucks are these women? They only thing I can think is that they were infertile but were also insane. Sure, I've been desperate for a baby in the past 2-1/2 years, but it doesn't mean I'd go steal one out of another woman's body. I was having a hard time coming to terms with adoption and giving up on the pregnancy dream, but not that hard a time!

So these people want a baby, or attention, or something. "Hmmm..." they must think to themselves. "What's a logical way to get attention? I know. It's quite simple, really. I'll just tell everyone I'm pregnant." Then, a few months later, they realize that people will notice when a baby doesn't come out. So instead of admitting they lied or even pretending they lost the baby, they make the next most logical decision and kill someone to perform surgery on them and hope they don't kill the baby they're trying to extract. At least from the stories we've seen, there doesn't seem to have been an instance where the mother was killed and the kidnapping was successful. So far this plan doesn't seem to have worked. So why have more people tried it? Perhaps it's because maternity ward security has improved so much that it would be harder to try the old-fashioned technique of kidnapping the baby from the hospital nursery.

Obviously, there's some form of mental illness involved in these decisions, but that doesn't make it any easier to spot them. Mike doesn't want me to befriend anyone new during the time that I'm pregnant. I think he would probably question their motives. And he also doesn't want me to go to any new friend's house alone. I can't say I blame him for that fear. The saddest part is that real events have happened to people to make this fear real, not just some concocted paranoia on our parts. If this bizarre trend continues, you're going to see local hospitals offering prenatal judo classes alongside prenatal yoga, Lamaze, and maternity massages.

It's so sad that something that is biologically normal (well, except for infertiles, who have to try to wrest pregnancy from the clutches of fate) and has been going on since the beginning of life on this planet is now something to cause fear and wariness. Now you don't even have to wait till the baby is born to worry about him or her being kidnapped from the nursery, or from your house if your yard was filled with "It's a Boy!" or "It's a Girl!" signs. Now you have to worry about being killed as a component of the kidnapping and being a target because of your obvious belly.

I think if any woman I don't know tries to befriend me in a few months when I have a belly, I'll lie. I'll tell her I was born with a congenital problem that made all my abdominal organs swell to four times the normal size for an adult female. Then I'll only have to worry if she's involved in illegal organ trading.

Stupid Piece of Crap Cervix

2005-02-28T17:10:00.000-08:00

Well, everything appears to be okay. After a tortured weekend, I went to the doctor's office first thing this morning, so afraid that she would forget that she told me to march right in there without an appointment and all ready to cry until they let me in. Luckily, we were the first people there and we got in immediately.

By Sunday, the bleeding had slowed down to spotting, and nothing new and bright red. I could possibly have been more panicked and more in tears if I were still having practically a period like I was on Saturday night (after having just thought during the day about how long it's been since I've had one). I just got so blindsided by Saturday. For the first time this week, I publicly let my guard down. I talked about the baby like it would actually be born. I didn't knock on wood or say "hopefully" every time I talked about it. I let my friends talk about it without saying, "SHHH!" I accepted maternity clothes from a friend. On Saturday, I told the dentist that so far everything had gone easily, without morning sickness, patting myself on the back for not telling him all about the infertility and IVF and acting like I was just a regular pregnant person. In the afternoon, I sat at the coffee table for three hours hand-making baby announcement cards to send to my grandparents to announce the news. As soon as I finished cleaning up my paper scraps and putting them in the garbage, I went to the bathroom to find that I had started spotting. How's that for a cosmic kick in the ass? Apparently I had gotten too cocky.

My previous blog entry came after my first phone call to the doctor. A couple hours later, my spotting had turned to all-out bleeding, and I just about shit myself with fear. I called the doctor back, crying. She tried to reassure me while saying she knew nothing she would say would make me feel better. But she still wasn't concerned because I was having no cramping and wasn't filling up pads like a Bounty commercial. She also didn't encourage me to come to the emergency room (where she was) unless I did start needing the Quicker Picker Upper because it was so packed in there (lots of flu in this area) that I would sit for hours and she was convinced based on my description that everything would be okay. She said to just show up first thing Monday morning and tell them she told me to. I resolved that if the bleeding continued or if I started cramping, then I was going to the ER before that anyway.

By Sunday, the bright red had changed to just spotting, so I didn't panic quite as much.

We showed up this morning and she was so nice. First of all, my cervix is apparently a bleeder waiting to happen. She didn't see any active bleeding but did see a couple spots that if she were to just touch them they would bleed. (Thankfully, she didn't. Touch them, that is.) Then she did an ultrasound. This was the first time the baby has been big enough that they decided to not do the dildocam, so it was a regular old top-o'-the-belly ultrasound. I held my breath until she got to the right spot, where Little Bookworm, a bazillion times huger than last month, was jumping and flinching and squirming all over the place, heart beating and spine visible, and apparently completely unaware of the anguish I'd been through in the past 36 hours. I guess I can't blame him (we've decided it's a "him" for no valid scientific reason whatsoever) since it's my cervix that's the culprit, but I wanted to ground him for scaring me so much.

It was just amazing to me how much he had grown since last month. At the last ultrasound, less than a month ago, we saw a twitch of a hand and a twitch of a foot. Two movements. Today, we saw an audition for a background monster in Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. And this time Mike was right there announcing the movements (which he likened to a flopping fish), making up for the last ultrasound when his attention lapsed.

The doctor assured me that this fear was just the start of parenthood (and also assured us that we weren't overly worried coming in because they have that kind of panicked, pregnant, and bleeding visitor commonly). After she left the room, I cried with two new ultrasound photos of our baby in my hand. I think it was more a release of the weekend's pent-up stress than anything. It was also a release from the fear that I finally had truly jinxed things and was receiving the ultimate punishment. Seeing all that dancing for joy inside me made me almost able to talk about this normally again by the end of the day.

THIS is why I can never let my guard down.

2005-02-26T14:50:00.000-08:00

What the fucking fucking fuck?

I am fucking spotting for the first fucking time in this entire fucking pregnancy, the very fucking week we fucking go fucking public and tell the whole fucking world that we're having a fucking baby. Just when I fucking thought it was fucking safe to actually fucking talk about the baby as if it were fucking going to actually be fucking born, I start fucking spotting.

I was doing absolutely nothing. I had pink tinged spotting, at 13 weeks 4 days. When I have had no spotting at all up to this point, other than my 9-week pap smear, when she told me to expect to spot. I did for about a day. I just told the dentist this morning that I seem to have lucked out and everything seems to be going just fine. I just talked to my sister-in-law last night about how my paranoia is doing so much better, and how I have absolutely no reason to think anything is wrong, and it's just residual paranoia from 2-1/2 years of infertility but that most likely everything is going to be fine. We hit the second trimester and heard the heartbeat on Tuesday.

In the past couple days I've allowed myself to talk about the baby like it's going to actually be born healthy in August. I've allowed my friends to talk as if it's a certain thing ... a little bit at least. I allowed myself to pick up some maternity clothes from a friend on Wednesday. They're still sitting in a bag in my kitchen because I'm afraid to look at them, but I allowed myself to get them from her. I ALMOST STOPPED AT THE MALL TODAY AND WINDOW SHOPPED FOR MATERNITY CLOTHES TODAY.

WHAT THE FUCK!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?

It could be nothing. I talked to the Dr.'s office already and the Dr. on call said that the fact that we had a good heartbeat on Tuesday and I have no cramping or anything is very reassuring. It could just be irritation of the cervix which is very sensitive right now. She said to take it easy for the rest of the weekend, keep my feet up, drink lots of fluids (and relax - HA!), and come into the office on Monday and they'll look for the baby for reassurance.

I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to relax when I'm shaking and scared right now.

The Word on the Street

2005-02-23T15:53:00.000-08:00

I went public at work today. It was kind of exciting, and it also made me a little nervous.

A few friends have known all along, because they had to suffer along with my injections and knew precisely when my beta was scheduled. But they were all good at keeping mum about the whole thing. Today, though, I stopped whispering. And my friend J. finally got to talk about it. She's been practically bursting at the seams, apparently. I feel kind of bad that I put the gag order on her for so long.

It was so odd today. I had a couple people ask me when I'm due. Me. ME! People were asking ME when I'm due. What kind of surreal planet was I on today?

Of course, I enjoyed it. I had some fits of jinx paranoia, but it was much less pronounced than it has been. After hitting the 13-week mark yesterday, hearing a nice thumpy heartbeat, and having the doctor give her blessing sent me another notch into the world of regular pregnant people. I can't pretend that I'll be all bliss and certainty from here on out, but it felt nice not to have to qualify EVERY future-baby-related statement I made with a "hopefully" or a knock on my desk.

I realized also that there is another upside to finally spreading the news: I no longer have to worry about whether anyone is noticing that I wear the same couple skirts and pairs of pants ALL THE TIME. Now, they'll just know that I'm in that awkward transitional phase where I don't quite need new, or maternity, clothes yet but where some of my "regular" clothes don't fit quite so well. Now I can be a freakin' slob until I move into nice dressy maternity clothes for work.

Well, I'll try not to be too much of a slob, but at least I won't be as paranoid about what others are thinking.

And maybe I can finally get away with sleeping at my desk on a bad fatigue day.

Probably not.

My First Non-First OB Appointment

2005-02-22T14:34:00.000-08:00

I heard the heartbeat today.

[pause for huge sigh of relief]

I'm in that weird place right now, where I'm pregnant, but I have no outward, visible sign of it, other than these lusciously enormous boobs. Okay, they're now firmly into the B-cup category for the first time in my life, but for me, that's Dolly Parton. Just ask my husband, if he can answer you through his dreamy-eyed grins.

Today, even though I have had no spotting, no cramping, and no problems, I was scared of this appointment. It's been almost a month since we had the last ultrasound. My clothes are slightly tighter around the waist. I can feel a tiny bump when I press down low on my belly. But that just wasn't enough to sustain my confidence. I needed today to go well.

It wasn't off to a great start when I tried to produce my urine sample in one of the cups they had sent me home with. I was in the stall at work, doing the ole "squat and hover," and in an effort to not pee on my ID tag (which was hanging off my neck and I never realized how long the lanyard is until now), I peed on my fingers. So there I was, squatting, hovering, holding a pissy little cup with one hand, trying to wipe the pee off the cup and my hand with the other hand while not dipping my ID tag in the toilet, having not thought to screw the lid on the cup before I started the cleanup. Fortunately, there was no further mess, and I had enough pee to put the cup in my Ziploc bag and stash the bag it in my purse, warm and steaming.

And by the time I got to the doctor's office, I already needed to pee again. I could've saved myself the trouble of the bathroom stall at work.

While in the waiting room, I read Fit Pregnancy magazine, feeling alternately like I finally belonged with all these big-bellied ladies in the other chairs and holding the magazine up so that they would know that I was One Of Them, and feeling like I was jinxing the whole damn thing by even sitting in the chair next to the table that that magazine was on. I read all about breastfeeding techniques, but for some reason felt too jinxy to read the article on getting my abs back after the baby's born. I also read an article on what's going on with me and my baby in each trimester. I was informed that by Week 13, my baby's ears were developed enough that s/he would be able to hear me talking.

Wha ... ?

This is the first time I've heard that one. Is it really that early? Do I have to stop saying "fuck" already? That's kind of important information for everyone else to leave out. I had planned on a few more months of flagrantly releasing F-bombs before I had to practice curtailing that habit.

Fortunately, the nurse called me back and interrupted my fretting. After she weighed me I begged to go pee. When I came back she said I can come back whenever I need to, and I didn't have to wait for them to call me back for my appointment. They must be used to dealing with women who have squashed bladders.

At this point, I didn't know what to expect, so I sat, fully dressed as instructed (I had though she would do a pelvic exam or something, so I had even painted my toenails bright red last night for fun and for the doctor's amusement, but it turned out to be for my amusement only) and waited and fretted and waited some more.

The doctor came in with her little doppler machine and I got nervous. I didn't know for sure if she was going to check for the heartbeat or not. Everyone told me they always check every time you go, but I didn't know if that meant the same thing would happen at my doctor's office. She asked how I was. I said, "Good." Then the paranoia demons from Hell compelled me to add, "...I hope." My face said the words beyond my control even though I had vowed to try not to say them. She said, "You hope?" and I compulsively added, "I had to buy new bras!!!" like a 6-year-old announcing that he had just received a puppy for Christmas.

