Second Doula Interview Great!

We met with another doula, this one also an Oak Parker, who specializes in hypnotherapy. I'm not doing the hypnotherapy aspect, but this also means she is very skilled in talking you thru a contraction with a soothing voice and she--her name is Tanya--did an example for me and she's wonderful! She can work with the yoga and knows the positions. But also, get this, she's also a labor & delivery nurse, an R.N., and has been doing this for over 20 years. Technically that makes her not just a doula but what's called a monitrice, and she seems to know just everything there is to know about birthing. She also does massage, and is very supportive of Ben's role as coach. She also has an intricate knowledge of what the nurses need to get done and how to stall them from wisking the baby away while she helps me get that first latch. She's more expensive than the last doula we interviewed, but she feels like "the one." This is weird, I know, but after she left I told Ben, "she smells good." I can't explain it, but I'm going with my gut feelings. Natalie was great, I'm sorry, but after just one interview we are instinctively drawn toward Tanya. She also has a website, just Google Tanya Mchale. Tanya really impressed me as a more mature and experienced and assertive doula who will step into the fire for us and really advocate for what we want at the hospital. She also is very warm and has a great hug. More later after we have our prenatal visit in a few days.

Tyler Sneezing on Me...

Just when I thought I was all better, and my laryngitis is fading away, Tyler developes a new cold and has been sneezing on me all day! Oh, no!

Big News from the Latest Doctor Visit

Yesterday Ben and I traipsed into the city for the latest set of appointments. The NST (non-stress test, where they monitor baby's movements and heartbeat) went beautifully. Lots of movement and peaks over a solid baseline, with baby kicking at the monitor.

Next over to the doctor's office where we discovered some exciting news. Those contractions last weekend paid off, and the doc says that more important than my 2 centimeters dilation is a 75% effacement of the cervix! How cool is that! (Dilation is the cervix opening, which needs to reach 10 cm to get baby thru, while effacement refers to the cervix thinning, and can take a lot of work to acheive. You can Google "effacement" if you want to see more of a description. Effacement and dilation work together on the cervix, thinning and retracting until you get a lip of cervix they call the "ring of fire.") The baby has also dropped much further.

Dr. Arof kept saying how really pleased he was with the effacement, and seemed actually excited about it. Which was neat to see. He had a kind of happy buzz of energy about him. I really hope we get him for delivery, but we might get an associate on call because he's on vacation next week thru up to my due date, and he really thinks I could go anytime now. He said he wouldn't be surprised if the next time I see him I have a baby in my arms.

Can you imagine? A baby in my arms!

My cervix and uterus are sore, and my pelvis feels like a loose bag of rattling, sliding bones. I am all full of baby, and I am getting kicked in the ribs. She stretches and wriggles against her tight quarters. I always have to pee, and sleep raised up on pillows to prevent heartburn. I'm terribly, terribly fatigued, and constantly want to just sit down. I'm trying to enjoy Tyler and, as my Grandma would say, "give him sugar" as much as I can now while it's just us. These are precious few days.

A baby in my arms!

Gifts for Baby

This holiday I've been truly blessed by the creativity of my friends and family around me. As soon as I can download them, I will post photos of some of the gifts here that the new baby has received. A classic Pooh & friends quilt made by our Aunt Agnes, a beautiful crochet baby blanket from our Aunt Sharon, two knitted mice--one for baby and one for Tyler as companion--made by my work friend Julie who is a member of my lunch-time craft club, and then I made crochet mittens to go with the bunting I got, and Nana/my mom is making a matching hat.

This is the crochet blanket from my Aunt Sharon, also with the two knitted mice from my friend and craft club member Julie:


Here are photos of Aunt Agnes's baby quilt:





















Here are the baby mittens I made to go with the bunting:

Doula Interview Sunday

We all slept in after the eventful family Solstice, what with its crazy-driver hard play and hours of contractions for me, and we were barely ready for Natalie the doula when she showed up on time at 10 a.m. Why did I choose such an early time? Sheesh.

She seems really great, meets all my expectations, and from my earlier description of her you can throw in aromatherapy. She also brings a kit with birth ball and whatnot to the birth. She can definitely work with my yoga and yogic breathing (pranayama). She also is very inclusive of Ben and his role of coach and her interaction with him was great. She seems very laid back and open to our preferences.

The only thing was that Ben and I did not have a struck-by-lightning "this-is-the-one" feeling like we got when we met our new doctor. I don't know, it's probably not fair to expect that of her, or of everyone we encounter in this birth experience. But she's good and I would be happy with her.

Tyler really liked her, and after initially telling her "bye bye" instead of hello, he warmed up to her, kept interrupting, trying to bring her toys or entice her onto the floor with him, and even a week later he is still asking for her!

I have one other doula to talk to and after that will make a quick decision. (If "quick" is something that can ever be ascribed to anything I ever do!)

I guess the weird thing that strikes me about all this is how I'm striving to get together a team to assist in the birth experience, but really they are all strangers--or rather I should call them newbies or something less alienating--altho they are experts. Hospital, doctor, nurse, doula, dad/coach, maybe aunt. Most of them are new to me and there I have to get half nude and push out a baby with all the sweat, blood, tears, and other unnamable bodily fluids that come with it! At the time, tho, I know I will no longer care who sees what!

Natalie has been a doula for 6 years and attended 62 births. None of this stuff will be new to her! But still, we had to chuckle after she left. We were so embarrassed that while she was here, we offered her coffee and then Ben didn't know how to make it, and she asked for cream and we only had whole milk; then I tried to subtly hide a box of Summer's Eve wipes that Tyler had taken from the bathroom and played with and left on the table, and ended up dropping the box right in front of her; we forgot to turn up the heat and she had her scarf on the whole time; Ben sat in the glider I got recently and a spring loudly broke; and at the end when she used the bathroom it was out of toilet paper and Ben had to run upstairs for another roll! Ben said, she might as well know now what kind of people we are!

Oh, well.

Contractions for Solstice

Solstice was a nice family affair with gifts exchanged between just me, Ben, and Tyler. We gave Tyle a doll and stroller, and he buzzed around with the stroller calling out "crazy driver! crazy driver!" It doesn't have a name yet, just "Tyler's baby." I'm hoping the baby will help him when I bring a real new baby home soon! (Since then, Nana has taught him how to hold baby doll properly, which is sweet.) He also got a digger, specifically the big backhoe from Bob the Builder called Scoop, which was a huge hit. Ben managed to surprise me with a new Tori Amos album, I don't know how he got that past me, I'm a big fan. Guess saying I've been distracted is an understatement! Plus he burned a disk of demos, soundtrack tracks and unreleased stuff I also didn't have. I got him a couple DVDs from the new MST3K-originated The Film Crew, and we settled in for the incredibly hilarious Wild Women of Wongo. Which, by the way, was the most hilarious thing I've seen in a long, long time!

Contractions started as we put Tyler to bed, maybe 8:30, and went thru the movie to past midnight. They were more painful that the last ones, kept me awake, and lasted 30 to 45 seconds, with a few up to a minute long, and came regularly but erratically, a few minutes apart at most. But they eventually died away on their own, and I got a good night's rest. I hope very much that I got another couple centimeters out of this work--this is hard work!

Doula Interview this Weekend!

I've been searching on-line and among friends' recommendations for a doula, and I found one I really like. Her website explains how she comes to the profession, and the important role her own first doula played in supporting her husband as coach, which is important to Ben. She is not one of those that advocates only for a natural drug-free birth, altho she knows how to do that, too, but she is supportive of my decision to get an epidural. I talked to her last night. She is a childbirth educator too, and a yoga instructor, and will help me to incorporate my yoga breathing and positioning into my labor. Which I think is really cool. Many doulas have websites or are at least on several certified doula network websites, and many of them do hypnotherapy, which seems popular now but I really am not interested in. I would have been happy with massage therapy, but yoga I didn't expect and consider it a big bonus. She has two children, 7 and 4, and has been a doula for 6 years. She lives in Roger's Park in Chicago and can work with my Oak Park/Prentice Hospital locations.

In essence, I get two prenatal visits (tho I'm running out of time for that) and two postnatal visits, one when the baby is a few days old and another a week or two later. I can call her while in labor and she will come to the house and help time contractions and help with pain management and yoga and all that good stuff, and will go along with us to the hospital and stay throughout the entire labor. She will stay for several hours after the birth, too, and assist in getting a good latch-on for breastfeeding. (Prentice also has two lactation consultants on staff who visit within 24 hours of the birth, so I feel pretty well covered. I will still find a number or consultant practice locally to call if having trouble at home. I get lists from Prentice and LaLeche and I have my old list from West Sub, too.)

She's expensive at $800, but that's standard as far as my research tells me. I will get my holiday bonus today at work, and will apply it entirely toward this, and will cut the cost in half. Insurance doesn't cover this. I think it's worth it, tho. Ben says, "If you want a doula, you get a doula, no matter the cost...I don't even get a veto, or even an opinion...maybe just a consultation, if that!" I told him of course I want to find someone who can work with us both! But I do appreciate his cooperation in this. I was so afraid we'd be alone w/ no advocate, with decisions made by strangers/doctors on call and nurses coming and going in shifts, like what happened last time. In any case, my parents will stop in, and my friend Michelle will come by at some point and is willing to help (she's excellent at massage), and if my Aunt Sharon is in town (she may be) she may attend. Prentice lets a lot of people in to the L&D rooms. But I expect what will actually happen is that it will be me, Ben, and Natalie (the doula). I do want some privacy and consistency. (After the baby comes I am looking forward to having guests, especially my mother-in-law Madalen and my Aunt Sharon! Two very special mothering women in my life.)

Natalie's coming on Sunday for an interview with us to make sure we're a good fit. Meeting her is important, our gut reactions to her will be important. Keeping my fingers crossed that she and Ben get along, too. My phone conversation with her already left me feeling very good about her. If this works out I will consider myself lucky, especially considering I'm setting this up so late. But she says it's never too late. She once had someone hire her while already in labor!

Here's her website address: http://www.mamabellybirth.com/

If you Google (Natalie Evans, doula, Chicago), you see her all over the place!

