Birth Story, Part Four

Oh my, oh my! Looks like those other two babies either have beaten me (I'm guessing, here) or are poised to do so! Squeeee!

Where were we? Ah, yes. Monday afternoon. We were on the subway. Of course. Where the hell else would we be, with me 4 cm dilated, completely effaced, having been contracting regularly for twelve hours or so? Surely not NEAR THE DAMN DOCTOR’S OFFICE WE HAD JUST LEFT, WHICH IS FOUR DAMN BLOCKS FROM THE MOTHERFUCKING HOSPITAL.


A to B: A Rational Person's Route



A to B: My Route


It’s possible I’m not entirely over how incredibly boneheaded that decision was. All I can say is that denial is a powerful thing. (For more on how I got into this mess, see parts 1, 2, and 3.)

To make sure you understand how stupid this was, please note that not only is it 45 minutes to an hour to get home from the doctor (actually a bit faster than driving, which was part of the attraction), but also: we don’t live on that train line. Or the train line we transfer to next. So that’s three trains home, and one of the transfers is up stairs. But I wanted to be at home. I didn’t feel good. I didn’t want to eat any of the food I could think of getting in Midtown, and I certainly didn’t want to walk around there in the cold drizzle. And cabs are expensive and nerve-wracking, and the subway is familiar and cheap. So off we went.

The story would be more exciting if my water had broken on the train, it’s true, but if that had happened even I might have had the sense to get off and hop a cab back uptown. In fact, the ride was okay. I had a few contractions; they didn’t really pick up until we were under the East River, leading me to believe that the Bean just wanted to be born in Brooklyn. And a little while later, I thought he might get his wish.

My sense of time gets pretty shaky from here on out. I think we must get home around 3:30. I am ravenous. I’d tried to eat the bland food they tell you to have in labor in the morning, but my bowl of grits was left to congeal. (Grits are my go-to bland comfort food, which I mentioned in our birthclass brainstorm only to have the teacher say that although oatmeal was a good labor food, grits might be okay in very early labor. Yankees! ) Bland food made me feel gross in the first trimester, and it seems gross now. So I eat the spicy beef leftovers. And they are awesome. And I am glad I was so shameless about asking for them.

Then everything starts to happen at once. Nature, as they say, calls. Insistently and for quite a while. I discover just how very, very, very much I hate having contractions on the toilet. I know some of you were into laboring there or in that position, and I am here to say that you are out of your tiny minds. Once my body has, erm, cleared the decks, the contractions go wild. Sixty to 90 seconds long, every three to four minutes. Instead of counting and groaning, I am counting and yelling and clawing the bed. I bend over the couch, I slow-dance with Sugar; nothing helps. At one point, I accidentally bite Sugar’s leg (which doesn't help that much either).

Even before the tooth marks can fade, Sugar calls the OB office to say we’d like to go to the hospital. (For me, not her leg. I didn’t even break the skin, okay?) While she’s talking to that dumb bitch of a nurse you remember from the Vasospasm Chronicles, I have a contraction. And Nurse Helpful says, “You have to get her to calm down.” Because you know, being quiet while in bone-crunching pain is really, really important. There goes my Good Girl Gold Star for Laboring Like A Lady, I guess. (Sugar, who is wise beyond comprehension, doesn’t tell me about that comment until much, much later. I PROBABLY wouldn’t have insisted we stop by the office on the way to the hospital and throttle her anyway.) However, the nurse agrees that if I want an epidural, we should head in. So we call a car again.

Only now it’s rush-hour.

While we’re waiting for the elevator, I feel a little excited. Mostly afraid I’ll have another contraction and fall down in the hall, but a little excited. I am in labor! This is happening! Who’d have thought it would happen today? (You know, besides anyone who’d thought rationally about the events of the previous 36 hours.) By the time we get to the stoop, I am back to petrified. I get walloped with more contractions; when the car arrives, Sugar has to run tell it to wait until I can walk again. I curse my decision to deliver at Kips Bay Mega Hospital rather than one in Brooklyn. Sure, I had my reasons, but LICH is so close.