She warnd me that sometimes it's hard to find the heartbeat because the baby moves around so much (which also astounds me that early on) and if she couldn't find it she'd do a quick scan. Then she had my lie back and she gooped up my belly and squished the gel around for a couple seconds, and the first place she stopped had a distinctive ka-choo ka-choo ka-choo ka-choo ... it sounded a little more thumpy than choo-y but this is too new to me to know how to type it. She looked excited and I realized why. I said, "Is that it?" then "Yayyyy!" She held it there for a few seconds and I thought it sounded like a little choo-choo train. I was totally enthralled, like I was at our first ultrasound at the fertility clinic when I desperately wanted the ultrasound lady to leave the dildocam in place for ... ever, so I could keep watching. I then asked the most important question: is it safe to go public now. She unhesitatingly said yes.

I drove home singing inspirational songs really loud in case the baby was listening (it didn't help my tension headache after worrying all day till the appointment, however). Then I got this overwhelming sense that this is actually happening and said aloud, "I love you, baby." About five times. I needed to hear myself say it and finally allow myself to feel it.

Now I think I'm hooked. A little jinxed, maybe, but definitely hooked.

A Fetus by Any Other Name ...

2005-02-16T16:43:00.000-08:00

Why is the size of my baby always compared to a fruit, vegetable, or legume?

I have two sources: my Baby Center weekly e-mail updates, and the book Your Pregnancy Week by Week. They're both lovely sources of information for obsessed people such as I. But I can't help noticing a trend here. This week, depending on which source you want to follow, our baby is either the size of a peach or a lime.

Throughout these 12 weeks, we've run the gamut. It's been the size of a pinto bean, a large raspberry, a small walnut, a medium green olive (I'm not sure if "medium" describes the color or the size), a small plum, a large lime, and a kumquat. A freaking kumquat! I had absolutely no idea how big a kumquat really was, or what the hell it even looked like. Fortunately, my friend's 10-year-old daughter had studied one in school and inspected a slice of it under a microscope the very week before my baby reached that size. Thanks to her, I could visualize what was going on in my pelvis.

Additionally, my uterus recently reached double its original size and had become the size of a grapefruit.

What I'm perplexed about is why it's always produce. I have yet to read a weekly update that says my baby is the size of a hot Buffalo wing or a pat of butter. I would pay to receive an update that says, "Your baby is growing quickly. This week he will reach the size of a lemur's head." On its way to being a 7-pound baby, I want to hear that it is the size of my tabby cat, after it surpasses the size of a breaded chicken breast, of course.

To give Your Pregnancy... credit, in Week 4 the embryo was described as "half the size of a letter 'o' on this page," and in Week 7 it was the size of a BB pellet. It was a nice variation, but those were the only non-food items I could find.

I've noticed the same trend with tumors. I write disability decisions, so I read a lot of medical records. Tumors are always described as either produce or sports equipment (could be a grapefruit, could be a softball). Even tumors have more variety than fetuses. Fetuses are never the size of a golf ball. Wouldn't that be easier to picture than a kumquat?

I think I'm going to come up with my own non-produce variations just to keep people on their toes. Since it's apparently the size of a peach this week, I'm going to go with "raquetball," because, honestly, I sometimes think it's kind of gross to think of my baby as something I might spear with a fork and munch on for dinner or dessert.

The Fatigue Monster Strikes Again

2005-02-15T15:38:00.000-08:00

I actually turned down the opportunity to see Josh Groban with my husband on Valentine's Day.

Three weeks ago, I had my worst, most profoundly fatigued week yet. By Friday, I was staggering around work with red, puffy eyes. I barely survived the day, then I slept for three hours after dinner before getting up for an hour and then going to bed ... all night. By morning, I still didn't feel rested.

For the past couple weeks, I did better. Monday and Tuesday were fine and normal. Wednesday was basically fine but I was really tired by evening. Thursday was so-so, and on Friday I was tired but under control. I just didn't do anything on Friday evening because my energy was spent.

This week, it's only Tuesday, and I barely made the bus home because I was practically crawling through the downtown streets. If I could have curled up on the floor in my cubicle and not had to make the commute home, I would have. I've never felt anything like this short of having the flu.

For Valentine's Day we had planned a nice little dinner at a restaurant we like. Nothing fancy. Just yummy. Then we'd come home and relax. My mother-in-law is totally incapacitated with the nastiest flu ever, and my in-laws were supposed to go see Josh Groban. We (Mike and I, his sister/husband, and his brother/wife) had gotten together to get them tickets and dinner at a really nice restaurant as their Christmas gift. They couldn't go because my mother-in-law is basically bedridden this week. (Needless to say, I'm not going near her! I feel sympathy for her plight, but I'm giving her my get well wishes from a distance because I sure can't risk getting whatever the hell it is she's had for almost a week!) They tried to get any of us to use the tickets. Mike and I both balked. We just wanted our cozy dinner. And the thought of getting home at midnight, as tired as I was yesterday, I couldn't imagine the thought of it. After seeing how I feel today, actually having had a full night's sleep without one of my recent insomnia episodes, I'm so glad we didn't go.

And I can't believe I'm glad. I would have LOVED to go see him. How romantic would that be with my husband on Valentine's Day?

As it was, we had a great little dinner and I got peanut butter cheesecake to go (because I was too full to eat it) and look forward to sharing it tonight with a yummy glass of ice cold milk.

Then comes the sleep.

Unfettered

In other news, my bra shopping expedition was a success on Sunday, which was the day I officially grew out of my last available bra. I wore it on Saturday, and it fit. It was a little tight, but manageable. I didn't get a chance to go shopping on Saturday, so I figured I'd go after church on Sunday. I got dressed for church and found that The Last Bra That Fit suddenly didn't -- 12 hours after I had last worn it!

I measured my bust size. Since the last time I measured it (when I noticed my bras were getting a little tight), I have gained a half inch. The last time I measured it was only a week and a half earlier. Altogether, I've gained two and a half inches around my bust.

I'm only at 12 weeks today. How big are they going to get?

Not that I'm complaing, mind you. And Mike certainly isn't, either.

My clothes even look different this week, now that I'm unfettered, or at least less fettered than I have been. I didn't realize how much my too-small bras were compressing me. And I didn't realize how much they were hurting me until I put on a new one. It makes me glad I risked the jinx and bought a couple of bras before escaping the first trimester intact.

Insomniac Ramblings

2005-02-12T22:28:00.000-08:00

It's 1:30 a.m. For about a week straight now, I've been waking up sometime after midnight (to pee, as usual) to find myself lying wide awake for a long, long time. For no good reason, suddenly I feel like I could go about my day, if only it were day.

Tonight I've been lying there since about 1:00. Mike woke up when I came back from the bathroom, kissed me, and fell right back asleep. He probably won't remember it in the morning. Zuzu was on the bed and lifted her head briefly when I came back as well. She wasn't even awake enough to purr when I pet her and nuzzled her head. She curled right back up into a fuzzy ball and disappeared into a kitty dreamland.

This is a new development. It doesn't matter how early or late I go to bed or how relatively exhausted I am. Until this past week, I've gotten up to pee every night (at least once) and fallen right back asleep, tired. Now I lie there left to my own bored devices. Tonight, I have spent half an hour hearing "The Most Offensive Song Ever" (South Park Christmas album) in my head and thinking about the following question. I decided to get up, have a glass of milk (Not warm. Yuck. I can't go that far.) and ponder it.

Why in old movies, when a woman would fall down the stairs (which seemed to happen a lot back then) or have some other mishap, did the doctor always come to the husband, shake his head, and pronounce that she would never have any children?

Was a woman's uterus inherently more fragile in those days? I always pictured women being stronger by virtue of the hardships they went through, what with having to do the laundry on washboards and help Paw chop the firewood all the time. Somehow they were all able to have about 17 kids to help around the farm.

And how were women always falling directly on their uterus...es? (What is the plural of that?) How and why were the doctors picking up on that? And if these women were so injured that they had ruptured their very femaleness (which seems pretty hard to do anatomically by a simple fall or escape from a barn fire or locust plague, though maybe not from a plummet down a well), how did they not also, say, rupture their spleens, leaving the doctors to try to save their lives, let alone their apparently fragile reproductive tracts?

I think I'd be pretty pissed if I was bleeding out my liver and eyeballs and the doctor was only concerned with my future worth as another man's wife as his breeding cow. But I suppose in those days, that's the standard on which I would've measured my own worth as well.

Since the ability to (pro)create a full staff to complete the household chores was the measure of a woman's worth in olden times, I guess I don't blame the doctors for looking first for the ramifications of an accident. But I still don't understand what the hell these women were all doing to permanently shed their endometrial linings, or to cause their fallopian tubes to spontaneously tie themselves into knots. It's hard to find anyone more clumsy than I am, and yet even I got pregnant. Of course, look at what it took to make that happen. Maybe I did do some permanent damage that time my brother and I were jumping down the basement stairs and I stopped myself midflight with a forehead check to the ceiling overhang and landed flat on my back on the steps. Or maybe it was the swan-dive faceplant on the cinder track during that 800-meter relay in 10th grade. But I don't remember my coach leaving the training room, shaking his head, looking for my parents in the bleachers to deliver the bad news.

It seems like the epidemic of uterine rupture in those days is something that should be studied by today's reproductive specialists. It might give them more insight into what's wrong with all of us infertiles. I think I'm going to call my RE's office and suggest that.

It's now 2:00. Now that that's out of my head, maybe I can go back to sleep.

Bursting at the Seams

2005-02-11T18:13:00.000-08:00

Okay, this will actually be a little bit of fun pregnancy talk for once. Just a warning.

Suddenly, one by one, I am popping out of my bras.

This is no small accomplishment. I'm normally rather much of a pretender by wearing my A-cups.

Let's say I usually have two sizes: the size where my A-cup is a little loose on me, and the PMS size where the A-cup actually fits. Since I have been pregnant, I've been filling out my A-cups nicely in PMS style. Mike has thought I seem bigger, but I didn't really think so. A little fuller, maybe, but certainly fitting into my normal bras.

About two weeks ago, one of my bras suddenly wasn't enough. (It was one of those demi-cup styles, so there wasn't as much ... fabric? cup? ... as some of the other ones.) Most of the other ones were feeling a little tighter as well, but my little perky things were definitely not something they couldn't handle. There might have been a little bit of that line visible through a sweater when I'd pull my shoulders back in an effort to stand up straight. But mostly, it was just a fun new development. I have one newer bra (figures, the $10 one from Target) that's a fuller cup style and still seems to fit just fine.

Early this week I tried to wear the demi-cup again because it was clean and everything else was in the laundry. Plus, I was in denial. I thought I had felt a little "smaller" that day, but boy was it a long day, constantly pulling my cups up.

And in the meantime, I've been asking Mike every day or two to verify that I'm getting bigger. He happily complies.

Yesterday, I tried to wear another newer bra that I hadn't worn since my sister-in-law's wedding in November. It was meant to be strapless but has the straps that you can attach. I knew that one fit in November under my bridesmaid's dress. But I put it on yesterday morning and I was oozing out all over the place. Crap! But it was the only clean one, so I decided to suffer and dedicate myself to doing laundry yesterday evening. When I was undressing for the night to put on my pj's, Mike saw me take off my sweater and said, "HOLY SHIT! That doesn't even fit you!"

I made him check my size again. He happily complied.

When I woke up this morning, I still had red marks from the bra digging into me all day yesterday.

When I got dressed this morning, I got out a new clean one from the laundry. I knew for sure that this one fit just last week. I should be fine, because this one was always comfortable.

I put it on and knew I was in trouble. I was blobbing out the top of this one. All day I walked around hunched over, because if I stood up straight, all of my co-workers would've seen the obvious dent of a line across each boob from my bra cutting into them. Where the fuck did these knockers come from?

