tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27012948539444794242024-03-14T06:38:35.744-07:00The Baby ChaseA place where I rant about infertility, miscarriages, fibroids, surgery, and the bloodsucking HMOs.the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.comBlogger134125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-15959426543801283902010-08-03T06:34:00.000-07:002010-08-03T06:37:59.968-07:00Captain Jumperoo and Freedom GirlI'm at work right now (which is a Very Good thing, believe me!) so I can't really post. But I wanted to share this:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnOp24SPgso">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnOp24SPgso</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/valentinemcnulty"></a>the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-13504403192516233302010-07-11T17:21:00.000-07:002010-07-11T18:07:35.266-07:00What Makes It All WorthwhileI never have time to write anymore--I barely can make time to pee, for God's sake. But I'm going back to work in a week and might actually have more time then. (Or maybe less, as work is also overwhelming and scary right now--especially as I've been gone for FIVE MONTHS and have completely forgotten how to be a lawyer and talk to everyone as if they're three months old.)<div><br /></div><div>But I wanted to take a quick moment to show you all this. Because, hell, it's so cute even I can't stop watching it, and I have 24/7 access to the real thing.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwC_KLBVPn-PnVzzRAJuBL7DHEwEocEIHmjEumbLy6Qu8NPirE1H9JV8tOu46gALhG8G7tZUmtRDwZBFPnzOA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><div><br /></div><div>Crap. G's suddenly awake and is about to wake up D with her wailing. I've told her that she'd cry a lot more if she were a singleton. Lucky girl.</div><div><br /></div><div>Gotta run.</div><div><br /></div>the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-34535855600340002422010-05-21T16:08:00.000-07:002010-05-21T16:12:42.334-07:00The Love Infusion<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">I know I’ve been out of touch for awhile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mostly it’s just because I’ve been crazy-busy, what with caring for two helpless little people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But it’s also because I’ve been less needy, and more satisfied, than I have been in years.</span></span></span></div> <p class="MsoNormal">Don’t get me wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Taking care of two babies, even fairly good-natured babies with a LOT of help from my husband, is hard fucking work.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And it can be fairly tedious as well—I’m starting to understand the age-old, and fairly sexist, saying “a woman’s work is never done.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because I’m never on top of what needs to be done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There’s always laundry to fold and bottles to wash and feeding, diapering, and holding/cuddling/entertaining to be done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And that whole “sleep when the baby sleeps” thing is a total crock. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because the housework really does have to get done, and I can’t sleep on command, and the most I can get—after feeding/diapering/soothing/swaddling both—is maybe an hour of real sleep, which messes me up more than it helps.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But what I want to tell you all—want to shout from the rooftops—is that it’s SO WORTH IT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yeah, yeah, part of this is the antidepressants talking, and thank god I had the foresight to go on those at the first sign of trouble (a couple of days after I wrote that last post, in fact), rather than try to tough it out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s so nice not to be so sad, crying all over my babies every time I tried to feed, always feeling like I’m not doing enough for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If I had advice to anyone about to have a baby, it’s to seriously consider antidepressants.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But my newfound happiness isn’t coming from my pill bottle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s that this really is exactly what I wanted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I love these babies so much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And so does J—watching him with them makes me love him even more than I already did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And all this love and support has poured in from family and friends, sometimes from where I least expected it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All this infusion of love into my life—it’s a heady feeling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And maybe because I went through so much to get here, I feel like I deserve it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And then, on Mother’s Day (which I still think is a crock of shit holiday), this happened, and my heart stopped beating for a moment:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxW1EHvRQUB6uypnFeATO62iRhmdkt_PhP2KlIhCFRdgn_Ys_UAwPSsXLz_Rt2y5qUcjDPXbTDNCEKuJG8Hj6zWU22wvrNyNcKRDkrYVhZ4070oOP9Jffy2Rabp5wKXpEOpkKs4EUBnVo/s1600/Dexter+Smiles!.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxW1EHvRQUB6uypnFeATO62iRhmdkt_PhP2KlIhCFRdgn_Ys_UAwPSsXLz_Rt2y5qUcjDPXbTDNCEKuJG8Hj6zWU22wvrNyNcKRDkrYVhZ4070oOP9Jffy2Rabp5wKXpEOpkKs4EUBnVo/s320/Dexter+Smiles!.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473864486546636674" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px; " /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And the next day this happened:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgah-imRvyvZAK_hjI-9ygwFi9rgWGotfTR29Jq-lJJzljlJEGekoUVeStsE1rSiDFtBULJZGnPxQTPiAnHHVTgJI4xYbSGNXOAgZoQPjLfvUeN9lYw_cRynsHW6WAQm76tF4U8GDE26l4/s1600/Gretchen+Smiles!.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgah-imRvyvZAK_hjI-9ygwFi9rgWGotfTR29Jq-lJJzljlJEGekoUVeStsE1rSiDFtBULJZGnPxQTPiAnHHVTgJI4xYbSGNXOAgZoQPjLfvUeN9lYw_cRynsHW6WAQm76tF4U8GDE26l4/s320/Gretchen+Smiles!.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473864794800769346" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px; " /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And my heart nearly exploded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So yeah, my back is killing me (seriously, it’s bad), and my nipples hurt, and I can only put a baby to the breast four times a day (I pump the rest of the time) and sometimes I feel like feeding G is more of a wrestling match than a joint effort, and I’m living on 5 hours of sleep a night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But all of these things are temporary—hell, they’ll last a lot less time than my journey through infertility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On the other hand, the love I’ve found—the love J and I have created—is permanent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(J often responds that he didn’t “create” these babies, but I disagree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You can “make” cookies even though you use ingredients from the grocery store, can’t you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>J chose our donor, which is one half of what makes these little guys who they are.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My yoga teacher tells us that to have a child is to forever wear your heart on the outside of your body.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m sure that will be scary someday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But for now it’s glorious.</p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-86866219577631259872010-04-09T05:55:00.000-07:002010-04-09T05:56:46.458-07:00The Grind<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Eleven days in, and J and I are really struggling. We seem to have moved beyond the fun and exciting phase and entered The Grind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">It's not just the lack of sleep that’s bothering us—it's that we feel like we aren't getting a moment to enjoy the babies. This is especially true for me. At least J gets to feed them their "top off" bottles, and burp and change and re-clothe them. And that might not sound like much fun, but it's a hell of a lot better than my relationship with them, which consists of me fighting with them to get a decent latch, and struggling to keep them on the breast when it's hurting so badly. It really seemed like they were both on their way to being champion feeders, but we seem to have slid backwards. Or maybe Dex is actually doing better (he had his tongue-tie fixed on Wednesday and now appears to have a decent latch, but it's hard to tell because my boobs are so sore that it might just hurt even if he's doing everything right). But Gretchen's latch is going downhill fast—she's doing a lot of chewing on me rather than sucking. And then if she doesn't get a lot of top-off milk she screams for two hours. And when your baby is hurting you feeding eight times a day, it can wear you down fast.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">I'm also really on the border of not having enough milk for them. Each of them is getting a full ounce of top-off bottle after every feeding, and that's almost exactly what I've been able to produce. The problem is that it isn't enough. When they feed well at the breast I don't manage to pump that much, and even then they always want more, which means that sometimes they cry through an entire cycle where we were hoping to get our precious 1 1/2 hour of sleep. It isn’t a medical problem—they gained five and four ounces respectively in three days earlier this week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But they’re not satisfied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And unhappy babies just plain suck.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">This morning I realized that I'm on the verge of giving up breastfeeding altogether. I just want to start enjoying being a mom. I want my babies to stop being mad and me, and I'd like to stop being mad at them. In either event, we'll probably be supplementing with formula by the end of the day. No matter how hard I've been pushing at the pump (and I've REALLY been pushing—I pump till dry after EVERY feeding), I can't seem to get my milk supply to kick in more. I am more exhausted than I ever thought was possible. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Every day I think I’m as tired as I could ever be, and every day I discover a whole new level of exhaustion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We're on a strict 3-hour timetable for feeding—it's really the only way to get 8 feedings in a 24-hour period, which is the minimum. And with G's size we can't yet go four hours at night with a couple of short feed cycles during the day. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">When people used to say their child was sleeping for three or four hours at a time, I would ask myself—what’s the big deal?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What’s so bad about getting a few three- or four-hour sleep cycles in a night instead of eight straight hours?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But what isn’t generally explained is that the three-hour clock starts at BEGINNING of one feeding session, not the end. So if you add in how long it takes to wake, change, feed two sleepy babies at the breast, burp them, supplement with a bottle, burp again, change again, lull them back to sleep, and then pump for at least 15 minutes (which I have discovered I can’t skip even once at this critical stage of trying to get my milk to come in enough to feed two), two hours can go by easy before you even look at the bed again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then you have to decide—is it worth a catnap, or should you just stay up and get something done? J and I have managed to work the cycle down to an hour and a half, with him doing the bottle supplementation, burping, and changing. But we still usually only get an hour and a half at a time, and that’s if everything goes perfectly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe that works out three times a night, assuming no one's refusing to go back to sleep. And we can't really sleep during the day yet. Too much to do with doctor's appointments, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">J and I refer to Super-G as our small-mouth bass—her head is so tiny that, though willing, her mouth is too small for a latch that doesn’t hurt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(She has mastered the hippo mouth, which is hilarious, though we don’t always manage to get it on the boob at the right moment, and often there are tiny hands in the way.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The lactation consultant who we saw on Tuesday recommended that I put her on a nipple shield, which I’ve been using for Dex (more on that below).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was willing to try that (and trust that we could get her off it later on, when she’s bigger), but the first time we tried it at home she HATED it and “bit” down so hard on the shield that I yelled out and immediately started crying.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And believe me, once I start crying these days, it’s hard to stop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Can’t tell you how many times I’ve cried all over my breastfeeding babies.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She did it one more time that feeding, and did it again on the next breast (though not so hard) the next feeding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I said “fuck it,” and ditched the shield.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m already at the end of my rope, and the last thing I need to be doing is fighting with BOTH my babies every time I have to feed them, which is essentially my entire relationship with them right now.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">And Dex has had his own set of problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In the hospital, he was trying to feed, but would always pull back from what looked like a good latch into a terrible one at the last minute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And, desperate to make breastfeeding work with this baby, I would let him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So my nips were getting mangled, to say the least.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then we took him to the pediatrician the day after we got out of the hospital, and he noticed that D was tongue-tied, which kept him from sticking his tongue out to suck when his mouth was wide open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So we started using a nipple shield with him, which allowed me to keep feeding him at the breast while we waited for an appointment to get the string tying his tongue down snipped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">Through fairly Herculean efforts on my part, I managed to get Dex an appointment with an ENT on Wednesday, and managed to get my HR department to get him enrolled on my insurance in time to not have to pay out-of-pocket for the procedure.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The procedure was pretty scary, though it only took moments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ended with poor Dex wailing through a wad of gauze sticking out of his mouth, which was just pathetic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But within a few minutes he was trying to feed, and he managed to get a pretty nice, pain-free latch a few minutes after that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The problem now is that I can’t tell if he’s adding to my tenderness problems or if I’m just so sore from G’s feeding technique that he’d hurt me no matter what he did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In either event, with either of them on the boob I just sit and watch the clock and try to hold out for 15 minutes before I call it quits and hand them off to J for the top-off bottle.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">This morning I managed to pump enough that we are doing one “pump-only” session (which is how I’m writing right now—after five days of computer withdrawal I finally got wise and moved the pump to my computer desk), while J feeds both from the bottle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Just to give my nipples a solid five hours off from the evil twin mouths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ll call the hospital lactation consultants today, though I’ll have to pay a chunk of cash to go see them in person (which I probably will do).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But my guess is by the end of the day I’ll be introducing formula.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This shouldn’t feel like a failure to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I know that, I really do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I was so proud of having gotten this far without, and truly believe that we were into the home stretch with this.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">I know this will get better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But it’s really hard to see that future right now.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-33474478383476469362010-04-06T18:01:00.000-07:002010-04-06T18:23:14.163-07:00Introducing--BABIES! (In J's Words)<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span></span></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPX5aleqPZ6Nppnkm95pFo8Uk9y-rr8medcEdxaSdYjomx3mXKO6I-Lc0S5eOm1cBVeTmXbUO5kYy5Q6hkI5qbsrHXM-Up9xjmov7VzsFb06Y2xhLL9UTTmWgyUljzN7AhKt4H-E4m8zY/s1600/Introducing+the+TWINS+2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPX5aleqPZ6Nppnkm95pFo8Uk9y-rr8medcEdxaSdYjomx3mXKO6I-Lc0S5eOm1cBVeTmXbUO5kYy5Q6hkI5qbsrHXM-Up9xjmov7VzsFb06Y2xhLL9UTTmWgyUljzN7AhKt4H-E4m8zY/s320/Introducing+the+TWINS+2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457197948005580722" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Introducing . . .</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">(drum roll please) . . . the fabulous new additions to our family!</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Meet Gretchen ("Baby B")</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> and Dexter ("Baby A") (probably “G” and “D” from now on, but I’m so happy with the names I had to share).</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Dexter was born 6 pounds, 4.8 ounces.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Gretchen, or “Super-G” as we like to call her, was born 4 pounds, 12 ounces.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">In the past week I have had no time to eat or sleep, let alone blog or catch up on any of the thousand e-mails waiting for me.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Parenthood is the most beautiful experience in the world, but trying to keep up with the feeding of two insatiable tiny creatures is brutal.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">We’ve had a couple of night/day cycles where we’ve gotten less than an hour or two of sleep. Last night J suggested that he take over one feeding with pumped milk (a scary prospect, given that I’m pumping after every feeding but just barely staying ahead—we have to give them a lot of “top off” after every feeding because they’re so small), and I literally started to cry at the prospect.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Anyway, could write for hours, but I only have about five minutes.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Thought that instead of trying to re-create the story through my eyes, I’d give you a sampling of J’s e-mails to our friends and family in the first week of our babies lives.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family:'times new roman', serif;font-size:medium;">3-31-10</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;color:#444444;"> </span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;color:#444444;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Hey folks,</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">here's the update from Wednesday morning - no time for personalized responses to all of your great thoughts.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Yesterday afternoon, after a very rough 24 hours, we finally had a lactation consult and it was life changing. Since then, we have had excellent feedings with both Gretchen and Dexter, every 2-3 hours. They are champion eaters both. Got into a great schedule last night - fed them both and sent them off to the nursery so we could sleep for 3 hours! They came back - we fed both again and sent them back to the nursery and we slept for 2 more hours. 5 hours for Holly with an hour break for feeding - a better sleep schedule than she's had in months and she is ecstatic. And caffeinated now, after some Starbucks this morning.