The placenta's out of the way. No problems anticipated with a vaginal delivery. Baby's measuring 32 weeks 1 day (plus or minus seventeen days) which is pretty much spot on. He had a very full bladder and was resting with his face smashed up against the placenta.
I guess with this kind of news I can deal with the onslaught of relatives inviting themselves for the holidays.
And yes, you're all quite right. My sister's earned herself a gold star, hasn't she? I didn't mention this, but she also bakes the best brownies in the world, and when she does come to stay, she strips down her bed afterwards, puts the dirty sheets and towels in the washing machine, and turns it on before she goes.
Maybe she gets two gold stars.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
Long, Detailed, Grouchy Rant
Dear Universe,
I realize you have granted me a normal pregnancy when I expected, and for a while seemed to be getting, a repeat of previous high-risk and/or early miscarriage pregnancies. For this, I am profoundly grateful.
Geohde mentioned "Sod's Law" in a comment to my last post. Not being from Australia (or indeed the UK), I have a rather vague idea of what this phrase means, but I do believe it roughly translates to "Murphy's Law" in Americanese. And so, I believe that the following disastrous confluence of events can be firmly attributed to either Sod or Murphy, whoever or whatever they were.
We begin on September 12th of this year. After inviting herself and my father to fly down and stay at our house for Christmas, my mother books plane tickets for the two of them. I am pleased to be having them come to stay, despite having no idea if at that time I will be (a) hugely pregnant, (b) mother to a premature infant currently in the NICU, (c) hospitalized for repeat preterm labor, or (d) devastated by a second trimester pregnancy loss. My mother comes to help and actually HELPS. She vacuums. She does the grocery shopping. She takes D out to the park so I can take a nap.
Quite soon after this event, my sister lets me know that my mother has also invited her to fly down and join the celebration. My sister, who is quite polite, asks if this is okay and makes it clear that she has other options if I'd really rather not, and that no offense will be taken. We laugh at my mother's lack of discretion at issuing invitations on my behalf despite items (a) through (d) above. My good humor regarding the holiday remains intact.
2 months pass. At some point during this period, I discover while in conversation with the two women I have become closest to since having D and moving to this area, that none of us are planning to travel for Christmas, and it occurs to me to invite them, their husbands, and their children (each almost exactly D's age) over for Christmas Day. (All of us settled here in Southern California quite far from all other members of our families.) Before issuing this invitation, I check with my mother, who has offered to do the bulk of the cooking (see items (a) through (d) above). Mom is all for it, and invitations are made and accepted. One family will be bringing their inflatable jumpy house to put up in the backyard to entertain the kids. I am content with the Christmas we have planned, despite the lingering uncertainly regarding this pregnancy.
The end of November approaches, and my husband's family apparently all think to themselves, "Gee! Christmas is coming! How can I irritate the shit out of May this year???"
Unbeknownst to me, my mother-in-law e-mails my mother (not me, but my mother) to see what plans my parents have made for Christmas. My mother delicately lets her know they will be staying with us. In a response to this news, my mother-in-law makes it clear (again, to my mother) that she is assuming that she and my husband's younger brother would be welcome to invite themselves at the last minute, and that indeed this is what she is planning to do herself, despite the fact that my brother-in-law has apparently made plans to visit his new grilfriend's family for the holidays. My mother-in-law claims to "help" and yet inevitably makes things ten thousand times harder. Plus, she drives everyone up the wall, which my husband feels especially guilty about.
My mother forwards me copies of the abovementioned e-mails, disavowing all knowledge of what they contain and saying the messages will self-destruct in twenty seconds.