There is one other bra in my drawer besides the newer one that actually fits. But if today's bra didn't fit, I'm sure that one won't, either. I'm afraid to try it on. I swear these things popped out overnight. I was so uncomfortable today, and I have red marks again from today's bra. Now I'm down to that one newer bra that fits.

I may be complaining, but I'm happily complaining about this. I haven't grown out of a bra since I grew out of my training bras.

So I know I need to do something fast. I did a little bit of mental gymnastics today. One friend said this happened to her early on, so she went and bought a couple of expensive maternity bras. Then she kept on growing and even the expensive bras were too small. So another friend said I'm just going to have to go buy a couple of cheap ones, because I might have to do this a couple more times throughout pregnancy. (I guess when I'm done I can have a yard sale: "Come one, come all! Bras in every size! Big or small, short or tall, I've got coverage for them all!")

I hadn't planned on buying anything pregnancy-related for a looong time. Today, during the chafing and compressing, I tried to convince myself that I could hold out with that one bra until after the next OB appointment, when I'm safely in the second trimester, provided we hear the heartbeat. But that one bra will be able to walk on its own by then if I wear it every day. I don't have that much laundry energy. I do have lots of sports bras, but they're all the compression style (since I'm normally so teeny in that department), and they don't look so hot under dressy work clothes.

But my friend who made the multi-bra purchase suggestion pointed out to me (as she pointed at my boobs) that no matter what is going on in there (cue pointing to my uterus), "you.." (cue pointing at my chest again) "... need new bras now!!!!!!" And I suppose that if my hooters are exploding at this rate, it might be a sign that things are still going on down there.

So tomorrow I'm going bra shopping. And I'm only complaining through the smile over having real honkers for the first time in my life.

Baby Steps

2005-02-11T17:47:00.000-08:00

I attended a baby shower at work today.

It was slightly more successful than my last attempt to attend a baby shower. Last May, I paid for my luncheon and chipped in for the gifts for a massive baby shower at work for seven (SEVEN!) people expecting babies within the next few months. (One of the seven was actually being adopted, which made it slightly easier on me, because the adoptive father was so excited about it and it gave me hope.)

I paid for the lunch during the two-week wait for IVF #1. At the time, it was going to be our only attempt at in vitro. If this failed, I knew my world would be ripped out from under me. And it was. I had the beta on a Friday and I took the day off. We waited all morning for the afternoon phone call. I did not pee on a stick. Then we got the devastating negative. We cried. I gave myself a crying migraine. It was a horrible weekend.

Then, the next week, I went to work to hear everyone was buzzing about the shower luncheon, scheduled for that Wednesday. I didn't care about my $6 for the lunch. I couldn't possibly go. To see so many happy bellies, to hear the speeches ... it would have felt like someone was cutting my heart out with my plastic luncheon knife while beating me over the head with a buffet pan.

This was the first work shower since then. Three babies this time. I forced myself to go.

I did manage to make it through the presentation of the gifts, but that was partly because the setup in the room wouldn't have allowed me to duck out without being noticed. When heartwarming speech by our manager began -- all about happy families and how wonderful this was for the expectant parents and how their lives would change in such a wonderful way -- all I could feel was my same old pain. Each expectant parent (two moms-to-be and a dad-to be, and for two of them it was their first) got to say a few words. The rest of us were sitting in chairs like an audience. God, how I wanted to escape. Only a few people at work know that I'm pregnant, and not all of them were in the room. Once again, I felt isolated and alone.

One of the moms-to-be said, jokingly, "Well, you all know how we got here!"

I think if they throw me a work shower, I'm going to say, "Let me tell you how the fuck I got here. Pull up a chair. Set a spell. I got me one arduous journey to tell y'all about." I can't wait to present posterboard graphics of just how they do egg retrievals and see the chewed up cake glistening in everyone's gaping mouths.

...

Okay, that was a little bitter. It wasn't really supposed to be. But sometimes I want credit for how much shit it took to get here. I want people to know how much I don't take this for granted. I want to show just how unbelievably special this baby is to us, and how much it's a possibility that it's the only one we'll ever have.

But I did survive today. And I'm perfectly happy for the parents-to-be. They're all very nice people and I'm sure they'll love their babies to pieces.

And I was happy that I made myself go, even if I couldn't manage to stay for the cake after the presentation. I still felt baby-shower pain, even though there's no need to. I hate that that residual is still hanging around, though in talking to other infertile pg'ers, I know I'm not the only one who has felt this way. In the meantime, I'm going to try to keep taking baby steps toward handling other people's pregnancies without pain.

Sweet Little Moments Take Away a Little Fear

2005-02-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

My neighbor came over a couple nights ago, and it was so nice. She and her husband moved in across the street about two years ago, and it's been great. We're all the same age, married about the same amount of time, and T. and I are both runners. We run about the same pace and mileage. And they're so nice. Until this past summer when they were traveling a lot, we had a standing 6 a.m. date in the middle of the street on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we would run a 3.1 mile loop.

Now, this fall had been misery for Mike and me. We had just had Blue put to sleep after spending most of the summer treating her cancer with surgery and chemotherapy, not to mention heartbreaking force-feeding and medicating at home. And all this was done to a cat who was more scared of people than any other cat I'd ever met. Meanwhile, our second in vitro had failed and we were "taking a break" before doing a third. Mike was finishing the first draft of his book to turn in to the publisher, so he wasn't sleeping much. And we were getting ready for my brother's and his sister's weddings (October and November, respectively).

A week before Thanksgiving, T. came over to tell me that she’s pregnant. At that time, she was 11-1/2 weeks. She had been debating how to tell me because she knew it would be difficult for me. And she was so sweet about telling me, and of course as I was telling her I was happy for her, I was sobbing. I felt terrible. But she was gracious. Of course, she had seen my tears for a long time as I talked about other pregnant women in my life. When she left she said she hoped I wouldn’t keep crying and I said I probably would and that it was okay. And I did. Great, heaving sobs. Sobs of pity for myself. Sobs of sadness at losing my running partner. I was sure with her life changing, she wouldn’t have time to run with me after her baby was born.

That weekend was Mike’s sister’s wedding, and then Thanksgiving the next week. The week after that we had egg retrieval and embryo transfer, and I felt physically crappy for a while. Suddenly, it was almost Christmas. Time had gotten away from me and I hadn’t called her. I was busy with the Christmas season and mired in despair over what I was sure would be our final, devastating, end-of-TTC BFN.

The, the miracle happened, and we were pregnant.

And I procrastinated about telling T. I don’t know why. The only real reason I could think of was that because I hadn’t talked to her since she told me (and that’s partially because it’s cold and dark and all of us neighbors go inside to hibernate and don’t see each other for weeks, though I could have easily called her), I was afraid she’d think the only reason I was talking to her now was because I could handle it because I was pregnant, too. I was afraid she’d think I wouldn’t talk to her otherwise. I dropped off Christmas cookies and chatted with her for a while, but chickened out about telling her. I kicked myself for not calling her before our beta, because I really was wondering how she was doing.

At seven weeks, I finally built up the courage to go tell her, and then I gushed on and on about just what I said in the paragraph above. And she was happy for me and told me that of course I should have come to tell her before and she wouldn’t have thought anything of it.

Two nights ago, we were talking on the phone. (Do I need to repeat that we live right across the street from each other? My excuse is that it’s frickin’ dark outside right after work at this time of year. It’s also bitter cold.) Her husband needed to make a quick phone call, so she asked if she could call me back. Then, a couple minutes later, she knocked on the door. She laughed saying it was silly to not just come over.

And we talked. Just for a little while. But we talked about babies and how we were feeling. I inspected her 23-week belly (with me now at 11-1/2 weeks, just where she was when she told me about her pregnancy). I showed her the most recent ultrasound picture, which is proudly posted on the refrigerator. (We’ve had everyone else’s kids up there for so long that we even put our microscopic embryo photos up there after our embryo transfers. It was about time we had our own kids on the refrigerator.) We talked about symptoms, and how it will hurt to have the babies come out. I talked about my fears for the next OB appointment, which will be just on the bubble of entering the second trimester. She talked about her fears early on.

We talked. About babies and pregnancy. And I got to participate in a current, relevant conversation. I couldn’t believe how nice it felt. Even pregnant, I normally still feel skittish when I hear about other people’s first pregnancies and babies. My knee-jerk reactions when I hear that someone is pregnant are still self pity and jealousy. It takes me a few moments to realize that I am, too. Maybe when I’m farther along and a little more confident, that self pity reaction will stop. As for the jealousy? It’ll depend on how easy it was for the person in question to conceive, I suppose. I hope that that feeling will soften as well. But I felt none of that the other night when I was talking to T. And it was the biggest relief yet.

Oxytocin, Estrogen, and Dopamine, Oh My!

2005-02-08T17:23:00.000-08:00

I read this article about how a loving bond is created between parents and their baby. I was fascinated. Here I thought it was a simple matter of understanding the miracle a husband and wife created together and the culmination of months (or years) of anticipation. After so much excitement, decorating, and receiving congratulations, not to mention feeling and seeing the baby move, knowing you were bringing a new member of the family into the world (they do make the careful, sensitive disclaimer that adoptive parents experience the same hormonal changes), it seems only natural that you would fall in love.

But apparently, it's far more clinical than that. And I'm trying to imagine the couples who volunteered for this study. See the husband who has been dutifully coaching his wife through labor, feeding her ice chips, holding up a foot and counting to her. His baby comes out and he cuts the umbilical cord. His wife is crying. He's crying. What a miracle! But wait!

"Excuse me, sir. Before you hold your baby -- that little bundle of joy you've been anticipating, that miracle you've prayed for, that tangible, pure outcome of the love you have shared with your beautiful soul mate -- could you come sit in this chair and stick your arm out for us? We need to draw the blood you agreed to give us so we can check your estrogen levels."

"Um, ma'am? I know you're in a lot of pain right now and they're trying to wrestle that placenta out of you ... Whoa! Here it comes! Wow! That's slimy! ... I know you're poked full of needles right now and you're trying to nurse that precious angel, but could I just get a little blood? Are you feeling the effects of the dopamine yet?"

Truly, I was fascinated by the article, because I'm a giant geek, and I read the whole thing saying things like, "Wow!" and "Oh my gosh! That's amazing!" Then it struck me as fitting for us that our immediate infatuation with our newborn (who apparently will be an ugly hellion and we'll be the only ones who don't see it) will be incredibly scientific, since the conception was certainly just about as scientific as it gets.

My Militant Friend Michelle

Michelle is apologizing for her commando approach to making me enjoy my pregnancy. It's okay. I appreciate that you are enthusiastic for me when I'm not capable of it yet. But if I hit the six-month mark to find you waiting in my driveway as I left for work, I'd probably run you over and flee any jinxy shopping expedition.

By the way, you act as if we didn't chatter nonstop for four hours and have a good time!

A Weighty Matter

I've read so many guidelines about weight gain in pregnancy. The first trimester is the problem. Everyone seems to agree after that. I've read that it's normal to gain two to four pounds in the first trimester. I've read five to six pounds. I've also read it's normal to gain six to 11 pounds.

What the hell kind of range difference is that? I mean, it's not like the difference between 102 and 111 pounds. Anywhere from two to 11 pounds? Which the fuck is it? I'm almost out of the first trimester (I hope and pray) and I still haven't figured it out! It's, um, kind of an important difference!

(The majority of figures I've found have been in the four to six pound range.)

And, as anyone could guess, it's a big enough difference to send me into a tailspin of worry over what I should or shouldn't be doing or eating.

About three weeks ago, I was already at five pounds, and I was panicked. I was sure I was on the path to gestational diabetes and an unhealthy baby, not to mention record-setting stretch marks. With another month to go, what would the end-of-trimester total be? And what if I then went on to gain more than the prescribed pound per week for the next two trimesters?

Three weeks later, I've stabilized at the same five pounds. I decided it was okay. I relaxed. Whew! Okay. No gestational diabetes. I've figured out how to eat. (I need a frickin' slide rule to follow the "Pregnancy Nutrition Plan" I received from my doctor's office, which I refer to as I'm eating breakfast and packing my lunch and snacks for the day, while trying to think ahead for dinner as well.)