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Dexter is eating now - so far not too traumatized by this morning's rude snipping. Gretch is out in the nursery getting checked by the pediatrician. Everyone seems healthy and happy. We're in the hospital for another night tonight and are debating whether to go on Thursday or stick around for one more day of support (assuming, of course, that Gretchen passes her car seat test - she's very small and when uncovered, shakes her arms uncontrollably - it's quite pathetic and cute).</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Thanks for all your wonderful thoughts. More updates and pictures to come (but to be honest, all the pictures look the same at this point - when we get home, at least they'll have different clothes and surroundings).</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">-J and H</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Hey,</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Just a couple more pictures. Can't resist the cobunking pictures. And there's a picture of Dexter and H trying to wade through the DC government bureaucracy to add the kids to the insurance (still unsuccessful). </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">-J </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">******** </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">4-1-10 </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Hey gang,</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Here are some more pictures. Life is full of ups and downs here at the hospital. Dexter is getting better - we'll follow up with his heart condition - the irregular beat found at birth, but the cardiologist didn't think there was any issue.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Both kids have some jaundice and may need to get some light therapy. Gretchen hasn't pooped in awhile - the pediatrician is not concerned - just something to keep an eye on.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">H is working out the breast feeding. She's had 3 lactation consults and all have taught her more than the last. She is honing her technique and her regular milk has come in.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Gretchen failed the car seat test today. She is too small for the seat we have. Any volunteers? We need a new car seat specifically designed with a minimum weight of 4lbs. Ours has a minimum of 5lbs and she doesn't fit right in it, even with blankets and special padding. We are being released tomorrow, so we need this tonight, ideally. Please contact me directly if you have the time to run this errand for us. There is a babies r us in Silver Spring with the correct seat, but there may be some available at other stores, like target - I haven't had time to research (if you can't make the run - maybe you can help with phone calls for me).</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Thanks. Going home tomorrow. First pediatrician visit scheduled for Saturday - 8:30am!</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">-J</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Hey Gang,</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Crisis averted for the moment - thanks for the offers of help. H's Dad was able to run out and get a car seat for us. We'll try it out in the morning.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">More info later - waiting for real food from Armand's to arrive. Hot pizza - can't wait.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">-J</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> *******</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">4-2-10</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Hey Folks,</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Hoping to be released this morning or some time today - they say check out is 11am, but no one believes it. </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Kids are with the pediatrician for their routine morning check up. Jaundice appears to be getting better over night. Both kids had great digestive movement in the last 12 hours - especially Dexter, who had an epic movement last night (songs will be written).</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Kids were demon twins last night as we had a double meltdown that lasted upwards of 5 hours, with occasional breaks - while one fed, the other screamed. Sometimes the feedee screamed as well. Thankfully, the feeder never lost her cool. Is it cute when Dexter wails so loud he gets hoarse? - sort of. At least it's quieter.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">But after a night in the nursery (for two 2 hour stretches so we could sleep), two little angels appeared in our room this morning, content to eat and sleep.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Gretchen will go for her car seat test later this morning. No new pics today. They all start to look the same at this point. This weekend - we'll send out more. They'll be the same, but in different clothes and blankets with a new background. Perhaps some action shots of Valentine [the cat] hiding from them (a streak of black down the hall). </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">-J</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> *********</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">We are home!</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Took forever to get out of the hospital, but we finally left at 4:30pm, just in time for rush hour.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Getting home wasn't too bad, though. We got home, fed them, ate dinner, and crashed for an hour.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">We're finishing another feeding right now and hoping to get another couple of hours.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Now that we're home, I'll probably stop with the daily updates so we can all get on with our lives. Thanks for all the good thoughts. </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">-J</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">********</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;">And, of course, some more pictures:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">The Family</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:Georgia, serif;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTuezYUdvY-ZAr_FU42UQutIuxvf_jvqOtFNO3U8rd5Fbo58EBrXQOpev5G1DN15w2U3b41PMlyVhHj6En-1J8ve2vH20qujPhFHFJaFXDvoJqsQKuFF5cp02lHAVrwtir7JSpnPssfJI/s1600/The+Family.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTuezYUdvY-ZAr_FU42UQutIuxvf_jvqOtFNO3U8rd5Fbo58EBrXQOpev5G1DN15w2U3b41PMlyVhHj6En-1J8ve2vH20qujPhFHFJaFXDvoJqsQKuFF5cp02lHAVrwtir7JSpnPssfJI/s320/The+Family.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457199415341295714" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;color:#000000;">Daddy and Skinny-Legged Super-G</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;color:#000000;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBPxOKthrZCv3DcwZ6rIG33UF_RNfP6t1zTpcZhgIkACnLaR5RV0bemIKHzx86gDpp08W8rQjjxH7OA2UdMM_y7IM9abnesNQo0f-ncebtGOQ1TZOu_Yuw0DgEhCMS6qPdiKg65PVyywg/s1600/Super-G.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBPxOKthrZCv3DcwZ6rIG33UF_RNfP6t1zTpcZhgIkACnLaR5RV0bemIKHzx86gDpp08W8rQjjxH7OA2UdMM_y7IM9abnesNQo0f-ncebtGOQ1TZOu_Yuw0DgEhCMS6qPdiKg65PVyywg/s320/Super-G.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457199637916624306" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;color:#000000;">Mommy and Floppy-Necked Dex</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;color:#000000;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF0HAn9S6fICH3yKqMdJ4jIu2vcMefpEotYO61rYHuxycU8KA72Zo1hpTFWHo4mn00Tt8A9koQjXOyGggU687QB0yuWjwHQrv7xJ06BDsW69GMdxm0CnvjduFYPHYVJwK9IGvsujaOfps/s1600/Floppy+D.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF0HAn9S6fICH3yKqMdJ4jIu2vcMefpEotYO61rYHuxycU8KA72Zo1hpTFWHo4mn00Tt8A9koQjXOyGggU687QB0yuWjwHQrv7xJ06BDsW69GMdxm0CnvjduFYPHYVJwK9IGvsujaOfps/s320/Floppy+D.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457199839190492130" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--> </span><p></p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-25571233349822182482010-03-27T16:09:00.000-07:002010-03-27T16:12:21.549-07:00Labor Pains<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">I had envisioned March going one of two ways—either I would simply be pregnant until March 29, when the scheduled C would go forward, or I would go into labor earlier and have earlier surgery (and maybe have to deal with the whole preemie thing).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Either way, I figured I wouldn’t have to experience much “labor.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I certainly didn’t anticipate having to deal with labor pains for at least a week before the babies came.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Is this normal?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Is there any “normal” when it comes to pregnancy?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For more than the past week, in late afternoon or evening, the contractions begin.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Mind you, I also have contractions during the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But they’re not regular, and they tend to be brought on by activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In contrast, the evening contractions are coming every 8-10 minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or maybe even closer, because I’m still having trouble figuring out what’s a contraction and what is just—for lack of a more precise term—pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Dude, it hurts!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The contractions tighten my abdomen and speed up my heart rate, and sometimes I whine and whimper as they get intense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But then there are also all these other pains in my abdomen—sharp stabbing pains, like one of the babies (okay, let’s lay blame where it’s due—it’s always Baby A) is trying to cut his way out from the inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then there are the pains in my even-lower torso (sometimes across my lower back or butt, sometimes in what feels like the bottom of my bladder, sometimes in more unmentionable places).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And these extra pains aren’t on a schedule, they just hover around and in between the contractions, sometimes making it hard to tell the difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Do I count those when I’m trying to figure out how far apart the contractions are?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Who the hell knows?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But none of this really matters, because the one clear truth is that none of this is “real” labor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How do I know?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because it eventually goes away—sometimes by midnight, sometimes not until 4 or 5 in the morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If it were “real” labor, I would have real babies, by now, right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And so I wait.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I hurt, and I wait.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The one bright side is that at least I know the babies are coming out Monday morning no matter what.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can’t imagine wondering if this was going to keep going for weeks on end.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I guess I’m going through some figurative labor pains as well, which are a lot more interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This morning J and I went to a breastfeeding class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I had signed up for one weeks ago, but missed it (along with most of my other classes) due to hospitalization and recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When J mentioned that we could take a make-up class today I jumped at the chance (though I wasn’t even sure I could sit through the class).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was kind of funny to be going to a class like this when we’re going to be putting this very information into use the day after tomorrow (unbelievable!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m so glad we went.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It seems like feeding the baby is about 80% of caring for the baby, and I was feeling frantic at my lack of knowledge about how it all works (especially with twins).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Now I’m feeling a lot more confident.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In between all this whining, fussing, and desperate last-minute preparation, J and I are finding some excitement creeping in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Every day this week J has announced that this is our “last Thursday,” or “last Friday” before the babies come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or he’ll mention, casually, “Did you realize that in three days our lives are going to change forever?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then we’ll start giggling in disbelief, because neither of us really can get our heads around this idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Really,” we’ll say to each other (a la the SNL Weekend Update segment), “Really.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We’re going to be parents on Monday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Really.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They’re just going to hand us two babies and expect us to take care of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Really.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We started trying to conceive in June 2005.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was only 33 years old—the ideas of infertility, repeat pregnancy loss, adoption or IVF or the use of donor gametes never seriously having crossed my mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In the past last five years, this naivety has been stripped from my soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As I told a friend who was afraid she’d scare me with her high-risk-pregnancy stories, I’ve seen the boogeyman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>J and I have been through three IUI cycles, one FET cycle, and five IVF cycles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We’ve had intense battles with the blood-sucking HMO over coverage for infertility, surgery, treatment for J.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve negotiated a shared-risk contract with my fertility clinic and taken out a second mortgage to cover the costs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve had dozens of sonos, close to a hundred blood draws, and have lost track of how many sharps containers J and I have filled with our various injections.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We’ve seen five pregnancies, and four miscarriages—one of which was an especially heartbreaking ectopic pregnancy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We’ve researched adoption, even gone so far as going to an international adoption meeting at a local agency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We’ve seen me through major surgery, and we’ve spent hours in front of my computer choosing a donor.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And god only knows how many tears I’ve cried.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Huddling behind a closed door in my office, trying to regain control long enough to escape down the stairs (because waiting for an elevator is just too exposed) without anyone noticing, or praying no one would knock on my door while I waited for the xanax to kick in; hiding behind sunglasses while I walked through a neighborhood full of happy, screaming kids—playing basketball in the street or running through the sprinklers or the inflatable pool in front of their houses; rocking back and forth in my bed, wondering how long I could let myself go before giving myself a migraine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And the one time I heard J cry when I had to give him the bad news over the phone—just one cycle where we got a negative beta and it was just too much for him—when listening to him sob on the other end of the line broke my heart all over again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m 38 years old now, and while I’ve been beaten and battered by the last five years, I wear my scars—literal and figurative—with pride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I would never wish this experience on anyone, but I’m not sorry about who I’ve become as a result, or what this has done to my marriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I once thought that when I finally made it through this phase of my life (and that’s how I always made myself look at infertility—just a phase I had to get through, one way or another, to become a parent) I would look back on these years as “lost” years, years wasted on tears and obsession and desperation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m not even sure that they were the worst years of my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Certainly infertility has been the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But in these years good things have happened, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In some ways, I feel like I’ve finally grown up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I finally feel like a real lawyer in a job that could well satisfy me for the rest of my career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I finally took the steps necessary to heal my chronic lower back problems, and I feel more confidence in my body’s ability to cope with aging than I have in years.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And J and I have grown to love and appreciate each other’s strengths more than I ever thought possible.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I couldn’t have chosen a better father for my children, and just thinking of him holding one of my babies makes my heart ache.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m scared about next week.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Scared that, no matter how good our intentions, taking care of two babies is going to overwhelm us beyond our ability to cope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(It doesn’t help that much of the support promised from various friends has evaporated in the cold reality of their own job schedules and family obligations.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I can’t blame them—annual leave is precious and free time is hard to come by these days.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Scared that when neither of our needs are getting met, J and I won’t be able to maintain the cohesion we’ve achieved over the years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Scared that being stuck at home with two babies while J escapes back into theatre la la land (which will happen about three weeks after the babies are born) will make me bitter and resentful, or lead to post-partum depression.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But underlying that fear is a confidence that even if the beauty and magic of parenting doesn’t show up right away, even if J and I start sniping at each other, even if I get depressed and bitter and angry, this is going to be wonderful someday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We will get through this and still love each other, and we’ll love our babies more than anything we ever imagined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I’m not sure I would have this confidence in myself—and in J—if we hadn’t traveled through hell and back together.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The day after tomorrow it all starts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m going to be a mommy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>J’s going to be a daddy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And we’re gong to be a whole new kind of family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As J puts it, on Monday our lives change forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To which I can only add:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hallelujah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s about fucking time.