Craving Snow

Hold me back! Every day I very strongly want to dive into the nearest snowbank and whip out a spoon. I'm crunching ice at work (we have a lovely ice maker at work that makes these little square pieces!). This is an iron deficiency, so I'm eating spinach and soups with chicken stock and iron supplements.

P.S. Snow just doesn't taste like I remember when I was little! What's with that?

Bad Driver

Well, it's official. I am now a bad driver. I've always considered myself a good driver, but lately, well. I blame it on the pregnancy. I can unsafely say that I have had a close call once every day this week, twice this morning. Thing is, I don't ever see them coming! They just magically appear, there in front of me in a parking lot or suddenly going at high speeds down a local street that I thought was empty. I'm getting really paranoid and driving slowly and annoying people. I really, really don't want an accident right now. You know what? In an ideal world I would just stay home from here on out. But I can't afford it, I'm expected at work, today's society is just not in tune with those sorts of needs. But it won't be long, now! Solstice is this weekend, Christmas is next week, New Year's after that, and that's lots of holidays at home, then I'm thinking of stopping coming to work even if I don't have the baby right on the 7th.

P.S. Feeling Better

My cold has drastically improved, thank goodness! But my voice is going. I've got that husky Stevie Nicks thing going on, which is kind of fun. We are all getting better now.

The Devil In Me

Woke up with the devil in me, weirdly cheerful. Sat up and started talking to Ben, who was pushing "snooze" and trying to ignore me, which only drove me on! Told him stupid jokes, too. It was great. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Crawling Around

Well, last night was...interesting. I was feeling pretty fatigued to begin with, when these erratic contractions in my lower back/upper pelvis took ahold. I was upstairs getting Tyler ready for bed. I got so far as getting a good cloth diaper on him (which is always a struggle as he kicks and giggles or won't cooperate) when he managed to scootch it down so he could "pee pee on the potty." Then he took it off entirely, and I sat on the floor of his room hoping the pains would pass. He ran around naked, playing, rumaging through his books, and climbing me as I sat with my forehead on the glider's ottoman. I couldn't get up, I couldn't lift him, I couldn't hold him still to get a new diaper on him, much less his jammies, and I couldn't talk him into cooperating with anything. After about 30 or 40 minutes of freebie late-night naked-time that extended way past his bed-time, I decided to crawl down the hall to the phone and see if a friend or even Ben from work could come and just please slap a disposable on him and lift him into his crib for me. (He's been going back and forth between his toddler bed and his crib, and my bed too, so I didn't much care where he slept, actually.) I didn't get far when Tyler announced he was ready for his diaper ("diaper on!") and so I put on a disposable right there on the floor, and he helped me get his jammies on. He didn't get to bed until after 9p.m. The pains got better around then, too. I've decided to keep my cell phone on me at all times from here on out.

I had wanted to go to LaLeche Tuesday night, too, but couldn't find anyone to watch him. While they allow you to bring your baby, loud and active 2-year-olds I'm not thinking would work well at the meetings. As it is I always get help getting him in and out of the car anymore, and even going down the street, well, not so much! As it turns out being home was best. But that was my last LaLeche opportunity before the new year. Kind of a bummer. I'm going to have to call the organizers to get local lactation consultants names.

It's highly frustrating, trying to explain to friends that don't have kids how impossible it is to do anything. They have no idea. Maybe I have too much of a sense of entitlement when I ask for help, perhaps I have the wrong attitude, it's certainly not very Buddhist of me to get so angry. Of course my friends have no idea how upset I get, because I don't haul off and yell or cry because I know I'm being a little crazy, you know? I've missed all the LaLeche meetings, I went to only 2 out of 6 prenatal yoga classes this last session, I haven't been able to make any of the latest book groups at the library, and missed all of the films being shown by OPCTJ, I haven't been to any DFA meetings since summer, my participation in the parents' group my friend and I started has dribbled down to nothing, I've only been out shopping with a friend once (with Tyler in stroller), and, well, this really gets to you after awhile. I'm afraid cabin fever will set in once I have the baby, so I'll be counting on getting visitors! The guest room is clean, except for the pile of toddler shoes in the corner, which I invite you to help sort and store! :-)

Dreamt it's a Boy!

Last night I dreamt I was in Walgreens with several coworkers and my boss, Steve, when I went into labor. I thought, gee, this is serious I'd better get home. But then I had the urge to push. Just as an experiment I pushed a little, and out popped the baby! Margaret wrapped it up in a blanket and announced "it's a boy!" I said "no, it's not." We went back and forth until I demanded to hold the baby myself and peek at its body. I was disappointed it wasn't a girl until Tyler came in and grabbd my face and did this thing he likes to do, where he puts his hands on either side fo your face and leans in until your foreheads are touching, and grinning the whole time. So I told him, "guess what--you got a little brother!" And he was thrilled. Then I named the baby one of our back-up names, and spent the rest of remaining dream moments trying to remember what the boy name was that we've picked.

Doctor Visit This Morning

Still at 1 and a half centimeters, everything my body is doing is completely normal. Baby is quieter now that it's bigger, and deeper now that it's dropped, and they couldn't find the heartbeat on the monitor for the NST (non-stress test) and so they sent me over to the hospital for a hi tech NST (just walked down the street), the results of which were just fine and also reassuring. (It's scary to have them say "we can't find the heartbeat!") So from here on out I have to go over and get the NST at the old Prentice (ambulatory center) and then have a second appt with the doc. It's exhausting, but okay. The R.N. over at the clinic was just wonderful and we chatted the whole time. As a matter of fact, all the staff back at the doctor's office already know my name and greet me cheerfully and Ben remarked on it.

Yes, Ben came with me this time, and we had a written list of questions for the doc, and the doc was as usual great. We went over our birth plan w/ him, too. Last pregnancy the birth plan was an exhaustive two page document, now it's like 7 quick bullet points. The first bullet point made Dr. Arof laugh:

* Epidural: Yes, please!

Also, Dr. Arof is very, very supportive of our getting a doula.

We saw the woman who recommended the doctor to us there (one of two, actually)--I've been running into her at almost every appointment. She's a library patron and it was great to see her with Ben along since he's the "library guy." She was in for a fancy NST just like me, and told us she has a planned c-section tomorrow (it's her third child and third "C" so she doesn't have much choice). I'm a little envious she's getting her baby tomorrow!

Don't Worry

I know my last post was pretty awful, but it really helped to vent. I went home and thought gee, that's just the sort of thing I usually don't tell anybody, and now I've told everybody! Blogging is a dangerous occupation! :-)

So I will try not to innundate you with negativity, and rest assured that I will keep plugging away at the house stuff.

Love to all...

Warning: Feeling Down Today

I woke up angry and depressed after a dream which seems to be about my frustration lately. I was at a store, which strangely was converting to a library, trying to buy two DVDs for Ben for Christmas. Standing for a long time is a challenge for me and in the dream I was just as pregnant and just as much couldn't stand as I am in real life. The line kept seeming to grow and I suspected people were cutting in front of me whenever I spaced out. I switched lines only to find the line I left improved after I'd gone and my problem switched to the line I'd joined. I switched back, and suddenly couldn't approach the counter b/c they had put a wooden extension on it, so I had to slide thd DVDs over to them. They took my $50 bill, my birthday money by the way, and proceded to take the DVDs out of the plastic security cases and handed me the cases and walked away from the register. I tried to get them to come back, as they took all my money and didn't give me anything--DVDs or change! They all acted like I was crazy. In the meantime, Ben stood outside the plate glass window of the store asking "what's the holdup? let's get a move on here!"

I woke up really angry which switched swiftly over to feeling depressed, and I haven't shaken it all day. (I also woke with prelabor back pain.) Recently Ben and I have had some disagreements which I won't go into here, but let's just say our fears about the labor and desires about how it should go and who should attend are, um, different, and clashing. I am greatly afraid that after working so hard to get a new doctor and hospital, that Ben and I will end up with an on-call doctor and alone with no advocate at all, with birthing decisions being made for us by strange staff who won't be as friendly as promised, and no friends coming to see us since we chose a hospital way in the city, and because it's so close to the holidays and everyone's going out of town.

I've been researching doulas all along and have another one now that I like, but we'll see what happens. Also I have one friend who volunteered to come. I have another friend who is being very supportive and encouraging about getting a doula, and it really helps to talk to her. I'm going to act fast and make some decisions this week!!!

I'm also depressed because I feel so alone when it comes to making our home ready for baby. I have books scattered around the front living rooms and boxes to put them in so someone can tote them to the basement, sitting there for weeks. The Solstice Tree is still in it's box there, not up, no ornaments are out yet. The carpets all over the house are filthy and need a good vaccuming...or two. The kitchen is in such a state that there's no counter space to cook food, and I'm scrounging to feed me and Tyler alone evenings like we're camping out in our own home. And me with all my dietary restrictions and pathetic dizzy spells, I feel so stupid and weak. The bassinet and rocking chair are clean and ready in our bedroom, but ditto the carpet there, and the stacks of my clothes that need putting away are scary, and I have an undone project which involves moving dressers to switch with Ben and putting up shelves in the bathroom alcove and putting bathroom/pharmacy supplies and folded towels up there and clearing the walkway to the bathroom and picking up supplies that have migrated to the floor. And I'm losing my battle with the grout in the bathroom. I can't do this alone, I can't. I've never felt so out of control, so incapable, so much that my time is not my own (mostly Tyler's) and that all my wishes for my home are never ever going to happen. My dad is so busy between work travel and his mom/my grandmother who keeps falling and being taken back to the hospital, and Ben has a hernia combined with a reluctance to accept outside help, and between us two I'm the handy one, besides we've all been knocked over by this cold for the past month. Even if we hired someone to come clean it still could only affect a certain amount because they can't vaccum a pile of books that need sorting or know what goes to AmVets or into the trash or stored away. I need to hire a team like in the book A Patchwork Planet--do they even exist? It has snowed now, so I have to wait for Spring for the new window, and the new roof and gutters, which whenever the snow melts leaks again! And the storm windows that I want made. And new carpet in the front room. We need a plumber and an electrician, but I'm so embarrassed about my home I don't call. We are thinking we will cancel Christmas at our place this year, and our Solstice dinner too, just to not have to clean. I'm such a failure. How on earth will we take in guests when the baby comes? How can I bear it? We live like wolves. I'm so ashamed.