H and I hastily confer on what's to be done. We decide (a) she's coming anyway, regardless of anything we might feel or say, and (b) at this point the best that can be hoped for is to avoid having her also staying in the house, on top of everyone else. My sister, ever polite, at this point changes her plans from staying at the house to staying at a nearby hotel. H and I decide to invite both his mother *and* her gentleman friend, making it unlikely that they will want to both sleep on couches. We also drop broad hints regarding limiting the length of her stay. (I should mention at this point this this week is her last at her current job, since her company has just been bought by another company and she has been laid off. She thus has oodles of time on her hands and no plans as to what she will be doing with herself, aside from "helping" me.)
My mother-in-law accepts without giving us any idea of when she might be coming or going. We still don't know.
My brother-in-law decides to invite himself as well, changing his original plans for the holidays. My sister (again, oh so polite and yet quite wily) asks me if she should e-mail him and offer to share the cost of a 2-bedroom suite, thus ensuring that he will not assume he is welcome to sleep on the couch. I endorse this brilliant plan, which seems to have failed when brother-in-law calls and broadly hints that he'd prefer to sleep on the couch, but he apparently picked up on the unsaid, and contacted my sister and agreed to her plan. He still hasn't booked anything, though.
My father-in-law (he and MIL divorced after 30-plus years of marriage) calls to laugh at me for the recent chain of events. He has made it clear to H in a previous call that he was going to make other Christmas plans due to what he thought was an obvious state of bad timing for us regarding Christmas. Having now learned that D's three other grandparents had invited themselves, he was clearly feeling left out. I told him at this point he wouldn't be making anything worse, and he was welcome to come if he wished. He will likely decide to come for one of his drive-by vists, involving Christmas Eve and Christmas Day only.
Now, universe, I understand you are mocking me. I understand you are enjoying yourself immensely. But how, exactly, did I end up involuntarily hosting Christmas dinner for SIXTEEN while 9 months pregnant? What did I do to you? And why on Earth can my mother-in-law not take a hint? She just invited herself out here a few weeks ago for D's birthday. I thought I was done with her for now. May I ask, please, that you inspire her to at least limit the length of her stay, or to let us know before the day of her arrival, when that arrival will actually be?
Sincerely,
May Problem Uterus
PS Tomorrow's ultrasound is supposed to reveal whether or not I'll be undergoing a scheduled C-section for a low-lying placenta at 36 weeks. 36 weeks is December 23rd. Ha freaking HA.
PPS Please stop messing with me.
I realize you have granted me a normal pregnancy when I expected, and for a while seemed to be getting, a repeat of previous high-risk and/or early miscarriage pregnancies. For this, I am profoundly grateful.
Geohde mentioned "Sod's Law" in a comment to my last post. Not being from Australia (or indeed the UK), I have a rather vague idea of what this phrase means, but I do believe it roughly translates to "Murphy's Law" in Americanese. And so, I believe that the following disastrous confluence of events can be firmly attributed to either Sod or Murphy, whoever or whatever they were.
We begin on September 12th of this year. After inviting herself and my father to fly down and stay at our house for Christmas, my mother books plane tickets for the two of them. I am pleased to be having them come to stay, despite having no idea if at that time I will be (a) hugely pregnant, (b) mother to a premature infant currently in the NICU, (c) hospitalized for repeat preterm labor, or (d) devastated by a second trimester pregnancy loss. My mother comes to help and actually HELPS. She vacuums. She does the grocery shopping. She takes D out to the park so I can take a nap.
Quite soon after this event, my sister lets me know that my mother has also invited her to fly down and join the celebration. My sister, who is quite polite, asks if this is okay and makes it clear that she has other options if I'd really rather not, and that no offense will be taken. We laugh at my mother's lack of discretion at issuing invitations on my behalf despite items (a) through (d) above. My good humor regarding the holiday remains intact.
2 months pass. At some point during this period, I discover while in conversation with the two women I have become closest to since having D and moving to this area, that none of us are planning to travel for Christmas, and it occurs to me to invite them, their husbands, and their children (each almost exactly D's age) over for Christmas Day. (All of us settled here in Southern California quite far from all other members of our families.) Before issuing this invitation, I check with my mother, who has offered to do the bulk of the cooking (see items (a) through (d) above). Mom is all for it, and invitations are made and accepted. One family will be bringing their inflatable jumpy house to put up in the backyard to entertain the kids. I am content with the Christmas we have planned, despite the lingering uncertainly regarding this pregnancy.