</p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-41012615625078895232010-03-22T21:32:00.000-07:002010-03-22T21:33:39.202-07:00Down the Rabbit Hole<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">(Prelude:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I never wrote about it, but on February 26 I was hospitalized with a kidney stone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After five days, we agreed to have a stent put in—not to solve the problem, but to make it tolerable until after the pregnancy when they could actually do something to get rid of the stone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But some asshole anethesiologist talked me out of the agreed-on spinal block, which was a safer/more rational form of anesthesia for a woman 33 weeks pregnant with twins—he did this moments before the operation when I was wacked out of my mind on morphine and desperate to do the procedure—into general anesthesia, which carried a much greater risk of aspiration.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And so I aspirated some of my stomach acid into my lungs, woke up in the recovery room with instant pneumonia, and spent four days in the ICU trying to breathe, with the doctors freaking out because I was having preterm contractions and was in no condition for a c-section while so ill.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve been home from the hospital for two weeks, and still haven’t been able to get myself to write about it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Which is a shame, because my memories of those 11 days, or at least the back half of them, could prove useful in a med mal lawsuit someday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Which is a possibility, though by no means a guarantee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I’m already having trouble remembering what it was really like, remembering the physical pain and claustrophobic panic of the ICU, the sinking feeling of being totally duped by my anesthesiologist, and the sure knowledge that if I’d just had the mental wherewithal to say “no” to his suggestion that I switch from a spinal block to general anesthesia, I could have been home already, maybe even working, rather than struggling to breathe and wishing I wasn’t exposing my babies to yet more medicines, x-rays, and other interventions I’d hoped to avoid.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But right now that seems so far away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m in another place entirely—waiting for my world to change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t know when it will happen, exactly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I don’t know what I need to do to get ready for it anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>J’s been working 16-hour days for the past week, maybe more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve actually lost track.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And though I’ve had some friends come by, it isn’t the same as having a real life outside of the bubble I’m floating in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">When I first got home I was still recovering, still healing, and desperately weak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I lost 15 pounds in the hospital, which sounds great in theory, but so much of it was muscle mass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve never seen my arms so skinny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Despite my weakness, I had a purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Every day, I would have a new priority, just one thing to I would have to deal with.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I only had a couple of worthwhile hours a day to get stuff done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The rest of the time I was sleeping or resting or trying to get my feet up to reduce the swelling (the swelling was so bad in the hospital that even my slippers wouldn’t fit—I came home in hospital socks—but it suddenly went away (thank God!) about four days after I got home).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The first day it was setting the wheels in motion for my disability insurance to process, and figuring out how to work my sick and annual leave around that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then there was all the baby gear, bedding, and clothing that had been unpacked and arranged by the group of family and friends that had come to set up the house while I was in the hospital, just in case we came home with babies.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I had to find space in my closets for more stuff, find ways to arrange everything so I knew where it was.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And because any day could bring the babies into my life, each day was critical for getting ready.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In fact, last Tuesday night I knew I was at the brink of total insanity when I vacuumed the house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m on bedrest, but I vacuumed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I just couldn’t take it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The floors were disgusting, and J is at wits end just doing the essential stuff, so I couldn’t ask him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I actually hoped he wouldn’t notice (and if he did, he didn’t mention it).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In short, my nesting hormones had taken over and I was helpless to resist.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And then the next day I was done.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Oh sure, there’s plenty more housekeeping to be done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The fridge needs cleaning out and the mountains of crap balanced precariously on my dressers needs a home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I guess at some point I need to get out the bag of tubes and bottles and mysterious paraphernalia that goes with my breast pumps and figure out how it all works.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Though I’m planning on renting a pump from the hospital the first month, so I’m counting on them showing me how it works.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But the basics are in place, and, like flicking a switch, the nesting instinct has switched off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And the house is getting gross again, because suddenly I just can’t face it anymore.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Last week J and I were faced with an unexpected choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We went to our doctor’s appointment last Tuesday, fully expecting to be told that two days later—when I hit 36 weeks—I was to go off the procardia (the anticontraction medication I’d been on since arriving at the hospital in late February) and we would let nature take its course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If I went into labor, we would do a c-section immediately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If not, we stick with the 29<sup>th</sup> as our scheduled date.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But the doctor said we could stay on the drugs all the way up to the 29<sup>th</sup><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>if we liked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was our decision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mind you, this “choice” probably gave us a false sense of control, because the procardia won’t keep me from going into labor if my body really forces the issue, nor does going off it guarantee that labor will ensue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Part of me desperately wanted to stop taking the drugs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But J really, really, really needed me to stay on them for another week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I know a lot of people won’t understand how someone’s job can be that important, but he has a show to finish and he has classes to teach.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He’s trying to convince his university to hire him full-time, an event that could lead to him being a tenured professor, rather than a freelance lighting designer who’s gone all the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We’re desperate for this to happen in the next few years, as I don’t fancy raising these kids on my own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And he’s got some important classes next week (though now it’s looking like Thursday’s class is less important).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Besides, we all know that bigger babies are better, and 37 weeks is better than 36.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So I decided to stay on the drugs, as hard as I was struggling.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And then, late last week, the pregnancy took a turn for the stranger and less tolerable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was up all night last Thursday and Friday nights with contractions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By Friday I was timing them, and they were averaging 10 minutes apart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Not real labor, not enough to warrant emergency surgery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But not something I could ignore either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By 3 a.m. Saturday morning J and I decided that it was just too much to expect to stay on like this for another week, and I stopped taking the procardia.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We fully expected to have the babies on Saturday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But despite stopping the anticontraction meds, the contractions slowed and faded in the wee hours of the morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By Saturday afternoon I had given up and gone back on the procardia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I still had the occasional contraction on Saturday and Sunday, but it looked like we were back in the waiting game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I put on my game face and decided to settle in for the long haul.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then last night—Sunday night—the contractions started again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Again, just outside of the reach of true labor (averaging 8 minutes apart for several hours), painful but not so bad I could be sure of a c-section if I went to the hospital.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Mind you, the LAST thing I think I can cope with is more time in the hospital and coming home still pregnant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I refuse to go to the hospital with a false alarm.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Again, I called J at work at about 10 p.m. and asked him how he felt about having babies that night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This time I stayed on my drugs, though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And sure enough, after a long and painful night, the contractions slowed down around 5 or 6 in the morning, allowing me to get a bit of sleep, an hour at a time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then they faded away almost altogether, appearing only once or twice an hour.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">When this happened on Saturday I was pretty chill about it, despite the fact that the contractions caused me to miss my allergy shots, which I desperately need this time of year.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But today has been different.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t know if it’s that I’ve been home too long alone, or whether the all-day headache (likely from aforementioned allergies) wore me down, or whether I’m just having another hormone shift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But instead of being chill about waiting, or excited about the babies, all I feel is empty and tired and depressed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The contractions are back tonight with a vengeance—it’s been going on for hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They are starting to hurt like hell, but they still aren’t more often than 8 minutes apart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I never knew someone could be in sort-of, limbo-labor like this for so long.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s so frustrating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I expected J to be on his way home at 10.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My procardia dose was due at 9, but I figured I’d wait and talk to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At 10:45, I called to see if he was ever getting out of rehearsal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As soon as I heard his voice I started to cry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He told me that he’s in as good of shape as he needs to be this week, and we agreed that I should just stop taking the drugs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So maybe I’m having babies tonight, or tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or maybe not.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe my body is just going to keep fucking with me for another week.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m so tired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And frustrated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And weak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I wanted to go into motherhood strong and hardy, geared up for the c-section recovery and the challenges again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Instead I feel like I’m limping toward the finish line, both mentally and physically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Which would be great if the finish line was actually the finish, instead of a whole grueling new beginning.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole for sure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I’m not in wonderland yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m just falling and falling, waiting for the bottom to rise up and meet me. </p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-31375286057392176372010-02-21T16:59:00.000-08:002010-02-21T17:06:36.003-08:00Post-Shower Blues<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I'm in a really weird place right now. We had the baby shower yesterday, and it was really great. It was nice to have so many friends show up and I felt really loved.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Today I just feel ... strange. I don't know--maybe it's post-baby-shower letdown. I still need to figure out what to buy, and I still don't want to buy stuff too soon, but I'm getting kind of frantic to have everything in place so that I can stop worrying about it. I've become kind of stuff-obsessed, probably because I still can't envision how this is all going to work out. Not that I think it won't work out, but I just wish I could picture it, you know. </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Oh, and my mother in law really upset me yesterday.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">My sister, my dad, and several of my friends went in together and put together a fund to hire me a night nanny.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They’ve gathered enough to pay for seven nights, and they think they might be able to get a few more.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This is a really great present.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It doesn’t have to be seven nights in a row—I can spread it out over several weeks.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But it does make me feel strange, because the night nanny is really most useful if I’m pumping or using formula instead of breastfeeding, and I still don’t know how that’s going to work out, and I have this fantasy that I’m actually going to be able to breastfeed my babies and all will be well.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Then again, last night at 4 a.m. when I still wasn’t asleep and was feeling frantic, it occurred to me that having a night nanny come once a week for a couple of months is probably an amazing thing.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And once I got over the idea that now I was going to have to buy the expensive items on my registry myself, I realized that this is probably a really fabulous present, because I will buy the stroller and car seats myself, but I would never splurge on a night nanny myself.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So what does my MIL have to do with it?</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I ended up arriving ½ hour late to the party (which annoyed me, but I couldn’t rush my friends who were driving with us, because they had traveled down from B’more to come to the shower).</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Apparently, before I got there—but while a lot of my friends were there—my sister asked my MIL whether she wanted to contribute to the night-nanny gift.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And not only did she refuse, she gave my sister a dressing down in front of everyone, lecturing about how she would NEVER contribute to something like that because SHE had twins and SHE didn’t have any nighttime help and so on.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">(I didn’t get the exact quote.)</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So she really upset my sister, which just pisses me off.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Because my sister has been WAY more supportive than anyone else in my family about all this.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And speaking of my sister, she took me out to dinner last week and told me that she might be splitting up with her husband.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She’s already moved out into the guest bedroom, and I think it’s just a matter of months before they separate.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The reasons are hard to explain (and when I tried to explain them to J he got really frustrated with me).</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The short version sounds like a cliché—she’s spent her whole life trying to make other people happy, and as part of that has pretended that she’s fine and not “damaged” (her word, not mine, because I think we learn and grow from our scars) by our rocky childhood (hers much worse than mine), and basically has been faking a happy family/happy marriage for years.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But the thing is, it’s hard to explain why the marriage isn’t working.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Her husband is a great guy, and she loves him.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So there’s no villain here.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She just wants out, and it sounds to me like it’s really going to happen.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And it even sounds to me like this might be really good for her.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I’m so glad that, after all these years, she’s taking a stand for herself and being a bit selfish.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But—to be a bit selfish myself—this really sucks.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She and her husband and my nephew have been a HUGE source of stability for me.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I mean, for god’s sake, J and I have been planning on executing a will naming them as the guardians of our kids if something happens to us.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We love them as a couple, and I don’t know what happens to our tiny little family unit we’ve created here in DC if they split up.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> The truth is, this family unit right now consists of me, my husband, and my sister and her family. After all my broken/fucked up family problems, I've settled on creating a new family for our children. So it's hard to see that fantasy dissolve.</span></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And it also just makes me sad.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Because I want her to be happy, but I’m not sure this will make her happy, and I know it’s going to devastate her husband and hurt her child and I love them, too.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And there’s NO ONE I can talk to about this.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It’s not like I can talk to J’s mom about it, and I don’t think most of my friends would understand.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">(Though at least now that the shower’s over I can talk to them about it.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I didn’t want anyone to feel awkward at the shower.)</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The truth is, the person I talk to about stuff like this is my sister, and the last thing I want to do is lay a guilt trip on her when she’s finally finding herself.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Okay, now I’m sitting in my chair bawling.