Blogging for LGBT Families Day: A Thanksgiving

The Bean is three months old today. He is sweet and smiley and miraculous. There isn't a way to say he's the light of our lives that doesn't make me gag a bit, and yet it's true. He wiggles an eyebrow and I am transformed from the grumpy dragon of morning to a cooing fool; he makes Sugar smile even when she's barely slept, which let me tell you, is right up there with lead into gold. I could go on, but some of you might need to keep your lunches down.


Dreaming of Carrots and World Domination


In honor of Blogging for LGBT Families Day, I want to thank all of you who do blog about your LGBT families and your steps towards building them. We are happier, more confident, and, dare I say, better parents because of you.

It didn't take a lesbian mom to provide the key to solving our napping problems (though in fact, it was one who did so), and I don't mean to slight the many non-LGBT folks whose blogs I read. But there is something irreplaceable and maybe even healing about seeing the queer part of our lives (and of the lives we aspire to) reflected onscreen. Queer parents don't get talked about much in mainstream media, beyond an occasional "look at the talking goat" sort of piece at pains to point out how normal and non-threatening some pair is, never forgetting that part of being non-threatening is never showing any anger at the forces that threaten our families. (And lookie what happens if you run one of those on Mothers' Day.)

So quickly, before the Bean wakes up, thank you to those blogs I found when I first hit up Professor Google to figure out how this whole lesbo-mom thing could work (especially Lesbian Dad, One of His Moms, First Time, Second Time); to those whose authors were saddling up in the stirrups and shooting up sperm when we were; to those who came later, who let me feel like I know things worth sharing. Thank you for making your lives visible, so that ours feels less invisible.

The Bean thanks you, too.

Easing Back In

Hello, internets. Miss me?

The radio silence you've been enjoying has been made possible by:

• a Bean who is getting smilier and more fun every day
• a Mama who is way less depressed now that she isn't in pain all the time*
• more weather worth walking around in [Ha! Except then it rained all week and I still didn't get this post done!]
  
  *only...I seem to have injured myself with only a little pumping, and the weather got chillier, and...the vasospasms are back. I have stopped pumping and they seem to be fading. I figure I'll try pumping again when I'm healed up, but if that's how it's gonna be, then I guess it will be formula when there comes a time that I can't always be nursing him. 'Cause I ain't going down that road again.

But I miss you, and it's raining, and the Bean is asleep in the ergo, so I thought I'd tiptoe back by accepting these nice awards from Kaitake:




The rules:

1. Link back to the person who bestowed the awards on you (yup).


2. Tell us 7 things about yourself, for each of the awards (total 14 things):

Good heavens. Fourteen things. But I do so want to be both stylish and versatile.... I may have to draw from current events.


1. I'm from North Carolina. My accent was never terribly strong, and what I had of it was beaten out of me in college, where almost the only thing left to give someone trouble over was the region of the country she came from. I regret its loss very, very much. I get very pissed off when people say stupid things about the South, especially when it's that smarmy aren't-we-all-so-awesome-because-we're-liberal-Northeasterners B.S. that some folks will try on me because I don't have an accent and because all Southerners are bigoted and backward, right?

2. My first year out of college, I worked for City Year, part of Americorps. At our national conference that spring, I shook Bill Clinton's hand after he gave us the most generous and moving speech; was deeply disappointed by John McCain, who phoned in his appearance in a way I found very disrespectful; and went to hear a state senator give a surprisingly good talk to in a small classroom. Although I agreed with what he had to say and thought he'd said it well, I was bothered by a lazy rhetorical flourish that relied on the expectation that rural people are backward, and, as I try to when possible, I came up to him afterwards to tell him so. We had a good talk, I thought, and he seemed to see my point. ...which is why I was so disappointed when, years later, this happened. Barack, we talked about this!

[Whoa. It's days later; I have no idea what bee was in my bonnet when I started that. Someone must have crossed me, and now you bear the brunt of my irritation. I won't delete, as the tirade above certainly tells you more about me than whatever cutesy facts I'd come up with to replace it. Ahem.]

3. In case the above cast any doubt, I loved and continue to love my college. Sugar and I met there, when she was a sexy senior and I was a bright-eyed first-year with waist-length braids. (I shaved my head second semester. As you do.)

4. Lists apparently give me thinking-block. My preferred form of OCD is categorizing.

5. ...which is why my "favorite" household chore is laundry. Secretly, I even love that our wee-tiny, totally not-allowed-in-our-building, hooks-to-sink/drains-to-tub washing machine is so small that I have to subdivide my normal categories into smaller loads. (Hot pinks only! Lights/cold! Blue things with buttons!)

6. I am not a good housekeeper. At all. But I am a good cook. If you were coming to dinner for the first time, I'd probably make a lamb tagine and Lebanese couscous, unless I was in the mood for chicken and biscuit. If you are a vegetarian, we'd probably have pasta alla norma. If you are a vegan, well, you probably aren't friends with me, on the grounds of my terrible boorishness.

7. I have a degree in writing and even a little book-ella, with photographs by Sugar. (Please don't give away our secret spidey-identities.) I found pregnancy profoundly mentally debilitating but am now starting to feel like thinking again, which might turn into writing again. Last time the ol' noggin was functional, I was reading Illness as Metaphor and thinking about infertility in literature. I got as far as checking Hedda Gabbler out of the library and carting both around for months. Then I lost both of them. The library has now been paid and I'm ready to start again. If you think of other examples of infertility -- at least strongly implied -- in literature, especially canon-stuff, please tell me.

Okay, that took almost a week. On to current events.

8. Can I say again how much more fun I am having with the Bean these days? He smiles, he laughs, he shows a marked delight in Evita and Patti Lupone in general. I'm starting to figure out the napping situation, thanks to some good advice about putting him down earlier and some accidental discoveries about the wisdom of letting him fuss a little. It helps that he can see his mobiles now, so I don't feel quite as guilty putting him down when awake.

Not the world's greatest pictures, but I love this thing.

9. The Bean's room is still very much a work in progress, particularly when it comes to decoration. Why, yes, the man in that print is smoking a cigarette. Positively wholesome compared to most of what's on the walls in there. That room has been the repository for art that I like but either don't want our guests staring at during dinner or don't want to see when I'm trying to go to sleep. Which is to say, it's mostly me naked and/or work that is overtly about death. Cheerful!

10. We're having a lot more fun doing tummy time these days, thanks to the Bean's greater head control (which he developed despite having virtually no tummy time until recently, which makes me wonder just how necessary it is, but anyway) and my giving up on forcing him to face-plant on the floor, which seemed cruel, boring, and a guarantee of a crabby baby. Now I lie most of the way down and put him on my stomach. Cute! (And I don't have to lie on the floor, staring at the herd of dust buffalos under the furniture, which is kind of a drag -- see #6.)

The mobile Sugar made, which hangs over his bassinet, is fuzzily visible in the upper right.