In birth class, there was a lot of talk about how giving birth in real life isn’t at all like giving birth in the movies. In some respects I guess that’s true: my water didn’t burst out all over the stage while I gave a speech for my entire company and Dr. Baby Factory didn’t just happen to poke his head into the room during the pushing so that I could grab him by the neck and scream, YOU DID THIS TO ME!!!! But this part of the story, from when Sugar trundled me into the cab until the epidural was in? This part was exactly like the movies.

Cab driver, I wish I knew your name, because you deserve a medal for patience, fortitude, and grace under fire. You could give a seminar in how to treat a laboring woman, and several of the medical professionals we dealt with ought to be required to attend. You did your job without comment and you did it well. I cannot have been your favorite fare that day, but I trust you at least got a good story out of the deal.

What he didn’t get was much peace and quiet. For the whole ride in — at rush hour, remember — I am doing my level best to cope like they said at birth class. So Sugar and I are counting out my contractions, in eights, the whole way in. And I by God keep up the counting, even though my yelling progresses rapidly to screaming.

About five blocks into the trip, I begin to wonder if I could be in transition. I can’t make any other sense of what was happening. My autonomic nervous system has gone completely haywire; I am roasting to death and convulsed with chills. The contractions get longer and longer and closer and closer together; at times there are no breaks at all. The advantage to counting through contractions is that it gives me a sense of when one might end (at about 14-2-3-4-5-6-7-8); the disadvantage is how terrifying it is to be still counting in the twenties and thirties. (Sugar says she remembers being in the forties at one point, which I have blessedly forgotten.) I am out of my mind with pain. At one point, between contractions, somewhere still deep in Brooklyn, I look up at the brick tower alongside us and it occurs to me that there will be a time in my life when I no longer feel like this. The idea is so strange that it transfixes me for a moment, until I feel a gush and yell out that my water is breaking.

(What an unwelcome thing that must be to hear as a cab driver. Luckily, we have a towel.)

At around this time, I start to feel a strong urge to push. Oh, God, the baby is going to be born in this cab and I’m never going to get my epidural. I stick a hand in my pants, but I don’t feel a head, so I try not to push. Or at least not hard.

At some point, it occurs to me that this back labor thing really is happening. To me. I’ve long ago stopped feeling anything in my belly, nor do I feel anything there for the rest of the labor. What I feel in the car is that someone has decided to replace the bones in my back and my thighs with iron rods. The rods are set on the ends of my bones, and at each contraction, they are slammed into the bones over and over like jam-hammers, reducing me into rubble. Absolutely nothing about this feels “natural” or “productive” or any of those other reassuring things. At one point, alongside the ruined houses of Admiral’s Row, I wonder if I will die.

I know I am given to hyperbole in my writing, but in life, believe it or not, I don’t go in for hysterics. (My preference to be left alone and not bother anyone when I’m sick or in pain is what leads me to do dumb things like this.) Part of why it’s taken me so very long to write this story is that I spent a terrifically long time crippled by shame over how I behaved at the points of labor when the pain was at its worst. I didn’t hurt anyone or endanger the baby or say anything rude (that I regret), it’s just that I didn’t expect to be so out of control. After everything was over, I felt so embarrassed about it (no thanks to some of what was said at the hospital), and I felt that I hadn’t lived up to the example of your stories, that I hadn’t been strong or powerful or amazing but rather weak and overwhelmed and whiny and over-dramatic. When they said in birth class that being in labor meant letting go of your “social self” I thought that meant I would shut down the way I do during the GI/endo bouts, that I would not want to talk or be talked to and that I would do some moaning. I didn’t expect to be screaming — scream-counting, but still — or making these terrible dry-sobbing noises.

But there I am, making them. When I am able to think, I am beset by a series of fears:

• What if the baby is born in this car?
• Or, oh, God, what if the baby isn’t born in this car and I just have to keep doing this?
• What if I get to the hospital and the baby isn’t born yet but they say it’s too late for an epidural (never mind that the “it’s never too early or too late” policy was part of the appeal of Kips Bay) and they make me just keep going even though I’ve made it in?
• Oh, God. They’re going to make me be on an IV for an hour, like the books say, and I’ll have to be in the hospital knowing they could give me an epidural but that they won’t.
• Oh, God! Before they’ll even do that, I’ll have to go to triage. Triage! I cannot handle triage! They’ll make me move from room to room and I will die. Or kill someone.