But then I smugly told a friend that I have stabilized at the five pounds the other day. Suddenly, I was gripped with a new panic. Why have I stopped gaining weight? Is something wrong? Am I starving my baby? What am I doing wrong?

In reality, it's probably because I'm off the holiday eating cycle and I'm exercising a little more. At first, I was afraid to move. And I hadn't exercised much in December because of the IVF cycle (which was also harder on me physically than the first two IVF cycles) and the holidays. So now I'm feeling better, exercising a little more, and the Christmas cookies have all been eaten. It makes sense that my weight is stabilizing.

Or does it? What if I get to my next appointment in a couple weeks and I haven't gained any weight? My last appointment was about the time my weight stabilized. Will they yell at me? I'll have to protest that I have indeed gained five pounds, that it's just that it was before my last appointment.

I could go on for hours, but right now I'm not sure which scares me more: gaining too much or not gaining enough.

Help?

Where Do We Go from Here?

2005-02-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

I'm back after a bit of a hiatus. It wasn't really intentional. I just wasn't sure what to say. I wasn't sure where to go with this blog. For that matter, I'm still not sure.

I started it as an outlet during the most stressful time of IVF#3. I also thought it would be a general blog, about my running, my hubby, my kitties, and my infertility. Of course, IF was the focus of my life at that moment, and it became an IF blog.

However, after two and a half agonizing years, just when I started my blog, I got pregnant. Now I'm at a crossroads. I'm aware that there's some bad blood going on out there in the form of non-pregnant IFers vs. pregnant IFers. I don't understand it, really. And it kind of makes me angry, because throughout my entire time crying over infertility, I wanted to sink into the floor and die when I'd hear about someone else's pregnancy, and I even felt bitterly jealous. But I never felt like the pregnant person shouldn't be able to talk about their pregnancy, especially if they had been infertile or had had miscarriages. It was agonizing for me to listen to, but I would have felt horribly, miserably guilty if they felt they had to censor themselves. After all, it was their day, and as painful for me to endure as it was, I didn't feel good if I felt their happiness had to be curbed on my account. As it was some people I know did censor themselves. It was obvious. And as much as I appreciated their concern for my feelings, I felt guilty about it. So after being considerate to pregnant infertiles, the payback for getting pregnant is to be on the receiving end of hostility? How will the currently hostile people feel when they get pregnant and are immediately ousted from the club? This isn't a contest. What happened to good old support for each other? I figure we're all like a bunch of invalids limping each other through this crap. But some of the invalids are kicking others in the shins for having had a slight improvement in their limps.

Now, I haven' t personally received any of this backlash, but I've been reading about it in the blogosphere and I'm confused by the venom that seems to be going on. Yes, I'm pregnant now. 11 weeks tomorrow. But I sure as hell identify more with the infertiles than the pregnant fertiles out there. I'm unable to plan for the future, I get upset with my friends when they presume to talk about nursery paint or baby showers for me. I'm not capable of taking this baby (and I even have trouble calling it "the baby" because that presumes so much) for granted. And yet apparently as a member of the pregnant infertiles I am being or am about to be shunned by my infertile sisters, a population with which I have bonded for two and a half years, a group of which I was a "member" until two months ago. I still feel like one of them. I AM still one of them. And after this baby is born, if, God willing, it is, I will STILL know the pain I've been through.

Anyway, it's kind of like how I still feel like I should be in high school or college. I feel like I can identify with that group. (I'm 34 years old.) Last fall I participated in my college alma mater's first annual (disclaimer: I hate the phrase "first annual") cross country team's alumni race. It was the alumni against the current team roster. (The young whippersnappers kicked our asses, for the record.) I thought I would feel just a little older than them. I couldn't believe it when I got there. Who were these children? When I was running college cross country, we looked like adults, I could swear it. I felt like I could babysit this group! (I then did the math and realized that the freshman class was born the year I got my driver's license.) But to them, I would never belong. They were so nice to us "experienced" runners, quite welcoming and we had a great time. But I wasn't one of them.

But I still felt like I should be. (Have I really not grown up at all in 12 years?) Is that how it is now with the IF crowd? I mean, out of two and a half years, I'm only 11 weeks out of being completely and totally barren into being fragile-ly pregnant with a pregnancy that I don't even trust yet. As far as my psyche is concerned, this dream won't last and I'll wake up one morning right back at square one.

I'm certainly not ready to turn this into a happy-go-lucky pregnancy blog, and it never will be, because my IF journey has shaped and changed me, and I doubt I could just smile and turn my back on what we have been through. I wouldn't want to, because the struggle has given texture to our marriage by showing us what we can weather together while remaining strong, and it certainly will shape my appreciation and love for our baby (again, God willing...). But it makes me sad that I apparently don't fit in to a place I was welcomed just a couple months ago. (I sure as hell don't fit in with the pregnant-at-the-drop-of-the-hat crowd.) Perhaps that's where this blog will go: toward not fitting in.

I still need to fret, but I'm sure I'll evolve into happy pregnancy talk, too. And I hope I'll be sensitve about the happy times as others were to me. And I hope that out there in the blogosphere, more of that senstivity will go around.

2005-02-01T16:34:00.000-08:00

People wonder why pregnant IF'ers and m/c'ers can't seem to relax and enjoy their pregnancies. Surely, it would be so much more enjoyable if we did. If something is going to go wrong, it will go wrong either way, so shouldn't we enjoy the time while we have it?

They just don't get it. I see what's happening to JenP right now and it's so clear to me why we can't relax. It's because just when we do, we get the shit kicked out of us by the universe all over again.

For someone who has had previous miscarriages (which I have not, but someone very close to me had two before having her baby and I was privy to the journey as she suffered it), the fear of yet another loss has to be overwhelming. These women have to clench their teeth until a point that is long past the point of their previous miscarriages, hence, the often-described painting of the nursery in the eighth month of pregnancy.

For someone like me who can barely fertilize a flower let alone a human egg cell, without ever having a BFP in (usually) years of trying (usually with years of high-tech treatment), a finally-achieved pregnancy seems unreal and hopelessly fragile. It's impossible to even dare to think you'll bring home a baby after so much has gone wrong for so long. After all, so many instances of hope ended in just another failed fertility treatment.

In the meantime, through all our pain, we've been conditioned to feel grief and hopelessness. It's burned into our synapses. How on earth can we possibly just turn off those emotions and stare down the fear defiantly? JenP has done everything you'd expect: she's been nervous, all the while falling in love with her baby in increasing amounts with each new development and each new scan. She waited a very understandable and cautious period of time to share the news with friends and family, and had enough positive tests and scans to have hope. And now they're being punished for such brazen confidence, with fear of another loss. Bitch-slapped by the universe. (Let me pause here to utter another prayer that all will be fine.)

In my case, and I'm pretty sure in the case of so many other women I've talked to, infertility didn't destroy my entire life. I am crazy in love with my husband, have a great family, friends who are angels, a wonderful little home by a park, a healthy life, and an adorable kitty cat (minus one other adorable kitty cat who died of cancer last Labor Day, but I want to give her credit for adding 10 years of happiness to my life). But IF is a big chunk of what's gone on in my life in the past couple of years. It's been painful and hopeless. Suddenly, I find myself pregnant with a third IVF attempt. One embryo of the three picture perfect ones implanted found a way to live. How fragile it must be if the other two perfect embryos didn't even make it! It frightens me to think about how fragile this life could be. And that's why it's impossible to just turn that frown upside down and bubble with excitement while heading straight out to the baby registry at 10 weeks's gestation. I just pray I get to the point of a baby registry at all.

Life's Little Monumental Moments

2005-01-29T08:22:00.000-08:00

My psyche heaved a huge sigh of relief on Thursday.

Before we left for the u/s, Mike asked me if I was nervous. I was. Petrified, actually. He, on the other hand, was okay. If the u/s turned out badly, he said, he would be sad.

So I sat on the table shivering in my gown, partly because I was nervous and partly because the room was so cold. My OB walked in the room so happy for us. (It sounds so strange to call her my OB because she's been my gynecologist for several years and I never got to take advantage of the whole other aspect of her profession.) She did our initial IF testing and then referred us to the fertility specialists, and she did my laparoscopy last year and said she'd say a little prayer for us.

It was so sweet to see her so happy for us. Then I started blathering on about how nervous I was, especially about my lack of nausea and vomiting. She, of course, said it was fine, as so many other people have told me. Logically, I know this, but I was still searching for the Holy Grail of pregnancy. She seemed perfectly satisfied with my debilitating fatigue, sore breasts, and urination rate that seems to defy the limits of biological possibility.

Then it came time for the ultrasound, and I started getting scared. I was also looking for something slightly more advanced than what we saw three weeks earlier: a tiny white blur with a flickering pixel of a heartbeat. Mike stood up behind the doctor to watch the monitor. She inserted the dildocam.

At first, she seemed to be looking around, and that made me nervous. I thought there was nothing in there. In reality, her searching probably lasted all of five seconds, but it was an eternity of suspense and agony from my perspective in the stirrups. Suddenly, there was a huge dark area, which I vaguely computed must be the sac. Mike and/or I were talking about ... who knows ... something having to do with being nervous that whatever we saw three weeks ago would be gone now. Then it popped onto the screen and the doctor froze the camera movement instantly.

To me, it was a moment that will suspend there forever. I saw it. But I couldn't believe it was there.

Mike and I both exclaimed, "Oh my GOSH!!!" at the same time, probably interrupting our own babble. Then, nothing. I knew what it was. It was huge and baby-shaped. And yet I couldn't say anything else because I needed the doctor to confirm that I was actually looking at a baby and not at a deceptively shaped embryonic remnant or uterine anomaly of some kind. It didn't matter how unmistakable the shape was. I needed her to say it.

It looked nothing like the previous ultrasound. For one thing, this baby could've kicked that other baby's ass. Side by side on the refrigerator now, it could be a comparison between Godzilla and an unsuspecting citizen of Tokyo. I knew I was seeing the heartbeat but I was too afraid to state rather than ask, in case I was wrong. Of course, it was. She told us the heart rate, and I can't believe I have forgotten. For some reason, it seems like she said 120 to 150 beats per minute, but that seems like a huge range. Whatever it was, she said it was normal.

I couldn't get enough of that screen. She held the camera there while we inspected the upside-down human. She showed us a front view, complete with two arm buds and two leg buds. She turned it to the side view again. I couldn't believe it when I saw a foot move! I thought I imagined it. I gasped. She gasped.

I didn't hear Mike gasp.

I forgot to be scared to ask rather than tell the doctor about the foot moving. I said, "Oh my gosh! It moved its foot! Did you see that, honey??????"

I turned my head. He looked at me and said ...

"Huh?"

I have to let him go on record here as saying that he just looked away for a second. He's afraid he'll look like the uninvolved-husband type. He glanced at the collage on the wall of baby photos sent by grateful parents. Just for a second. I told him his protest would be duly noted.

Thankfully, as we looked on again, we saw a hand twitch and he did see that. So he got to see it move once, anyway. As long as he's not reading Star Wars Insider magazine when the doctors pulls the baby out in August, I'm okay with his momentary lapse that at least involved baby-related activities. I just wanted to be sure that he saw it move, just in case we'd meet disaster later and this is the last view we'd ever have of our baby.

I am happy to report that I am no longer paranoid about not throwing up, and I'm even a little grateful about it. It probably helps that this week has seen the most fatigue I've had for the entire pregnancy. I've struggled to make it through almost every day at work. Yesterday, I turned down a celebratory date with Mike because all I wanted to do was come home from work and sleep on the couch until it was time to go to bed. (After I ate leftover pizza, I slept for three hours. Hence, the lack of a full blog report last night. Then, of course, I had trouble falling asleep at bedtime, but all in all, I finally got plenty of rest.) I'm also producing more pee than seems medically possible based on my fluid intake. My non-puking symptoms are helping to reassure me.