11. We have rain-sound white noise on so much of the time now that I've started dreaming of monsoons. Think Apocalypse Now. Also, I have to pee. All the time. The continual actual rain outside is more of a problem, not least because I suspect that the Bean has inherited my (and my mother's) air-pressure-related migraines. There have been at least two days when a blistering headache on my part has coincided with strangely pained, inconsolable wailing on his, much improved by a dose of infant Advil. Poor critter. I was so happy knowing he couldn't have endometriosis and so naggingly worried about the likelihood of asthma, but I never thought about this one. At least he's also got my ability to move his eyebrows individually. That's some compensation.

12. He also has my (and my father's) simian crease on his left hand. I get strange looks when I glow with pride over this point of resemblance, but I have always loved sharing this with my dad. It's like we're part of a secret club most people don't even know exists. My father, who is a geneticist, used to show his students pictures of our hands -- a good reminder that soft-markers are not diagnoses.

13. I keep meaning to write my birth story for y'all; I don't know if there's a statute of limitations on that sort of thing. Even though I basically got the story I wanted -- healthy baby, vaginal birth, an epidural that was nothing but wonderful -- I spent a long time feeling really messed up about parts of it. Ashamed is the closest word, I think. In a way, Dr. Russian's later display of bitchery was a relief in that it suggested that maybe her behavior during labor wasn't my fault, per se.

14. The one I've been keeping from you: I need to change the subtitle of this blog, as I'm now down to just the one vagina.

I nominate the following bloggers for these awards: You. You Over There. You There. And You, Ya Lurker.

Better Living Through Chemistry

(It's taken me two days to write this, so the time references are all off. I know you don't care, but For The Record.)

This morning, during the twenty minutes that the Bean deigned to sleep not on me (not that it isn't adorable, but pretty soon I'm going to form adhesions to the Boppy and the couch) I wrote my GP a thank you note.

Now, I am southern and everything, but I am not that devoted to the note-writing -- I'm not caught up with the baby gift thank-yous (or COUGH the wedding ones) -- but sometimes it is just Called For. And now, a few glorious days into my new life as a person who doesn't spend six or more hours a day gritting her teeth and feeling her eyes protrude from the pain of invisible vice-grips on her nipples, now is one of those times.

In short: Nifedipine is amazing stuff. My GP rules. I am ever-more angry at Dr. Russian's nurse, the practice as a whole, and, sadly, Dr. Russian herself.

(Ha! I just got back from several hours outside, where I walked around pain-free in only a tanktop! I nursed outside, even, without agony! Yes, it's beautiful and warm today, but it is usually hot as blazes in our apartment at night, thanks to a very enthusiastic heater over which we have no control, and that never stopped my nips from seizing up for hours on end.)

In long: I started having vasospasms over a month ago. Or at least, that's when I realized I was having them. It took me a little while to sort out that pain from the typical surface pains of early nursing and the pinching of Mr. Crocodile-Jaws's lazy latching (corrected by the Hippy But Not Dippy LC), but those things don't turn your nipples white even when you haven't nursed in hours or leave you cussing like a sailor while clutching your chest in an attempt to warm them up through two layers of cloth nursing pads, two shirts, a thick sweater, a wool shawl, and a coat when it isn't even properly winter any longer. Once I figured out that's what they were, I told myself to be patient, that it was all due to an injury from a bad latch that was fixed now, that I was exaggerating. I also managed to repress that my mother has Reynaud's and that we both have migraine, which is related.

After a week, I called my ob's office and asked about nifedipine. The nurse called back, all patronizing and unhelpful. "Oh, we wouldn't do that." Why not? No reason, just vague admonitions about taking medications while breastfeeding. Use warm compresses. I am, I said, and it's not helping. Use warm compresses. I lost it. Not pretty. Crying. Raised voice. Accusations that they didn't care about my health -- I'm going to stand by that one. The fact is that they did not care enough to, you know, do anything about the quarter or more of the day (and I mean out of 24 hours) that I was spending in pain. Only it wasn't pain, I guess, since the nurse kept referring to it as "discomfort." (This is the same woman who, when Sugar called in to ask if we should go to the hospital and I was having a terrible contraction in the background, told her that I "needed to calm down." Because back labor is so much less painful if you're quiet about it. Very helpful bitch, she is.) She called back later, probably because I was so obviously enraged, said she'd talked to the doctor (whoever was in that day), confirmed that they wouldn't prescribe for me but here was the number of the LC around here who is also an MD...who doesn't take insurance (reprehensible) and who charges you to read her website (seriously).

So I wrote to the HBND LC, and even though it was Friday afternoon and she takes Shabbat seriously, she wrote back immediately with a number of suggestions. I dutifully added more horse pills to the supplement brigade (calcium/magnesium and oatstraw in addition to prenatals, brewer's yeast, folic acid, and vitamin D) and tried to soak my nipples in hot salt water (which is awkward as hell and just left me with a damp, salty baby nursing the non-soaking side while the first side went bananas the minute the air hit it anyway). I heated nursing pads in the microwave -- they went from scalding to clammy in a nano-blink -- and tried unsuccessfully to position a heating pad over the first boob without letting it touch the baby as he nursed side two, electric boogaloo. Eventually, I gave up everything but the supplements, dressing like a wrestler trying to sweat down a weight class, and weeping. I made extra-warm flannel nursing pads and layered them until I looked like I was stuffing my already ginormous bra. I tried not to scream at the baby for crying, although every time he did so, the let-down reflex made my nipples crush themselves. My efforts to avoid cussing while nursing met with mixed success. (Mother of the YEAR, I'm telling you.) I refused to leave the house.

At six weeks postpartum, I had my ob check-up, at which my mention of vasospasms was ignored. When, at the end of the appointment, I mentioned that I thought it would be nice if they made a postpartum phone call to check in before then, Dr. Russian treated me to a strangely vehement tongue lashing, complete with raised voice and pointed use of my first name. I was accused of wanting them to do things "no one" does, of asking them to follow up with the baby (which would have been strange, considering how many times we went to the Bean's pediatrician for weight-checks). It was strongly implied that I had called the nurse too many times, despite the fact that every call I'd made had been for something on the hospital discharge paperwork, like a high fever, UTI symptoms, and a large and terrifyingly hamster-like clot. She kept returning to the idea that "this" was a job for family -- "We're not your family, Bionic, we're DOCTORS" -- as if I'd asked for emotional support rather than medical help. As it happens, many of my family members are doctors, and try as I may, I can't imagine any of them behaving that way to a patient, no matter how pushy and crazy the patient was. It was horrible, not least because it forced me to admit that her similar behavior during labor wasn't clever tough love intended to motivate me but just plain emotional instability. Farewell, Dr. Russian. I liked your shoes and your sass and your meat obsession, but if you aren't family, I don't have to put up with that shit.

As a confident, independent, properly-raised woman, it pains me to admit what a funk that visit left me in, but there you are. More weeping, more telling myself that this pain was something I just had to deal with, that it wouldn't even bother a good mother. I wondered how soon I could give up breastfeeding without hating myself for doing so.