I interrupt my anxiety spiral to notice that we are SO not on the way to the hospital. Car service drivers tend to have their own opinions about how best to get to the bridges and it doesn’t do to tell them their business, but it has been forever and we are still in fucking Brooklyn. Traffic is heavy, and we really do hit every light. I am bent over sideways in the backseat, looking up at the world as I did on long car trips as a child stretched out across the backseat. At some point, I lift my head up and see that we are at the Navy Yards. Does this guy think we’re going to Queens? What if he’s taking us to the wrong hospital? WHY ARE WE STILL IN BROOKLYN?????

So calmly, so beautifully calmly, he answers, because it is rush hour and I am avoiding the traffic jam downtown approaching the bridge. Cab driver, I mentally send you flowers every time I think of your gentle tone and your impressive withholding of epithets at that moment. God bless you. Later, when I screamed at you that you were driving past the hospital, it was kind of you only to say that the hospital I was seeing was Bellvue and withhold any suggestion that perhaps I belonged there.

I had a few moments of clarity before arriving at the hospital. I remember thinking that because each of our cabs had chosen different bridges, we would be able to tell the baby about going over both the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridge while he was coming. That seemed really cool for some reason. Later, as we crawled up First Avenue (thank you, cabbie, for not taking the FDR), there was this strange break from everything and it seemed perfectly normal to remark to Sugar on the unexpected presence of a European restaurant in the heart of Chinatown. ( “Look, they sell Swedish food.” ) Sugar reports finding that a bit surreal.

Another thing I had imagined was at least kind of being able to walk when we arrives at the hospital. Instead, I only have eyes for the lone wheelchair mercifully abandoned by the entrance and scream until the driver backs up, switches lanes, and brings me to it. Sugar runs around trying to figure out how to push me and deal with the luggage. Some presumed neurologist (bow-tie) leans over and asks if my “erm, companion” has gotten help. This all seems to take forever, but then Sugar is back, rushing me to the elevator. Which is absolutely packed, naturally, so I try to scream quietly while the neurologist and others chat about their weekends.

Our arrival in L&D is also cinematic: I am sprawled across the careering wheelchair, wailing. I hope I wasn’t screaming “give me my damn epidural,” but the possibility exists. However, one fear is instantly assuaged: turns out that if you arrive at Kips Bay L&D having clearly lost your tiny mind, you do not have to go to triage.

In the room, off go my rather soggy corduroys and everything else. As the nurse starts my IV, I whine at her, “Am I going to have to wait a really long time for my epidural?” She says no. “Are you lying to me??”

I am sure she is lying to me. Hell, I would lie to me. But she isn’t. The anesthesiologist comes in right away. He is a short man with comically tall hair and a horrible, sing-song, chipper-camp-counselor voice. He introduces himself and commences cheerfully upbraiding me for yelling.

I know how this works. I know that I will need to sit up, bend over, hold still. I am trying to move between contractions, only there isn’t any “between” anymore, so it’s hard. And his stupid monologue about how I need to stop carrying on is not helping.

This is when Sugar and I learn something about what is and isn’t part of that social self that disappeared on the ride in. Apparently preferring silence while in pain, which I would have bet was pretty deeply part of me, is surface stuff. But the Teacher Voice is primal.

So here I am, screaming, moaning, trying to turn to sit, wishing there weren’t so many people touching me and talking all at once. And then Dr. Jerkwad comes out with his most enraging and unhelpful line thus far, a merrily hostile, “You’ve got to get some self-discipline.”

And, reports Sugar, I go suddenly silent, to everyone’s surprise. And out it comes, low and loud and firm and clear, the Teacher Voice. And it says, heedless of the fact that this is maybe not the brightest remark to make to someone poised to put a needle in my spine,

“Sean.

"Don’t be an asshole.”

Lucky Me

This was going to be a nice, neurotic little post about how I'm freaking out about the idea of having an actual baby in the house, how I still can't wrap my head around the idea, all that sort of thing. With some weepery about newly-discovered stretch marks thrown in, for spice.

But I just got off the phone with the Department of Civil Service -- I have been working for the state -- who told me that, contrary to what I'd been told by my own HR department, my insurance was canceled at the beginning of February. Not March. Close observers will note that it is FUCKING LATE FEBRUARY ALREADY. WAS ANYONE PLANNING ON TELLING ME THIS INFORMATION AT ANY POINT?