Nothing Yet

Sorry, false alarm. Even tho I knew it was probably nothing, I just thought I might have the baby last night! And of course the doc said it was normal when I called and I felt a little foolish. I guess, even tho I know what the real, big, painful labor feels like from the first birth, I was induced, and have never had a natural progression of labor. I'm really enjoying others' labor stories right now, tho. So keep 'em comin'!

Significant Sign of Pre or Early Labor

Just discovered what they call "bloody show"--getting excited! Asked my mom to stay w/ me this evening. Also am supposed to call the doctor. However, this could still go all month! Yikes!

Just a quick note. Hopefully more from me tomorrow. I need one more day at work to finish my work and some personal things. Just now ordered Solstice cards. So expect them late! :-)

So It Begins...!

Big news from my doctor's appt this morning: I'm dilated 1 and a half centimeters! I told the doc this morning about the early labor, and he says that could go on for a month. I could stay at this dilation for weeks, and deliver on time, or I could go any time. He is comfortable with the baby's development now and if it comes it would not be "premature." He says at full term it will be about 8 pounds, and at the last ultrasound it was 6 and a half pounds, and in the 75th percentile for size. I didn't get the height, I will call them.

The baby has dropped but is not engaged, and likely won't entirely engage until full labor starts, as it often goes for second pregnancies. I am not yet effaced, he says the cervix is still "pretty thick." That will take time. But I must say, you know, it takes a lot of work to get rid of those centimeters. Any little bit I accomplish now, I think to myself, "yes! alright!"

Ben and I are very nervous and excited. I need to ramp up cleaning up my desk at work and getting the house ready for baby. 'Course I'm not sure what else to do, especially since I can't lift anything anymore! And solstice/x-mas presents are certainly not done, the cards aren't done! Get this: the doc is going on vacation over the holidays! Oh, no! But he'll be back the week of the 7th, my due date. So we're going to try to hold out until then. But you know, you never know!

I got a beautiful quilt from Ben's Aunt Agnes for the baby. It has beautiful Classic Pooh peices and two other fabric patterns with a floral aspect and very hip and bright colors with pale and muted shades of green and orange and purple and pink. I can't do it justice--it's lovely. Just seeing it got me excited.

I'm working on chrocheting little mittens to go with the bunting I got, so I'd better get cracking on those! They are already pretty cute. They are only half done.

More Sickness Being Passed Back and Forth

Tyler had a light cough, I was miserable with it, and Ben seemed completely well, when last week Tyler seemed to pick up a new strain from a little boy at daycare. He immediately passed it on to Ben, of course. I'm still going along as I have. This weekend Tyler was much worse. Constant drainage, puffiness, difficulty breathing during the night and at naps and when he eats, congestion, and a fever of 101.4 on Friday and again Saturday. I put on White Christmas, a 40s Bing Crosby movie, and he sat lethargically in my arms on the couch and watched it with me. He likes the dancing and singing. (I think we have a musicals fan on our hands.) Poor kid was just miserable when he woke up this morning.

What They Call Pre-Labor

Saturday night I got painful, crampy contractions that spanned around the lower belly and the lower back, that would come, build up to painful, then fade, and came regularly for about 2 hours, then tapered off. I got pretty excited/panicky until I read in What to Expect When You're Expecting that this falls under "prelabor" and can go on for as much as a month! So, completely normal, especially in 2nd pregnancies. Have a few other things they list under "prelabor." It's confusing to figure out what's what, between prelabor, false labor, early labor, and first stage labor.

Prelabor Nightmare

So I had some of this prelabor off and on during the night, and had a whole string of nightmares spanning from a dog that was all over me, to a serial killer woman with a knife coming into the house, to being in detention in a boarding school and having my belongings seized by the secret police, to being diagnosed with a virulent cancer, to rescuing Tyler from drowning when a strange women snuck in and tried to give him a bath. All clearly anxiety-driven.

The first nightmare seemed to be about the labor, symbolically. In the dream it was pitch black, and I couldn't see. (A recurring fear of mine.) In the dark there was a big dog, and he was excited about me, and kept trying to approach me. I couldn't tell if it wanted to hurt me or just jump on me in excitement, or whether in its excitement it would forget to be gentle and take to eating me after all. I heard Ben's voice reassuring me that it was a great dane, a "gentle giant" and wouldn't hurt, but I was so afraid I would get hurt. And my nervousness was making the dog nervous. (In real life I love great danes.) But in the dream, I wasn't reassured, and thought we don't know what kind of canine it is, and whether it is carniverous. That night, as I was having the dream, Ben woke me up as I was whimpering in my sleep. This happened more than once, as I kept falling asleep back into the same dream, blending Ben's reassurances into his voice in the dream. I knew instinctively that the dog symbolized my imminent labor.

"Mom-Mom's yucky!"

This is something I should send in to the bloopers/kids say the darnest things section of Parents magazine: Tyler has begun to declare "Mom-Mom yucky!" whenever I have one of my hacking cough and throat clearing sessions. Sometimes he imitates me, too!

In an embarrassing development, I now seem to have no bladder control when I cough. In the past two days I went through 6 pairs of undies and 2 pants yesterday. Ben was doing laundry for me last night when he got the brilliant idea that I should wear some pads. Imagine. Next he'll be doing brain surgery...on me!

I don't know why this new development. It's terribly embarrassing! My only guess is that the baby's head is pressing down now when it wasn't before. Ben thinks I'm just "loosening up." Sure it is that I am!

I'm going to a friend's holiday movie watching party next weekend. If she reads this entry, I wonder if I will find plastic sheets over the chairs! Tee hee hee!

I Hate Being Sick

Have I mentioned I hate being sick??? How much credit can I get toward complaining? I coughed all night and woke up with a head-splitter of an ache cutting through my left eye, left temple, over my skull and down into my neck on the left. My teeth ache from all the cough drops. Being sick means more smells bother me again and I'm neaseaus more often. Imagine what gagging does to my headache and throat. Imagine what all the coughing is doing to my nightly heartburn. When laying down, when I cough I can feel my pelvis bones, which are loose, move against each other in a creepy way. The only way to keep them still, and prevent a painful pull on the stretched muscles in my groin/lower abdomen, is to tuck up my legs against my belly whenever I cough at night. I can't take anything and the little bit that they allow me doesn't do a thing. (Ben ran out twice to get me things, giving up dinner and going again in the middle of the night. I can't bear to tell him he went to all that effort and it's not working.) I'm at work today and people keep asking if I'm better. That would be a big "NO." Why do they ask? I have now used up all of my PTO days and am eating into unpaid days. This s-u-c-k-s.

P.S. My mom and dad have the same thing. Ben seems all better. Tyler is a trooper and tho he coughs, seems better than all of us. Certainly more cheerful despite having a zombie for a mommy.

P.P.S. And it really s-u-c-k-s that I don't have any friends who can come over and help at a moment's notice.

P.P.P.S. And poor Tyler has chosen now as the time to strike out on his own and sit in his own chair for a bedtime story and sleep in his toddler bed on his own. But he needs a lot of reassurance. I'm so worried I'm falling short of what he needs!

P.P.P.P.S. And when on earth am I going to be able to get Tyler some snow boots?

Another Quickie Ultrasound

This morning had another quickie ultrasound in the doc's office. They are being super careful about me and baby. Good news: baby is now head-down. No more worries about breech birth! Also growth is fine, baby is 75 percentile for growth. Doc is happy. I lost a couple pounds, attributed to being sick. Also had another NST (non-stress test) where they track baby movements for 20 minutes. An aside: Got a face mask in the lobby and coughed into that the whole time. I'm sure the other moms appreciated this; I would have. It's a pet peeve of mine; I hate it when people cough on me when I'm clearly pregnant and vulnerable! I wanted to skip appt but they insisted they wanted to see me.

Questions for next week:
How many more ultrasounds?/Why all the ultrasounds?
Is baby "engaged" yet?
How to get tour of hospital for my parents?
Are low-grade cramps okay?
Are constant braxton-hicks any indication that I could go early? (What of all the 2nd-time moms telling me they went early?)

Another Quickie Ultrasound: Photo

This is a profile of the baby's more chubby face, with the baby facing to the left. Look for the outline of the forehead down to the nose, and the lips and chin, along the left.

Now I Have It!

I've just been miserable since coming down w/ Ben's coughing cold. Tyler has it too but not so bad. Ugh. Yuck. Please please let this be over soon.

That Cough Going Around

These past weeks I've been distracted and very tired, and I've neglected the blog. Earlier in the month a headcold worked its way through the family, then Ben just sort of stayed sick, or it developed, or something, into something else. He got this dry hacking cough that was worse at night, and I am coughing a bit and Tyler has struggled with the cough, too, a few nights, though not nearly as bad. Poor Ben. And poor me. I had to move out into the guest room. Reason being that the guest room is right next to Tyler's room and that way Ben would not keep him up, either, and I could hear Tyler through the wall. (And vice versa.)

I feel terrible about sending Ben out into the windy cold to rake the leaves on Sunday last. Monday was the last pick-up day for leaves on our block, so everybody was out Sunday raking leaves. It was fun, in a freezing kind of way, because we could say hello and chat with neighbors. The best part of having friendly neighbors is chatting over hedges during yardwork. I love saying "hi" to Amanda and Byron to the south, and seeing their kids Harry (3 yrs) and Marion (4 months). I put a baby gate up on the porch and Tyler and I came out to play with his garbage truck (Tyler) and hang solstice lights up around the porch (Mom-Mom) and make the wind chimes sound (back to Tyler) and yell over the porch wall to Daddy-O.