Eventually, my pissed-off, entitled side beat the weepy bit into submission. I read up on nifedipine and discovered that the bitchy nurse was full of shit -- it's perfectly safe for breastfeeding and plenty common enough that problems would have turned up by now. Even the NIH thinks so, and they don't even think you should take aspirin because your baby might magically get Reyes Syndrome from the teensy bit that gets into your milk (not to mention that the Reyes/aspirin connection is not actually that convincing, says my father, whose field this is, after all). I trolled PubMed -- and yes, I will totally be using this as an example of why my students should PAY ATTENTION on the days we spend in the library, learning database searching -- and found several articles to the effect that Reynaud's of the nipple is real, is serious, and ought to be treated, if only because it hurts like hell and will keep people from breastfeeding. (I suppose it is too much to ask that it be treated just because it makes the mothers' fucking nipples fucking hurt, regardless of whether it might mean the babies get formula and therefore become dyslexic, asthmatic axe murders.)

I called my GP, whose receptionist told me to talk to my OB, but she agreed to see me anyway. (Meanwhile, Sugar went to see her ob/gyn, who asked after me. When Sugar mentioned the vasospasms, she said, "Why isn't she on nifedipine?" She assured Sugar it was very safe and said I should come see their practice if the GP didn't prescribe it. I had wanted to go to that practice in the first place, but they weren't accepting new ob patients when I got pregnant. Now that I'm a plain old gyn patient again, though, I am so there.) At the appointment, my GP listened to my description and the logic of my self-diagnosis and asked, "is there a treatment?" I trotted out my notes; she copied down my citations and wrote me a scrip for the dose I had found in the articles.

Sugar and I go to the same GP, and at times we have wondered whether her willingness to put us on or take us off of drugs we ask about means that we like her for the wrong reasons, because she does what we want rather than saying no. But really, why shouldn't she? We don't come to her with frivolous or dangerous requests, for one thing, but also, shouldn't we have some say in our own healthcare? If I want to try a drug that won't hurt and has a good chance of helping, maybe my desire (and pain) should be important enough that my doctor is willing to learn something new. My GP didn't do anything Dr. Russian couldn't have done. Even if Dr. Russian and her practice do not generally treat vasospasms (which, PS, they should -- 20% of women in childbearing years have some version of them), she could have listened to me, read the journal articles and/or consulted with colleagues, and done something to help, instead of turfing me to another doctor (on my own dime, too), and blaming me for needing help. As a child of doctors, I've spent a lot of my life arguing with people who claim that all doctors are arrogant. Besides my own family members, I grew up surrounded by doctors, and most of them were more like my GP than not. Most of them were like my father, who works insane hours seeing patients with tricky diseases, dictates notes late into the night, goes into the hospital every weekend (which requires sacrifices from families, too -- no camping trips or even full Christmas Days together), and still finds time to listen to his patients and their parents and think more about their needs than his ego. It pisses me off to no end (though I will end this post someday, promise) when a doctor acts like such a stereotype.


Enough ranting for the moment. The nifedipine is wonderful. The Bean is wonderful, too. He's smiling more and spending a higher proportion of his waking hours not screaming. We take baths together every night, which I love -- I haven't had a good bath buddy in 25 years. This morning, I think he really saw one of our cats for the first time. I'm so happy to be out of pain and able to focus on having a good time with him and bombarding my friends and family with pictures of his every move. Since you've been so good as to suffer through this interminable post, allow me to bombard you:

Happy Spring

...from a boy who has returned to his birthweight and a Mama who is beginning to have color in her cheeks again.



Now we are sprung from the pediatrician's until the Bean's two-month appointment, and we can concentrate on the more fun aspects of parenting, like the veritable poop fountain that erupted out of the bassinet yesterday. Bellagio's got nothin' on our place, I tell you what.

40 Weeks: Pregnancy Roundup

Hey, can we pretend I posted this yesterday? When I started writing it? Thanks.

The Bean is doing better, by the way. He'd gained 4 ounces -- FOUR OUNCES! -- on Monday, and the LC was great and not dippy and gave us more things to do. We'll see the ped and her again tomorrow.


Happy Pi Day! I hope you're celebrating appropriately. Sugar has been doing so much work around here since the Bean was born (and before, but let's not get carried away with the past...) that I don't have the nerve to ask her to get out her rolling pin, but let it be known all across the Wide Interblags that she makes the best pie there is. (Which is not to be construed, Sugar, as an answer to that horrible trick question you posed some months back, "Do you think my pie is better or my mother's?" I still have enough sense to realize that either answer would violate one of my two central rules of conversation: 1. Never Denigrate The Cooking Of The Person Whose Food Is In Your Mouth; 2. Never Insult Somebody's Mama's Cooking.) Although I know that only -- what is it? 5%? -- of babies arrive on their due dates, I did like the idea that the Bean might have Pi Day as his birthday, with Sugar's pies in place of cake. Evidently he had other ideas. Already.

Even though he's been here for nearly two weeks, I'm still surprised that I'm not pregnant anymore. It all happened so quickly (rather unlike my writing of his birth story) -- no Toni Braxton contractions or other warnings, except for the Very Bloody Show -- and the whole business of having another person come flying out of one's nether regions I found so surreal. I can't say there's much I intended to do while pregnant that I didn't get to -- we did the photo shoot on what ended up being the last possible day, but it got done -- but I nevertheless don't feel...done. (On the other hand, I feel glad that I didn't have more time to obsess over the end of the era or to build my labor anxieties any higher.)

One of the things I didn't get to was ever doing the meme below. I never intended to do it regularly, as I am more than capable of boring you with petty complaints without a bulleted list (you're welcome, internet), but I thought I'd do a full-pregnancy version around my due date, as a means of distracting myself from obsessing over my fear of induction. And here it is my due date, so what the heck. Feel free to let your eyes glaze over and skip to the picture at the end.


How Far Along?
40 weeks "pregnant"; two weeks postpartum (in 7 hours).

Total Weight Gained/Loss?

At delivery day (well, 14 hours before, when I was last on a scale), +33 lbs over what I consider my normal weight; a bit more over my weight at my first OB visit.

Two weeks later, +22 lbs over normal. (I swear it was more like +18 earlier this week, but today I'm in my trusty maternity corduroys, so that's probably a more fair measurement, since I wore them to every OB appointment after the weather turned.)


Maternity Clothes:

Pretty much the same pair of Noppies corduroys since halfway through the second trimester or so. And ZOMG the Bella Band. The sine qua non (pants) of this whole experience. However: if they can make a band that holds my pants up, why, oh why can't the same company make tights that last more than 3 steps without cascading to the ground? And, for the millionth time, why doesn't anyone make a warm maternity coat? Thank heavens my tiny mother unaccountably had a (hideous) down coat that was big enough to squeeze around me, even at the end.

Sleep?

Sometimes, thanks to my best friend, the down body pillow. And, at the end, a sofa cushion behind my back, my dad's old down camping jacket under my hip, and a heating pad on top of the other hip. And a cat under one arm. How Sugar even fit in the bed is a mystery.