I am hopeful it will get resolved quickly and only require me to resubmit all my bills for this month or that, worst case, it will become clear in time for me to retroactively join Sugar's insurance, which was the plan for March (but costs more than mine -- let's not even get into the extra month of imputed income taxes, fuck you, DOMA -- and so would be nice to avoid as long as possible). Of course, that isn't even remotely the worst case.

Also, I am not going to insert the boilerplate here about how grateful I am that I can get on Sugar's insurance, because dammit, we're married, and having that relationship recognized in basic ways shouldn't be something we have to say "thank you" for every time.

Ahem.

Now do you want to hear about my stretch marks? Sure ya do.

They're on the part of my belly below my navel, which I can't even see in our one full-length mirror (which I rarely look in, as it isn't in our bedroom) without the extra effort of hauling my belly up to look. Consequently, I didn't see them until today and was blissfully ignorant of any marks other than the almost-cute dots over by my hips. Apparently, they've been there for several weeks. I am not best-pleased, although I know that's irrational. Partly, I don't like how they look (vertical, purple, angry); partly, it's unnerving to find out that I don't even know what's happening to the front of the outside of my own body.

(You'd think I'd be used to the idea that I don't know what's going on with my body by now, wouldn't you? What with the endometriosis and the cyst-riddled ovaries and the surprise cervix? I guess I don't learn.)

You might also think -- or hope, at any rate -- that I could be classy enough not to complain about stretch marks, sore hips, and exhaustion, given my great luck in being pregnant at all. Even if whatever the Bean is doing to my cervices does make me wonder at times whether we're having a unicorn, whining about it isn't seemly. I realize that.

As long as we're on unseemly topics, might as well go for broke:

I haven't been very interested in narrative in the past few months. I haven't wanted to watch movies and, very odd, I have scarcely been reading. (And I am always, always, always reading.) I couldn't figure out why until the other day, curled up on the couch with Sugar, watching something perfectly innocuous. Without realizing it, I had slipped into that state where you are so immersed in the story that you forget you exist outside of it. I love that feeling. More than anything else, that's what I read for. It is so freeing to forget myself for a while.

And then the Bean started kicking. And I jolted back to myself, immediately into a state of anxiety. It was like that moment when you wake up...and then remember you have an exam or a funeral to go to, that you got bad news yesterday, that the world has weights for your shoulders. Every time this happens, it takes a few minutes to calm myself back down, to remember to not be scared about the approaching unknown -- or at least try not to be scared. The truth is, I am pretty scared. About labor, yes; but even more about what comes next.

I am terrified at the idea of this baby actually being here. What was I thinking? What if it's all a terrible mistake, this parenthood thing? A bit late for cold feet on the subject, I know. And of course it is only part of my brain that's terrified -- much of it is excited and (guardedly) happy -- but boy is the scared part loud all of a sudden. Despite the very deliberate nature of all this, despite having pictures of the Bean as a blastocyst, for heaven's sake, I often feel like I'm having one of those dreams where you are suddenly in labor, never having known you were pregnant, and you're trying to figure out how this happened.

The IF-style kicker to all that, of course, is how damn guilty I feel for ever having thoughts like that, for ever allowing something other than pure gratitude into my heart. The sucker punch is knowing how deliberate all this was. We conscious conceivers -- lesbians, IFers, that sort -- talk a lot about how whatever situation has made us unable to have children easily has the silver lining of making us sure we want them, careful in our decisions, grateful in our parenting. To some extent, that's true, I think. But right now I am a little envious of those people who are surprised by pregnancy, who get to react it and know they are doing the best they can, rather than always knowing the decision was intentional and perhaps sometimes fearing that their choice was not the right one.

But, right or wrong, what is there to do but go forward in faith that it will all work out?

With that in mind, we have ordered a mattress for the crib. The stroller (so expensive and trendy that we won't discuss it, but I love it and am telling myself that it's a lot cheaper than the car we don't have) came in the mail today. Last night, we went to meet the Bean's probable pediatrician, whom we liked a lot. She recently parted ways with her practice partner and opened a new office next door, I assumed over something mundane like money disagreements. But from the way she talked last night about the search for new partners, for "more intellectual doctors...who like to discuss medicine," I wonder if there isn't a more interesting story behind the split. As you might imagine, I prefer intellectual doctors myself, and I'm happy to have found her.