Tyler needs some toy garden implements this spring, including a rake. We were about to venture out into the yard when a freezing rain started. Ben was "almost" done with the front yard, had already finished the back yard, so finished up before coming in. He got soaked, and came in shivering. He changed then collapsed in bed for a short nap, and woke up with a fever. That night the cough was worse than ever, and on Monday he called in sick. I was so worried that it was strep or walking pneumonia, but he breathes just fine and his tongue is fine. I found him a doctor to call but he felt it wasn't necessary, and there's no convincing him. Anyway, several people I've talked to have had a dry night cough too that lasted a long time (up to a month), so there's something going around. I took Tyler in to day-care early Tuesday so Ben could stay in bed, and drove everybody to day-care/work Wednesday. By now Ben's back at work and no longer coughs at night, but I'm very protective of him.

Unfortunately, now Nana and Gampa seem to be sick, but we can't tell yet that it's the same thing. Friend Michelle and family also all sick with headcold symptoms. I hope they didn't get it from us. It's an icky season!

I began to feel really desperate this past week, because there's so much to do around the house and I felt entirely incapable of tackling anything. I'm so tired, and have been so worried about Ben, and had to care for Tyler, including when he coughed himself awake at night, and my back kills me when I do dishes so I neglect them, and the laundry, and bending over to pick up anything is a major challenge. And there's furniture I want moved around and the x-mas tree brought up and everyone is too busy to come help. I draw nearer and nearer to having this baby and I don't feel prepared. It's too easy to get negative about things when I feel this way.

What cheers me up--the only thing--is throwing myself into being very loving to Tyler. So much so that he's come to expect me to stroke his hair or cheek with my fingertips in quiet moments, and we do a lot of reading and singing, which the baby also seems to enjoy. So, there's the silver lining.

Poor Ben, tho: I expect he'd like into that silver lining, too. It's just so hard for me, my emotions are all over the place and I have so many aches and pains that I'm very irritable, especially when I do my best to be even-keeled both at work (with mixed success) and for Tyler's sake especially, that I don't have much left for Ben. He feels terribly neglected. I come home and I don't want to be breathed on nor touched, and my temper is short and unpredictable. But this is I think the way it is with pregnancy. For me, or most commonly I'm willing to bet. We make sacrifices and compromises and hope that our marriage and family is strong enough to take it, you know? Seems as if there are others who seem to live in a la la la perfect life, but that's no one I know well, nor want to know. As one of my favorite poets said, if this is what it is to be human, to experience a full life, then I'm willing to muscle through it. (Lucille Clifton, whose daughter died of cancer, and who came to read from her new (then) book, Blessing the Boats.)

Meeting All the Doctors

Today I met doctor #3 in the practice who could be on call when I go into labor. He was very nice but quiet. Last week I met a female doctor in the practice and she was very cheerful. Turns out she's friends with my last doctor and so she called in a favor and got them to fax over my records by contacting my old doctor personally. Otherwise I still haven't received my copy of the records that I ordered officially. (I'd still like my own copy to come, but the important thing now is my new doc has them.)

It's really strange driving into the city every Tuesday morning for these appointments. It's really not too bad, the traffic is busy but not congested, and I've never been more than a few minutes late. Then I go straight from there in to work. Next week, another quick ultrasound. I'm going to ask how many they plan to do and why. I don't mind, the last one was less than 10 minutes, not like the early ones where they were taking a long time measuring everything. We do need to see that the baby is no longer breech, and they are tracking it's growth due to the diabetes and all that.

BTW, I'm feeling better since I've been checking my ketones (a.k.a. peeing on sticks), upping my carb intake a little and keeping my blood sugar from getting too low. Also, I gained back a few pounds.

A Fun Weekend!

Saturday night my friend Michelle and I combined our birthdays for a joint party. We were pretty disappointed that, even counting ourselves and our spouses, there were only 8 people there. We came close to canceling several times. In the end we made it a super-casual pajama party and ordered pizza, to make our lives as easy as possible. And I cheated as much as possible on the cleaning!

It turned out to be just the right mix of people, and I had a great time. We played board games, and talked music and MST3K shows and other things in common, and turns out Brett and Ben both juggle so they practiced handing off and knocking balls all over the place. Before his own bedtime Tyler came down in his jammies and charmed everyone, handing toys to Auntie Michelle and giggling at Ann who, he was disappointed to see, did not have her vampire teeth in (last time he saw her it was Halloween), and demanding playtime and book readings from his "Uncle" Kevin, who he dragged around by the hand and told where to sit. He never cried or was overwhelmed by the people and played by himself while we talked adult talk. I made a diabetic cake, a fudgy zucchini cake that was absolutely delicious and I had a whole peice and my blood sugar was fine! I had so much fun.

Sunday was a friend's baby shower, and I got to see several old friends I haven't seen in a while, and chat with several other very pregnant women my age, and sit and eat and play the baby shower games while Ben chased Tyler everywhere. Not the same high as my party, but a great time was had. I was out and about and social and it felt good.

I must say I felt like a whole person and everything, not just a fatigued vessel waiting to give birth and move on, you know? I got my hair cut on Saturday and it looks great. I even had some romantic moments w/ my husband, who I usually push away, poor guy, as I feel so unattractive and unlovable and grumpy and tired all the time. I even had a moment when I looked at my figure in the big bathroom mirror before my shower and thought, I look pretty good pregnant--certainly not a model ready for Fit Pregnancy magazine or something, but like . . . my big belly makes sense this way, I'm sort of like a whole picture, in context, in focus for once. If you understand me. It's hard to explain. But, for a moment, I felt nice. Or maybe it was the haircut, heh heh heh.

Overall it was an awesome weekend.

Gestational Diabetes Consultation Friday

Met with this other doctor on Friday. An M.D. endocrinologist and diabetes doctor. He was so dry and pale and socially awkward, he reminded me very much of Garrison Keillor's description of the "indehiscent Lutherans" of Lake Wobegon! He was nice and slow and methodical and very, well, dry. Anyway, he wants to monitor my finger pricks and added a several times daily pee-stick procedure of checking for spilled ketones (protein) in the urine. (This is important b/c the carbs help absorbtion of the ketones into the body, and the ketones are instrumental in brain power, and especially in the neurological development of the fetus! As the doc explained it, and if I got it right.) I'm going to be filling out a chart for him and faxing it to his office. He says I'm losing too much weight and that, especially in the morning, not eating enough carbs and letting my blood sugar get too low. I didn't think that was possible, but it makes sense that there's a healthy range I should shoot for. Duh! It also explains my light-headedness and shakiness before lunch.

Remind me never to make another appointment in the city on a Friday afternoon. I hit rush hour, and it was an hour just getting out of the city before even hitting the highway! I missed dinner but was there for Tyler's bathtime. Luckily I thought ahead and grabbed a sandwich at the hospital cafe before hitting the road. Eight miles an hour is a nice speed for driving w/ one hand and eating w/ the other, on the straightaway of the highway, mind you. Not the city. Yikes.

In other doctor-related news, turns out my old doc hasn't sent my medical records not because they are dragging their feet but because they have a "procedure" for that. I called asking why they didn't fax over the records to the new doc. I also asked if I could stop by and pick them up. But instead what I had to do was stop by and fill out a complicated release form. Thank goodness I took Friday afternoon off for the other doctor's appointment, because it's only on Mondays that they have this service come in to scan in medical records. Then this service takes my complicated form and prints from their scans all the appropriate records I have requested, at like 13 cents per page. Sheesh. Then the service mails them out. I'm having it sent to my house so I can make myself a back-up copy! Sheesh, again! I will deliver to the new doc myself by hand.

What made it all nicer was the sparkling young man in charge of the medical records at the doctor's office, who remembered me from my phone call and came out to take my form personally. Gabriel. Yum.

"Biiiiiiiiig Mom-Mom!"

Tyler has a new nickname for me, and it's hilarious.

Tyler has learned the meanings of big, medium, and little. Most often this is used to describe his dump trucks (he has three, one in each size.)

A few days ago he comes over and climbs up by me, puts his hands on my shoulders and declares "BIIIIIIIIG Mom-Mom!" This morning he did it again. What makes it really funny is the way he stresses the word "big" with excitement and a masculine (as much as he can at 2 years of age) oomph to his voice, like he does about the dump truck or diggers in his books.

"BIIIIIG Mom-Mom!"

Mild Concern About Breech Position

This morning I laid in bed for an hour feeling the baby move around. It was actually a little painful. "She" climbed around, and went sideways, and seemed to flip with the feet kicking my stomach, which is where they should get to. But baby didn't stay there. I was sore, and she was very very quiet for a while afterward. I'm wondering whether there's any issue, such as a too-short umbilical cord, which might restrict movement while the placenta is at the top of the uterus. Doctors these days don't like to deliver breech, even tho it can be and has been done. If we have to have a c-section I will want someone to hold my hand once Ben goes off with the baby. But we'll see. I'm being premature, and a future ultrasound will answer this later on.

32-Week Update Ultrasound

My new doctor wanted an ultrasound to check growth and position. The baby is still breech, but there's still time to turn around. (The placenta is up high.) Growth is normal.

The heartbeat is 144 per minute. At this stage the baby should be about 11 inches long and 4-1/2 lbs, tho I didn't get exact measurements. I asked tho for pictures of the feet. See my next entry for those!

Then I had a non-stress test (or an NST) where they strap on a belt and record the heartbeat in squigglies on graph paper and you lie there and doze. The heartbeat is so strong! And the baby kicked constantly!

Instead of dozing, I read an article in Entertainment Weekly about the negotiations between New Line Cinema and Peter Jackson over the possible making of The Hobbit (which I totally stole). I have my fingers and toes crossed that PJ gets to direct, and brings with him Weta Digital and Weta Workshop special effects, and art consultants Alan Lee and John Howe, again. Can you imagine Lucasfilm sucking the soul out of it? Or Sam Ramie turning it into a Spiderman blockbuster? I shudder to think!