I'm even less paranoid about impending doom. When I got to work after the appointment Thursday, one of my friends -- who is very enthusiastic about this pregnancy because she has supported me through two and a half years of infertility treatments and was heartbroken right along with us the whole way -- asked me, "So how long are we allowed to be excited about this before you start getting paranoid again? Please tell me at least a day." The poor thing is eager to talk about baby stuff and shower stuff and nursery stuff and I haven't let her do it too much because of my jinx fears. Thankfully, two days later, I'm still pretty happy and not paranoid yet. I still have trouble saying "pregnant" and "the baby" but I mostly feel that "the baby" will actually be born this summer. At this rate, when (I'm fighting the urge to say "if") we get out of the first trimester, I might even get close to being optimistically excited. I'm sure the nice heartbeat and actual limb movement play a huge role in helping to reassure me. If it is moving its limbs, that has to be a good sign ... right?

Full report to come later ...

2005-01-27T15:08:00.000-08:00

Quick u/s report: Heartbeat was 120-150? I think that's what she said. Whatever it was, she said it's normal. And there was twitching of an arm and a leg at one point. :)

YAY! I'll be optimistic for like a whole day on this one!

We have family coming over for dinner and a movie shortly, so I'm not sure if I'll get the full report in tonight or tomorrow.

Hoping for the Best, Fearing for the Worst

2005-01-26T17:53:00.000-08:00

Why is it that everyone feels free to take so many liberties with optimism surrounding our pregnancy? My optimism after seeing the heartbeat only lasted for about a day. Then, all I could think was, “I knew the heart was beating two days ago.” (Or a week, or two weeks.) Tomorrow is our first appointment with the OB, and we’ll have another ultrasound. I am utterly terrified. What if it’s already over and I don’t know it yet?

I have no reason to think it will be bad news. I may not be throwing up, but still pee constantly, I’m so exhausted that I can barely get through the day, I’m woefully constipated, and my boobs are still sore. You’d think those would be symptoms enough for my satisfaction. But no, I don’t have just the right symptoms to keep this worrywart happy.

But I also haven’t found enough confidence to assume that this will all turn out right. We’ve never had such a streak of luck in our two and a half years of infertility. We’ve never been pregnant once, and we’ve never known why. With IVF #2, I started my period on the day of my beta. I found out the next day that my HCG was 18. Something had implanted and then not grown. To have a positive test and make it 9 weeks? It just seems like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Our luck has to run out sometime, right?

But somehow, everyone around me is just sure that we’re going to have a baby. And they feel that everything will be fine as long as I think positive. I understand that they’re trying to be encouraging, but I defy anyone who has been through infertility to just simply “think positive” once they get that elusive BFP. It’s a well-intentioned but grossly oversimplified suggestion. The scared thinking is the product of so much failure and pain and the paralyzing fear of relaxing and assuming the pregnancy will progress normally to the birth. It’s too terrifying to tempt fate by assuming it will give me a baby.

I have people talking about baby showers (as if I deserve one after I had so much trouble just letting go and being nothing but happy for other people’s babies despite my own pain and yearning for what they have), people planning for my entrance into the second trimester (which is still a month away and I’m still petrified about whether things are okay in there right now, let alone a month from now), and people asking what hospital we’re going to (which is just too smugly confident for me to assume I’ll be going there in late August).

I feel blessed to have family and friends who love me and who are so excited for us after they supported us through such pain. But where they have moved straight on to excitedly waiting for our baby to arrive in August, we haven’t been so able to easily leap to the next step. When it comes down to it, our turmoil has been uniquely ours, and no matter how much they supported us, they couldn’t experience it with us. So now, for us, it’s impossible to switch one emotion off and switch another one on. I’m sure that if this pregnancy stays healthy and continues, it’ll become easier as my belly gets bigger, we feel kicks, and there’s more to believe in. But this is so new and so fragile that I can’t risk tempting fate with too much confidence. I’m just trying to get through the ultrasound tomorrow.

Gotta Light?

2005-01-26T17:11:00.000-08:00

It’s that time of year again. The other morning on the bus, I felt like I was trapped in a rolling tuberculosis ward. All around me, like random popping of popcorn, was a point-and-counterpoint chorus of coughs, hacks, and wheezes. I wanted to stand up and scream, “GO THE HELL HOME!!!” For one thing, I want as few risks as possible with this pregnancy, since it may be our only opportunity ever. For another thing, I don’t want to be stuck being sick without much to choose from for medication. And for a third thing, it was just really fucking annoying to me how many people just don’t care of they spread whatever plague they have contracted with the rest of town. PREGNANT OR NOT, I DON’T WANT YOUR BRONCHITIS! Besides, I’m completely wiped out lately, and I use my morning bus commute to get a little more sleep, and how can I do that when I’m started awake every three and a half to five seconds?

Let’s add to that another segment of the bus (make that “bus stop” for this partcular gripe) that has been driving me crazy lately. Let me start by saying I don’t mean to offend the part of the smoking population who is considerate enough not to blow their smoke on everyone around them. But lately, now that it’s colder (does the smoke make you warmer?), more and more smokers seem to find ME to light up next to at the bus stop.

I want it on record that I haven’t suddenly turned into this I’m-pregnant-and-therefore-my-body-is-a-sacred-vessel kind of person. This has always, always bothered, me. Now it’s just a little extra because I feel responsible for what another person – who is trying to come to live in this world – is exposed to. In general, though, I’m annoyed because as a runner, I am a rabid fanatic of my lungs and I do whatever I have to do keep them in the best health possible.

Last week at the bus stop after work, in a huge area where lots of people wait for the bus and where only a few people were standing at the time, a woman marched right up next to me, set up camp, lit up, and started puffing away with me about five feet downwind. Like I said, even when I’m not pregnant the smoke bothers me and makes me physically gag. I don’t appreciate being forced to breathe something that shouldn’t be in my body. (Some days, I can’t walk down the sidewalk in the open air without being suffocated by smoke.) In this instance, I had to walk away to another part of the bus stop, and by the time I got to a smoke-free area (they seem to spread themselves out so there is no smoke-free area, usually), I was standing at the windiest, coldest winter Cleveland corner of the block. There was no where else to go.

This reminds me of a friend of mine who was hugely pregnant (with a baby due on January 2). She was at the bus stop near her house trying to come to work, at one of those enclosed booth bus stops. She was very obviously very pregnant and had clearly trudged through the snow to get to the stop. A middle aged man came into the booth and lit a cigarette. My friend ended up moving outside to stand in the snow and wind, unable to sit down in the booth, so this man could smoke in the relative comfort.

I want to say again that I don’t want to offend the considerate smokers. (And I understand that once you get started, smoking can be a powerful addiction.) But there is a segment of the population that gives you a bad name. Like the group of ladies at the bus stop who smoke while talking to each other, and as they get ready to blow out the smoke, they turn their heads away from their smoking friends and blow it on the rest of us standing there outside their group. (Heavens! They wouldn’t want their own smoke to hang around, would they?) There are inconsiderate people all over, with all kinds of annoyances, but a few particular bus stop smokers have really gotten my goat lately, so that’s tonight’s rant. Like I said, I have always been very protective of my body and my lungs (besides the fact that I don’t want to come home smelling like a habit that I don’t even have), but I’m becoming more keenly aware of the situation now.

Pass the Embryos, Please

2005-01-24T17:34:00.000-08:00

This is the dream I had shortly before ultrasound #1. What's important to know about u/s #1 was that I had an overwhelming obsession with seeing the heartbeat. Nothing less was going to make me happy, not even a scenario where we didn't see it and the doctor would reassure me that it could just be too early (since u/s #1 was at 6 weeks 1 day).

In my dream, I was at the fertility clinic, but I was in some sort of small employee lounge/lunchroom area. There was a round lunch table and the basic things you'd find in an employee lounge: refrigerator, counter, sink, rack of small bottles holding all the patients' embryos ...

I was exploring these bottles, and when I figured out what they were, I realized that none of them were labeled. But I guess if the fertility clinic people knew whose was whose, that was good enough for me.

I looked at the round table and saw that the perimeter of the table top was lined with more patients' embryos. Some of them were in little bottles and some of them were just sitting out loose. They looked like little bubbles (as if the embryos were in their gestational sacs) and they squirmed slowly like a sluggish inchworm. Actually, it moved more like a tapeworm segment, for those of you who have had a pet with a tapeworm and have found fresh bits around. (This dream is getting sicker and sicker.)

I found my embryo on the table (and it was not in a bottle). The bubble was mostly cloudy, but there were some spots where I could see through the clouds. I looked inside and saw our embryo with its little microscopic heart beating away. (Yes, I am aware that this is not how it works!) I was so excited! (In fact, when I woke up, I was thrilled, until I realized that it had been a dream and that it definitely does not work that way.)

Along about this time, I decided I was hungry for pizza. I started kneading dough. On the table. I was just finishing kneading the dough when I realized that many of the embryos were missing from the table. I saw some small things squirming in the dough. What was I going to do? I could pick them out of the dough and put them back on the table before anyone was the wiser. But I knew I wouldn't be able to find them all. Now I couldn't even eat the pizza. I might get pregnant from someone else's embryos!!

But wait, I thought.

Not if I cook it.

*********************

Freud would have a field day with that dream, I'm sure!

For the record, before you all decide I'm unfit to be a parent before I even have a baby, I do have one disclaimer. Just before I had this dream, my sister-in-law (who has a six-month-old baby and therefore has pregnancy in her recent memory) and I were talking about what foods you're supposed to avoid. I had heard about deli meat and soft cheeses because of little bacterial bugger contamination. Bleu cheese, no problem (YUCK). But feta? DH and I love sprinkling a little feta on our homemade pita pizzas! I then asked if it's okay to eat feta if you've (you've guessed it) ... cooked it.

Whew! I'm not a carnivore!!!

(By the way, if anyone can answer that question about cooking feta cheese, I'd love to know.)

Unfortunately, I can't finish the bitching I had planned on doing because it's almost time for 24. More to come tomorrow, at which time I'll add a bit about how I hate coughing bus people.

!@#$%^&*()!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-01-23T19:01:00.000-08:00

I just spend half an hour typing a post and Blogger took a shit when I tried to publish it! I couldn't even open anyone else's blog for a few minutes after that. I say again:

!#$%^&*()!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seeing as it's now almost past my bedtime, I'm not going to do this again tonight. Stand by tomorrow for:

Laurie's obsession with pregnancy failure.
Laurie's preparations to be irritated with her co-workers who have no idea she's pregnant and will expect her to be normal this week in anticipation of her ultrasound that they don't know about.
And, finally, Laurie's sick, freakish dream about embryos and pizza.

Meanwhile, I'm going to go to bed swearing about everything I typed and how it won't sound as good the second time around.

GGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Disclaimer

2005-01-19T15:46:00.000-08:00

By the way, I'm not so me-me-MEEEEE oriented that I want to grace everyone with so many pictures of me. I'm just still working around the technicalities of this whole picture thing and putting pictures in my profile, and I was getting a tad frustrated, so I put our picture in the blog itself and used that URL to put it in my profile. Believe me, I'm not that enthralled with myself!

2005-01-17T17:55:00.000-08:00

November 2004

Finally!

2005-01-16T18:41:00.000-08:00

What you see below was my first successful attempt at getting a photo into my freakin' blog! If you ask me, all this Hello Picasa Blogger asshole stuff isn't all that user friendly!

2005-01-16T18:40:00.000-08:00

What a difference in the third IVF embryos! Yay for co-culture!

Symptoms and the Lack Thereof

2005-01-16T16:41:00.000-08:00

7 weeks 5 days.

I can't believe how much I pee. Where is it all coming from, and why have I not yet desiccated to a mummy-like state? (And why is desiccate spelled with two C's?)

I have kept clinging desperately to hope that something is going on there in my belly. I still don't have morning sickness to reassure me. A friend of mine said I don't want it and that she wouldn't wish it on her worst enemy. I appreciate her concern for my well-being and love her to pieces for it. I'm not asking to hurl my guts out every 20 minutes. But I wouldn't mind a touch of tummy blahs a couple times a day to prove to me that my hormones levels are still climbing and my little bookworm is still growing and developing.

In the absence of the most classic and stereotypical pregnancy symptom, I now cling to counting the number of times I visit the bathroom each day and rejoice when I produce a lot just an hour or two after the last visit. I poke and prod my boobs constantly to make sure they're still sore (I have talked to some women who said theirs hurt horribly, yet mine are just mildly sore) and I get excited when I get a slight dizzy spell (which is actually happening less than it did at first).

