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.