I visited with the doctor and asked him about the heart-pounding and dizzy spells I've been getting, plus a ringing in my ears. He says it's all related. I can't make as much sense here as he did, but I was impressed again by his bedside manner. I told him it didn't feel normal but he said that he really didn't mean to sound like he was dismissing my feelings, but that it is "normal"--which is a good thing--that this is something that can happen more often in second pregnancies. My blood has doubled, and my abdominal/pelvic floor muscles that were stretched with the first pregnancy are not as strong. So what happens is that when I lay back, slouch, or lean back in the glider w/ Tyler on my lap, the uterus presses on a couple of essential arteries and my heart, which is already working harder than usual, has an even harder time, and my blood pressure drops. This explains how I got dizzy just singing songs to Tyler to put him to bed. The ringing in the ears is part of a related phenomenon that's not uncommon, sometimes I can hear my blood pumping in my ears, too. Unlike other doctors before him, he reviewed positions I've been in and how to alter them to take the pressure off. For instance, I've been laying on the couch feeling faint a lot, but I should be on my side instead. Salt makes it worse. More water makes it better. This is somthing I have to manage.

Next week I meet another of the practice who may be on-call when I deliver. And get another NST.

P.S. My old doctor's office never sent my medical records over. So now I have to go through the awkward discomfort of calling them up to explain and possibly picking them up in person--yuck!

32-Week Update Ultrasound Photos

1st photo: Baby's feet! Taken from the bottom of the feet, one overlapping the other. Can you see it? If not, proceed to...
2nd photo: Here the feet are outlined, thanks to publishing technology (copy machine and a sharpy!). Go back and forth and see if you can make out the feet without help.





3rd photo (below): This is a teaser! The feet again, and the baby's butt is visible below them. Can you tell the gender??? Yeah, me neither!



4th photo (below): Brains! Kinda creepy!



5th photo (below): a blurry face and hands up by the chest.

Tyler Makes Request of Scumby

So Tyler and I were lounging, (we are both getting over colds) and he pulled up my shirt to say "hello Scumby!", pat my belly (a little too exhuberantly) and make "aaaah" sounds with his mouth on the belly (his version of a raspberry).

Next, he surprised me by saying "Hellooooo, Scumby! I love you! Come out!" followed by giving Scumby a good few wacks!

We Have a New Doctor!!!

This will come as a big relief not just to me and Ben but especially to my mom and mother-in-law: We've chosen a new doctor. He comes recommended by both a surgeon and a pregnant woman, both friendly patrons at the library where Ben works. We think Dr. Arof is really great, and he's already started working on my case. My records are being transfered over today. I have an appointment next week for a 32-week ultrasound and a non-stress test, and he wants to see me weekly.

We were impressed right away by the friendliness of all the staff, from receptionist to nurses, and the homey environment of the waiting room and exam rooms. The exam room also had a consulting desk and cabinets in wood, and shelves with family photos, and the walls had four boards filled with pictures of the doctor with various newborn babies and parents. I've never seen anything like it. There are only five doctors in the practice (instead of the multitudes at the other practices we've seen) and I can meet them all personally before the birth so that I know whoever might be on call before labor, which is really good. Dr. Arof has a great bedside manner, and while he didn't actually say anything different in the end from what the other doctors we've seen have said (he doesn't want me to go beyond the due date and may induce if I do, etc.) he said it differently. The last doc at Prentice we saw was all disclaimers and anxiety, but this doc was relaxed and communicative. And said he would try to help me have a different birth experience than I had last time. And while the last doc we saw wouldn't examine me unless she had my records "for legal reasons," this doc gave me a full exam and talked in depth about the care I could receive from here on out. Also, you might be surprised that I've chosen a man and not a woman doctor. Well, when rotating through the various doctors the three days I was in labor with Tyler, the one who impressed me most, the one who made them let me walk the halls with my IV pole and ordered real food for me, was a man. He was so nice. So I abandoned my rule about only women Ob/Gyn docs. In theory it's a good basis; a woman doc for women's issues. But not necessarily a guiding principle anymore. We are really impressed with this doctor.

This also means that I'm having the baby at Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago, in the new building, which we toured recently (and I reported on in this blog last month). As Ben says, and he wants credit for this quote, "This is the most shi-shi, frou-frou, la-la hospital in the Chicagoland area we could possibly find!" And he's right. I'm going to schedule a tour for my parents and maybe drag along a friend. It's a very impressive facility, and the entire building is focused on women's health and there are no scary back hospital hall mazes to wind through to find the L&D unit, you enter the front door like a queen. Or a five-star hotel guest. Check out: http://www.grandhopening.org/tour-slideshow.html

I'm excited now about giving birth, and am really interested to see how the experience goes, and feel more awake and involved than I have been--much more "up." Dr. Arof also connected me immediately with a gestational diabetes expert to help me get a handle on my blood sugar levels and nutrition (a consulting doctor associate) and I'm very pleased to have some guidance in that area. I feel energized, and am ready to attend La Leche League meetings now before the birth, and find and schedule a lactation consultant to do a house call after the birth. I can cross reference the list of references from La Leche with the list from Prentice's on-staff lactation consultants. And Ben and I are very seriously considering a doula, and I have a handful of leads already on that score. Though, this will be expensive! The hospital is expensive, the parking is killer, the lactation consultant won't be cheap and a doula can run up to a thousand, tho I've heard of discount rates for doula's in training, as low as $400. But honestly, I'd pay anything to ensure a better experience, and especially to get the breastfeeding latch right this time around. You know, I'm a list-maker, and next I will make a shorter bullet-point birth plan (easier to refer to than last time), and make a list of what to pack for the hospital, and all that. Woo woo! Let's go!

Dreaming of Labor

Over the weekend I dreamed that I was going into labor, and Ben and both my parents were for some reason coming with me. I didn't have a doctor yet and we went into the city to Prentice to try to get in anyway. The bottom floor was an elaborate, rich mall with futuristic elevators that were tubes. We tried to sweet-talk our way past a receptionist, and at that moment all the receptionists went on strike. I talked her into giving us a free pass to ride the tube elevator up before she left. Getting up there was a little harrowing as the tube was small, then I was climbing up a vertical slope with small hand-holds to skip a long line, but just when I thought I would fall Ben pulled me the rest of the way up! Then we were in a hallway and I had a gurney but no room yet. And the hall was full of elderly patients on gurneys, and I thought it was a bad idea to deliver there in the hall. The labor was really hurting now and I was seen by a nice male, Indian doctor. Then I snuck into the L&D unit but again found a bed in a row of beds in an outer area where there were like 6 of us giving birth simultaneously. Mom brought me a stuffed animal.

Revenge of the GD

Gestational Diabetes has hit me with a vengeance. Last week I began tracking my diet and blood sugar levels via finger prick, and I'm having a hard time keeping my levels where they should be. I'm cracking down now because I really don't want to be put on insulin shots! I'm disappointed that I can no longer eat with gusto like I've been doing for awhile now since the nausea faded away. It's been enjoyable, I never had that in my first pregnancy. Unfortunately I'm beginning to wonder if the GD is worse this time, just like the morning sickness was worse earlier on. The things I used to eat when I had GD in the first pregnancy are not working so well this time. I have no idea what to eat for breakfast, for instance. Used to be one bowl of Cheerios did the trick with a sugar-free yogurt snack mid-morning, and now the Cheerios give me headaches and the Atkins yogurt is no longer available. A scrambled egg for some reason made me feel really ill. I'm a bit lost, but I'll figure it out. I'm 30 weeks now, so I only have 10 weeks to go, so that's good. So the strict GD diet and blood sugar maintainance should just be the last two months. That's not so terrible. Last time it was much longer. Tho I am sorry to miss all the Halloween goodies, and the inability to eat pumkin pie is killing me!

Baby Crazy

We had a toddler party today, what we called a Not-So-Scary Halloween Playdate. The kids came in costume and lots of parents came from our parent's group, Moms & Dads of a Different Kind. It was really great, actually, and Tyler handled it very well! One couple brought their 5-month-old baby girl in a little ladybug costume and she was sooooo beautiful. I was too shy to ask to hold her but she held my finger and said "ahhhhh" at me and gave me big, big smiles as I cooed at her. I really want to get my hands on some babies now. Primarily my new baby-to-come, but in the meantime....

Political Rally Tests Limits

Went to a politial rally on Saturday, as part of a number of nation-wide, simultaneous rallies and marches to end the war in Iraq and bring the troops home. I took Tyler on the train into Chicago with my friend Alice and we met up with Ben (despite a crowd of thousands) at Federal Plaza. Tyler and I pointed out the stars on the policemen's uniforms and got some guarded smiles and waves even tho they were trying to look tough, and it was cute to see them crack their blank cop-faces with irrisistable half-grins at Tyler. (They were scary, with swat-team accessories, but Tyler doesn't know that.) Ben went to the early rally (Tyler's naptime) then the long march to the second rally point. I'm glad I skipped it. The short walk to the train station, up and down stairs and ramps, and standing around the rally was a challenge for me. By the end of the trip I was stopping every 10 feet to relax a braxton-hicks contraction. Those are constantly happening now. I feel like I could go anytime, tho I'm sure that's not going to happen.

Dreaming of Meat...

Last night I dreamed my truck was stuck in the snow and a friend and I walked to the nearest shelter, an expensive restaurant. I ordered vegetable briami (a Greek dish) and instead they brought me an assortment of meat. Of course, after making me wait for a zillion years first. Anyway, I was tasting all the various meats, and I didn't like them, but I felt compelled to eat them.

Then today I got a call from my doc, who says my bloodwork came in and that it shows I'm low in iron, so they called in a prescription for me to get a supplement right away. Hhhmmm.

And is it coincidence I'm eating Boca Crumbles in my spaghetti nowadays? And craving ice, another symptom.

Anyway, I'm going to lunch at Panera and this time I'm having broccoli-cheese soup and the mushroom panini sandwhich. BTW, did you know their broccoli-cheese soup is NOT vegetarian? Yeah, there's chicken stock. Shhhhhhhh!!!! Don't tell anybody!!!!!! This is just our secret, okay? This is just between you, me, and the baby, who gets anything it wants.