Postpartum, I haven't been having such exuberantly crazy dreams -- the weirdest one that didn't involve a hemorrhaging miscarriage (of which there were many; thanks, brain) had me taking George W. Bush to the pig races at the NC State fair and (I felt so dirty when I woke up!) accepting a plug of tobacco from him after giving him some betting tips. Instead, I am back to my childhood trick of night terrors, complete with hallucinations of the Bean in various poses of doom in the bed and plenty of incoherent yelling at poor Sugar. ("CAMERAS! I had TWO cameras!!! WHERE IS HE?????????")

Aches and Pains?

Yep. Back from early on; hips at the end were pretty brutal. Let's not talk about the part of labor before the epidural just right here except to say MORE OF THE SAME.

Postpartum, hips were a mess for a week -- I felt like I was made of two very different sized lego people, with a small top half and a hugely wide bottom. Lurching galore. Now they're pretty much back to normal. Pelvic floor still a little weird when I walk more than a block or so, but mostly I am okay now. Which is a good thing, because the ibuprofen was starting to make my stomach pretty unhappy.

Symptoms:

Not so bad, as these things go. Terrible congestion the most consistent. Acupuncture was awesome for that. Bad acid reflux after 28 weeks or so, until Dr. Russian introduced me to Prevacid, with whom I will be having any future babies. Dizziness. Yucky heart palpitations and shortness of breath in the third trimester.

Medical Concerns:

A whole lot of freaking out about things that never caused any problems: that month of first trimester spotting, low PAPP-A at nuchal, fears of incompetent cervix related to mullerian anomalies, terror over prospect of birth with two cervices and vaginas. But everything was actually just fine, even the septum.


Movement:

The first thing I was sure wasn't just gas came while we were at the beach in October. Sugar and I were lying in bed with her hand on my belly, and she felt it, too. It was weeks before she could feel it again, but I love that we felt the first one together.

By the third trimester, some of it was pretty uncomfortable -- rib kicks and especially the cervical head-butts.

It's strange now to feel something inside and know it has to be me.


Food Craving:

MILK. Some transient ones in the first trimester, most notably beer and, on one bizarre day, fish sticks. Lots and lots of protein, including one or two small meals in the middle of every night. I never thought getting up to eat could feel like a chore. Thank heavens for ricotta cheese on toast.

In general, I ate like a four-year-old. The Bean is 80% hotdogs and tatertots.


Food Aversions:

Coffee and tea both made me feel terrible, even after only a half-sip, in the case of coffee. Salmon seemed desperately gross. Later on, cereal and yogurt made me feel sick, but I think that was an acid thing.


Morning sickness?

Yes, but mild as these things go. No vomiting; only nausea. Worst around week 6. Best cures for me (besides getting out of the record heat) were raspberry candies, raspberry syrup in my water, sour drinks, spicy food (especially the salsa verde from our local taco place), and ZOMG coca-cola. Grandma was completely right about that. And since I wasn't using my caffeine allowance on coffee....


Sex:

Opted not to find out the Bean's; glad we waited (although I would have put my money on boy if forced).

As for the other kind, yes.


What I miss:

Sleeping on my stomach once in a while. Beer (I sipped Sugar's wine sometimes and had my own a few times towards the end, but she doesn't drink much beer). Sitting in the hot tub at the beach.

My OBs gave a pretty short list of forbidden foods -- deli meat, soft eggs, sushi, factory- or store-prepared salads and dips (like packaged hummus), lox and the like...and maybe some other things? I can't remember, so it can't have been that bad. Except for the soft-cooked eggs. God Almighty, how I missed them. I've had at least a dozen already.


Baby preparedness:

HA HA HA. Ooops. Thank heavens for Schroedinger's newborn clothes stash and Shelli's pack and play, or we would have been SOL upon return from the hospital. I thought I had 3 more weeks.


Best Moments?

Tough to choose, but a few:

• Driving in the car with Sugar after getting the "good first beta" call, when we were the only people (outside of the clinic) who knew.
• Telling the friend who launched herself over the table to hug us.
• Seeing our happy extended families when they were here for the wedding.
• Feeling the Bean kick for the first time, with Sugar's hand on my belly.
• Lying in the hospital bed (AFTER the epidural, thank you), listening to the Bean's heart on the monitor.

And one category I'm adding, Stupidest Decisions:

• Forgetting about not eating prepared dips. One of the only times I threw up all 9 months.
• Various over-estimations of my physical prowess, from the time I royally messed over my ribs getting out of a chair to the time I rendered myself unable to walk after getting carried away with walking to and from the food coop.
• Going home from the OB's after she said I was 4 cm dilated and completely effaced.

One of these days, we will make the move to wordpress and post various belated pictures (as passworded posts; no intention of taking the blog as a whole private). For now, here's a face-less picture of me at 37 weeks, 5 days. I thought I still had 3 weeks to go, but this turned out to be as big as I got.

Early Notes

Hi folks. Thank you for all the well-wishing. It is very appreciated. We are, predictably, tired, overwhelmed, and very, very happy.

You shall have a real post one of these days, but for now, a few notes and some pictures:

Note: Epidurals are really, really wonderful things. I have altered my original position towards those who would discourage their use (not those who would not choose them, which is entirely different) from anger to cold, murderous rage. More on this later.

Note: Anemia is a really sucky thing. My deep sympathies to those of you who run in this direction. I've never been like this before, and sweet mother of pearl, I hope it's over soon.

Note: There must be some non-dippy lactation consultants out there, but they don't seem to work for Kips Bay Mega Hospital. Breastfeeding is going pretty well now, no particular thanks to the class we attended, at which we learned a lot of vague and racist stuff about women's huts in "traditional societies" like "China...and, um, India." Quoth Sugar: I've been to China. They live in high-rises. We also learned the terribly pertinent information that, "if you swaddled newborn puppies, they would DIE." The more you know.

Note: All those ridiculous things people say about their babies? About how their particular pooping raisin is the most beautiful, most perfect, smells heavenly, and so clever already? Yeah, it turns out that's all true -- only it's true of our son, not theirs. (We will not discuss how I may have found myself transfixed by emerging meconium.)

Note: Sugar has had occasion already to learn that diapering goes a lot better if you remember, after undressing and un-velcroing and cleaning and ointmenting but before re-dressing, to put an actual diaper on the baby.

Sugar and the squeaker are snoozing next to me, and it's about time to hit the hay myself. So. Pictures. Soon we will make the inevitable move to wordpress and put up some with us in them, because there are some of Sugar that you simply must see. (Pro-tip: you can also see some if you click over to flickr -- thanks to those of you who've warned us about this breech, but we've decided that we aren't worried if y'all find out our true identities; the pseudonyms and so forth are to keep bosses, etc., from finding this place with a quick google.) We'll get you his name in some non-googleable way, too. xo



Rehearsing his dance cycle.



We call this look Pope in Oven Mitts



Thank heavens for internet people! The Bean's first bed, courtesy of Shelli. Wardrobe by Schroe (all pictures -- yeah, we were totally prepared, why?).



Michaela is taking her nannying very seriously.



Orson is less convinced.

The Bean is Born!

Meet the bean!



Baby went into labor yesterday afternoon and had Baby Boy Bean at 3:06 am this morning. More details to follow when we are back from the hospital . . .