I did have a couple of bouts of nausea yesterday and I got excited. But today, nothing. The nausea came in day 2 of my migraine. But I won't chalk it up to that because I never get nauseated with a migraine. I just get your stereotypical one-side of the head, skull-crushing, brain-pounding headaches, with a light sensitivity that feels like someone is stabbing through the eye on the offending side with an ice pick, straight into my brain. Make that a railroad spike. Sometimes it feels like it's stabbing right through and out the back of my skull.

The migraine took so long to get rid of because, of course, I was fighting it with Tylenol, the one drug I know is okay. In every single two week wait for the past two-and-a-half years, I have taken only Tylenol, just in case. But since my typical migraines strike just before or with the beginning of my period, and when my period starts, I feel free to obliterate the hell out of my headache with lots of ibuprofen. This was my first since we started the IVF cycle. In the middle of the night on Friday when I woke up with my head still throbbing (I had tried to go to bed and sleep it off first), all alone because my husband is out of town, whimpering, staggering, grasping in the dark for drugs, I caved in and took Tylenol. It did nothing. I took another one when I got up in the morning, and over the course of the day yesterday it hit a bearable level. This morning, there was still a slight edginess to my skull, and this evening, it finally feels better. The nausea is gone, as well.

I think the migraine, while ruining half of my weekend, did make me feel a little better about lacking morning sickness. It occurred to me that maybe the reason I don't have any morning sickness is just luck, since I'm lucky enough to be one of the less than half of migraine sufferers who don't actually have nausea and vomiting. Also, I have now been told that my mom never got sick when she was pregnant. I also have no problem with motion sickness (I actually thrill at the stomach lurches on hilly roads and aggressive roller coasters) and was never nauseated by any of my fertility medications or birth control pills. So I suppose that I should just consider myself lucky until proven otherwise (the next opportunity to be proven otherwise will be on January 27th, my first OB appointment, when I'm told there will be an ultrasound).

We'll see how long my new positive (translate: appreciativeness of my quiet tummy) will last. For the moment, I'm not panicked about not feeling sick. But I'm still waiting for it any minute. And I'm going to keep looking for it. Somehow nothing else seems to be able to satisfy me 100 precent that things are actually going on in there. And January 27 is never going to get here.

2005-01-12T19:29:00.000-08:00

The computer died a Great Big Death last Saturday morning.

My brother-in-law worked his magic and it's feeling better. Whew!

I hope to be back online soon to share my goings-on, to include a dream I had about embryos and pizza dough.

Our Little Bookworm

2005-01-05T17:38:00.000-08:00

We have heartbeat!

With the transfer of the three best, most handsome, and most multiplyin' embryos of all our IVF's, we have one baby. With one flickering heartbeat. It was not waving and holding a sign as I hoped, but we can work on that.

I'm the most relaxed about this pregnancy than I've been since I heard, "You're pregnant!" from the nurse. I'm sure my quiet confidence is good for at least four days or so, at least, in between my occasional fits of bizarre worries. (She said the heartbeat looked strong. But I couldn't tell. I could barely see it. Therefore, because I couldn't see it, it must not be as strong as she said, even though it is her job to read those things all the time. Surely my inexperience trumps her well-practiced opinion!)

After two and a half years and 32 cycles, I expected the moment to be emotional, with violins in the background. The music would hesitate expectantly, sweetly foretelling good news, as the dildocam was inserted. A pause, then a swelling interlude as the tiny heart flickered on the screen, the doctor smiled, and I brushed a tear with one hand, while the other tightly squeezed Mike's hand. We would be warmly congratulated as Mike and I embraced and exchanged a sweet kiss ...

In actuality, I was nervous (though I was holding Mike's hand). She had to remove the dildocam and start over. Something about an air pocket. All she knew was that there was a sack. She reinserted the condom-on-a-stick and still had a little trouble seeing. I saw whiteness, a dark area (which I presumed was the sac), and some whiteness. She said, "There's your baby." (There those people go throwing words around again. Don't they know how risky it is?) "And there's the heartbeat." It was a strong heartbeat.

I could cue the music here but there's no point. All I did was squint, squint some more, and say, "Where?" I think the conversation also included my saying, "I can't see a damn thing!"

Eventually, I did see the heartbeat, and I wished she'd keep the camera there forever. I couldn't get enough of it. Then it was gone and we were being congratulated and told to go to the waiting room to wait to talk to the nurse. Mike did kiss me, so that part came true.

After our meeting with the nurse, we just ... left. It was our last appointment with the fertility clinic. After almost two years there, it seemed so anticlimactic. These people know me when I walk in the door. I feel like I'm walking into Cheers. I suppose that's not a good thing because it means we were there too long for their liking. It was so strange to just walk out the door. I waved and said goodbye to the people I saw as we walked out, but it just felt like any other day I leave the clinic. This time, however, it seemed like we should've worn graduation caps and been chased out with confetti and cheers, a jackpot bell ringing in the background. God willing, this baby will be born, and I won't see these people who took such good care of us until we're ready to try for another baby. I'm free to erase their phone number from my memory. I was shocked today when I had to look up my regular obgyn's phone number. That was the one I used to have memorized.

Before we left, in that ultrasound room, we named the baby-that-might-actually-be-born "Our Little Bookworm." I see a lot of reference to peanuts and beans, but I wanted to be a little more personal. Besides, it was so blurry I didn't even see a resemblance to a peanut or a bean, so I wouldn't know which to name it. Since Mike is a librarian, I have an English degree, and our house is practically a fire hazard with the amount of books we collectively brought into our marriage, "Bookworm" seemed like a fitting name.

And now I'm praying that this little bookworm's heart continues to beat. I want to see it flicker again at the next ultrasound. I want it to beat for the next 80 or 90 years. For the first time, I'm able to picture a tiny baby in my belly. I still can't picture an embryo when I look down there, but when I think about that flickering heart, I can see it in my mind and in my soul. And I relish keeping it warm and safe.

The Ass Bruises Might Finally Heal

The best other news of all today is that I'm switching from PIO shots to suppositories. My butt is so bruised at this point that I'm looking forward to the creamy mess and wearing a pad every day for the next six weeks. After four IUI's last year, I couldn't have imagined looking forward to those suppositories again. But bring on the mess. I'm looking forward to walking again!

Speaking of walking, I was told my ovaries have shrunk almost completely back to normal and that I'm allowed to do whatever exercise I can tolerate. Low-impact is best, of course, but since I'm used to running, they said it would be fine to continue. Of course, I've had time off since late November because of the IVF procedures, so I'm not sure how much of that I'll actually do, and I'll probably wait till I see my OBGYN (Wow! I guess I can just call her my OB now!) and clear it with her, too. Until then, I'll stick to the walking, elliptical, bike, yoga, weights ... but I might sneak some wogs (walk/jog) in there, too.

But tonight I'm tired. It's been a long day physically and mentally, and I'm ready for bed. I'm finding I feel it more the next day when I get to bed late. I suppose that's to be expected. I'm trying to build an entirely other person, so I should allow some self-pampering, too. Good night!

Marketing to Pregnant Women

2005-01-04T18:44:00.000-08:00

Just a little change in packaging could result in a product that would have pregnant women whisking them off the store shelves faster than you can say "overactive bladder."

The Peedometer.

It's perfect for pregnant women who want to know how many miles they cover daily just walking to and from the bathroom. If you live in a big office it could be enough to count as your exercise for the day.

I think I'm onto something here.

Longing for the Porcelain God

2005-01-03T16:20:00.000-08:00

I don't think I peed enough today.

Since I haven't come down with morning sickness yet, the only way I can continue to monitor this pregnancy each day (just saying the word scares me) is by how overactive my bladder is, how many times I imagine I'm lightheaded, and how much it hurts when I poke my boobs (yesterday a lot, today not so much). Today, I only felt lightheaded a couple times, still don't have nausea, and only peed once in the night (as compared to three times the night before).

I'm noticing a pattern in my confidence levels. After each blood test I've been elated, urged on by the praises being sung by the fertility clinic staff. Such a strong HCG level! Things are progressing nicely! And they say these things without having seen an ultrasound. So I need to be forgiven if my excitement wanes with each passing day until the next test. I won't rest easy -- or at least slightly easier -- until I see an ultrasound with a heartbeat. Even by saying that I might have jinxed things, assuming that fate will give us a heartbeat at all.

No, the HCG levels haven't been enough to sustain me. I want to see that flicker on the screen that I've heard about. I want to see our baby (AH! I've jinxed it again!) looking at us, waving with one hand and holding a sign that says, "Hi, Mom! C U in 9 months!" in the other.

And the more I think about it, the further January 5th stretches away from me. Einstein must have had a Theory of Maternativity for this:

BS=FU-D8.

Brain Speed = Fading Ultrasound Date.

I think I need to get a personalized license plate this year.

Wait. I can't joke about this. Joking implies lighthearted confidence. Lighthearted confidence paves the way to full-fledged confidence, which is just too arrogant to have at this point.

It doesn't help that Mike and I babysat our absolutely sweet and cute-as-a-button niece last weekend for the first time. She's just shy of six months old and I was hoping she would have a six-month-old wailing frenzy to exhaust me and quell any baby enthusiasm that might be bubbling up inside me (thereby stifling any seeds of arrogant confidence and possible jinxes). Unfortunately, she was absolutely perfect. She slept for half the time, woke up, ate happily from her bottle, and sat on our laps smiling and cooing and making adorable faces at Wallace and Gromit. She was even neat and tidy about pooping in her diaper, saving the big onesie-soaking poo until after her parents had returned home. So much for her help!

I find myself alternating every hour or so now between (a) remembering with a thrill that we really are pregnant and (b) being frightened of impending doom because I'm not feeling seasick. In the past 12 hours I've become absolutely petrified for Wednesday's ultrasound. I've never wanted to throw up so badly. Please, Internet, cross your fingers that I vomit soon!

Great Day for a Ru ... Walk.

2005-01-02T13:05:00.000-08:00

This is definitely going to take some adjustment. My Brooks Adrenaline GTS 5 were not made for walking, and I think they resented my misusing them this morning.

A week ago, our house was practically buried in heaps of that pre-Christmas snow that obliterated Ohio. DH had to drive me to the bus stop at the end of my street because there were absolutely no sidewalks, the road was snowy (and in the patches where the snow had been cleared away, icy), and we have no street lights. Our driveway was a tunnel from the garage to the street.

This morning, at 10:30, it was 56 degrees, cloudy, and humid. We went on a lovely 3-mile walk in the park next to our house (in my wonderful new running shoes that I discovered this year, which feel like they were grown to genetically match the every need of my feet). Problem was, my shoes could sense our surroundings and my feet were practially twitching. I felt like that girl in the fable with the possessed red shoes. My lungs kept spontaneously sucking in deep, exhilerating breaths, waiting for the inevitable moment when I would step into a renewing morning run.

We passed several runners, including one who said, "Great day for a run!" as he jogged by. No doubt, he noticed my race tee shirt. I said, "YEAH!" quite enthusiastically because it was early in the walk and my body was still expecting me to begin trotting.

I've had several false starts with my training this year. First, there was the laparoscopy. Then each IVF treatment left me unable to run for a full month, from the time my ovaries start swelling until the negative pregnancy test and subsiding of my follicles. I planned on not making much progress in the past year, and still surprised myself by managing to fit in several races by working really hard during the times when I was able to train. During IVF treatments, I did as much as I could: weights, elliptical, exercise bike, yoga. I couldn't do them too strenuously, but I did enough to feel good and have some semblance of a normal routine in my life.

Today was different, though. Since the BFP I've been practically afraid to move.

Well, that's not quite accurate. I'm afraid to exercise. I run for the stoplights and walk signals through downtown Cleveland and my ovaries feel perfectly fine. But I'm scared to step on the elliptical trainer for a casual, low-heart-rate stroll.

I do know that I am still not cleared for strenuous exercise by virtue of my swollen ovaries alone, regardless of any embryos that are (hopefully still) developing. When I asked over the phone last week, they made reference to my ovaries as the reason why I shouldn't run (as if I would risk it right now anyway!) and made no mention of the pregnancy itself.