Third Ult.Snd./Fetal Echo-Cardiogram, Gives Good News

On Monday afternoon, completing 29 weeks and beginning my 30th, I went to a follow-up ultrasound at Northwestern in the city with Dr. Sabbagha, "The Guy" for fancy ultrasounds and head of the Ob/Gyn UltraSound department. I invited my dad, both to help out with Tyler in tow, and also to share the ultrasound experience. Mom got to come to the last one, and I didn't want him to miss out.

Anyway, this one was a follow-up to the last one, where they couldn't get a good-enough look at the heart, and where they saw choroid plexus cysts in the forming brain. (I mispelled that in the last update. Now I've got my paperwork handy!) The reason why these two factors freaked out the doctors is that, in addition to my having a mildly elivated risk of downs from the earlier blood work, the presence of choroid plexus cysts can be indicative of downs when also combined with abnormalities of the heart. You see, the plexus are related to blood flow to the brain, it was explained to me Monday. However, choroid plexus cysts are not uncommon, and resolve themselves naturally. It is only when they see both the cysts and the heart abnormalities that they will push the downs panic button. Hence the fetal echo-cardiogram.

The good news is that not only have the cysts resolved themselves completely, but the heart, all four chambers, and the flow in and out, is completely normal! To summerize, what this means is that, while my "advanced" age (ha ha) and some otherwise not uncommon protein levels (proteins "free-beta hCG" and "PAPP-A") in my blood are sometimes associated with a risk of downs syndrome, all of the ultrasounds, including a measurement of the nuchal translucency (pocket of fluid along the back of the spine at the neck), a check for skeletal dysplasia, and a fetal echo-cardiogram come up completely normal. The upper lip is also normal, and there is no sign of spina bifida. Ben and I have chosen to forego amniocentesis, which would give us a definitive answer to all this but we feel is too invasive for our taste, and besides which we have passed the Illinois limit of 22 weeks for termination--should we have chosen to do so. So, it's full steam ahead from here on out!

Whew! Okay, you can put away your medical dictionaries!

It feels good to just be done with this scary stage of testing. We'll get what we get, and we'll love what we get, and I look forward to having that baby in my arms finally!

Tyler was an absolute pleasure all day. We took him to an early morning appointment with a doc we are considering switching to at Prentice, then he had an early nap with worked well as he was in the best of moods for the afternoon ultrasound. My dad, goddess bless him (tee hee), picked us up and was a fantastic support throughout! Ben was at work waiting for word, which came pretty late because it took something like 45 minutes in the waiting room to start!

Tyler was playful and had cheerios and juice, climbed all over the furniture and his stroller, danced to the waiting room music and sang for us. He also admired the "big pumpkin" which was full of candy and which I put out of reach. He showed off for a mother-daughter pair who shared the cosy waiting room, and made up a game where he would run toward their couch, stop suddenly and freeze (looking for a reaction), then walk backwards toward his Gampa who would "catch" him in a bear hug and tickle his neck with his mustache to delightful toddler giggles until Tyler would "break free" and run toward the women's couch again. He danced for them and sang snippets of his latest song, "The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas" by They Might Be Giants (which of course no-one recognized so I sang some of it with him).

This was I think my second most uncomfortable ultrasound, the first being my first ultrasound when I was pregnant with Tyler. This technician was the only one to insist on my taking my pants down to an embarrassing degree, and ruined my clothes with repeated and generous applications of the goop they squeeze over your belly. She pushed hard on my stomach and it still hurt the next day, and she asked me to lay on both sides and my hip got out of joint and didn't recover until the next day. She also was snippy about my bringing my son and his big fancy stroller into the room with me, but I didn't budge on that point!!! (I DID ask permission when I made the appointment, mind you!) Tyler tried hard to get up to the equipment which was a big no-no, and wanted me to hold him the whole time, which of course I couldn't do. They had a big wide screen on the wall where we all could watch the ultrasound, which was really cool. Dad says it was worth taking off of work and that it was very meaningful to him to see the baby in utero wiggling around, his next grandchild. Tyler had only one meltdown when he was convinced that I was being hurt. Usually at the Doc's Ben lifts him up and I smile and say hi and he is reassured. Didn't work this time. Gampa had to take him out when he really began to scream "Mom Mom!" over and over. I hear tho that as soon as they got out to the big hallway beyond the waiting room, he took off running up and down happily and gave my dad quite the workout. After they left the technician seemed to warm up to me a bit and described everything I was seeing and even helped me clean up and sit up too. But I was sort of down at the time and had trouble mustering up the oohs and ahhs. I had read the report from the last ultrasound that they gave me to bring to this place, and they had blamed the inability to see the heart on "fetal positioning and maternal BMI." Yeah, my fat. Which wasn't a problem for any of Tyler's ultrasounds and I'm no heavier than I was. Anyway, I took it personally, and every painful dig she gave my belly I took a little personally, so that I nearly teared up. And of course I was so worried about those cysts and the baby's heart.

I was so glad Dr. Sabbagha came in himself to review the new report with me that very day. It was such a relief! (I won't be surpised by an extra bill, however. Our talk with Dr. Pergament, the fancy-fancy downs-screening ultrasound head guy from the 13-week ulstrasound, cost us $300 in a separate bill!) I asked him lots of questions about the cysts and the heart and other organs, and also about the baby's size and growth progress. He estimates that the baby will be under 8 pounds if it progresses as it has been. The funniest part was how sweetly flustered the older man was, because by this time Gampa and Tyler were back and full of energy (or at least Tyler was). I introduced them and he said "oh, that's the little boy causing all the ruckus!" He stuck his hand out in a vague way, as if he wasn't sure whether to shake my hand or Gampa's, so I took it of course. In the end he seemed to think my dad was the baby's father, asking him his height as he marvelled about how tall Tyler is at only 2 years old. He was sharp at reading the report and talking about the ultrasound, but was distracted by Tyler and seemed glad to leave, and I just thought that was hilarious. If he'd had us come into an office and sit down, I'd have had Tyler in his stroller alongside, and would have been much more quiet as we had been with Dr. Pergament. But that's okay. I was glad to get out of there, too.

Dad topped the afternoon off with a cookie for Tyler and a scone and tea for me for the ride back through the city, cozy in the car against a cold wind coming off the green, choppy water of Lake Michigan--which we could see from the medical building right on the shore, and then down Michigan Avenue with all the sites to see, past Water Tower and Millenium Park and the art museum lions.

Third UltraSound Photos

There are only two this time. The first is really good, it's a profile of the head, with the knuckles just showing against the forehead (that's what that little row of blobs are). The second is the arm, and you can clearly see the elbow up to the hand and fingers. The rest is sort of fuzzy.

Dreaming of Salsa

Last night I dreamt that I was meeting with other polical operatives--I was one for Hillary--in a hotel room for a pow wow, during a convention, and Hillary came and gave us a pep talk, then rode away on a horse like some kind of western hero, and there was a fantastic spread laid out for us. I was just as pregnant in the dream as I am right now. There were two trays, big ones, and the center had 4 kinds of salsa from hot to mild, and around the outside there were chips, beans, fried plantains, and potato stuffed tamales like at the New Rebozo, my favorite Mexican restaurant. The tray was this nice black tray with angled edges, with inner trays laid in also black with the same edges. I was ga ga about the food, especially the mild salsa made of fresh tomatoes, onions, and cilantro (just like my brother makes by hand) and I couldn't get enuf. It was so yummy! So, get this. There were two guys and a gal, and the beefy jock type guy decides to take a shower, and the other guy, who is actually an actor but I can't remember his name, and the gal turn their backs. So, one tray is empty, and I have to leave. So I totally stole the other tray, and went waddling as fast as my pregnant body would let me balancing this unweildy tray, through the hotel, through the conference, and got a far as the pool outside before they caught me! They were saying "I can't believe she stole the tray! I can't believe it! She stole the tray!" And the gal ran me down (she was a little, athletic thing) and tackled me out by the pool! I was so embarassed. But man, I wanted all the salsa and other goodies to myself. I was feeling really insane about it. Like I was driven to it. I had salsa on the brain. When I woke up, I could smell and taste the salsa! I'm going to try to talk Ben into going out to New Rebozo tonight. Wish me luck!

Waffles for Tyler, Kudos for Ben

I'm waffling, as they say, about my decision to come clean with my doc today. Mom says I ought not to burn that bridge until I have another doctor, that I have to have a doctor in case something comes up. It's a valid concern. I don't know. It's so hard! I'm so loathe to hurt the doc's feelings, because I do feel she cares about my care. So I'm going to be a little wimpy and say it's because I don't want to go to West Sub and not her fault, altho I will be honest about how I felt my delivery of Tyler went badly under the care of her practice w/ the other doctors on call. They have to learn from this after all. She's not going to be happy. Why would she be? It's like a break-up, and I always hated hurting others or confrontations. Ben is sweet and says he'll tell her for me, but if I'm considering returning to her as my future Ob/Gyn, I want to "do right" by her, whatever that means. But I may not tell her today. I'm still going and getting my glucose test.

This morning Ben tested his fasting blood glucose after I did mine. He wants to be in sympathy with my plight of pricking fingers. I think it's sweet. Anyway, he had trouble getting the hang of it and pricked his fingers four times before he could get it all to work! I'd say "poor thing" but he says it never hurt (I don't know how) and he had fun with it. What a guy.

Also, kudos to Ben from the registration clerk at Prentice. I gave his name as my emergency contact and she sent a message to him that she's impressed that he took the whole hyphenated name just like me. She says, "go women's lib!" I thought that was really nice.

Food Diary Begun

Today I started my finger-prick tests and food diary in earnest. As I suspected, my recent post-meal headaches are a sign of rising blood sugar levels. Today's breakfast, where I gave in to a pumpkin donut, sent my bs levels to 160. It's supposed to be less than 120. Headache was killer. No more donuts for me. (I knew better. I just LOVE pumpkin anything.) I'll take my glucose test on Friday but I'm sure it will confirm what I've seen gradually coming all along, which is finally here--gestational diabetes. Might as well get with the program ASAP!