The end of November approaches, and my husband's family apparently all think to themselves, "Gee! Christmas is coming! How can I irritate the shit out of May this year???"
Unbeknownst to me, my mother-in-law e-mails my mother (not me, but my mother) to see what plans my parents have made for Christmas. My mother delicately lets her know they will be staying with us. In a response to this news, my mother-in-law makes it clear (again, to my mother) that she is assuming that she and my husband's younger brother would be welcome to invite themselves at the last minute, and that indeed this is what she is planning to do herself, despite the fact that my brother-in-law has apparently made plans to visit his new grilfriend's family for the holidays. My mother-in-law claims to "help" and yet inevitably makes things ten thousand times harder. Plus, she drives everyone up the wall, which my husband feels especially guilty about.
My mother forwards me copies of the abovementioned e-mails, disavowing all knowledge of what they contain and saying the messages will self-destruct in twenty seconds.
H and I hastily confer on what's to be done. We decide (a) she's coming anyway, regardless of anything we might feel or say, and (b) at this point the best that can be hoped for is to avoid having her also staying in the house, on top of everyone else. My sister, ever polite, at this point changes her plans from staying at the house to staying at a nearby hotel. H and I decide to invite both his mother *and* her gentleman friend, making it unlikely that they will want to both sleep on couches. We also drop broad hints regarding limiting the length of her stay. (I should mention at this point this this week is her last at her current job, since her company has just been bought by another company and she has been laid off. She thus has oodles of time on her hands and no plans as to what she will be doing with herself, aside from "helping" me.)
My mother-in-law accepts without giving us any idea of when she might be coming or going. We still don't know.
My brother-in-law decides to invite himself as well, changing his original plans for the holidays. My sister (again, oh so polite and yet quite wily) asks me if she should e-mail him and offer to share the cost of a 2-bedroom suite, thus ensuring that he will not assume he is welcome to sleep on the couch. I endorse this brilliant plan, which seems to have failed when brother-in-law calls and broadly hints that he'd prefer to sleep on the couch, but he apparently picked up on the unsaid, and contacted my sister and agreed to her plan. He still hasn't booked anything, though.
My father-in-law (he and MIL divorced after 30-plus years of marriage) calls to laugh at me for the recent chain of events. He has made it clear to H in a previous call that he was going to make other Christmas plans due to what he thought was an obvious state of bad timing for us regarding Christmas. Having now learned that D's three other grandparents had invited themselves, he was clearly feeling left out. I told him at this point he wouldn't be making anything worse, and he was welcome to come if he wished. He will likely decide to come for one of his drive-by vists, involving Christmas Eve and Christmas Day only.
Now, universe, I understand you are mocking me. I understand you are enjoying yourself immensely. But how, exactly, did I end up involuntarily hosting Christmas dinner for SIXTEEN while 9 months pregnant? What did I do to you? And why on Earth can my mother-in-law not take a hint? She just invited herself out here a few weeks ago for D's birthday. I thought I was done with her for now. May I ask, please, that you inspire her to at least limit the length of her stay, or to let us know before the day of her arrival, when that arrival will actually be?
Sincerely,
May Problem Uterus
PS Tomorrow's ultrasound is supposed to reveal whether or not I'll be undergoing a scheduled C-section for a low-lying placenta at 36 weeks. 36 weeks is December 23rd. Ha freaking HA.
PPS Please stop messing with me.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
32 Weeks
He's got the hiccups. I'd forgotten about this part.
With D, hiccups were annoying. She invariably had them when the nurses were trying to get an hour of contraction and fetal monitoring data for my chart. It would add 20 to 30 minuites to a process that was already occupying about a third of my waking time every day and required me to lay very still in exactly a certain position and made my back, already unhappy from weeks in bed, even crankier.