Baby is gravid

the view from here

Yesterday I decided to test out our new storage location for my paint and sketchbooks by getting them out and painting the view across the street. Our living room window looks out over the parking lot next to a church (once an old synagogue) that makes amplified grumbling noises every Sunday morning. On the other side of the parking lot you can see the backs of two 3 story buildings and some old trees. This very Brooklyn view has little resemblance to anything from my childhood, but for some reason the faded blue of one of the buildings and the overhanging trees remind me of a specific short road with a blue Victorian house at the end of it that I would see when I walked to my piano lessons back home.

Updates and Thanksgiving

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your kind and helpful comments and emails about the last post. It's not that I thought y'all were the type to poop on a person about something like that, it's just...I worry. (But don't YOU worry, MFA Mama -- I promise I will still have more than enough angst when the Bean is here. Limitless supply, I tell you what.) Starhillgirl, I can't believe you'd even suggest cooking a placenta. You're just going to turn all the life-giving nutrients into toxic free-radicals that way, you know. SMH.

All this Actual Baby business is seeming suddenly very, very close. As of a week ago Monday -- 34 weeks on the nose, by my OB's count (which I've reconciled myself to, because these days I don't need time speeding up) -- I suddenly understand why people get tired of being pregnant. Though I am in basically good shape, all things considered, a lot of things do suddenly hurt and I have definitely entered the "waddling" stage. I've learned the hard way that my days of walking to and from the hippie coop are over, and I think I'd get much more comfortable rest if I could only figure out how to sleep sitting on the giant sitting ball (which I feel silly calling a birth ball, since we've had it for years and years as a desk chair). Poor Sugar is liable to be suffocated in our bed, as I have lately supplemented my beloved down body pillow with a throw pillow jammed against my back and have laid my father's old down jacket down in an attempt to get my hips to hush up for five or ten minutes at a time. Lucky for her, my snoring keeps her from sleeping deeply enough to succumb.

Despite her trials and tribulations, she has found energy to work a miracle in the second bedroom/office/music room/junk room/black hole: we now have a nursery! Like all good nurseries, it features a piano, several huge bookcases of non-children's books, a jankety metal cabinet with painting supplies (Mental Note: Remove prior to home study), and a filing cabinet. Filing promotes early literacy, fine motor coordination, and attention to detail. I can't believe Baby Einstein hasn't gotten in on this. We don't have a mattress for the crib -- your suggestions happily accepted -- but I'm sure babies do better just on the slats, right? Better ventilation and all that.



We've copied Shelli's excellent trofast changing table/storage juggernaut. Here's a closer view of the fabric covering the plywood top (which will ultimately have a changing pad or at least some strong fly paper):




The cats are very happy with their new room, especially the chaise.


Michaela can't believe it's taken us this long to get her a boppy.



Orson during the "little brother/sister" talk. "We're having a WHAT??"


Some very nice friends threw a little baby shower for us, during which no one played any humiliating or poop-themed games. I KNOW: sometimes it's like we're not even Americans at all. People gave us some very cute socks, nice books (I'm particularly partial to this one), and that all-important baby staple, a fleece viking hat with horns and yellow braids.

All this activity is very cheering and a good distraction from the "HOLY SHIT" moments that do beset a person. Not that the outside observer would notice much anxiety, I'm afraid, since I mostly sit around looking like this:

What We're Up To

I keep trying to write a quick post today and it keeps coming out dull as dishwater, so here are some pictures instead. With any luck, I will convince Sugar to scan the latest Bean ones and write you a better post soon. (Bean is fine, by the way. 47th percentile for weight, head down, heart still beating nicely. I, meanwhile, have gained exactly 0 pounds since my last appointment. Believe me, there has been some reorganization. Other than the kind of petty complaints that go without saying at this stage in the game -- acid reflux, some back pain -- everything is fine. BP remains low, and Sweet Sonographer checked my cervix for me even though she wasn't supposed to because all the stabbing down there in the last couple of weeks was making me nervous.)

(On the subject of health -- and this is one of those things that really deserves its own post or at least a place in a better-written one -- please stop by my pregnancy buddy tbean's place and remind her what an amazing job she's doing for the little turtles, because it's getting really hard.)

First, the quilt, which I peeled the cats off of for these pictures. We made this to save Sugar from gouging her eyes out, which is roughly what she threatens to do every time she sees the ones available at regular stores. Not to say that I like the teal/fuchsia/screaming lime combinations so much myself, but they seem to cause her extreme pain. This quilt isn't as fancy as the one we made last year, but it is meant to be tough enough to survive an onslaught of bodily fluids and regular batterings in the washing machine. Since I utterly failed in my plan to make the top at home and mail it to my parents' house (My mother has a nice sewing machine with a quilting foot), it ended up incorporating fabric from our house (mostly bits from other projects -- I like quilts that remind you of other garments, etc.) and also from both of our mothers' stashes.

Side A:





Side B, which was tons less work and, following the rule of these things, we naturally like better:




I made Sugar take a break from the IKEA festival (crib: done! ginormous wardrobes: done! thanks to the help and electric screwdriver of a certain uffish friend of ours who really should start blogging again. Read this one and see if you don't agree (NSFW) ) and take a picture of me in the fabulously 70s dress my mother wore most days of my childhood. I used to think it was ridiculous, but holy moly is that thing comfortable. The fact that she has lent it to me indicates a high level of excitement re: Operation Grandbaby, I tell you what.

Related: should I worry that my belly is glowing?


32 weeks, 5 days with the 70s Preservation Society

In Fact...

In fact, I do not feel very guilty about the fish oil. Partly, I'm not especially convinced it does so very much good for teh bebe (see here), and partly, I think it's of some import to my delicate psyche not to get too far down the road of "perfection" in this whole parenting thing. I put perfection in quotation marks because I don't believe there is such a thing in this arena; I think that the sooner and more often I remind myself of that, the better. I don't think that not taking vitamins is bad parenting. I think this is bad parenting.

As for slippery slopes, it turns out that the one I should have been keeping an eye out for was lurking in my kitchen the whole time. After a slow, v.e.r.y careful trip home from the coop on Thursday, carrying just slightly more weight than was wise, I stepped into the apartment, pleased with myself for not falling on the snowy/icy broken pavement. One step onto the kitchen tiles and I went down like the proverbial ton of bricks, if said ton had gained 30 pounds and weighed itself down with organic produce. The good part is that I landed on my knees, so no belly worries. The bad part is I landed on my knees. Except for the parts of my legs that hit my clogs first. Related: is there anything so annoying as being badly beaten up and having the bruises barely show? Or is that tipping my drama-queen hand a bit far?

What with the bashed up knees and accompanying jarred back, I have been less than no help this long weekend, as Sugar has begun Project Nest, aka, Project Babies Don't Sleep On Bookshelves. Great masses of furniture and boxes have been moved around the house or into our Fibber-McGee-esque storage locker. IKEA has been braved; flat rate delivery fees have been efficiently taken advantage of. Flotillas of boxes have arrived, heavy with flat-packed Swedish design, and, emptied of their cargo, have sailed away to the garbage room. Today, Sugar set up a new bookcase (just because babies don't sleep on them doesn't mean we don't have need of another; this will replace two shorter ones) and a chaise (Operation Maximum Sleep -- the chaise means an adult can sleep in our bed while another dozes by the crib). Still to come: crib, massive wardrobe for our bedroom to make up for some of the lost storage space, and our knock-off of Shelli's genius changing table hack.