I almost wish, seeing how small her hands are, that she were my doctor. Tomorrow brings my first cervix check, which I hear is a barrel of laughs. To answer the question on everyone's mind: yes, just as with pap smears, I get two. Lucky, lucky me.

Notes from Week 36

Item: Thank you for the nice comments on Sugar's painting. The likeness is a tad off, but the boobs are exactly accurate. Um, Sugar? My face is up here.


Item: We had our last growth scan on Monday, and all is well. As Sweet Sonographer covered my midriff (sounds too cute...mid-raft?) with icy glop, I said lightly that she ought to make them buy her a fancy glop-warmer, like they have over at the high-risk place down the block. "Oh, I do have one. It's over on the counter."

I still love Sweet Sonographer, and it was cute that she tried so hard to find something adorable for us to see at this scan (we settled for hiccups, since the Bean's face/dragon snout was obscured by its low position in my pelvis), but I must admit that her halo is a bit tarnished by this revelation.


Item: According to the u/s, which I understand has a remarkably enormous margin of error, the Bean weighs in at a respectable 5lbs. 7oz. at 36 weeks, which means it's been listening to my chanting "over 6, under 9" at it. Good Bean.


Item: It has recently come to my attention that "0-3 month" size clothes (of which we have a respectable number) are not the same as "newborn" size clothes (of which we have none). What the hell is 0 months if not newborn? Do we need newborn clothes? How in the hell is a person supposed to figure these things out, anyway? And what hope have I of managing the actual work of raising not killing a baby if my limited brain power is being wasted on stupid clothing sizes?


Item: Thanks to Schroedinger, there are at least some diapers in the house. Lord knows if they're the right size, but diapers I know where to buy.


Item: Group B Strep test was also Monday. The GBS test involves a vaginal and anal "swab," which caused me much worry on Sunday, as Sugar had celebrated Valentine's Day early by giving me the GI bug she'd had on Saturday. (Sub-Item 1: despite what you may have assumed, bouts of diarrhea are emphatically not improved by having someone kick at your intestines throughout. Sub-Item 2: Nor by things-we-are-not-calling-hemorrhoids.) I needn't have worried. I scarcely noticed the butt part, so distracting was the vaginal aspect. "Swab" might be better described as "vigorous scrubbing with what appears to be an old mascara brush." "Just wait until the cervix checks," said Dr. Russian, with an evil grin.


Item: Dr. Russian loves shoes. On Monday, she was wearing black patent leather platform stilettos with wide ankle straps. They did complement the mood, I must say.


Item: I will not be in pretty shoes any time soon, as it's all I can do to waddle around in clogs. Speak to me not of stairs, either. I am even taking what elevators (not enough!) exist in subway stations, despite the aromas inherent in that process. Today, an old lady cut me in line for one, forcing me to wait for the next round. It was a blatant cut, too, no simple misunderstanding. Those hooligans think they can do whatever they please, all tricked out and speedy with their canes.

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:

A Confession, A Rant, and The Rest

I keep thinking that if I wait, all these things in my head will coalesce into a real post, but it isn't happening. So here comes a big mess. If you'd prefer not to see a bunch of mental clutter, here is an alternate post for you:

What should we be registering for that we've forgotten? Discuss.

Still here?

Okay then.

First, the confession part. It concerns birth stories. Yours and yours and yours and probably yours, too. Your amazing, beautiful, dramatic, powerful birth stories that you put so much care into and that I never comment on, even though I read them again and again and again. Even though I can see page after page of comments making it perfectly clear that all I have to do is say, "Amazing! Beautiful! Congratulations! Thank you!" and my work will be done, I don't write a thing and (if you think about it at all) you must assume I don't read them, since half the time I'm writing a novel in your comment box. I hope that doesn't hurt your feelings.

The truth is that I don't comment because your stories scare the ever-loving crap out of me. Half the time I have to have a little meltdown after reading them. The other half the time, I have the meltdown while reading them, to save time. I know enough to know that I shouldn't say *that* in your comment box -- I am hopelessly self-centered, but I am aware, in a conceptual way, of manners -- and for some reason I can't bring myself to say anything else.