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I think I hadn’t realized how upset I was about this before now.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It’s just that everything seems to be going topsy turvy right when I need stability more than anything.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And it doesn't help that my body's frequent temper tantrums have me completely disoriented. I ended up staying up too late last night, then was awake most of the night with back pain and burning, screaming, excrutiating heartburn that no drug seemed able to touch. I'm having trouble even finding foods I can eat. Had macaroni with butter and parmesean for lunch today--how sad is that. So then I ended up sleeping all afternoon today, and now it's dark outside and I'm just disoriented and fussy.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I’m worried that I’m going to end up freaking out when I’m stuck at home with the babies.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I think I need my job more for structure than for stimulation. When I'm home for several days in a row, especially alone, I get into this funk where I don't know what I should be doing or feeling.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So I’m kind of a mess today.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> * * *</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Wanted to note that I realized there IS someone I can talk to. Called my BFF in Boston who I sometimes forget I can hit with this stuff, even though her life is very different from mine. It was really nice, and I'm feeling a bit better.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-68814503658681557072010-02-16T16:14:00.000-08:002010-02-16T16:20:19.178-08:00Mashup of Email Rants<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">I haven't been able to get my shit together and blog for weeks, so instead I thought I'd just pass on a mashup of email rants I've sent out in the past week:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">God, I'm losing it. My doctor today confirmed what I suspected: I'm basically experiencing full-term pregnancy . . . with six more weeks to go. As of three weeks ago I already was carrying about 7 pounds of baby (3.3 and 3.6 pounds). I can't eat without getting stomachaches, nausea, and heartburn, and I can't digest what I do manage to eat. I can't really walk that well, because my knees are getting tweaked and my legs and feet hurt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And nighttime is the WORST. I can't sleep, because my back and hips are killing me. And turning over totally sucks. Sometimes I'm just happy to have morning come so I can give up on trying to sleep. Every three or four nights I get a decent night's sleep, but it's a real crap shoot otherwise. I've thought about trying to sleep in my recliner, but I can't recline it very far before the dizziness/heart pounding starts, which tells me the babies are sitting on my vena cava. And I worry that it'll hurt my upper back and neck so badly it won't be worth it. AARGGHH. Very frustrating.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">And my work responsibilities just WILL NOT LET UP. This storm last week really messed me up. I was supposed to have oral argument on Wednesday--and I already was upset that it had been scheduled this late in my pregnancy. Now it's been canceled and likely will be rescheduled in MARCH. And it's not like I can easily ask someone else to handle it. The issues are incredibly complicated and I know the case really well, but it would take days for someone else to get caught up (and that person still might not really get the argument). So as long as I'm hauling my gigantic self into the office a few days a week, I'm really in no position to say I can't walk across the street and argue a case in court. But I REALLY REALLY REALLY don't want to do it. Any teeny amount of stress is kicking my ass at this point. On top of that, I have two briefs (that are interrelated and therefore hard to separate and reassign) due in March. I'd like to just knuckle down and focus on them, but other shit keeps cropping up that needs my attention. And I'm actually feeling so crappy that I'd love to just stop working altogether.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">Oh, and I have all this baby stuff to get done too, like meet with our day care person (I think we found someone!), and find a pediatrician, and take our parenting classes, etc. And CRAP, I keep forgetting that I need to meet with our personnel specialist and call the disability people and figure out how to get all of my leave paperwork taken care of, too.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">And apparently my pregnancy hormones have finally kicked in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was snowed in all week last week, which you'd think would lead to blogging, but I was so cranky I couldn’t even get started at it. At first I thought it was stress over work, then I thought it was cabin fever. But finally I realized that it could be those third trimester hormones kicking in. You know that PMS feeling where you're so agitated you just want to start screaming at everything and nothing? That's how I'm feeling almost ALL the TIME. Add in the random panic attacks (also for no reason--simply a physical reaction to having twice as much blood, my doc says) and I'm not good company.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">The rest of the time I’m weepy and sad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My sister suggested that I put together some baby pictures of me and J for our baby shower this Saturday, and I got all upset, because there really ARE NO baby pictures of me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Totally true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My parents took a ton of pictures of my sister, but when I was born they took almost none.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My mom had a nervous breakdown after I was born.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And those that she did have of me she managed to lose in one of her many moves over the years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have maybe two or three pictures, which just happened to be in a school project from 7<sup>th</sup> grade that I had kept.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For a long time I thought my dad would have some pictures (given that he’s an amazing amateur photographer), but when he sent me his CD archives a few years ago I discovered that aside from the ONE photo of me in the hospital, there are no pictures until I’m more than two years old.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Anyway, I ended up sitting on the couch crying about this, asking myself why no one loved me as a baby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Like this isn’t the oldest of old news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But there’s something about being an almost-mom that brings out the strangest thoughts about my own parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Who suck.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">We're making progress on getting the house ready, but that's been kind of stressful, too. Especially now that it seems that--despite everyone's assurances that "lots of people will want to buy you stuff"--no one seems to be buying us anything off our registry. I feel horrible and greedy for feeling so disappointed about this, but I spent weeks putting together that registry (which is okay, I guess, because it's still a good shopping list) and it feels weird to have it ignored. My shower is this Saturday, and it doesn't seem like many people are coming. Again, normally I'd be cool with this, but it's also a little strange. I keep telling myself that it's okay--we have a little bit of money (from last years health care flex account) set aside to buy the essentials, and we have been given a TON of secondhand stuff. In fact, I suspect I have more clothes than I'll be able to use in the first few months (though it's hard to tell for sure).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I’m still feeling let down.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">Rest assured, I will somehow get through all of this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I’m struggling like I never have before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I feel like I’m clawing my way on hands and knees to the finish line, and I’ll be lucky to make it across in one piece.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">So . . . how’s everyone else doing? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-78231107330753931682010-01-17T08:34:00.001-08:002010-01-17T08:38:27.625-08:00Babies Have Returned!Thanks so much for all your reassurance! I felt better as soon as I wrote my last post. Sometimes just writing about your fears helps take some of the sting out of them.<div><br /></div><div>My babies must have read my blog sometime yesterday evening, or maybe they felt that they had given me the silent treatment for long enough. Baby A was checking in with some strong bumps and kicks. And Baby B--well, I don't know what the hell she was doing. I'm thinking she's either going to be a swimmer or a boxer, because either she was practicing her flutter kick or she was working the speed bag. It was just bizarre. But very very comforting.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now I have to go back to folding and sorting hand-me-down baby clothes. (And that's a whole new post.)</div>the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-4929076467536869942010-01-16T05:52:00.000-08:002010-01-16T05:53:35.910-08:00Rediscovering Paranoia: Where the Fuck Are My Babies?<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"> I am greatly in need of reassurance, because I’ve entered into a new world of terror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For six months all I’ve thought about is my babies dying.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Okay, that’s not ALL I thought about, but it’s been my overarching fear.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then, for the last few weeks, what with the constant kicking and every week bringing me closer to viability, that fear has eased.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Now I have a new fear: my babies coming out damaged in some way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And the little monsters apparently are in on it, because they’ve (almost) completely stopped kicking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe that’s an exaggeration—I can’t really tell, because I wasn’t timing or counting the movements before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They’re definitely still alive in there—each one checks in occasionally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But both babies’ movements seem have become less frequent and much fainter.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Here’s what happened (in my paranoid cause-and-effect way of thinking):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think (but am not sure) that everything was normal (i.e. lots of strong movement, mostly twisting type stuff) as of last Wednesday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then, on Thursday night, I had a really really bad night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I had an incredibly stressful day at work, and my day-long pounding on my keyboard triggered some sort of muscle spasm behind my left shoulder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That night, I discovered for the first time that I couldn’t lie on my back for even a minute or two (before this I tried not to lie on my back, but I kept waking up in that position so I knew it was happening anyway) without the dizzy/heart-racing/nausea feeling that lets you know that the babies are, in fact, crushing the vena cava.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And though I never believed that this also could happen sleeping on the right side, it seemed that I was getting that sensation sleeping on that side as well (or maybe I was having a panic attack).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And my left side had this throbbing shoulder and sleeping on that was killing me as well.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Sometime in the middle of the night I got up to pee, eat, and see if I could do something about my shoulder.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When this shoulder problem used to happen, I could spend 15 minutes lying on my back with one of my “miracle balls” (used for physical therapy) between my shoulder blades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Despite my concerns about lying on my back, I tried this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And despite the fact that I was feeling panicky and dizzy, I stayed there for a few minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Not sure how long—definitely under 5 minutes.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Baby A was kicking when I started this, then his kicks faded away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> A few minutes later I got up and tried to ice my shoulder while lying on my recliner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But the dizzy/panicky feeling remained.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At this point I don’t know if it was the pain, a panic attack, or an actual circulation problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Baby B gave some feeble kicks, and I think I got some movement from Baby A, so I knew they were both still alive after my admittedly foolish move.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> And then I started to worry (and yes, this really does sound crazy to me).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What if I cut off their blood supply enough to damage them, but not kill them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What if I have brain-damaged babies in there now?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What if I’ve ruined their lives, and our lives in the bargain?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> The thing is, these thoughts probably would have eased by now but my babies have chosen this moment to go into partial hibernation!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Every day they kick—I know they’re alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But it’s NOTHING like what I was feeling in the past few weeks, or even earlier this week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Actually, I think Baby B is about where she was before with movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But Baby A—my baby that NEVER stops moving—seems to kick only rarely now and weakly.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> My rational explanation:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>earlier this week, for both babies, the kicking was surpassed by a lot of strange twisty motions.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Very hard to describe, but I imagine some of you know what I mean.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My rational guess is that the babies have changed position—or at least Baby A has changed position—and now his kicks aren’t in a place that I feel as much.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I also wonder if they’ve gotten bigger and don’t have the leverage to kick like they used to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or maybe there was just a growth spurt and he’s tired out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> But my rational explanation isn’t doing much for my mounting paranoia/terror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve already decided that if this doesn’t change by Monday I’ll probably call my doctor and see what they think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But for now, please tell me, is this normal?</p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-61713253433166667882010-01-13T17:58:00.000-08:002010-01-13T18:01:36.803-08:00The 22-Week Sono<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmW7N3M9YTVGmbyanPaf05kqjtQtyRIbnyUfo6-pZxs6jAZI-dYxFpxuvyZ6X_H0SSHtzOf76_fey5A5-rG2BaEuwJxSCSryadfeMY7vHHj8bP8JP3eMIRF5nQJeqUJ2vqoZkETmT8wzw/s1600-h/Twins+22+weeks.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmW7N3M9YTVGmbyanPaf05kqjtQtyRIbnyUfo6-pZxs6jAZI-dYxFpxuvyZ6X_H0SSHtzOf76_fey5A5-rG2BaEuwJxSCSryadfeMY7vHHj8bP8JP3eMIRF5nQJeqUJ2vqoZkETmT8wzw/s320/Twins+22+weeks.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426409271637558306" /></a><br /><div>As promised, here are the best of the 22-week sono pictures. (Had our 26-week sono last week, but neither baby deigned to look like anything resembling a baby for the photos.)</div><div><br /></div><div>And yes, Baby A is shaking his fist at you. I'm telling you, that kid's gonna be trouble. </div>the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-73457566733566137412010-01-13T06:49:00.001-08:002010-01-13T06:49:56.024-08:00Pregnancy Kills Blogging!God, I thought I was a bad blogger before, but being pregnant is sucking every ounce of spare time and spare energy out of my body, rendering me Worst Blogger Ever. It doesn’t help that I go to bed at 9 every night (often quite panicky about getting to bed before I completely lose my ability to put myself to bed properly), that I’m struggling to perform the bare minimum of my job, and that every spare moment is spent trying to complete my baby registry or plan what classes we’re going to take or appease all of the family that’s come out of the woodwork lately and wants to be a big part of my life. <br /><br />Oh, and I have SO much to say that that thought of writing a blog entry has been kind of intimidating. So this morning I decided, fuck it, I’ll just say what I can now and say more later, if I get a chance.<br /><br />So, first, the BIG news. On Christmas Eve, J and I opened the card that would tell us the sex(es) of our babies. Actually, we had two cards—the first was written by our doctor who was looking at the CVS results. The results she had didn’t identify which baby was which, so if they were opposite sexes, she wouldn’t be able to tell us which was Baby A and which was Baby B. So at the next sono appointment we also got a sealed envelope from our sono tech, identifying the sex of each baby.<br /><br />Before we opened the cards, J gave me two Christmas presents—our babies’ first stuffed animals. For Baby A, he selected a super-soft, floppy donkey. Just fucking adorable. Baby B got a soft, kind of funky-patchworky stuffed dog. Very different, but also cute as can be. J told me that, after he found the donkey, he had a really hard time finding another animal that was different but “equivalent.” Do you go by size? Quality? Price? And then, right there in the store, he realized that this was his life—that this question would hound him every Christmas, birthday, and other special occasion. We laughed for a long time over that.<br /><br />And then we opened the card. We started with the card from our doc, because if the babies were the same sex there would be no need to find out which was which. J opened it, and I sat there with my hands over my eyes. Finally, he said, “Well, on to envelope number two,” and I started bouncing up and down on the couch, clapping my hands and trying not to be a total sap by crying. Envelope number two revealed that Baby A (the one who never stops moving, and appears to be banging on the walls of their cage in the sono I’ll post as soon as I get home) is a boy, and Baby B (the one who is much more mellow, and always just sits there calmly during the sonos) is a girl. <br /><br />We couldn’t be happier. I mean, I’m sure we would have been just as happy to have boys and just as happy to have girls, but we really wanted to experience both. So with four years of trying, more than $40,000 in medial bills, and a little help from our friendly neighborhood cryobank, J and I finally seem to have hit the IVF jackpot.<br /><br />Have tons more to tell (mostly whining, so let’s save that for another post), but I’ve got to get my ass in gear and write this brief. <br /><br />Love you all, and miss you. I need to get back on track with catching up with everyone, and I’m going to try to do that in little bits and pieces in the next couple of weeks.the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-13784318116244130202009-12-07T10:00:00.000-08:002009-12-07T10:06:17.143-08:00An Overheard MomentOn Saturday night, as I was heading back into the living room where our friends were hanging out with my man J, I heard this conversation:<br /><br />J's best friend (and current father of a 1-year old): Yeah, pregnancy can be pretty nervewracking.<br /><br />J: You're telling me. If you had any idea the thoughts that go through my head every time I see [Babychaser's] name come up on the caller ID. . . .