The end result in the Bean's room -- which, things being how they are, will still have to include several non-Bean pieces of furniture -- should be something like this:


Because Every Baby Needs A Piano And A Filing Cabinet

Progress so far has been monitored by Inspector Orson, who has given preliminary approval to the chaise (shown here with side A of the play-quilt "we" (mostly Sugar) made over Christmas.



He does not, however, extend his approval to the camera's autofocus light.

Tales from the Front

Hi, folks.

So much has been going on, and I haven't managed to tell you any of it. Mea culpa. Today's update post comes to you from the couch, where I am staring over the horizon of an empty ice cream container and into space (such as it is in an NYC apartment), worn out from a 12-hour weep-fest. (We'll get to that, but please don't worry -- everyone is healthy if not happy.)

Here are some updates and stories for you, in this so helpful style I have shamelessly plagiarized from our* May:


Item: Christmas, New Years, and the Great Middle Western Odyssey in general went fairly well. We met the famous TA, as sweet as they say, and her happy mother. I threw caution to the wind and ate my annual bratwurst at the Christkindlmarket. We went swimming at Sugar's mother's health club; after looking forward for months to the experience of grace and support I keep hearing about in re: gravid paddling, my attempts to avoid further rib injury lead to a kind of aquatic lumbering down the lane with a kickboard, a foam noodle under my ribs, and a foundering midsection intermittently covered by an old exercise top with shot elastic. Sadly, the ribs got angry anyway, possibly because of the indignity of being seen with me.


All the Grace of a Foundering Tugboat

I steered clear of Sugar's dumbest cousin on Christmas Day -- though I still managed to hear her dumb husband (whose last name is a synonym for "detumesces," which gives me great delight, even if detumesce isn't a real word, which it probably isn't) threaten to spank their child for...oh, I forget. Something dumb that all 10 (10!) kids in the house that day were doing, like being loud. So no stories for any of us there.

To celebrate arriving at my parents' house, I got a rip-roaring cold. After a day of utterly failing to breathe, accidentally overdosing on my inhaler, and subsequently freaking out about killing/brain-injuring the Bean, I was saved by Sugar's suggestion that codeine is a fine anti-tussive. My parents' house could easily be mistaken for a well-stocked pharmacy, and codeine not only stopped the coughing but also made me stop wheezing/turning blue. Mama made Dada listen to my lungs with the chimney of an oil lamp, since he had left his stethoscope at the office. I tried to teach Mama to cut and paste, so she'll stop sending me emails with instructions on how to google something she's found ("put X in. now go to the 4th result. in the corner, there's a drawing of a fish. under that, there are some words you can click on....") and instead caused a fight over dinner. We (98% Sugar) made a play-quilt. I was given (not "gifted," dammit) replacements for the water bottle and good gloves I've recently lost on my commute; I promptly lost my best wool shawl on the trip home.


Item: We returned home to a house empty of food and full of cats very pleased with the success of their efforts to drive away our vacationing guests (the Baking Dane's in-laws) by pooping all over their and our belongings. I walk the mile to the grocery store (over mostly-cleared sidewalks), discovering on the way that all that lying around in the midwest while steadily increasing in size has left me woefully out of shape for our car-less life. When I arrive at the hippie coop, I have a stupid exchange with the pregnant idiot working the front desk (this is the kind of coop where you work a shift to secure your right to Waldorf-educated kohlrabi) over her refusal to ask those working with her to rearrange the heavy carts (used to walk home shoppers who live closer than I do) so that those of us who schlep our own organic flax milk can hang our granny carts on the appointed hooks. Another woman sweetly takes my cart from me and says she'll fix it. While I am recovering myself (read: weeping in the corner by the signs about how evil Coca-cola is), Pregnant Idiot calls over to tell me it's done. I say thank you and think humiliated thoughts. On the way home, I get stuck in a pile of slush in the middle of a busy street at rush hour, oncoming traffic surging at me. Good times.


Item: We begin birth classes with the lesbian CNM and her somewhat dippy co-teacher, who keeps saying "dilatition." We are pleased at the first meeting to see that we know one of the 7 couples there: an extremely chipper lesbian and her partner, who has a very charming lack of filter between her brain and her facial expressions. I enjoy watching my own horror reflected on her gaping face all evening.

The class begins with introductions. We are all (partners/husbands/friends, too) to say our names, when the baby is due, etc., and tell a story about our birth knowledge/experience -- a birth we've been to, the story of our own, what have you. When the talking beanbag (not kidding) comes to us, Sugar goes first.

SUGAR: "Hi, I'm Sugar and this is my wife, Bionic. Our baby is due in March and we're delivering at Kips Bay Mega-Hospital. The story of my birth is that my mother gave birth in 45 minutes and is still mad that all she got for dinner was a ham sandwich."

DIPPY: "Wow! That's amazing! How lucky!"

SUGAR: "Yeah. Too bad I'm not related genetically to our child."

DIPPY: "But you're related to your mother!"

BIONIC: Yes, but not to our baby.

DIPPY: "But your hips! You'll have her genes! This is great!"

BIONIC: "BUT SHE'S NOT PREGNANT."

[Awkward pause, in which DIPPY flusters about how she couldn't really see us where we were sitting. Lesbian Teacher looks long-suffering.]

BIONIC: "Hi, I'm Bionic. My mother did not give birth in 45 minutes."

I then proceed to talk about my (not un-traumatic) birth, touching briefly on a few major anxieties. I do not cry, but I don't look calm either. Before I have collected myself, The door opens and the late couple walks in. If you've already guessed that the late couple was Pregnant Idiot and her identical twit of a husband, full marks.

Watch this space for further reports on the Happy Couple, who remind one nauseatingly of high school. Highlight of the first night came during one of the activity portions, when we were all draped on one another practicing slow-dancing to loosen back, etc. Sugar is admirably taller than I am, so my face was nicely snuggled against her chest, my eyes closed. I hear a *SMACK* on the Happy ass next to me, followed by "THAT'S a BOOTY!" Gorge rises.


Item: I begin to worry more seriously about this whole birth thing. I spend much of birth class freaking out (internally -- at least I think I didn't look as horrified as the Other Pregnant Lesbian, since the Lesbian Teacher never stopped what she was saying to ask me, "Do you have a question? Or is that just the face?"). It's all very well learning about what the cervix does, what the birth canal will do, and so on, but while I don't really wish to share the idiosyncrasies of my lady bits with the class as a whole -- Lesbian Teacher knows already -- it's frustrating that no one has a clue what my body might or might not decide to do when the moment arrives. I have found 3 anecdotal reports of cervices like mine: one reassuring, one cautionary, one horrifying. (There's much more out there on UD, but officially, single utes with double-doors do not exist, as we contravene the prevailing theories of fetal genital development.) I'm increasingly despairing that a vaginal birth will even be possible, which makes this all seem like something for other people. I know there are good reasons for us to take the class anyway, but it's still a bit hard to sit there and look like I believe this stuff will apply to me.