This time, it's just hiccups. My belly has the hiccups. 32 weeks. Wow.
Cervix holding strong. Dr. Favorite mentioned the words "induction at 39 weeks if you're feeling really uncomfortable" at my appointment last week. Induction! Me!? Hmph.
I am so incredibly fortunate.
With D, hiccups were annoying. She invariably had them when the nurses were trying to get an hour of contraction and fetal monitoring data for my chart. It would add 20 to 30 minuites to a process that was already occupying about a third of my waking time every day and required me to lay very still in exactly a certain position and made my back, already unhappy from weeks in bed, even crankier.
This time, it's just hiccups. My belly has the hiccups. 32 weeks. Wow.
Cervix holding strong. Dr. Favorite mentioned the words "induction at 39 weeks if you're feeling really uncomfortable" at my appointment last week. Induction! Me!? Hmph.
I am so incredibly fortunate.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
30 Weeks
Who can believe it? 30 weeks and going strong. For comparative purposes, I haven't been in the hospital for 5 and a half weeks. I'm not on IV magnesium sulfate, terbutaline, indomethacin, and nifedipine. There isn't a midline catheter in sight. I can take as many showers per day as I want. I think I'm actually contracting less than I have been recently. I'm even going nearly three weeks between OB visits. (It's supposed to be 2 weeks, but H just left for a week-long conference in Orlando, so I'm waiting to go in again until he gets back. Let's hope that decision doesn't come back and bite me in the ass.)
What I can't even begin to fathom is why I'm not thrilled. I think the realization that this pregnancy may actually work out just fine is bringing home an unexpected reality-- I'm going to have two children. Two. Yikes. And since I don't know the second one yet, I'm only able to think about what this is going to do to the first one. Why the hell do I feel like I'm ruining her life?
Mostly, though, those thoughts don't occupy my day. Mostly it's counting down the days until the end of the semester. Or dealing with the recent epidemic of family members inviting themselves to our place for Christmas. So far, the following people have invited themselves: my mother and father (who also invited my sister), my mother-in-law and her gentleman friend, my brother-in-law, and most recently my father-in-law. Including us, that makes 10 people.
We have a three bedroom house. If I'm still pregnant, I'll be 36 weeks and cranky as hell.
Sigh.
What I can't even begin to fathom is why I'm not thrilled. I think the realization that this pregnancy may actually work out just fine is bringing home an unexpected reality-- I'm going to have two children. Two. Yikes. And since I don't know the second one yet, I'm only able to think about what this is going to do to the first one. Why the hell do I feel like I'm ruining her life?
Mostly, though, those thoughts don't occupy my day. Mostly it's counting down the days until the end of the semester. Or dealing with the recent epidemic of family members inviting themselves to our place for Christmas. So far, the following people have invited themselves: my mother and father (who also invited my sister), my mother-in-law and her gentleman friend, my brother-in-law, and most recently my father-in-law. Including us, that makes 10 people.
We have a three bedroom house. If I'm still pregnant, I'll be 36 weeks and cranky as hell.
Sigh.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
A guest blog entry, bought to you by the Great Blog Cross-Pollination!
Hi there! May and I are swapping posts for the day, courtesy of Geohde’s Inaugural Blog Cross-Pollination. I’m not from these parts – actually, I’m not from this hemisphere. Downunder with the crocs and Opera House is where I live, and no, we don’t have kangaroos jumping down the street. (Well, not in the cities anyway).
May and I have something in common – we’re both “up the duff”. I have one beautiful son who turns six very soon. Over the last few years, hubbie had a vasectomy and bout of chemo. After I underwent a particularly lovely round of IVF - voila …. preggers!! (Sounds so easy). Just out of the first trimester, I can’t WAIT for my next scan, to see the baby looking more … baby-a-fied.