So now you know. I read your story -- and yours and yours and yours -- probably more than once. And I was glad it was there to read, because I am an emotional over-packer, and I know that stories help me. So please accept my inadequate thanks for writing yours.


Two, the rant part.

Dr. Sears, please go fuck yourself sideways on something pointy.

Ahem.

Maybe I should start by talking about Wednesday's birth class instead. This week was "Interventions and Things that Can Go Wrong," and I have never been happier that we picked this class over the others we were considering. Although most of the class (at least the ones that talk about it) seem to be planning for unmedicated births -- at least half of them in the local birth center rather than a hospital -- and although the previous three classes have been all about non-medical ways to deal with contractions and so forth, both teachers were calm and even-handed when talking about monitors and epidurals and all that. One even went so far as to suggest that even though lots of people love The Business of Being Born, that possibly it had gone a tad far in its excoriation of pitocin. [Holy Moly -- I just went to youtube and watched that part, since I've never seen the movie. Heart now racing. Talk about your scare tactics! What the hell is up with that cartoon?] Our favorite teacher talked about a patient of hers who had apologized to her when requesting an epidural and told us in no uncertain terms that she did not disapprove of that decision. The only editorializing -- and it was announced as such -- was a plea to please not ask for an induction for a frivolous reason, which seems pretty sound.

When we were shopping around for birth classes, I wrote to various teachers and explained that, due to the double-cervix situation, I am at a higher-than-average risk of needing a c-section, and that it was important to me not to set myself up to think of a vaginal birth as successful and a c-section as a failure. One of the major reasons we chose this class is because I felt good about the teacher's response, and last night bore that out. The whole course has been about letting your body do its thing, asking doctors and midwives for all the options, etc. Our classmates are not the elective c-section type -- if they were, they wouldn't be in this particular class. But who can predict what will happen in labor? I loved that the screen of notes on c-sections began with "C-Section: An amazing, life-saving procedure" (or words to that effect).

None of that stopped me from weeping through the discussion of how emergency c-sections worked, of course. Possibly I have a little hangover from all the furious speed of egg retrieval day. We learned that, in the event of an emergency, the surgical team would work efficiently and fast, "just like NASCAR." I can only hope the OR isn't covered in logos for Laughing Clown Malt Liquor.

The whole evening, I was impressed with how calm and open the teachers were, talking about things that probably weren't on their ideal birth list when they decided to become midwives. I'm sure they knew that the Other Pregnant Lesbian and I have been comparing notes on epidural policies at the hospital we're both going to, because I have a nasty habit of being that person still shouting as the room goes quiet after break, but neither had anything especially bad to say about epidurals during that section of the class. They passed around an epidural catheter so we could see how slender it is and explained how to keep changing positions even with one in. It's almost as if they meant it when their response to my email said their goal was,

"to offer childbirth education that focuses on making your birth experience a satisfying and joyful entrance into parenthood, no matter what twists and turns and challenges you face, no matter what your personal desires and goals."

Go figure.

And then there's Dr. Sears.

An old friend sent us a box of baby-related hand-me-downs recently, including the Sears' Pregnancy and Birth books. I tend to agree with Dr. Sears on about 80-90% of things, and find the other 10-20% hopelessly nutso, but I decided to take a look. In a bookshop, early in the pregnancy, I'd been very impressed with how calmly and thoroughly he dealt with first trimester bleeding -- most books just say "well, it might not be a miscarriage, but PROBABLY IT IS" which is silly considering how common it is -- and rather turned off by his section on weight gain, which took the usual tack of assuming you are just itching for an excuse to become morbidly obese and added the nicely tuned guilt trip of "plus you are making your baby fat, you lazy cow." But free is free, so what the heck. I turned to the birth stories section.

The stories themselves are what they are. Only one of them makes me actively gaggy. It is an induction story, and the second paragraph begins, "Dad likes having a baby this way." (I'm all for having both partners involved and everything, but I've already told Sugar that any statements like that of the father Dr. Sears praises for saying "we had a vaginal exam" are...unwelcome. Unless she's up for hopping in the stirrups alongside me for moral support.) Okay, I also want to do a consciousness-raising session with the author of "I Witnessed Myself Become A Woman -- VBAC Water Birth," but whatever.