Item: Dr. Robot has quit the practice and returned to Canada, according to Dr. Sympathetic Noises (But No Answers To Your Questions), whom I saw last week. I was quite nauseated and asked Dr. Noises whether it could have to do with the Zantac I've been taking for reflux, given that it seemed to have coincided. No, she said sympathetically. Later, I asked Dr. Google, who reported nausea as the most common side effect. Back to pepcid, and it's a more acidic but less queasy life for me. Nice work, Dr. Noises. Thanks also for refusing to answer my questions about your practice's labor policies until week 36.


Item: We finally have our belated hospital tour, led by a horrible, scolding bitch. We chose this hospital largely because of how uncommonly NICE every staff member we've encountered, orderlies on up, have been over the course of several radiology jaunts, Sugar's surgery, and my BFF's terrifying 27-week bleeding incident while visiting us a few years ago. So we weren't expecting one of those bitter, angry people who loudly pretends to be cheerful while referring to all non-pregnant parties as "Dad," kvetching endlessly about why her department deserves more space than another, and generally yelling at anyone who asked a question. I also liked the part where -- apropos of nothing except a quiet moan from one of the rooms -- she snapped at us, "labor is PAINFUL!" Part of my reason for going on the tour at all was to see the space at a time when I wasn't feeling actively upset. FAIL. I was calmer when in the company of my bleeding friend.

The actual L&D facilities are nice, though it's a bit annoying that the much-vaunted TV/DVD/CD players are only allowed to be used with headphones -- bit of a reach from the bed. Post-partum, like everywhere in the city, is another matter. The rooms are clean and tiny. There are four, un-reservable private rooms that cost a fortune; the semi-private rooms are exactly big enough for bed-chair-crib, bed-chair-crib. There's no nursery anymore -- theoretically great; actually somewhat terrifying -- so they allow partners to sleep over...in the hard chairs, which do not recline. It's not at all clear to me how I'll get through this (especially with no nursery to give me a break) if I send Sugar home to sleep, but it's plenty obvious that she won't get any sleep in that wretched chair. Mostly, that horrid woman made me afraid the PP nurses will be like her. As far as I can tell, she's a lactation consultant. So help me, if she comes near my nipples, I will not be responsible for my actions. And I do think it would be nice to wait until we're home before beginning the Bean's profanity lessons.

It all seems so trivial when I write it, but the aftermath of the tour has had me up weeping since 4:30 this morning. Okay, it's possible hormones are playing a role here. The basic issues, as I see them: terrible fear of being left alone; much greater comfort taking care of people than being taken care of (read: vulnerable); fear that I won't be able to take care of the Bean and Sugar and that no one will be taking care of me in that strange place.


Item: Sugar had to talk to the Stupid Cow at HR today, who deliberately refuses to understand that our relationship (our legally recognized, accorded benefits by the employer relationship) exists and tells Sugar she's single all the time. But that is Sugar's story to tell.


Item: I wish there were some useful guidelines on alcohol and pregnancy, short of ZOMG POISON. I know plenty of people drink in the third trimester; so far I haven't, beyond pilfered sips of Sugar's wine now and then. But boy, I could use a drink tonight.


*Brits: I have no idea if the "our ____" usage has some meaning that's inappropriate to this situation; I just love how it sounds. I am a dumb 'merican. Feel free to attempt to (gently) correct my heathen ways.

Normal

Greetings from the snowy midwest, where we are visiting Sugar's family. The snow is not too deep and very pretty, but I am nonetheless grateful that my mother's giant grey marshmallow of a down coat still closes around me. It's touch-and-go after a meal, I tell you what. Luckily, we'll be out of the cold weather and down to my parents soon, so it only has to hold on for a few more days. Related gripe: why doesn't anyone make a maternity coat that is actually warm?

Perhaps because pregnant women are supposed to be warm all the time, but let me tell you, this one ain't. Obviously everything is going as it should in terms of the important aspects of gestation, but I do find it funny how many of the "typical" symptoms have not visited me. I am cold all the time. My skin has never been drier -- shea butter on the face every morning or the skin just peels away. And that business about your hair not falling out and then all coming loose after birth? I have very thick hair to begin with, but if it finds a way to fall out more than it is already, I will certainly be bald by the time The Bean sees me. (And yes, I will trade all that happily for the mildness of my morning sickness.)

I will also take it in happy trade for the nurse's call yesterday saying my glucose test results were normal, which saves me a fight with the doctors, since I had made my mind up firmly to refuse the three-hour test. It was just over 24 hours before I was recovered from the one-hour, by the way, with an additional 24 to get rid of the migraine it brought on. And meanwhile, I've been poking around the journal literature and have become increasingly convinced that nearly all of the GD paranoia is based on g-d horse shit. I won't bore you to death, but just for starters: in a study of outcomes for gestational diabetes patients and babies, wouldn't you suppose it a good idea to exclude women who had poorly-controlled diabetes BEFORE pregnancy? Of course not: that would exclude almost all of the scary outcomes, and then how will you get published?

Sugar is champing at the bit to do laundry, so I'd better get out of these very soft but somewhat whiffy pajamas. (Yes, Melody, they are pajamas. Garnet Hill German cotton flannel. Get yourself some; I promise you will not be sorry. This is my fifth set.) I will leave you with a picture of my rapidly expanding mid-section, circa 28 weeks, and a promise that I will be back to report on anything exciting that happens on Christmas day at Sugar's paternal grandmother's house, where we're not at all sure anyone has been told about the pregnancy. Last time I was there, one of Sugar's cousins refused to do anything but gape at me while I was talking to her (about such controversial topics as "your daughter is very cute"). This should be even more fun without alcohol.



P.S. Yes, I'm beyond pissed about the legal goings on of my home state. Guess it's off the list of "states I will allow us to live in prior to being absolutely certain we're done having/adopting children." Nice feeling to have about a place my family has lived for 250 years.

Still More Of Me To Love

Greetings from your favorite dugong! Not only is my physique tending towards the marine mammal look (though I look considerably less svelte than a real dugong, I'm afraid), but my attempts to forestall rib pain by keeping my arms close to my chest may soon result in their becoming flippers.

Still feeling like I'm being stabbed and rather peeved at Dr. Russian for not really listening to me about it. She says it's a bruise (though how I am supposed to have hit the bottom of my ribs with anything, given the significant convexities surrounding that area, I've no idea) and to go easy on the meds. I say it's a torn muscle or pissed off cartilage and it hurts like heck. Since the treatment is the same for both theories -- wait, wish, and pray it gets better before the Bean can kick that high up -- I suppose it doesn't matter. I mostly have stayed off the percocet, but some nights (like last night, for instance), that's just not possible.