I’m a freelance writer, redhaired, slightly psycho recovering alcoholic who can’t believe her luck that fertility treatment worked on the first try. Can you guess who I am?
After you’ve left your guess, feel free to click HERE to view my blog.
Thanks!!
May and I have something in common – we’re both “up the duff”. I have one beautiful son who turns six very soon. Over the last few years, hubbie had a vasectomy and bout of chemo. After I underwent a particularly lovely round of IVF - voila …. preggers!! (Sounds so easy). Just out of the first trimester, I can’t WAIT for my next scan, to see the baby looking more … baby-a-fied.
I’m a freelance writer, redhaired, slightly psycho recovering alcoholic who can’t believe her luck that fertility treatment worked on the first try. Can you guess who I am?
After you’ve left your guess, feel free to click HERE to view my blog.
Thanks!!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
We're Home and Safe
This is a crazy place to live right now. Everyone's off work pretty much for the week. My college as well as my husband's are closed all week, although H is physically located at a company near his college that was partially open for business today, so he went in for a few hours, mostly I think to have computer access without being disturbed by our cabin-fever-ridden 2 year old. I have revised my syllabi and e-mailed all my students our new schedule after missing this week of classes, so my work is done.
Instead, we're all glued to the internet. It has proven to be a much better source of information about the fires than the TV. I'm particularly fascinated by the maps. The San Diego County Emergency homepage has been publishing maps every few hours showing burned areas, evacuated areas, etc. with giant red dots over the areas of active burning. The whole thing is overlaid with the Thomas Guide coordinates so you can really follow what's going on. If you look at one of them (go to http://www.sdcountyemergency.com/ and click on one of the blue links for Countywide Fire Map Perimeter) you can get an idea of how close the fire came to our house. Without posting my home address on the internet for all to see, I'll just say that the fire came within half a green-outlined rectangle-height of us. Yeah.
I can't bring myself to watch the TV footage of people returning to their burned-out home wreckage.
Other than that, it's kind of like it was right after 9/11. No one can really bring themselves to pick up the thread of everyday life again, but this persistent state of limbo is feeling stale. We can't go outside, because the air quality is horrible. This is particularly bad for children, who are understandably uninterested in sitting around inside all day while Mom and Dad sit at their laptops with the TV turned to the news in the background. I've been pretty creative with entertaining D, but she's definitely picking up on the tension in the air and is completely and totally attached to her blankie (her lovey/transitional object). She is very clingy and not wild about the disruptions to her routine. I have no idea what to do with her tomorrow. We're supposed to be staying off the roads to keep them clear for evacuations and emergency crews, but I'm hoping that eases up a bit tomorrow so I can take her somewhere. All I can think of is the mall, but (1) many of them are outdoor malls in this part of the country, (2) the nearest one is pretty close to an area still under mandatory evacuation, (3) I bet every other parent in the county has had the same idea, and (4) if I walk any distance I start to contract heavily. I'm going to continue to brainstorm.
In other news, my brother and his wife are at an injection class this evening for their first IVF cycle. I want this to work for them so very very much. Those of you readers that are IVF or stim cycle veterans-- what would be the best thing the stereotypical pregnant sister-in-law could do for them? Send flowers? Some sort of thoughtful gift box? Keep my mouth shut? My brother's wife started birth control pills this week and progresses to Lupron injections at the end of the month. I was considering sending flowers near their retrieval time but now I'm wondering if that's the best plan. Any assvice welcome.
Instead, we're all glued to the internet. It has proven to be a much better source of information about the fires than the TV. I'm particularly fascinated by the maps. The San Diego County Emergency homepage has been publishing maps every few hours showing burned areas, evacuated areas, etc. with giant red dots over the areas of active burning. The whole thing is overlaid with the Thomas Guide coordinates so you can really follow what's going on. If you look at one of them (go to http://www.sdcountyemergency.com/ and click on one of the blue links for Countywide Fire Map Perimeter) you can get an idea of how close the fire came to our house. Without posting my home address on the internet for all to see, I'll just say that the fire came within half a green-outlined rectangle-height of us. Yeah.