Venting Follow-Up, Or, Ben Is Sweet

As you can imagine after I spilled my guts on the blog I took it home and had a good fight with Ben. He's been mulling it over since then, and yesterday told me that he talked to Mom and to Sheila and this coming Thursday Sheila will take Tyle in the morning, Ben will pick him up in the afternoon during his split day, and Mom wil come in the evening to be with me and help with Tyler. Isn't that great? I feel like he listened to me, and even if it's the one day, that means a lot.

Approved for "Consultation"

I got news that I am approved to visit with a doctor at Prentice, and was given a most inconvenient time for an appointment Monday the 22nd at 8:30 a.m. Of course I totally took the appointment. It's just a "consultation" to see if we're a good fit. I hear this approval process is normal for getting a doctor so late in a pregnancy (thanks, Holli!) Will bring the whole family! Wish me luck!

In the meantime, this Friday I am going to meet once more with my usual doctor and spill the beans about my decision to change. I want to be honest with her, I like her, and she's been concerned about me and today called me to check on me. I don't know how she'll feel about my decision, it must be something she deals with in her professional life. Again, wish me luck. I have so much anxiety about this. Am I doing the right thing? Am I handling this the right way? Am I going to get the experience I want at Prentice? It will certainly be different. Will my current doctor be angry, and can/should I go back to her as a regular Ob/Gyn later?

Also I'm getting a 28-week glucose test on Friday. I don't want to put that off. The ultrasound follow-up I thought I'd leave to the new doc, but again, am I doing the right thing, there? Is it dangerous to wait? I just don't know. I feel so unmoored.

Waiting For Approval

I called the office of a doctor recommended by a friend, and it turns out I have to wait for approval from the office manager since I'm about 28 weeks along before I can meet with any of the doctors! This really has me on pins and needles, because it's the best lead I have on a doctor at Prentice. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for me that they are not too busy to take me. There are plenty of docs in this practice, I don't see why I can't get in, I'm not especially high risk or anything. But it would be just my luck to be told "no" mysteriously. Just when I'm all excited about having a better experience at Prentice. I'm kind of annoyed I have to be approved at all. Wish me big, big luck, 'cause I'm not sure what else it takes.

A Braxton Hicks Day

Every time I walk to the printer or to the editor's office the belly seizes up in one of those painless, tight, Braxton Hicks contractions today. I've been sighing all over the office today. I was in the bathroom and a gal I work with said "How're you doing, champ?" I like that: Champ. I'd like to be known as champ for the rest of the pregnancy. Makes me feel like an athelete, like a winner, like people are cheering me on. Go, Champ! Woo woo!

Murphy's Law for Pregnant Women

If you bring an extra pair of undies in your bag with you, you will be fine. If you leave them home, you will leak.

Mother's Helper (And I Don't Mean Valium)

Everyone is being very sweet about my venting. I have a line on three girls who want to be a Mother's Helper, too young to baby-sit alone, but old enuf to get experience and train and play with Tyle while I do around the house. Trouble is, weeknights are school nights. I almost need like a part-time pseudo-nanny type, maybe some young person in college or something, who could use some extra cash a night or two a week. Not sure how to find such a person, maybe advertise. Some elementary education student who wants to practice the ABCs on Tyler. Heh. I've got two friends willing to help sometimes but they are often busy, and I already lean on them quite a bit. I don't know. I'll keep searching, maybe I could find someone like my dream student...

Venting

I'm so, so angry right now. Ben's boss is on vacation for two weeks, and instead of working days on Thursdays so he could be home with me in the evening, Ben took split days (working in the morning and the evening with the afternoon off) so that A) my mom would only have to come out for a half day since she finds looking after Tyler so tiring, and B) so that we (alternatively) don't have to pay Sheila $50 each day for a full day of daycare. So, I get screwed. He KNOWS how I feel about being home on my own while pregnant, and I've underlined it for him since. Tyler is throwing tantrums now and crying for no reason (terrrible-two's-pms) and I'm terribly fatigued. I put up with Ben working 4 nights a week plus Saturdays while I was puking 2-3 times a day, and now I'm fatigued and really not handling the tears well (I end up in tears myself), and soon enough I will have a newborn at my breast, and still I will have to do it on my own 3 nights a week plus Saturdays. Gawd. And it's not enough to say that the main library staffing decisions are leaving the Maze branch dangerously low in staff, while true. I discussed on this blog a couple months ago what that does to the library safety issues. That's not what I'm focusing on today. These two Thursdays this and next week represent my overall problem. Are we too poor to afford one more day of daycare a week? I don't believe so. Can I prove it? No, not without creating a full budget, not at the moment. Is Tyler too much for my mom for full days twice a week? Maybe. Sensitive issue. And Sheila, who has two jobs and went down by one child recently who switched to pre-school and is needing more income, is impossibly and generously holding a spot for our next baby. And as long as Tyler is part-time, there is a full-time spot for another child. While she was interviewing for another child last year, she actually told us "no" some times when we asked for extra days because if she took the other child she would need Tyler to stay part-time. So it's a possibility that she could lock us out of full-time if she fills up with other children, and then where would we be? This is a very serious issue to me. Ben works at a LIBRARY for criminy sake, not a night-shift factory or nursing job. It is not my intention to sacrifice my family life for his work. And yet he feels most valuable to the staff as an evening manager, and it's true, his boss really likes that about him. She depends on him. And it seems the more I kick and scream about this the more I just make him feel guilty about it, or defensive, which does me no good. I can't go down to the library director at the main and demand more employees. I can't force anything to change, and it just makes me scream in frustration. Where does all my anger go? At Ben, unfortunately, deservedly or undeservedly.

(Addendum: Friends and family, please don't call and yell at Ben about this. The blog is like a shared diary, about me and not meant to spread dirty laundry. This is the closest I've come to that, and I don't want to start a fight!)

Ben as the new Mia Farrow or Angelina Jolie?

Last night I dreamt that Ben got his oft-expressed wish that we could win the lottery and he could be a stay-at-home dad with zillions of kids. We had a different house, with a screened-in porch in the back with a long table for breakfast, and a big lower floor that was full of bunk-beds. In the dream there were kids everywhere, of all ages and ethnicities, doing all kinds of activities. It was chaotic. I guess we knew of a woman (she was vaguely Latina, or should that be Hispanic?) who kept having kids and we kept adopting them all to keep them together. There were like 8! There were all kinds of kids, in addition to Tyler and a girl of our own. And I was pregnant like I am now. In the dream, I was very angry with Ben because he brought home two infants under 3 months, each with some kind of high-maintanence problem. One was a little redhead and was very fat, he could barely open his eyes. The other was a quiet little brunette boy with serious facial deformaties and I said to Ben, "We can't afford to give him surgery!" Ben said "He doesn't need surgery." I yelled "Of course he does, if we're going to be his parents we have to provide surgical help, we can't just let him grow up like that!" And he said, "All he needs is for us to love him, and he'll [magically] get better." (Ben would never say something so whifty in real life.) I was so angry I took my breakfast back out to the porch table which was by then abandoned because of the rainstorm outside. I sat and ate my cereal in the cold, windy rain, which felt good.

When I woke up I was still annoyed at Ben. I told him about it and we made a joke that is still going on. I told him "Do me one favor today: Please, please don't pick up any more babies without calling me first!" Ben refused to promise this, he said he had three more orphaniges to visit today, and that they would be disappointed. I said "Too bad, we need space between adoptions so that we can give each new baby the attention it deserves." And that I wondered if he could take one of the two new infants back, as they were more than I could handle. He said I was heartless, and that I obviously did not love our many kids as much as I should. He pretended to be telling the kids to pack up in the next room, and made me laugh, and really cheered me up this morning. And I kept thinking that actually, that little red-headed baby was awfully cute!

Tour of Prentice Women's Hospital

NorthWestern built a new Prentice Women's Hospital, and it should be up and running by the end of the month. In the meantime, the only way to get a tour was to get us invited to the community open house which was on Sunday. I had no idea it would be such a party! They had white tents set up outside the new building, and local businesses had food and drink there for free, and there was a stage for entertainment and speeches. When we were there, a Beatles tribute band dressed as the be-suited fab four singing the old love songs (pre-Sgt. Pepper) played, and I regretted not bringing my mom! We had free tiramisu, Ben had fresh guacamole, we had fancy muffins and whatnot from various places, and a tea company gave out iced pumpkin chai--yum yum! We signed up for the tour and received arm bands for entry.

The tour included the whole building, not just labor & delivery. We saw the fancy entryway, where I used the bathroom (even the bathroom was beautiful--Ben's comment: of course it is) and the education center and the cafeteria where they were also having cooking classes, and the conference rooms. The first three floors are open to the public and feel more like an expensive college or high end hotel. Up from that it's patients and visitors only and turns into a hospital. The neat thing is that unlike most L&D units in hospitals, this is independant and you don't have to sort thru a maze of antiseptic halls to find it. Also, it's big, with tons of rooms, and guaranteed privacy.

We saw a surgery room, with it's fancy hi-tech equipment of which they were very proud, so if I have a C-section I'll know what to expect! Yikes. The L&D rooms were much as you'd expect, with the wood floors and big TVs and stereos and warming/cleaning station for the newborn. You have internet access and a keyboard along with the TV remote and nurse call button, so, I joked, you can blog while in labor! Ha ha. They have rooms divided into zones (I joked they should have tape on the floor) for family, patient, doc, and baby. All equipment is off to the side in the "doctor zone" so family won't trip over cords or IV lines. All rooms are around the outside of the building and you are guaranteed to see a view of the city or the lake. There's a long bench for dads to sleep over, and you can have as many people as you can stand with you.

We saw the NICU, and it's beautiful. They have breast pumps built into the wall so moms can provide milk for their preemies, and there are comfy chairs for mom to nurse in, and again, views of the city and lake. There are removable wall dividers in case you have multiples, and soft lighting and pretty blue stars on the windowed dividers and curtains. They have those fancy cubicle baby beds of course in each unit.