I also know that in an uncomplicated pregnancy, aerobic exercise is supposed to be good for you and healthy for the baby. What I haven't been able to find out is whether the fact that I've now gotten pregnant by IVF makes the pregnancy any more complicated than a naturally occurring one. Maybe, besides the ovary factor, it's just like a normal pregnancy now that it has happened. I definitely need to find out. I know, and have seen, lots of runners become pregnant and be able to continue jogging at a low level during pregnancy. I once saw a very pregnant woman at the starting line of my first half-marathon. I remember thinking, "Well, there's one person I know I can beat." With 2000 people in the race, I lost sight of her long before the race started. Imagine my surprise when I didn't pass her until Mile 10!!!!!! I know that I definitely wouldn't go to that extreme even if I were allowed to run in pregnancy. The most important thing for me is to balance that bubble between safety and health, because no way, no how am I going to risk this pregnancy because of my running obsession.

I have to admit that there's part of me that hopes I'm eventually cleared to jog, even a little bit. If not, that's fine. So this is an off-year. So what? I had one three years ago when a foot injury sidelined me, and I came back just fine. If I can't run at all throughout pregnancy, I'll certainly enjoy my other cross-training activities that I already like, which are also less strenuous, and I won't complain. I'll miss my running and be wistful on perfectly cool, balmy days like today, but I won't complain. I'll just spend my time shopping for the most damned, fucking, ridiculously expensive jogging stroller I can find. After all this struggle just to get pregnant, I am treating myself to that much. I want a space-age, shock-absorbing, racing-tired, titanium, pound-and-a-half model that does my dishes too. If I can't run until I'm post-maternity, I'll fondle my jogging stroller daily until I can take our baby out for a run.

I admit did have to jog a little today. The first time was to chase DH, who was being silly. The second time was to help DH get to the park bathroom. He had had too much coffee before we stepped out the door. Both times, my tummy, ovaries, uterus, etc., felt fine. They felt like absolutely nothing. My ass, however, was a different story. It felt like I was being stabbed in the butt with each step. DH reminded me that it's probably because he's been stabbing me in the butt with progesterone each night for a month straight. It may be that the demise of my running career is not due to my reproductive organs or growing belly but because my glutes have become crippled.

Out With the Crap ...

2005-01-01T17:07:00.000-08:00

I can't believe how happy I am that 2004 is over. It ranks up there with one of the crummier years of our lives, with only the final week and a half to salvage it with a long prayed-for BFP.

Well, that's not really fair. Not all aspects of my life have sucked this year. Lots of nice things happened. And I have the most wonderful husband in the world: sweet and funny, caring and dedicated, and not afraid to cry with me as we slogged through this year's circumstances together.

But I'm happy it's finally 2005. We risked our final IVF treatment right before Christmas, even though failure (of which we were certain) would mean that we would have a heart-wrenching holiday. We wanted all the crap of 2004 to remain in 2004. If it failed, we would start 2005 looking forward, looking into adoption. If we had waited until after the holidays, then failure would have meant that 2005 would have started as crappily as 2004 did with a laparoscopy that turned out to be pointless.

Thankfully, the pre-holiday IVF gamble paid off.

Hopefully, it will continue to pay off.

The only thing I cried about when leaving 2004 last night was Blue, my lovely, timid Siamese whom we put to rest on Labor Day after a suprise case of cancer at age 10. (At the time we cried that God, rather than granting us a new life and a new member of our family, chose to take away a member of our family instead.) As we went to bed after our New Year's Eve guests left last night, I remembered her little cedar box of ashes under our bed (her favorite hiding spot -- we put the box under the bed as a joke and then decided she would probably like it if we left her there) and cried that we were leaving her behind in last year, that she can't come into this year with us. This is the first year of her Not-Being.

Today, however, marked 12 years since my mom died of cancer at age 49. Yet she is still here with me. I suppose that means that Blue will always be here, too, under our bed, her spirit still curled up in my arms when I go to sleep each night.

Perhaps the Nursery Theme Should Be Noah's Ark.

2004-12-29T16:56:00.000-08:00

ACK!

I'm taking time out of frantically cleaning the near-catastrophic basement flood just to post my beta #2. I had all these grand plans of posting all my thoughts and feelings on this, but I have to go downstairs and suck water into our water-sucky thing before the treadmill floats away.

Beta #2, at 26dpo was 8928.

I was told it was "wonderful." That was after I hadn't heard from them by 2:00 in the afternoon when they usually call earlier than that. By that point I was crying in my cubicle because the only times it has ever taken them a long time to call is when it has been bad news. But, apparently, they were just legitimately late in calling. Never mind that it was the day after Christmas weekend. Never mind that they were obviously short-staffed when I got in to have my blood drawn in the morning. Surely, they were leading me on with that beta number and disaster is going to strike, simply because it took them a little longer than usual to call me.

When I called, the person who answered, bless her heart, went to find my file and give me my information. She said it was "wonderful, 8928." I asked her a few more questions, we scheduled my ultrasound for 1/5/05, and then when I hung up, I had to ask again. "So ... 8928 is okay then?" As if she was going to say, "Okay, you got me! Actually, it's really low and you should be really worried. I didn't want to say that before."

Of course, she said, "Yes, it's great. Everything is progressing well."

I was relieved for at least 10 minutes in my half-believing her. (Somehow, because I called them instead of the other way around, I instinctively felt the news was less sincere somehow, as if I had to ask my husband to tell me I look nice and he complied rather than coming out and telling me of his own accord.)

Now the panic will carry on until the ultrasound. The lady who drew my blood in the morning assured me that this would happen. Hm. Seems she's been around infterile-and-newly-pregnant-and-disbelieving women before.

I'm trying to be optimistic. I'm trying to be optimistic. I'm trying to be optimistic.

In the meantime, I'm trying to suck water off of the basement floor (between headrushes every time I stand up to empty the water-sucker-thing).

If this whole pregnancy thing works out, I'll be all in practice in case my water breaks in the basement.

Be Careful with Those Words! You’ll Put Someone’s Eye Out!

2004-12-26T17:23:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s been a fun, enjoyable Christmas weekend with family, despite the fact that now all of our immediate family (parents, siblings/spouses) know that we are pregnant at an earlier time than anyone should logically be spreading news of pregnancy. But that’s what happens when you’re undergoing intensive infertility treatments. If you accept the fact that you could actually die or become seriously ill or disabled as a result of the high-powered injectables used with IVF, it seems that the only decent thing to do is to give your family some warning so they’re not surprised when you kick the bucket. A long time ago, we had hoped to surprise our families with news of a baby, but when it came time for laparoscopy a year ago, we thought we should be responsible and tell them I would be having surgery. So since then, they’ve known what we were up to. So much for the surprise factor (other than “Surprise! We’re hopelessly infertile!!!!”) That’s been taken away from us.

So, since they knew what we were up to, they then knew when we were doing IVF, and therefore knew when we would be testing. Again, so much for surprises.

So we told them. And everyone was excited. And I’m grateful for that and feel blessed to be so loved and to have people so happy for us in this.

But people are just so darn happy in their happiness. We had to practically tell them to stop being so happy because we had been so bitch-slapped by infertility that we’re just waiting for the one-two punch (the current anxiety being beta #2 tomorrow). They’re throwing around words like “Pregnant” and “Congratulations” like this kind of thing happens every day. With no complications, even. As if having a positive pregnancy test means you’ll actually bring home a baby in nine months.

We told my dad and stepmother by giving them a board game that I loved to play when I was a child, and my dad hated to play because it took so long. They thought it was just a funny gag gift at first. So I said, “Do you know what it’s for?” My stepmother picked up on it immediately:

“You’re PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

It took everything I had not to say, “SSSSHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I mean, you can’t just throw word like that around all willy-nilly.

The other day I said, “the p-word” to my friend. She said, “It’s okay to say you’re pregnant if you are.” But I couldn’t. That would show that I presume this is going to last. And that would be presumptuous. And consequently, punished.

The other word, “Congratulations,” is even more complex. If someone says, “Congratulations!” then good manners dictate that I say, “Thank you.” If I say, “Thank you,” then my accepting their congratulations and thanking them implies that I must think that we’re home-free enough to be carelessly accepting their approval of our P-ness. Once again, presumptuous. Then, in worrying about all this, I’m put in a position of having to over-analyze about whether I’ve ruined things with the bad karma of not wanting to accept their well-meaning but not-nearly-worried-enough congratulations.

The only people who seem to understand are other infertiles who have the good sense to whisper a cautious “Congratulations,” showing that not only do they understand the graveness of the situation, but that they also understand the cycle of jinx-panic they’ll throw me into if they act like all pregnancies are a sure thing.

Of course, if I have a good beta #2 tomorrow, I’ll be all over the good wishes for at least a day. Then it’ll be back to off-limits until I have an ultrasound. This would all be so much easier if my family would just read my mind and congratulate me on my neurotic schedule.

The Top 10 Ways I Did NOT Tell My Husband We're Pregnant

2004-12-21T14:09:00.000-08:00

For two and a half years I've been longing (nay, fantasizing) for the moment when I would tell my husband we were going to have a baby. I've imagined various scenarios, which always ended with tears, kisses, a pat on the belly, and earnest professions of our love for each other.

I've also been reading fertility web sites and message boards and heard some pretty wacky shit. Some ideas I've seen have been really cute or clever. Some have been kind of cheesy, though I suppose that was just jealousy talking. (To have the luxury of surprising your spouse because he's not aware of each and every hour of your fertility treatment cycle is just amazing to me!)

Some things I've seen have just gone over the line, and usually involve waving around or sharing a home pregnancy test that the woman has pissed on to announce the news. I'm all for showing your hubby the stick if he wants to see it. But put it in a card to open at a restaurant table? Why don't you just bake it into the casserole so he'll accidentally take a bite of it?

Therefore, I bring to you the Top 10 Ways I Did NOT Tell My Husband We're Pregnant. (Not that my way was any better because it was over the phone and I started crying and ended up sounding kind of cryptic and he thought I was telling him it was bad news.)

I did NOT:

10: walk into the room wearing a tee shirt with an arrow pointing to my non-existent belly.

9. set the dinner table with the home pregnancy test laid across his plate so he would be surprised by the two lines.

8. hang the positive test from the Christmas tree like an ornament.

7. present the used test stick poking out of the Christmas ham like a meat thermometer.

6. surprise him with a new striped coffee stirrer.

5. tie the pee stick to the cat's tail and let her drag it around the house until he noticed.

4. write a cutesy poem with rhymes that wouldn't even qualify for a greeting card.

3. put a test that I have urinated on in a card for him to open at a restaurant table.

2. put a tee shirt on the cat that says, "I'm the Big Sister."

1. hang my waste-product-soaked test stick that I had hovered over the toilet bowl from the top of the doorway where the mistletoe should go.

Thanks, and HELP!

2004-12-21T14:03:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the congrats. I still can't quite believe this myself!

Also, I know a couple of you have linked to my blog from your blog and I want to say thank you. I would love to extend the same courtesy to you IF I COULD JUST FREAKING FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've read the instructions around here, and they aren't, really. Instructions, I mean. I found a page on how to upload pictures. It says (I swear to God if you haven't seen it, it actually says it!) something to the effect of "To upload your pictures, you need to dump your pictures into another web site. Then you can upload your pictures into your blog."

HUH?

That wasn't so helpful.

I've tried to be self-sufficient for the past week, but I just can't figure it out. I swear I graduated from kindergarten. College, even.

So I can't figure out pictures. Which isn't an emergency. But I also can't figure out for the life of me how to start a list of links on the right-hand side of the page where it offers me the opportunity to make a list of links. I'd like to do this because some people have already linked to me!

Any suggestions!??!?!

Thanks!

Who's Counting?

2004-12-20T17:26:00.000-08:00

Two and half years.
32 cycles.
No explanation.
Two months of progesterone.
One month of Clomid.
Four months of IUI with Clomid and progesterone.
One laparocopy.
Three IVFs.
$25,000.
19 DPO.

HCG: 792

I am speechless.