Ah, well. Dr. Russian is, after all, Russian. Disregard for non-lethal injury is as inevitable a part of her character as the praise she heaped upon me for eating meat. I will gladly accept her boredom with my ribs, given that she is similarly unbothered by my having already gained as much weight as the practice "wants" me to put on over the course of the entire pregnancy.

I'd be lying if I said the weight gain didn't bother me at all, but I'm doing my best not to worry about it. I don't think there's much I can do about it -- I'm hungry most of the time, and we eat pretty reasonable kinds of food. I guess I'm just one of those women who gains a lot in pregnancy. My weight has mostly been stable in adulthood, so I hope that losing it won't be too terrible.

At any rate, one member of the household seems pretty happy with the situation. (He's usually more of a boob-man, but those are getting pretty sizeable, too -- and don't think he doesn't cop a feel.)





Now that's my kind of Perfect Moment Monday.

Midwinter

You know it's the dark time of year when you find yourself eating breakfast by candlelight.



Those are kitchn's ricotta pancakes, by the way, and quite tasty they were, too.

Hope you are keeping the fires alight -- and dry, fellow New Yorkers.

23 Weeks 6 Days And All's Well

Hi folks. We are okay, just busy. Sugar is mending pretty well -- her post-op appointment is tomorrow, so I hope we'll know more then. Poor dear hates percocet, though. Isn't that the saddest thing you've ever heard? (More for the rest of us....) I've managed to mostly keep the household from falling down around our ears while she's been sick, but it's pretty darn shambles-y. And my mother is arriving on Tuesday (probably because I spent last Monday's commute weeping at her over the phone).

No, no hormonal craziness at all, why do you ask?

Everything medical seems to be fine. I have passed my cervix checks; first growth scan (because of low PAPP-A at nuchal) is Tuesday. I met OB 4 of 4, the one with the scary, super-skinny picture, and she was fine. She did not yell at me for gaining so much weight, contrary to my expectation. (And boy howdy, I have gained some weight. I have now officially crossed into "I have never weighed this much" territory. Yikes.) I get tired more easily and walking is beginning to be strangely exhausting for someone whose life involves so much of it. Like walking in sand. I have discovered that wearing the good ol' Bella Band over my maternity pants is the secret to not having to yank them up every 3 steps, at least.

Must get back to salt mines grading. But hello! and We Are Not Dead!

Here is a picture of my best pumpkin impression:

Perfect Moments

Hey, y'all. Chez Bionique = still reeling. Happy, befuddled, occasionally panicking...never a dull moment, as they say.

Symptom watch includes mild (but not so mild that I wouldn't take an Advil under other circumstances) cramping, some fatigue, and -- I'm going to count this -- the biggest MFing cold sores I have had in easily 15 years. As in, where did the left side of my upper lip go? Yuck. Dr. Baby Factory says no taking anything, even L-Lysine. (Confession: I took some before I asked. I guess I'll not take any more. Probably.) Your miracle cures welcome.

I don't think I've ever managed to participate in Weeble's Perfect Moment Mondays, but Sunday had a couple of moments that bear recording, I think.

Here is Sugar, under the triumphal arch near our place:

Piano courtesy of Play Me, I'm Yours

My father is a pianist. He played Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, Bach every night of my childhood. Some of my favorite baby pictures are with him at the keyboard, in a carrier on his back or pounding the keys beside him like a real hambone. He put neon green stickers on the ends of an octave's worth of keys to teach me their names; I don't remember ever not knowing. For reasons related to the crippling shyness that characterized my early childhood, I never took lessons, so while I can play a little, not much, really. (Let's not go any further down that road, lest the crying start.)

Even when we were first "dating" (misnomer for typically lesbian reasons), I was comforted to think that Sugar's ability to play represented a kind of redemption on that count, that there would, after all, be someone to play for our children.

Which brings me to this:

Yes, I surely did go out and by the pricey kind only when I already knew what it would say. What of it?

Lying Down All Over Town

Today we did the embryo transfer!

I took the day off work to be able to go with Baby to all her various appointments - acupuncture, transfer, acupuncture, home - and in order to do so I told my office that she was having 'surgery.' Now they are all worried about her, and probably think she has cancer, since I was so unspecific. On Saturday she actually had surgery (egg retrieval) and I was all worried about her, but didn't manage to talk to anyone about that, since it was Saturday. Between Sunday and this morning she has been quite sick - in pain, vomiting, the works. But now this evening she seems a lot better, thank goodness.

So here was our day:

6 a.m. vomiting (Baby)

8:30 We take the train to midtown and go to Baby's acupuncturist's office there. Baby goes to lie down. I wander around in search of breakfast, saltines, and a seasickness bracelet for Baby. It is ridiculously hot outside.

10:30 We take a cab to the Kips Bay Baby Factory, where everyone is surprised that we are early. The nurse clearly thinks Baby has already had some Valium at home because she is moving so slowly and acting spacey, but we convince her that no, it's just the puking and the lack of sleep. The nurse gives Baby some Valium.

10:45 We are seated in front of this sign. I had not previously realized that the doctors here think of themselves as ganstas.

yo yo YO!

10:50 Dr. Thursday comes to talk to us. He is disorientingly jovial. Also he has tiny feet, which I find myself staring at. However, all the news he gives us is great. 26 of Baby's eggs fertilized, and 20 of those are still growing. There is a good looking blastocyst to transfer and there will be some to freeze, somewhere between 4 and 10. We won't find out how many they actually froze until tomorrow afternoon.

11:00 Baby and Dr. Thursday go into a Laurel and Hardy routine about left and right cervices. Dr. Thursday says Dr. Baby Factory told him to go in through the right cervix, but Baby says he must have meant Dr. Thursday's right, i.e. Baby's left, etc., etc. After a while Dr. Thursday agrees to poke around and not jab anything too hard until he figures it out.

11:35 Dr. Thursday breezes by me in the waiting room and says I can go back to the recovery room. He waves his arm around saying 'it's to the left.' I try the door he came out of, which is locked. I sneak through a different door and stick my head past the gansta sign into a completely empty hallway and shout. Eventually a nurse wanders by and directs me through two totally other doors to where Baby is lying down. She seems calm and happy and has this picture printed out and lying on her chest.

our first blastocyst

12:30 IT IS SO HOT OUTSIDE, WHY IS IT SO HOT?

1:00 We sweatily arrive at another office near the Baby Factory where Baby's acupuncturist also works. Baby goes to lie down and have needles stuck in her again. I read a trashy vampire novel.

2:00 Back on the train to Brooklyn.

3:00 Baby lies down in our blessedly air-conditioned apartment. Because there is no food in the house, I prepare for the trek through the blazing heat to the Food Coop.

4:00 (presumably Baby is still lying down) I search for popsicle molds (no dice) and stuff to make miso soup, which Baby has requested.

6:00 I make miso soup.

7:00 Baby and I eat the soup. Nobody vomits. Score!

Roselle's Tree

Thank you all for you kind and thoughtful comments on the Memorial Day post. It means a great deal to me that you took time to read it and to think of Roselle. A college friend read it today and concurs: she really was that great.

Said friend also thought to take pictures of Roselle's tree at reunion, and she's said I can post them here.