Monday, October 29, 2007

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!

Sunday, October 28, 2007

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....

Saturday, October 27, 2007

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.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

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.

Monday, October 22, 2007

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.



Friday, October 19, 2007

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.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

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.

Monday, October 15, 2007

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.

Friday, October 12, 2007

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...

Thursday, October 11, 2007

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!)

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

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!

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

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.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

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.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

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.

Monday, October 1, 2007

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!