Turning the Other Cheek

2004-12-19T13:27:00.000-08:00

Pending the results of tomorrow's beta, tonight will be my last PIO shot.

I'm relieved, really, even if the test is a BFN that sends me plummeting into weeks of weeping. I'm starting to lose track each night of which cheek's turn it is to be stabbed. It was so easy at first. When it was time to get ready for my shot, I would squeeze my butt muscles (after 18 years of running, they're ample, let me tell you) and whichever side hurt more was the side we did most recently; therefore, it would be time for the other side.

But this is Day 18 of PIO shots. Now, both sides just hurt. It doesn't matter how hard I squeeze. I can squeeze until my ass completely collapses beneath its vast infrastructure of dimples, and I still can't tell which side hurts more.

I considered keeping track on my calendar (which is what I did during the suppression/stimulation stages), but I ultimately decided that this will probably be over soon. Besides, if I were to start keeping track for future reference, in case this IVF did work, the universe would see that I was assuming we were in this for the long haul, and that would most certainly jinx things.

Our method for PIO shots is this (recommended by all the nurses at my IVF clinic): I lie on the floor on my stomach and point my toes inward. (When you point your toes inward, it's really difficult to tighten your glutes.) I need all the help I can get to keep those muscles relaxed, because, as I said, I've been a runner (also with countless squats and leg presses in my repertoire) for 18 years. It's not like that needle is sliding into veal. It's forcing its way through Grade-A, Number-1, bull-fightin' steer meat (which, amazingly, does exist beneath the dimples).

It's when I'm lying on the floor, big white bubble butt in my husband's face, that I long for us to be one of those couples who get pregnant by, um, having SEX. While going through this ordeal together has kept us close and made us appreciate our sense of teamwork, the whole realm of sex and babies and how the world works is turned on its head. Do our fertile friends have a grasp of how entirely bizarre it is that at the time of the month when you're most likely to get pregnant, ovulation, you may not even be allowed to have sex because DH has to save his sperm for an IUI or an IVF? So much of this goes against logic. My whole sense of how babies are made is so skewed that I can't even fathom the idea that anyone could possibly get pregnant by having sex and just plain old trusting that the sperm will meet the egg, penetrate the shell, fertilize it, create an embryo that divides all on its own, finds its own way into the uterus, and implants without any help. How on earth does anyone ever get pregnant without help, without medical intervention, without loss of dignity, and without trusting a spouse to stab them in the big, dimply ass over and over and over again?

For the record, in my upside-down world, tonight is Right-Cheek Night. It's too bad for my hubby that we're having chili for dinner.

The Power of One

2004-12-17T15:52:00.000-08:00

We actually got some good news this week: we have one (count 'em: ONE!) frozen blastocyst.

This is a new one for us, because we're used to soul-crushing news after each IUI/IVF treatment. It always sounds good to begin with and then goes south.

With our first IVF we got 19 eggs. And they couldn't even reach all of the follicles on my left ovary because my ovary was playing hide-and-seek. But I was an egg factory! Fourteen were mature, and 11 fertilized normally (all ICSI). Having never done this before, and having heard a gazillion other IVFers talking, I assumed that we would have lots of snowbabies waiting in the wings in case this IVF didn't work. On Day Two, they were dividing beautifully and were "at a nice stage of development." I was practically headed out to register for nursery loot. When we arrived on Day Three, however, they embryos' development had slowed down. We had a six-celled embryo and a seven-celled embryo.

I kept waiting for the news of how many embies were frozen. When we got the summary sheet in the mail, I wept. Nothing. Not a single embryo developed in culture to freeze.

I thought, I just assumed, that everyone had snowbabies when they did IVF. Since this was going to be our only attempt (it's amazing how you change your mind when circumstances change, like, oh, an unbelievable BFN), it was the end of the unexplainable road.

IVF #2, carbon copy of IVF #1. This time, they sucked 14 eggs out of my right ovary and couldn't even reach the left one. (Yay for my right ovary!) Day Two, check! Day Three, same sluggish progress. And the best we could muster this time was a five-cell and a six-cell. Again, no frozen embryos. Again, it was our "last" IVF.

When that failed, the doctor said they could try a different culture, a co-culture. Bizarre thing. They used to use cells from monkey kidneys and loved it, until the FDA reclassified them as a zenograft, such as a transplanted pig's heart valve (even though with the co-culture, they weren't grafting anything onto the patients), and they found it almost impossible to comply with the regulations. Now they use human endometrial cells.

I didn't ask whose.

But, the cycle has been fantastic (we'll see if I'm still saying that after Monday's beta, but that's another issue). 20 eggs, my left ovary cooperated completely, and we had THREE 8-celled embryos to implant, which were already compacting. The pictures are so pretty! And the doctors were singing their praises (the embryos, not themselves)!

When we got the letter that said one embryo made it to blastocyst, it was the icing on the cake. I'm not fool enough to think that that single embryo is going to thaw successfully when the time comes, and that, if it does happen to thaw successfully, it would get me pregnant if seven previous embryos (which we lovingly call "Our Little Underachievers") couldn't. But just knowing that we are capable of making pretty, healthy embryos, just once, is what I needed to end this journey and move on. If these gorgeous embies and our Little Frozen Snowbaby That Could don't do the trick, then nothing will, and I can start to mourn and finally stop hanging in midair emotionally. Thank you, little frozen embie, for making me free again.

A Merry Christmas to All!

2004-12-15T15:19:00.000-08:00

We almost sent out a picture of our embryos this year in Christmas cards. We also almost sent out a picture of Zuzu, our kitty baby. What we definitely were never going to send is one of those bulk Christmas letters. I actually love receiving them. I love to hear about what’s going on in people’s lives, and since no one takes the time to personalize every individual Christmas card, I don’t see what’s so wrong with the slightly impersonal (but less impersonal than the “Love, Aunt Marge” cards that say nothing else).

The other night we received such a letter with a bulk card, with a picture of a newborn baby we didn’t even know had been expected (thus setting off our spree of composing the Infertility Christmas Carols). We tried to imagine what kind of bulk letter we would send out this year:

Dear Family and Friends,

What a year it has been! People talk about life’s ups and downs as if the downs are a bad thing. But WOW! did we get to build up A LOT of speed on the way down this year! It's been such a great ride!

January began with Laurie being prepped for laparascopic surgery to find out why we hadn’t been able to get pregnant for a year and a half. After all, they couldn’t find any reasons in our bloodwork, her uncomfortable and oh-so-embarrassing HSGs, more than a year’s worth of temperature charts, or Mike's sperm analysis, nor could they figure out why four IUI’s with clomid and progesterone hadn’t done the trick with our seemingly healthy bodies.

So taking her out of her running training, which she loves and misses when she can’t do it, seemed like the logical next step. What a relief to find out that nothing was wrong and there’s still apparently no reason for our infertility! Why, it should just “happen” any time now!

Of course, Mike spent the first several months of the year completely exhausted trying to finish the first draft of his research book and send it in to his editor at the publishing company, while trying to console Laurie’s monthly bouts of defeated tears. With those three hours of sleep a night, he was chock full of emotional reserve to withstand the irrational rants and whines coming from Laurie! And what a FANTASTIC summer he had, spending every evening after work inside in the comfortable air conditioning with the computer. Who would want to go outside into that summer evening sunshine?!

When things on the baby front neglected to just “happen” after the surgery – as all our friends assured us it would – we decided to proceed to in vitro fertilization. The doctor didn’t recommend fertility shots since Laurie ovulates so beautifully on her own. We wouldn’t want to have the next set of septuplets, now would we?

So in April, we began the procedure for IVF. What a stressful time that is! And Laurie’s running, which is the best stress reliever she has, wasn’t available to her. She was just a little worried about that likelihood of ovarian torsion and possible emergency surgery or death from all those follicles that had caused her ovaries to swell up with follicles like a bag of microwave popcorn. She’s kind of a worrywart that way.

We got a wealth of eggs – 19 – with that IVF. And 11 fertilized normally! By day two, they were looking great. By day three, they had slowed down, and the best we had to put in were a 6-cell and a 7-celled embryo. But how could it possibly not work? Two obviously dividing embryos were placed directly into her uterus! It was a sure shot.

Or not. Her test was negative. Meanwhile, friends and family all around us were pregnant or giving birth to their first babies, celebrating life and the creation of a new member of their family. It practically made us forget how much we wanted our own baby.

We decided to try IVF one more time. After all, we’re not made of money. In the middle of that process, in June, Laurie discovered a lump on Blue’s throat (our 10-year-old beautiful but shy Siamese cat). We had been looking for something new to do. We didn’t have enough to do or think about. We took her to the vet, and a biopsy did not show cancer. By three weeks later, she was in surgery because the tumor had grown so fast that it was cutting off her trachea and her pupils were two different sizes. (Turns out, it was cancer. Whew! It was good to finally have a diagnosis!) In one week, Blue had surgery, Laurie had her eggs retrieved, Blue came home from surgery, and Laurie had two lovely embryos implanted – even more petite than the last pair. Franny 5-cell and Sally 6-cell were sure to make it!

The two-week wait was pretty busy, so we didn’t have to think about it too much. Taking Blue to the oncologist several times kept our minds off the upcoming pregnancy test. Thank goodness for things to do to keep us occupied!

But alas! The second test was negative as well. Actually, it was slightly positive, which meant that an embryo had implanted but didn’t continue to grow. Hooray! Our first implantation! Laurie then proceeded to have two periods in two weeks, both quite hemorrhagic affairs that kept her up to her knees in laundry. But luckily she didn’t have to think about it too much, what with her birthday coming up the next week. And on the weekend of her birthday, she only had to tend to one cat, as Blue was spending the weekend in the hospital to try to cure her of her hunger strike. She came home, ate one meal, and then three weeks later, we put her to sleep after she never ate again, a svelte one-half of her pre-tumor weight. At least Laurie will never have to worry again about Blue’s newfound lack of trust in her inspired by all those force-feedings (never mind that Laurie was the only person Blue ever completely trusted, that Laurie had known Blue since the day she was born, and that Laurie had invested 10 years of her soul into protecting Blue from all of her imaginary fears).

Mike got the first draft of his book submitted at the end of September. What a relief! Just in time for the cooler, darker fall evenings. He won’t have to go outside and suffer another evening on the patio till next summer!

By October, excitement was gearing up for our third IVF treatment. Did we mention that they expect they payment of several thousand dollars upfront, and insurance doesn’t cover infertility treatments? We’re always up for a challenge! The week after Thanksgiving, Laurie had her eggs retrieved again – 20! And what great magazines they had available for Mike! – and threw up on the highway on the way home from the clinic. That evening, she threw up again. It’s a good thing she didn’t really have a hankering for that cinnamon toast. So right now we’re waiting. We’ll find out the results of this IVF just before Christmas. So you can imagine our optimism! Things always work out for the best. Just the fact that it’ll be Christmas means that the fates will align and grant our wish. That’s how it always works. Third Christmas trying to conceive is a charm!

We hope that this letter finds you well. We can’t wait to hear about how wonderful your year has been. It sure can’t compare to ours!

Love,
Laurie and Mike

Infertility Christmas Carols, Part 2

2004-12-14T16:28:00.000-08:00

Silent Night. IVF Night.

Silent night. Restful night.
Baby's room: empty sight.
Not a virgin, yet no child.
Science makes our love life mild.
Sleep in our room is deep.
Sleep in our room is deep.

Deck My Butt

Stick that needle in my ass.
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
I won't give you any sass.
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Hear me whimper on the floor.
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
All these shots are such a chore.
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

See me walking with a limp.
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Thanks, Progesterone, I'm gimp.
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Oil and drug and sharp together.
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Now my butt-skin's just like leather.
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

Away In A Petri Dish (Okay, this is kind of morbid but I'm worn out, disillusioned, and bitter about this whole thing...)

Away in a petri dish, our babies lay,
dividing and thriving until the third day.
The cells in the culture rejected their host.
The transfer was hopeless, the embies were toast.

We Three Zygotes

We three zygotes in a dish
knew our mom had made a wish:
Implantation, "Congratulations!"
But the doc said, "Go fish!"