<br /><br />I caught myself blinking back tears. J's awesome, and hilarious, and sarcastic, and I adore him. But he doesn't often talk about how he's feeling, and sometimes it's hard to have a serious conversation with him about this pregnancy. I had no idea he was as scared as I am. And knowing that he's as deep into this as I am really touched me.the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-81373166658468400682009-12-04T17:30:00.000-08:002009-12-04T17:33:33.257-08:00My Babies Are Rock Stars<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">There are definite upsides to this whole pregnancy thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This week I started feeling the babies kick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s not prominent enough to feel with my hand, so J hasn’t been able to feel it yet, but it’s definitely real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Such a cool feeling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most people describe the early movements as a fluttering feeling, or like bubbles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think if I felt that stuff I totally disregarded it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After all, there’s been an awful lot going on in my belly, what with muscles stretching and twitching, ligaments shifting, and my entire digestive system being bent out of shape (literally).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These movements aren't fluttery; they actually feel like tiny fists punching out from the inside.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m sure it will get annoying in a while, but for now it’s just so satisfying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On Wednesday I spent the day at a seminar at the Supreme Court—first we heard the arguments for that day (the property case on Florida’s beach restoration program, a fascinating case involving property law, constitutional law, and whether the Court should recognize a “judicial takings” doctrine), then we had several panel discussions with various experts on Supreme Court practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> (Coolest CLE ever.) </span>I ended up totally spacing out about 10 minutes of one of these panels—on a really cool topic—because Baby A was kicking and I was entranced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So yeah, there’s definitely some falling in love going on.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Also, J and I had our 21-week sono today, and our babies are total rock stars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They’re big for their age—both are measuring at about 22 weeks, and both have strong heartbeats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Watching a live heartbeat on a sono is incredibly cool—you can see all 4 chambers at work.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Really amazing.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As usual, Baby A was vying for all the attention, waving his/her little fists around and wiggling all over the place.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But J and I thought Baby B stole the show this time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think it was the shot we got of the bottoms of his/her little feet, with all the tiny toes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And Baby B had the hiccups, which we could see, and then hear when we were listening to the heartbeat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Again, I’m sure this will annoy me when the babies are big enough for me to feel their hiccups, but at this point it was incredibly cute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So while I’m definitely still suffering (add back/hip pain to the nighttime mix—sometimes it’s a relief when morning comes because trying to sleep is such a struggle), at least I know my babies are content, well-fed, and comfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Narcissistic little monsters.</p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-20226847348703564242009-11-29T15:00:00.000-08:002009-11-29T15:01:27.028-08:00Can I Bitch?Can I take a moment to bitch about my pregnancy? Is it all right, after all these years of trying to get here, for me to mark my halfway point by complaining about how hard this is?<br /><br />Pregnancy is really kicking my ass. In some ways, it isn’t as hard as I imagined. Given my history of back problems and miscarriages, I thought it was possible that pregnancy would turn me into a true invalid. (It still might, but it’s looking like, if that happens, it will be in the later stages.) And I still remain fairly functional and somewhat active.<br /><br />But in many ways pregnancy is much harder than I thought it would be. All of the symptoms are totally tolerable—for a week or two. But to feel like crap day after day, with no end in sight, is exhausting. And having to maintain the same level of competence at work while my body is in full revolt is daunting. <br /><br />Here’s my list of lovely symptoms:<br /><br />Nausea. That’s right, I’m 20 weeks pregnant and still getting nauseous. No, wait, that’s not quite accurate. I’m getting nauseous AGAIN. My doc says that this happens with a lot of women when they hit 28 weeks—it’s the pressure the baby is putting on the stomach. He thinks that it’s likely, with me carrying twins, this is what’s happening. And he’s right that it’s different from morning sickness. I now get sick after I eat, not before. So I feel ill before I eat because I’m hungry. And then I feel even worse after I eat. Actually, I’ve discovered that the only time I feel really good is while I’m eating and maybe five minutes afterward.<br /><br />Heartburn. Probably higher on the list of annoyances than the nausea. Everything I eat turns to acid. And then it seems to crawl back up my throat. I’m constantly burping, and when I’m not upright I end up just regurgitating. Sorry if this seems disgusting. It is digusting. And painful. And annoying. I’m taking a zantac before every meal, which helps some, but it’s frustrating as hell.<br /><br />Headaches. When I don’t eat and drink enough (such as when I’m nauseous or have hearburn), I get headaches. Ow.<br /><br />Insomnia. Everything is conspiring against my ability to sleep. For starters, I can’t sleep for more than three hours without having to get up to eat. And the amount I eat seems to have little to do with this calculation. So I can’t eat twice as much and sleep twice as long. It just doesn’t work that way. And then, of course, after I eat I get the aforementioned heartburn/regurgitation, which has a way of keeping me awake. Also, lying on my side (which I now have to do) makes my hips and/or lower back hurt, which also keeps me awake. And sometimes, when I’m miraculously comfortable lying there, I STILL can’t sleep. For hours. No idea why. This generally is between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., maybe later. I seem to do my best sleeping after 5:30 or 6:00 a.m, which really blows when I need to get up at 6:30 to go to work.<br /><br />Paranoia. This coincides with the insomnia, as I am much more paranoid in those lonely hours in the middle of the night. I ended up with a surge of nausea and cramps last week, which made me so concerned that I called my doctor. He now wants me to push up my sono (scheduled for Friday) to Monday. (Which also sucks, as my fabulous OB’s office almost certainly will be booked and will try to push me off to Community Radiology again, which is where I had to go last month, and the sono tech couldn’t get the TV screen working and would barely turn her screen so I didn’t really get to see anything, and the equipment was crappy and I ended up with no pictures and I SWORE that this month’s sono was going to be in the nice place where I could actually see my babies! Grrr.) A few nights ago I was sure I felt the babies (Baby B, to be precise) kicking, though I’m still having trouble figuring out which abdominal sensations—and there are many—are the babies. Haven’t felt it since, so I spent all night last night wondering, again, if my babies had died. I tend to be a lot better about these thoughts in the light of day, at least.<br /><br />Exhaustion. I do have bursts of energy occasionally, but they don’t come every day and they don’t last long. Mostly I’m just tired. A couple of weeks ago, when J was out of town, I finished my dinner and wondered whether it was too early to go to bed. I looked at the clock. It was 7:15. <br /><br />I think I would tolerate these problems better if I didn’t have so long to go, and if I didn’t know it was just going to get harder. I’m feeling a little ripped off—where are the happy second-trimester hormones I was promised? Where is that “I can do anything” burst of energy I was supposed to get? Then again, I am getting two babies for the price of one, and that’s likely the reason I’m having such a hard time.<br /><br />I know I shouldn’t complain. And I am so unbelievably relieved not to be trying to get pregnant anymore that I am, for the most part, handling this difficulty well enough. But occasionally—like the day before Thanksgiving when the headaches came to the cramps/nausea/heartburn party—I just break down and cry, because I have no idea how to take care of myself anymore. I’ve lost all control over my body, and my desperate attempts to keep myself in line (yoga, acupuncture, chiropractic, walking on treadmill) often seem futile in the face of this overwhelming change.<br /><br />So lay it on me, folks. Am I the only one struggling through this?the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-88096036508033502052009-11-14T19:44:00.000-08:002009-11-14T19:48:08.793-08:00The Long-Awaited (and Just Plain Long) Post About My Mother<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve been promising to write about my mother for as long as I’ve been writing this blog—which is almost two years now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I never do it, though, mostly because it’s such a monumental undertaking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How do I describe the damage caused by the person who was, for most of formative years, the most influential person in my life?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How can I keep this blog-length, while capturing the depth of my frustration at the fact that I can’t fully escape her?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How can I show how hurt and angry I am that she emotionally abandoned me for her mental illness? And what does it say about me that I’m estranged from my father, and wish I could reach the same distance from my mother?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But I’ve been thinking about this all day, so I’m going to at least give it a start:</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My mom is nuts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe not to the casual observer, definitely not on first acquaintance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But she’s crazy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Definitely bipolar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>With an edge of paranoid schizophrenia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She’s functional—sort of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A few years ago she found another man sucker enough to marry her and take care of her so she could retire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And you can bet that she hides most of her crazy from him (she can be very practical that way).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A few years ago she told me that she never told him that she channels, or anything about that side of her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And all I could think was why the hell she couldn’t do the same thing for me?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m doing a shit job of describing this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Here’s the thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My dad left when I was four.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And my stepdad, who came along when I was seven and stuck for 11 years, was such a non-entity in my life that I never even think about him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As parents went, it was all my mom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And she was the BEST.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or at least that’s what I thought most of the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We were so close, like two peas in a pod.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She cultivated me to think I was just like her, and I thrived on her love and attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(What this all did to my big sister, “F,” who was classified by my mom as more like my dad, is another horrifying story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I try not to feel guilty—I was younger and didn’t know—but it still bothers me sometimes.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I always knew that mom was kind of nutty, but I always figured her as eccentric, kooky, a bit of a free spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because that’s the way she described herself, and I was just a kid, so what was I going to believe?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then she went over the edge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe it was the move to Pakistan that did it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s right—my mom and stepdad’s bright idea was to move to Pakistan my senior year of high school to teach at an American school there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(The reason?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To escape a judgment of back child support against my stepdad.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Lovely, no?) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Me and my much younger little brother (child of my stepdad) went with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was young, eager for adventure, and such a flaming liberal that I had some great vision of going and learning from this unique culture, blah, blah, blah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I thought for sure I could get into any college if I was applying from there.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I lasted all of three weeks in Pakistan before I bailed out and my mom agreed to let me go back home to Utah to finish out high school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Three days later I was halfway around the world with $500 in my pocket to buy a car, no definite place to live (they just figured I could live with a friend), no one knowing I was coming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Does this sound normal to you?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Because at the time I didn’t know how fucked up that was.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think going to Pakistan pushed mom over the edge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Actually, I think she was well on her way there before then—she’d been like a zombie the whole summer before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But she went truly nuts there, determined that the cook was trying to poison her, performing “water rituals” (don’t even ask—it’s just stupid and embarrassing), and channeling her spirit guide, who just happened to be Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Not that she was any kind of born-again Christian or anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was just putting herself in a trance and hearing voices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Later—and for a long time—John Denver joined the mix.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">All of this came to a head the next year—my freshman year of college.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>First the Gulf War broke out and they sent everyone home from Pakistan.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And no sooner did they return a couple of months later but my mom went on a full-fledged manic episode.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I think she got hospitalized there, but I don’t really know, because all I ever heard was her side of the story, which (again in retrospect) is hard to believe.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But when they brought her home in March of my freshman year, I did believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I believed everything she told me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I believed that she had found this new, new-agey religion.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I believed that her trances were a way to heal her from the abuse she had suffered as a child (now I don’t even know if that abuse happened).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I believed that she was fine, not crazy at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And when my stepdad and aunt tried to put mom in the hospital I stood up to them and prevented it from happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And when, a few months later, she was found up roaming the streets of DC without her purse or coat and ended up hospitalized (I later learned she had gone to DC in search of John Denver, who was talking to her telepathically to try to meet her, but was thwarted by these other, devil voices that were mixing up his messages), I talked her doctor into releasing her if I took her home to Utah for outpatient treatment, and I flew down to DC from NY, and flew her back to Utah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was nineteen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Fast forward several years—years with her ups and downs, years in which she attempted suicide a couple of times (which she would promptly tell me about), years when she quit jobs she had just started because her boss was “out to get her,” years when she tossed her oldest and closest friends aside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For most of this I stood by her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My sister F bailed out early—back when mom first came home from Pakistan—but I defended her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t think my mom ever forgave me for growing up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think she liked it when I was young and looked up to her and was “just like” her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I think, as much as she “wept” when I told her I was being treated for depression in my mid-20s, that it made her love me that much more, because it made me more hers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was the things about me that were adult, competent, controlled that she didn’t like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She wanted to teach me to channel, so I could talk to my own spirit guide, and she wanted to hypnotize me; she was disappointed when I was unwilling.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And she hated the fact that I wanted some emotional boundaries between us; I remember her telling me that I was being “cold,” just like F.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(My sister, by the way, is perhaps the best thing in my life besides my husband; she’s not cold, she’s just grown up.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mom wanted me to be a “free spirit,” and she never could accept the side of me that I’ve grown to like the best—the organized, practical, driven, self-sufficient side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was ridiculously proud of me for being a lawyer, but I don’t think she ever got why I’m good at it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I know this post is long on generalities, but lacking in anything concrete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But there’s no time, no space, to get into all of that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can tell you that about 10 years ago I had an epiphany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By that time mom was a problem, and I knew she was a bit of a mess, but I was still in her camp, ready to talk to her when she was depressed, and willing to see her when she wanted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I agreed to go with her and her best friend on a trip to the Outer Banks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The trip was a fucking disaster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mom wanted to listen to Air Supply in the car so we could sing to it just like when I was a teenager, but she’d picked up some Air Supply CD I’d never heard (who knew Air Supply kept writing after the 80s?), and then she was mad at me when I wouldn’t sing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We were driving through North Carolina when she realized that she had the directions, lost the name of the hotel, even lost the name of the town we were going to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And at some point, when we were leaving a hotel, she drove over her own suitcase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was in bad, bad shape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And when we got to the hotel, I learned that she had downgraded the 3-bedroom bungalow she told me about and had rented one hotel room for the three of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(This when I was going to bed at midnight and they were going to bed at 9 or 10.