The L&D recovery rooms are up on another floor and again, same thing with the views. Again with the wood floors and internet access. Baby rooms in with you. Window bench for dad to sleep on again. All visitors are called up from reception and you can say "yes" or "no" and there are no visitor's hours to restrict them. Dads aren't even "visitors", they are just "in" with mom and baby. There are two lactation consultants on staff and on hand for trouble-shooting.

Drawback: Might be expensive. Plus Side: Covered by my insurance 90%. (Ben's comment: yeah, but how much will that 10% be???) Drawback: They might not let Ben follow the baby to the nursery for tests, like he was able to do with Tyler. But we got a similar answer from Loyola. Big Plus: Oooooh, if feels so good to be there! Drawback: Expensive parking. Patients & visitors can get parking validation at their lot across the street for the reduced rate of only $9--yikes! Otherwise it's $24--double...no make that triple...yikes! Loyola only costs $3. I already have one friend who says she won't drive into the city, but I hope to arrange a family carpool. If, that is, we go with Prentice. I'm all a-shiver.

More Strange Dreams

Last night I dreamt that Buffy the Vampire Slayer took me to the ER, where she patrolled the halls while I was talking to the doc. I told the doc that I had had unprotected sex with a vampire (that wasn't actually in the dream) and that I worried that I had a second, unnatural (as in supernatural) pregnancy that had taken hold in the fallopian tube (an ectopic pregnancy) and that the second pregnancy would threaten the current, normal pregnancy. At first he wouldn't listen, and he wanted to test me for STDs, but I told him vampires have only vampirism to spread. He said "where does it hurt?" and I indicated my right side over my ovary. I told him it really hurt, and in the dream, it did. It got worse and worse. And I could feel my baby swiping at the area, pressing against the uterus. Then the dream faded. I wonder if I did have some pain in my sleep, because I woke up with some soreness.

Saturday night I dreamt I went to Loyola and had the baby there, and it was a girl with dark brown hair. It was nighttime outside and there weren't enough lights on in the hospital. I kept trying to keep the baby and get it back from the nurses who wanted to do so many tests. And in this dream my anxiety seemed to be about the breastfeeding. She had trouble latching on, and I kept trying. The baby and I sort of went all Salvador Dali in the dream, with my "girls" elongating like udders, and the baby elongating and appearing almost partly grown-up in facial aspect. She kept growing, even though I could not get her enough milk. It was very strange. She was kind of like a Taltos, if you follow the fiction of Anne Rice.

This one is not about the baby, just throwing it in here b/c it left such an impression:

Last night, after the vampire pregnancy dream, I had another dream, this time about my Grandma who passed this past summer. I was back at Grandma & Aunt Cathy's house, and I was looking at a new project my Uncle Donny was doing, building special shelves for his DVD collection, in the basement, which was morphed partly into the old house Grandma used to have in Stone Mountain. Then Poopop walks in and touches this nice old-fashioned twin bed, with intricate woodwork on the headboard and baseboard. I could smell his pipe smoke, that Poopop smell. He told me it was a great bed, sturdy and dependable, and lightweight, excellent for bringing out for guests. Then he disappeared. Grandma came and went. She was wearing pajamas and a robe, which she has worn in past dreams recently, I don't know why. For me, she was alive again. She called me "sweetie-pie" like she used to. Aunt Cherry stopped by with knitting in her hands, and I said it's such a shame we don't live nearby because Grandma and Cherry could come over for craft dates at my house. Then she was gone, and I was asking my Aunt Cathy if I could take an unfinished quilt/needlework/wall-hanging Grandma had left so I could finish it in her honor (btw, Grandma was a painter), but Aunt Cathy wasn't sure. Then I looked at it more closely and realized I could never do it, that I didn't have the skill to do it. For some reason that broke my heart, and I buried my face in it and dug my fingers into the cushy part that was made of yarn, and sobbed, saying "I can't do it, I can't do it." In the dream I woke up from the dream, realizing that Grandma and Poopop were gone, and Ben was holding me, and I sobbed and sobbed while he ran his fingers though my hair. Then I woke up for real, feeling a great sadness, and Ben was asleep.

Fatigue Is My Middle Name

I just can't seem to shake this terrible fatigue. Even my arms are tired and sore. All I ever want to do is lie down. And I don't see other moms being as short of breath or as tired as I am. What gives?

Changes Might Be Challenging for Big Brother

Recently our glider (a type of rocking chair) Tyler affectionately calls "Tylo blue chair!" broke down. The gliding mechanism is metal, and the upstanding pole that meets the base of the chair severed itself right off. I took the sharp base-half to hide it in my closet, and Tyler chased me all the way crying and carrying on about his blue chair. We have to get a new one (will do a different construction this time) and I doubt it will be blue. Poor kid. I'm just not sure what to do for him. He has to learn about change, or loss, of things that break. He also has to deal with my moving furntiture around for the new baby...

A few days ago emptied the toys out and put the top half back on our pack-n-play, turning it from a toddler size playpen back to a size for a newborn, including the changing table attachment. We used this for Tyler's downstairs digs when he was just born and when I had just given birth and wasn't supposed to do stairs for awhile. Tyler was very upset when I put the parts back on the pack-n-play. He tried to rip it back off, crying "bed! bed!" Since he knows he can sleep in a pack-n-play, he doesn't want this one changed. (He noticed later that I finished it when he wasn't looking, and he's coping okay.)

Makes me wonder about the other changes I have planned. Our bedroom won't be all toys anymore, it will have the bassinett again, and a new rocking chair. Eventually he'll also get his new toddler bed set up in his room. Changes, changes. I'll be as gentle as I can, but he'll have to work through it, I guess.

Loyola L&D Unit Tour

Last night we toured the labor & delivery unit at Loyola Medical Center. As far as the facilities go, the look of the halls and rooms, it's not much different from West Sub. Big rooms, wood floors, private shower, stereo, etc. It's a maze to find the unit, of course. Similar policies, such as 2 people with you while you labor, dads can sleep over, you labor and deliver in the same room then get a recovery room, where newborns room in with you. Drawbacks: Recovery rooms have two beds, so you might get a roommate. They are also not as firm a "yes" about dads following the baby to the nursery and to tests, just a conditional "yes." Improvements include special wing and on-call teams for high-risk moms, a special NICU one level up with an on-call team that promises to rush down the stairs and be there for any risky deliveries within 30 to 60 seconds, and two fully-staffed lactation consultants that make daily rounds and who can be requested if you are having any trouble. They also have a Ronald McDonald House where families can stay if your baby or child is admitted and you want to stay nearby.

Next week: Prentice Women's Hospital.

Something Nice To Distract From The Nightmare

I nice moment yesterday afternoon: I watched Tyler on my own while Ben went door to door to get signatures on his Al Gore petition. I decided Tyler could open his last birthday present, this one from the boy next door. It was a set of 5 matchbox-car trucks, including a street cleaner, a snow plow, a garbage truck, a sanitation/water truck, and an asphalt road roller. He was pretty excited--his first small matchbox trucks! He also liked the froggy card w/ eyes that wiggle when you shake the card. After a snack where Tyler tried to feed cottage cheese to the garbage truck, I was tired and laid down on the couch. Tyler, who likes company, came over and lined the trucks up on my round tummy. Some of them would slide off sometimes. The trucks went "vroom vroom vroom" down my legs. Then Tyler crawled up (which involved much poking of the baby, who kicked back!) and laid down alongside me, with big grins to me and pronouncements about "stumby" (his nickname for the baby/my tummy) and the various trucks and, one of his top subjects, our eyes. If he weren't such a wiggle worm I would gladly have had him there with me always.

Warning: This One Is A Nightmare

This one is pretty awful, kind of horror-movie. So you may want to skip this entry.

I'm at work, and my boss Steve tells me that there is going to be a prisoner exchange with these terrorists, and he needs volunteers. That it'll be temporary and just for the publicity. I go with a group, me with my big belly and Tyler bundled up against my chest protectively and a big coat. I try to be friendly and talk to the terrorists but it doesn't work. We are taken out to the woods and are given the choice between crawling down into a muddy hole with water dripping in under a cover where I'd be left alone but have to fend off rats, cholera, and starvation, or to more of a prison but where I might not be treated well. I take the prison, we all do, and we travel by bus. I get there to realize we're being handed off to WWII era Nazi's, and first they take my coat b/c it's valuable. I had been kind of hiding Tyler under it and feel vulnerable. Then I'm taken to this crazy woman, who is experimenting surgically on babies. She wants to work on Tyler and is disappointed he's not a girl, but writes a date of surgery on him, on his arm in pen, and on me, too. In the dream I'm expecting a girl, and the crazy lady surgeon, (whose personality would remind of you Drusilla on the Buffy series, except she looks like Becky, the VP of Editorial here at work who last year died of cancer), wants to manipulate the baby in utero to achieve some kind of result only she understands. I am told to go rest for the night and am sent to a ward with mutilated babies in basinettes and another mom and baby pair who have been driven insane by the treatments. I'm horrified and am thinking desperately of escape or murder/suicide. I lay down, sleepless, but wake up to realize she'd drugged me and dressed me and Tyler in matching red velvet party dresses. He has also been moved away from me into one of the basinettes. I go to him and again contemplate murder/suicide, specifically suffocation, and begin to cry.

At this point I wake up terrfied, at about 3:30 last night. I was up for about an hour and a half just trying to forget the nightmare, checking on Tyler in his crib, feeling the baby move in my tummy, sitting with a light on and reading a book.

I don't have a gut feeling about what this one is about, as I often do about dreams. It would make more sense if the crazy lady had been my doctor because then it would easily be about how I feel about the pregnancy and it's medicalization. Instead they were characters from work. The fear of something going wrong/being threatened in the pregnancy is clear enuf in the dream and relatively normal. But then I do not know why Tyler was also put into danger. And it was truly awful to have the only way out, as a mother, to end it all and take them with me. It still is really awful to think of it. Perhaps it means that I am feeling some degree of powerlessness right now concerning my mothering as well as my pregnancy. That would fit well enough, with Ben working evenings and my growing physical limitations with caring for Tyler, getting to him quickly or climbing stairs are both hard, for instance.

This is a highly personal blog, and I hope no-one is freaked out by spooky entries like this one!