I can't bring myself to watch the TV footage of people returning to their burned-out home wreckage.
Other than that, it's kind of like it was right after 9/11. No one can really bring themselves to pick up the thread of everyday life again, but this persistent state of limbo is feeling stale. We can't go outside, because the air quality is horrible. This is particularly bad for children, who are understandably uninterested in sitting around inside all day while Mom and Dad sit at their laptops with the TV turned to the news in the background. I've been pretty creative with entertaining D, but she's definitely picking up on the tension in the air and is completely and totally attached to her blankie (her lovey/transitional object). She is very clingy and not wild about the disruptions to her routine. I have no idea what to do with her tomorrow. We're supposed to be staying off the roads to keep them clear for evacuations and emergency crews, but I'm hoping that eases up a bit tomorrow so I can take her somewhere. All I can think of is the mall, but (1) many of them are outdoor malls in this part of the country, (2) the nearest one is pretty close to an area still under mandatory evacuation, (3) I bet every other parent in the county has had the same idea, and (4) if I walk any distance I start to contract heavily. I'm going to continue to brainstorm.
In other news, my brother and his wife are at an injection class this evening for their first IVF cycle. I want this to work for them so very very much. Those of you readers that are IVF or stim cycle veterans-- what would be the best thing the stereotypical pregnant sister-in-law could do for them? Send flowers? Some sort of thoughtful gift box? Keep my mouth shut? My brother's wife started birth control pills this week and progresses to Lupron injections at the end of the month. I was considering sending flowers near their retrieval time but now I'm wondering if that's the best plan. Any assvice welcome.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Cities On Fire
Well, apparently Southern California's current state of being completely on fire has made the national media. At least, judging by the number of phone calls I have received today.
I was awakened at 4 AM by my neighbors knocking on my door, wondering why there weren't any lights on in our house. Everyone else was packing up. The police and their bullhorns had issued mandatory evacuations to homes just a few blocks away and the street behind our house was cordoned off. They were encouraging everyone to get out and not letting anyone back in.
So, we packed up and left. We're staying with friends about 20 minutes away from our house. Now we're wondering if this house will also be evacuated. It's going to be a long night. But, we're all safe, we had enough time to pack irreplaceable items into the cars, and we can move further away at a moment's notice.
Mr. 27 weeks is well. We "modeled" for a conference our perinatology office was holding on Saturday to teach a bunch of nurses and physicians specialized ultrasounding techniques, so I have a nice new crop of pictures. He was too smashed up against the uterine wall for my promised free 3D ultrasound, but we had a good time. My cervix still looks excellent. And we have very convincing photographic evidence of his... erm... manliness.
So, for now, just keeping my fingers crossed that our house doesn't burn down.
I was awakened at 4 AM by my neighbors knocking on my door, wondering why there weren't any lights on in our house. Everyone else was packing up. The police and their bullhorns had issued mandatory evacuations to homes just a few blocks away and the street behind our house was cordoned off. They were encouraging everyone to get out and not letting anyone back in.
So, we packed up and left. We're staying with friends about 20 minutes away from our house. Now we're wondering if this house will also be evacuated. It's going to be a long night. But, we're all safe, we had enough time to pack irreplaceable items into the cars, and we can move further away at a moment's notice.
Mr. 27 weeks is well. We "modeled" for a conference our perinatology office was holding on Saturday to teach a bunch of nurses and physicians specialized ultrasounding techniques, so I have a nice new crop of pictures. He was too smashed up against the uterine wall for my promised free 3D ultrasound, but we had a good time. My cervix still looks excellent. And we have very convincing photographic evidence of his... erm... manliness.
So, for now, just keeping my fingers crossed that our house doesn't burn down.
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