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The room only had a microwave, but mom and her friend planned to “cook” all their meals in their hotel room (all three of us were really broke at the time—I’d been counting on a kitchen).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And mom was pissed off that I ended up eating most of my meals at the restaurant—she said I was acting like I was too good for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Really I was just hungry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was 28 years old, and mom clearly wanted me to be 8 years old again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was during that trip that I realized that my mom wasn’t just mentally ill—she was toxic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I realized that it had never been about me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Even when she was doting-all-over-me full of love, it was still all about her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I realized that she had no idea who I had become as an adult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And when she was lucid enough to see the adult in me, she didn’t like it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(When I told all this to F on my return, she said with a wry smile, “I don’t mean to be flip, but welcome to my life.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was an epiphany for me.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Fast-forward again, several more years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Years of me trying to distance myself from mom, years involving some horrifying letters from her vilifying me, telling me that she had never leaned on me, telling me that she had only pretended to need me to satisfy my co-dependent need for self-congratulation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then one evening after she had decided to move here to DC to be close to us, when we tried to tell her she wouldn’t do so well here, an unbelievable knock-down, drag-out fight in my sister’s house that I can barely remember.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The “conversation” lasted 2 hours, and I can’t remember the things she said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All I can remember is that they’re the kinds of things a parent should never, ever say to her child, under any circumstances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(My MIL says maybe it’s a good thing that I can’t remember, but I wish I could.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Because sometimes I feel like I’m making this all up, like I’m just a bad daughter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Knowing exactly what mom has said and done would help.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And after that, after mom had found her new husband and moved with him and his money back to Utah, I had some peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My sister—who had produced her first and only grandchild—was suddenly the favorite.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Which was just fine with me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I would still hear mom’s voice in my head sometimes, and I would still have her stay with me for a night or two when she came to visit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Visits that were preceded by panic attacks and survived through liberal doses of xanax.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And then, when my nephew was three and I had been trying to conceive for almost a year, my sister had a miscarriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>F had been four months pregnant, so her loss was pretty public.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And devastating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I know mom was upset, but she still managed to make it all about her, not about my grieving sister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mom told her own sisters (who she’s been competing with her whole life), and her sisters sent F flowers, and then mom spent two days calling to make sure the flowers got there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then, two weeks after F lost her baby, mom sent her a vicious e-mail chiding her for not sending a thank you note for the flowers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m not making this up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A week after my sister’s miscarriage I learned I was pregnant for the first time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Two weeks later I miscarried.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Not telling mom was a no-brainer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">That fall, mom came out for her annual visit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She spent the week babysitting my nephew at F’s house, and working on her new book on F’s computer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Mom fancies herself a novelist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She actually has some talent, but she tries to write these deep, philosophical books—this one was sci-fi I think—that are full of numerology and bits and pieces of trendy philosophy and religion and are basically unreadable.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That Friday, J and I were going to F’s house for dinner, and we were taking mom home with us for the weekend before she flew back home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I had been in the house less than a minute—J had gone back into the kitchen to help my sister cook, leaving me alone with mom—when she dropped the bomb: </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I was working on my book on F’s computer,” she said, “and I was trying to save and I accidentally clicked on something and this document just popped right open.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I knew this couldn’t be going anywhere good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My heart started to race.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">She went on:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“I started to read it and I realized that it was some sort of diary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>F had written all about her feelings about her miscarriage.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I started to feel sick, tried not to hyperventilate.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“And that’s how I learned about YOUR miscarriage,” she said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Oh honey, you must have been devastated.” </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t remember what I said next.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Something inane, something about how it was okay, really, I was glad she knew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Which was a total fucking lie, but she’d caught me flatfooted.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">As mom kept on talking about F’s diary, and I realized two things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One: mom hadn’t just glanced at this document and closed it when she realized what it was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She had pored over it closely, probably several times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And two: mom’s issue with the diary wasn’t about F’s heartbreak over her loss, or about my loss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was about what F had written about mom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You see, F had written some unkind things about mom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Astonishing, no?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And mom was upset about that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I remember at some point she said “I know, people who eavesdrop should never expect to hear nice things,” and I was shouting in my head that this wasn’t like eavesdropping because F had never SAID that stuff to ANYONE.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was in her PRIVATE diary.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The rest of the weekend was a blur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I know that I told mom in no uncertain terms that she should never, ever, in her entire life, let F know that she had read her diary, and that I would carry the secret to the grave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(This meant that I was going to have to tell F that I had decided to tell mom about my own miscarriage, because I knew it would come up at some point—I think this was the worst violation, having to tell my sister that I had chosen to reveal a secret that had been ripped out of me.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I know that mom at one point—when she realized I was mad—asked me in a plaintive voice “well, after it just popped open, what was I supposed to do?” and I manage to say through gritted teeth: “CLOSE IT”.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Oh, and I remember a conversation in the car on the way back from F’s house, when mom glibly told me that my infertility must come from my father’s side of the family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Even that part of me was something she couldn’t own.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Later that week, mom wrote F a 12-page, single-spaced letter telling her she had read her diary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t know what the letter said, exactly, but F told me that the only reason she read the whole thing was to see if there was an apology anywhere in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There wasn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was all about the nasty things F had said—in her own diary—about mom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was bitter and brutal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">F and I came to an agreement that day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No more secrets, for any reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Not even to protect each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We are a united front.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Forever.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">About a month later, mom sent us both a letter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It said that she wasn’t going to visit us anymore, because she was “no good” for us anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There was a lot more crap in there, like how she grieved over us as if we had died, and how our father had never loved us (something she’s been telling me since I was a little kid), and god only knows what else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I read it quickly and set it aside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As far as I was concerned, the only thing that mattered was that she wasn’t going to visit anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And thank god for that.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But then, a few months later, she started wheedling her way back into my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I guess I’m the favorite again, right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Every few months I would call her, or would pick up when she called me (mostly I just screen), and we’d chat about mundane stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I talked to her just enough to keep her from realizing I was avoiding her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I didn’t want things to fester and get ugly again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sometimes she would write to me, letters filled with code and innuendo about how F was like my father (code for cold, unfeeling, pretentious), or how she wanted to come visit me, but she couldn’t see F because she had to “protect her from being two people”—one who is nice to mom’s face and one who writes bad things behind her back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And in these same letters she would fawn all over me, like a lovesick teenager.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think her love for me is creepier and more offensive that her hatred of my sister.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Neither is deserved or based on anything real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mom has no idea who I am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And the parts of me that are really ME she doesn’t like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">For the past five or six years, all I have wanted to do was tell her to go fuck herself, now and forever.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My MIL would say “it’s not her, it’s that she’s mentally ill.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I say fuck that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mental illness doesn’t excuse a person from hurting your children the way she’s hurt us.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And if she really wanted to be better she’d see a decent doctor and stay on her medication.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And frankly I don’t care what’s causing her to be the way she is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She’s a snake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She’ll spend years wiggling into your most sensitive parts, then strike out at you when she doesn’t get her way, or when she’s bored, or when it’s winter and she’s depressed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Who cares why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All I care about is protecting myself and the people I love.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But you can’t just write off a bi-polar family member.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I haven’t had a real fight with her since that two-hour debacle in my sister’s house 7 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I learned then that it isn’t worth it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She doesn’t hear what I’m saying; all getting angry does is escalate the problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If I tried to tell her that we’re through, she might go away for a while, but sooner or later she’d be back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe on the phone, maybe in letters, maybe on my doorstep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe on my doorstep with her wrists slit open just enough to make me think she meant it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So until I’m ready to get a restraining order and make her a ward of the state if necessary, she remains my mom.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(And I do consider that a possibility in the long run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I’m not there yet.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I try to keep up as many barriers between us as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Enough to protect me and my family, but not quite enough for her to notice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My goal with her is not to achieve love, or reconciliation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My goal is to achieve total ambivalence, to the point where nothing she says or does can hurt me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(A lot of this is about privacy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For example, she knows nothing about my later IF treatment, nothing about my surgery, nothing about my other miscarriages.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I did tell her, about two years ago when she was threatening to visit again, that J and I were undergoing “advanced fertility treatment” and that we were not having any visitors until it was over, which could take more than a year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was a calculated risk—I decided to give up some of my privacy to keep her away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And it worked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And then I got pregnant.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Can I tell you how badly I wanted not to tell her about this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most people are scared to tell their boss, their co-workers, maybe an IF friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was terrified about telling my mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And not because I was afraid she’d be cold or cruel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But because I knew she’d be thrilled, ecstatic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Especially about the twins.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I knew she’d be over the moon.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Finally something to lord over her sisters, who have only managed to eke out one grandchild so far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I knew that, just like snapping my fingers, she’d be back in my life as if nothing had ever happened.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I wasn’t wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I called her and told her she was practically speechless with shock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Which led me to wonder—was the reason I had managed to escape her so almost completely because she had given up on me giving her a grandchild?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Had she lost interest in me?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then two days later I got a letter full of excited gibbering, talking about how she kept bursting out in song and how every time she thought about twins she started giggling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She talked about “twinspeak” and shit like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I had made it clear on the phone that she could visit during the summer, not when the babies came in the spring, and that she could not stay in our house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“No room,” I said, which is true (but we will squeeze in our friends who are coming to help soon after the babies come).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In her letter, she talked about how she was going to try to find a hotel close by so she could walk there early in the mornings so she could be with me for nighttime help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(This is SO not going to happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By the time she comes I’ll be handling the nighttime on my own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I don’t think having her there to help will make me sleep any better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I assure you, that woman will never be alone with my kids.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s been like that ever since.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She’s tried to call every two weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Which also is not happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ll talk to her once a month, maybe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No more than that.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And when we do talk, she tells me that every time she sees a baby or a toddler now she pictures another one next to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That she’s “always wanted [me] to have twins.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why me?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What does that mean?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That she loves to picture the twins in their high chairs next to each other banging away, talking twinspeak to each other.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I knew that if I got pregnant she would be back in my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I knew that the twin thing was going to make her feel extra-special.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But this is distressing and revolting at the same time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I feel like, before my babies are even born, they already are not people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They already are in that special category—twins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Special by virtue of their birth, not because of who they are or will be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For me, they’re just two babies that I happen to be having at the same time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And they’ll grow up to be siblings that happen to be the same age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And yeah, I do hope that they like each other and are close, but I’m not counting on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But for mom the twin thing makes me, or maybe just my children, celebrities in our family, worthy of adulation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s creepy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I realized several years ago that, until she dies (and believe me, that woman is healthy as a horse), mom is going to be in our lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sometimes she’ll adore me, sometimes she’ll hate me, and I honestly don’t know which is worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(F says being hated is worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And she’s been on that side a lot more than I have.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But my mother will never actually know me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And she’ll never actually know my children (she’s completely thrown my now-7-year-old nephew away).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And as the years go by she’ll keep getting crazier, and she’ll keep coming back to take it out on me and my sister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(For some reason my little brother gets a free pass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think it’s because he’s a boy.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All I can do is try to maintain my barriers, my distance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And pray for ambivalence.</p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-79283550664746394942009-10-31T12:49:00.000-07:002009-10-31T12:51:52.722-07:00Miscarriage Dreams<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b>WARNING: This post is pretty graphic. Appropriate for Halloween maybe, but consider yourself warned.</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">For months I’ve been having miscarriage dreams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They show up about once a week, and always leave me completely freaked out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Up until last night, they’ve been pretty much the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m in the middle of an otherwise ordinary dream—no reason for me to suspect I’m dreaming—and I go to pee and find blood on the toilet paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At first just a little bit, then a few drops more, and then the cramps start to kick in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It used to take me a minute to realize that this was bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After all, it’s been a pretty frequent occurrence for me for the past 25 years or so—it’s strange NOT to be bleeding for so long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But then, as realization dawned, I would have that “oh no” moment.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I remember the first such dream vividly, rocking back and forth on the toilet saying, “No, no, no, no, no” until J finally heard me and woke me up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And it’s getting harder for me to wake myself up from these dreams as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A few weeks ago, I had a whole conversation with myself—in my dream—about how this time I wasn’t dreaming and it was real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I actually pulled the oldest cliché in the book—while still dreaming, I pinched myself over and over again to prove I wasn’t dreaming, which eventually managed to wake me up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Last night my brain decided to raise the stakes, and I dreamed that I had the whole miscarriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Not the way it would actually be, of course, because it didn’t take more than a minute and didn’t hurt much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It started the same way, some blood in the toilet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But then there was a gush, like when you’re passing a big blood clot, and my babies fell out into the toilet, one right after the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Luckily for my sanity, they didn’t look like babies—they were just bundled packages that I knew had my babies inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It happened so fast—I knew my pregnancy had ended but just couldn’t wrap my brain around it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was like those dreams (if you have them you’ll understand) where you’ve done something incredibly stupid, like drive off a ledge, and now you’re falling and you know you’re going to die and you know that there’s nothing you can do about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You’ve passed the point of no return, and it’s just . . . over.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And with this dream, like all of the others before it, as soon as it happened there was a voice inside my head saying, “but of course, here’s the miscarriage—knew it was going to happen sooner or later.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Of all the things about these dreams that scare me, I think this sense of resignation over the miscarriage, the sense that it was inevitable, is the most disturbing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m not big into dream analysis.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I pretty much subscribe to the theory that my brain does a lot of random dicking around while I sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But it doesn’t take a genius to figure what these dreams mean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I definitely have had my worry-dream phases before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I left home for college I went through a phase where I kept dreaming about bad things happening to my little brother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And when I first adopted kittens I dreamed about some catastrophe happening and not knowing what to do to save them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I suspect that when I actually have the kids I’ll have dreams about bad things happening to them, too.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But I wonder—do women who haven’t struggled to get pregnant have these dreams?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Do women who’ve never lost a pregnancy have them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And if not, what do they dream about? </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I’m curious—as the fertility drugs and pregnancy hormones zip around through your bodies, what are you all dreaming about? </p> <br /> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-17708685019005132822009-10-27T13:41:00.000-07:002009-10-27T13:43:38.833-07:00The Precariousness of Pregnancy<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">One of my good friends—who is about 5 weeks behind me in her pregnancy—just found out that she had a miscarriage.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Her baby died about two weeks ago.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She managed to stay on the phone long enough to tell me what happened, then said she was sure I understood that she was in no condition to talk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All I could say was “of course,” and “I’m so sorry,” and “call me when you need me.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">How fucking inadequate.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And don’t get me wrong—I’m not getting down on myself for not knowing what to say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s that I know there’s nothing I can say or do that will ease her pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m helpless in the face that that she-bitch Fate, who seems to steal babies at will, just because.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I was so excited for her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Pregnant on her first IUI, and all I could think of was “thank god.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because the last thing you want to see is a friend starting to follow in your IF footsteps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And because we could be pregnant together and have our babies together and have play dates and I wouldn’t be alone (as I am, with most of my friends already raising<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>toddlers).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And now she’s crushed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I’m crushed too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And she’s sad and alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I’m pregnant and alone.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">That is, if I’m still pregnant.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Because it’s shit like this that reminds me (as I try to hard to forget), that pregnancy is a precarious state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Any minute it can be snatched away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And why does it seem so much more cruel that you might not even know?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You might be rubbing your belly and talking to your baby and planning your nursery and not even know that your baby has died, that all you’re carrying around is a memory of what might have been.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And maybe that’s me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I probably should have rented one of those dopplers, but they were so expensive (and with twins you need the fancy kind so you can differentiate the heartbeats).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And besides, I thought there were some things I should maybe try to take on faith—like that my babies will still be alive at my next sono.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I just want to put my head in my hands and cry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For my friend, who is right now discussing with her doctor how to get her child out of her uterus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For my sister, who lost her baby at 4 months in much the same way three years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And for all of you out there who’ve had this happen, who’ve had their dreams ripped out of their bodies and tossed to the side for no reason other than it just wasn’t right this time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And for me, who just wants to feel safe in my pregnancy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But can’t.</p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-2705661974015522432009-10-19T14:43:00.000-07:002009-10-19T14:53:22.531-07:00Is This That Thing Called "Happy"?<div>I’m going to say this right from the start—pregnant blogging makes me feel strange. It’s not just that it’s hard to get a handle on how I’m feeling, when it changes every five minutes. It’s that I don’t want to upset anyone. Believe me, I didn’t give a fuck about upsetting anyone before—I figured life had shat on me one too many times, and I was entitled to bitch about it to my heart’s content. Who was going to begrudge me a rant about the unfairness of life?<br /><br />But it’s different now. The thing is, pregnancy is kind of hard. I’m actually holding up pretty well—haven’t gotten terribly sick, seem to be on top of my back/hip pain much of the time, am surviving (though not thriving) at work. But even though I know a lot of women are a lot worse off than me, I find it exhausting to constantly feel a bit “off,” to constantly be thinking about where my next snack is going to come from, and to be completely incapable of finding maternity pants that fit right.<br /><br />And yet this is not what I want to blog about. Because I know there are women out there that would amputate a body part to be in my shoes. Because I know what it feels like to read a blog like that.<br /><br />On the flip side, it’s almost worse to be blogging about how happy I feel. How excited I am. The last thing I want to do is rub it in for those still in the depths of hell.<br /><br />But I don’t want to lose the friends I’ve made because I’m afraid to be who--and what--I now am. So here we go:<br /><br />I am really, really, really happy about these babies. Sure, I’ve had some freakout over the past couple of months, and it occasionally revisits me. At some point it just settled in that the twins are coming whether I’m ready or not, and whether I’m scared or excited makes no difference. So why be scared? Will being scared make me any more prepared for the backbreaking ordeal ... I mean <em>exciting adventure</em> yet to come? Will being scared make me more able to find affordable childcare, or make me heal faster from a c-section? So this week, at least, I’m going with excited. And why not? Being happy is a nice change of scenery for me.<br /><br />It’s funny that what freaked me out so much at first was this sensation of being swept away by a current of events that I couldn’t control. Because the whole reason J and I have been pining for a child is our feeling that we live our lives in a meaningless rut. Some people have a fabulous childless life, but we don’t. We’re homebodies at heart, and our home has been too damn quiet and empty for too damn long. But when I first learned of the twins, there were times when I’d sit on my couch in my quiet, quiet house and think “what’s so wrong with this?”<br /><br />But I’ve caught my breath and am ready to sit back and enjoy the ride. After all, I’m on it whether I like it or not.<br /><br />Two weeks ago I “came out” in my office and to my family. (My sister and MIL already knew, as did my close friends.) One of the nice things about being so open with most people about my IF struggles has been their reaction to my pregnancy. (Of course, many of them don’t know that DS is responsible for our ultimate success.) So coming out to my friends in the office was pretty fun. Also, as unglamorous as having twins will be when I’m the size of a house, or when I’m trying to handle midnight feedings for two, it does make me kind of a celebrity among pregnant people. Everyone is just so damn excited about twins. It’s ridiculous. But I have to admit I’m enjoying the attention. (Not a big shock, if you know me at all.)<br /><br />Coming out to my mother was a different story, and probablydeserves its own post. Suffice it to say that I’ve done a very nice job of keeping this toxic, bipolar, narcissistic, manipulative woman at the outskirts of my life for the past 5 years or so. And I knew damn well that telling her I was having a baby, let alone twins, was going to tear down my carefully constructed wall and have her crashing back into my world. Which it has. I’m sure I can handle it in the long run, but it was nicer before. (J’s suggestion was to just not tell her I was pregnant—he figured if she ever visited we’d just pass off the little ones as “neighbor kids.”) Anyway, subject for a whole new post.<br /><br />I’m going to leave you with this, lest you aren’t grossed out enough by my happiness. This picture is going to be a mural on the wall of our already-painted-green nursery:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCDSxfFR0jQbXt_zSVb8kZbJ9DxcoDMarBoa7TYwi66BCnQs67uKs-MdYv08QODlO1ckjAj9ewdpp5FhwBXi4o_rsshGr9s220Vkk5XWKtw4TQlfkJFpTfVwzXFhSUumApSYlPK5K6Xtc/s1600-h/Daisy.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394432114436283490" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 239px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCDSxfFR0jQbXt_zSVb8kZbJ9DxcoDMarBoa7TYwi66BCnQs67uKs-MdYv08QODlO1ckjAj9ewdpp5FhwBXi4o_rsshGr9s220Vkk5XWKtw4TQlfkJFpTfVwzXFhSUumApSYlPK5K6Xtc/s320/Daisy.jpg" border="0" /></a></div>the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-19723188166046717672009-09-19T06:29:00.001-07:002009-09-19T06:29:58.285-07:00Me and Mary Travers<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Mary Travers died this week.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And while I wasn’t terribly broken up over the news, it brought me back to my childhood music, played so often in both my parents’ houses: Peter, Paul, and Mary; John Denver; Simon and Garfunkel.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So a couple of nights ago—the day Mary died—I put on Peter, Paul, and Mary’s greatest hits while I cooked dinner.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As I chopped the green beans I sang along a little bit to “Blowing in the Wind,” stopping when I realized I was getting choked up over the lyrics—pretty damn brilliant lyrics (that Dylan was quite a poet), so this seemed justified—and laughing at myself for being such a sap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The next song started.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t know the title—the first line starts “I’ll walk in the rain by your side.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Just looked it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The title is “For Baby (For Bobbie).”)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I hadn’t even realized it covered by Peter, Paul, and Mary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I know it a lot better as a John Denver song; it had always been one of my favorite John Denver songs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But as I tried to sing along I started to cry in earnest, tears pouring down my face onto the cutting board.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I cried like this for a couple of minutes, sort of standing outside of myself wondering where the hell this was coming from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then it hit me: these are the songs my mom sang to me when I was a little girl (back when we were so so so close).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And this song in particular, from the time I was just a kid myself, was one I always imagined singing to my own child someday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(The song is written as an adult-to-child song.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I realized that all of these songs—the songs I was raised on—are the songs I’ll sing to my children.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Children that I’m actually going to have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Children growing inside me right now, who could be listening to my voice right now. <i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></i><span style="font-style:normal">Do you know how long it’s been singe I’ve let myself picture my future children the way I used to, back when I was so innocent and naïve, when they were an inevitability rather than a fantasy?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And there’s a certain irony to the fact that this will be my kids’ bedtime soundtrack, given my complicated relationship with my mother (a charitable discription) and complete lack of relationship with my father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s not that I’ll sing these songs to them because they’re the best songs ever written, and it’s certainly not because this is the music I like the most.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But they’re the songs I know—the songs I can sing when there’s no radio backing me up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And they’re pretty, child-friendly, bedtime songs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My family’s version of a lullabye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I guess this one tiny piece of my heritage will be passed on.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then “Puff the Magic Dragon” started playing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I kept crying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By then, I was keeping an eye around for J, who was in the next room talking to his BFF on the phone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because I knew that if that man caught me weeping over “Puff” I’d would absolutely never hear the end of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Pregnancy hormones be damned, there are limits to what you can get away with in this family.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Hell, I was already making fun of myself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I managed to dry up a few minutes before J got off the phone—he never was the wiser.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In some ways, pregnancy totally rocks.</p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-12864331033437765752009-09-13T05:51:00.000-07:002009-09-13T12:42:27.133-07:00The Pregnant-Person Doctor<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Yesterday we went to a pregnant-person doctor for the first time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The night before, I mentioned to J that “maybe he would clear us to start having sex again.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I don’t know,” he responded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“What do you mean you 'don't know?' You don’t want to have sex with me?” I asked, somewhat suspicious at this change of heart.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“It just doesn’t seem right,” he admitted, “what with you carrying another man’s child.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center">*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Going to the pregnancy doctor was strange, very strange.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There were all these pregnant women in the waiting room, and two of them had teeny tiny babies with them as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Can you imagine?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I mean, I know that women have back-to-back babies, but there was one woman with a baby that couldn’t have been older than two months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And if she’s already seeing the pregnancy doctor, you have to assume she’s at least a few weeks pregnant, right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How the hell did she manage that?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I’ve discovered that I don’t like looking at hugely pregnant women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They totally freak me out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Is that going to happen to me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s one thing to want this in theory, and to know in my mind that I’m inevitably going to end up huge (no escaping it with twins).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s quite another to realize that this actually is going to happen to my own body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You know, the body I live in?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The one I have to live in all the time?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s just freaky.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The bottom line is that everything looks good, and nothing I told the doc about my medical history (which is all pretty much pregnancy history) concerned him that much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He wasn’t even going to do a sono, but when I told him I really wanted to know the babies were still alive, he squeezed me in with the sono tech.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Not much to show in the way of pictures, but two strong heartbeats had me grinning ear-to-ear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My god, I think we’re really going to do this.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">* * * * * * * *</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">Oh my god, I MUST clarify the opening comment. J was TOTALLY JOKING about the "carrying another man's child" thing. I posted it because he had me on the floor laughing after he said it. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">I don't think he's having any trouble at all dealing with the donor situation. Both of us are just so thrilled to finally be on our way to parenthood.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">Oh, and the doctor said "not yet" to the sex thing. :-(</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-34029919085683572532009-09-04T08:37:00.000-07:002009-09-04T08:39:00.132-07:00In the End, It’s All About LoveAfter I wrote my last post, I went back into my bedroom, sat on my bed, and cried for about 20 minutes. And not those pretty Demi Moore tears—I’m talking big heaving sobs, blotchy face, snot-everywhere crying. Then I cleaned myself up, had a snack, brushed my teeth, and went over to kiss J goodnight.<br /><br />As soon as he saw my face, said “hey!,” stood up, and put his arms around me, I started to cry again. I told him how I felt I was being robbed, robbed of happiness because as a 37-year-old professional, I still couldn’t afford a family in this fucked-up, you’re-really-on-your-own country of ours. Then I dried my tears, kissed him goodnight, and went to bed.<br /><br />Where I proceeded to start crying and shaking again. At this point a little light went on in my head. Hormones, I told myself. No worries, this too would pass. Eventually I slept.<br /><br />Since then I’ve felt a lot better. I don’t know—maybe I just needed to have that complete breakdown, to acknowledge both mentally and physically that what is happening to me is totally insane, and that no one should be expected to take it calmly.<br /><br />I also handed the day care hunt over to J. We have found that there are some “family” day care providers—women who take kids into their home—who are cheaper than regular day care. I had spoken to one, but was so freaked out by her not-so-bright reaction to me that I didn’t think this was an option for us. But J called me on Tuesday (day after my freakout) and said he’d talked to another woman who was amazing—exactly what we’re looking for. Odds are that she won’t have two openings when we need them, but just knowing someone out there like that existed went a long way to make me feel better.<br /><br />Last night, after I changed out of my work clothes into my sweats and laid down on the bed with J for a pre-dinner chat, he said this: “So I was thinking about all this today. And I realized that, while what we’re about to do is incredibly, unbelievably, impossibly hard,” he paused and I gave him a wry smile, “there is nothing in this world that we will ever love more.”<br /><br />And I cried again, a little bit. I’m blaming the hormones.the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-71849638775937070382009-08-31T19:50:00.000-07:002009-08-31T19:51:17.561-07:00The Money Blues<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m having a lot of trouble getting into my pregnancy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So for those of you who can’t imagine anything other than joy at finally achieving a pregnancy—with twins no less—feel free to skip this post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because I’m pregnant after four years of trying, and all I feel is scared, desperate, and as always, sick to my stomach.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This conversation is about money.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So if you’re uncomfortable about that, oh well, this is my blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because right now all I can think about is money.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I grew up really fucking poor.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Poor enough that ordering out for pizza was a luxury in my family, and I was forced to try to dress myself all through junior high and high school on practically nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Thank god for goth and grunge!)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was flat broke in college, and even more so in law school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By the time I got out of law school I was $110,000 under on student loans, and another $20,000 under on my credit cards, with no full-time job in sight. And then J graduated from design school with another $65,000 in student loans and even worse earning potential.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ten years later and we’re starting to see the light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We still owe more than $140,000 in student loans, but we own a house and have rehabilitated our credit. We go out to the movies when we feel like it and have HD TV without feeling guilty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We’ve even saved a little, enough that we’ve been able to afford three years of fertility treatment with only a $21,000 loan for the IVF flat rate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And now that we’re here, now that we’ve reached our ultimate goal, all that is about to come crashing down upon our heads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because in the next five years we’re probably going to pay more than $100,000 in child care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>$100,000!<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Enough to put me through law school all over me again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or, more accurately, to smother me with another life-sucking, panic-inducing, soul-crushing debt like my student loans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If I could even get that much of a loan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Do they give out day care loans?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How far will they extend my home equity line of credit—already under $21K for IVF—when home values have dropped so far?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How am I ever going to come up with this kind of money?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A day care center is pretty much out of the question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The going rate around here is $300 per kid per week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Which amounts to about $30,000 a year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe a nanny would be cheaper—if somehow J can manage to be home most Mondays we could try to find a 4-day-a-week nanny for $400 a week or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sure, I could find a nanny for a bit less, but I’d be risking my career by hiring an illegal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There is a chance that we can find a “family day care provider,” a woman who takes up to 8 kids into her home at once.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But the one person I called sounded so stupid on the phone she completely freaked me out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Even if we can find placement for two at a place like this, can I really trust one person taking care of 8 kids to handle my two small babies?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And will we have to split them up into different homes to get them placed?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And for any of you who think I shouldn’t be thinking about this yet, guess what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The waiting list for day care for infants at most places is 12-18 months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At least.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So I can’t afford to wait until I’m less freaked out about my pregnancy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">On top of all that, I keep hearing such terrifying things about a twin pregnancy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Leaving aside the specter of super-preemies, two people, one of them my nurse, have told me that there is no way I’ll be able to work the entire pregnancy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A woman in my chiropractor’s office told me that everyone she knew who was pregnant with twins had to stop working after 5 or 6 months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I can’t stop working—I make somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 of our entire household income!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t even have enough leave to pay for the maternity leave I plan on taking AFTER the babies are born.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So how am I going to survive if I burn all me leave before they even get here?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I can’t even think about how fast we’ll go into the hole if I have to take unpaid maternity leave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m sure I could work a few weeks from home at the very end, but if this turns into something more than that I’m fucked.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So again, all I keep hearing about is ways in which I can’t afford this.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want to be happy about this pregnancy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I want to just shrug my shoulders and say “oh well, these things will work themselves out.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But I’m not sure they will.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Will I look back at these last few years as the only years of my life that I wasn’t living paycheck to paycheck, wondering if I can afford to go to the movies or buy myself a new pair of jeans?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Did I dig myself out of a lifetime of poverty only to get sucked right back down into it?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m so jealous of people with money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sometimes I’m just sick with envy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I told my sister about my childcare concerns she wrote back that, yes, it’s really hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That when she was paying for a nanny one day she reached into her account and there was no money left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And all I could think of was: what did you do then?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You reached into that giant family trust fund your husband has.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What am <b>I</b><span style="font-weight:normal"> going to do when the bank account runs dry?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have no trust fund.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have no parents who can bail me out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have no backup.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think some of this funk must be hormones, which are sloshing around in my body like crazy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And a lot of it is probably due to the fact that I’m exhausted and nauseous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I haven’t slept through the night in two weeks—I have to get up every 2-3 hours to eat something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want to be happy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I feel like there must be something wrong with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because I’m not happy right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Oh, I’m not sorry we did this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I know it was what I wanted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But all I feel right now is scared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2701294853944479424.post-65959430409622596632009-08-25T00:55:00.000-07:002009-08-25T00:56:27.912-07:00HEARTBEATS!!!<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">We went into yesterday’s sono expecting to check up on the little bleed in my uterus and maybe check the size of the embryos to see if they were still doing okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I thought my RE had said that it would be too early to see the heartbeats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But the moment the dildocam honed in on the embryos, there it was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A little fuzzy ball of emptiness (which I’m told is amniotic fluid—eek!), with fuzzy little ball of substance in one corner (yolk sac), and a blinking fuzzy light in the center.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Just winking away, like an old-fashioned Christmas tree light.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And the moment the second, even fuzzier embryo came into sight, yet another blinking light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Two tiny heartbeats, blinking away on the screen at me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In these incredibly tiny creatures less than a centimeter long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Living inside me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It took my breath away.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">There was a new nurse working the cam and machine, so it took her awhile to take all the measurements and such.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I just lay there, staring at the machine from my extreme angle, and watching J stare at the machine at almost as bad of an angle from the other side of the nurse and RE.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I still didn’t know what to expect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But suddenly they turned the sound on, and I got really excited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I didn’t even know that sono machine—my old friend lo these many years—HAD sound capability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The sound was mostly static and I didn’t think I’d be able to really hear much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I could see the soundline graphic jumping, so I knew she was recording the heartbeat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then the nurse told me to hold my breath when she said to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then she said “hold your breath now.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And as I held my breath I heard the most amazing sound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Wump, wump, wump, wump, wump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The unmistakable, universally recognizable sound of a heartbeat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The sound of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I almost gasped, which would have ruined their recording.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And the moment she said I could breathe the words “oh my god” came out in a rush.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It took them longer to get a decent recording of Baby B.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Apparently Baby B is going to be both fuzzy and shy.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I didn’t care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I just lay back on the table while a couple of tears leaked out the corners of my eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>J looked at me, and I looked at him, both of us seeming to say to the other: well, this is it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And then it was over and my RE was handing J a card with a high-risk OB’s number on the back and wishing us luck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And that was it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Released from IF care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Finito.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Three years with this RE and I’m suddenly done (assuming nothing goes wrong).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I took some time saying goodbye to my nurses, the two women who’ve seen me through the most traumatic years of my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One of them—who I’ve become particularly close to—was as close to tears as I was.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And they both told me I had to come back and show them my big belly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I told them I would.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I added to J as we walked out the door, “just not during morning monitoring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s just not fair to the other women.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve been there.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So now it’s on to a new doctor, one who treats pregnant women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I already feel like I don’t belong there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And my next appointment isn’t until September 11.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s two and a half weeks away!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I feel adrift, unmoored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And then I spent the afternoon trying to research day care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(I was going to wait until the second trimester, but my sister—who’s always telling me <i>not</i><span style="font-style:normal"> to worry about things—told me this was one thing I really needed to worry about NOW, especially with having to place two infants.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then I spent the evening freaking out about the ridiculous impossibility of paying for daycare for two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Welcome to a whole new world, Babychaser.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Right?</p> <!--EndFragment-->the Babychaser:http://www.blogger.com/profile/12205229469287159556noreply@blogger.com23