Dr. Sears is a proponent of "natural" childbirth, by which he means no drugs. (I hate that term, personally -- it's a bit of an emotionally loaded dichotomy for my taste -- but whatever.) I'm a proponent of letting women decide for themselves what they do and don't want to be part of their birth. This is where we diverge. I expected that, but I didn't expect quite the level of paternalistic bullshit found in the commentary on the birth story of the Woman Who Dared Ask For An Epidural.

"A Medically Managed Birth" is about a woman whose doctor tells her to go the hospital when her water breaks. Ten hours later, she gets some pitocin. Some time after that, things get intense and painful, and she starts to feel hopeless. She can't concentrate on the baby, only the next contraction. She requests and gets an epidural, feels confident again, promptly dilates to 10, pushes the baby out -- able to concentrate on it again, rather than pain -- and feels happy about it.

How dare she! Incredulous, Dr. Sears, et al., "interviewed her about whether or not this style of birth ["American"] left her "less fulfilled" as a woman." Rude much? She says no, on the contrary, she feels great about it. "

There was no doubt in her mind that she gave birth, and the fact that she didn't experience the intense sensation of a drug-free birth did not lessen her fulfillment."

Mother gives birth to healthy baby, isn't hung up about it; everybody wins, right? Wrong. Dr. Sears goes on to remind us that she didn't have the chance to have natural, gradual contractions -- okay, fair enough. Everyone says pitocin sucks like that. It's the closing that pisses me off:

"We wonder whether her Lamaze instructor mentioned the importance of taking the contractions one at a time [...] thinking of the baby, not the next contraction."

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the instructor did mention that, since the mother mentions the loss of her ability to do that after...chronology is a little unclear, but at least 12 hours, probably quite a bit longer. Maybe, just maybe, she was trying to do that and it was too damn hard. So she should have what, tried harder? What is the big fucking problem with an adult making a decision to use a very safe drug to lessen pain? Labor pain may be "pain with a purpose" or whatever, but so is the pain of passing a kidney stone, and no one talks about how virtuous people enjoy that.

I in no way mean to denigrate women who choose to give birth without painkillers. I really, really don't. But I think that the important thing is that the laboring woman -- not some moralizing jackass judging her story later -- makes that decision. There's so much B.S. out there about epidurals -- most of which was either never true or hasn't been true in 25 years -- that the last thing I consider acceptable is telling a woman with no negative feelings about how her birth went down that she should feel bad.


You are all such clever people that you no doubt figured out 20,000 words ago what this post is really about: my fear that you'll think less of me if/when I get an epidural. Even that "if" was a pretty big lie -- birth is unpredictable, but the epi is in the plan, for sure. I've done my research, and I feel good about it from a scientific perspective: one reason I'm happy we're going to Kips Bay Mega Hospital is that their epi policies are excellent. (OB anesthesiologist on 24/7. Standard use is light-dose, patient-controlled, which all the studies agree is the way to go in terms of pain relief and side effects if you have the staff. The intent at least is to keep the dose light enough that patients can go to the bathroom themselves. No "window" -- you can have one whenever you want and the OB thinks is okay; Dr. Russian says I can have one now as far as she's concerned.) If the cervices don't behave and I need a c-section, I'd just as soon already have the epi in, and if not, I'd rather not be feeling every bit of my septum breaking, which it may well. Even without those special circumstances, useful as they are for shutting down any "your birth will be fine because mine was" stuff, I think I'd be leaning this way. I've experienced plenty of severe pain in my life, what with the migraines and the endo/GI situation, and I haven't noticed anyone giving me a medal for the times I've done so without painkillers. Other people have had worse pain than I have and make other decisions; that's okay. I'm okay with being a wimp on this one...

...as long as y'all will still be friends with me.

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.

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.

what the hell is going on in there?

Up until about three weeks ago, I thought of myself as a basically healthy person. I felt lucky for being so healthy, and thought often about how unfair it was for Baby to have to deal with chronic asthma, migraines, and the frequent pain of severe endometriosis.

Then I had an ultrasound, the intent of which was to see if I still had a small polyp in my uterus, that turned up the fact that I had an 8 centimeter endometrioma on one ovary and a 4 centimeter one on the other (!). Faced with how huge 8 centimeters sounds and with the prospect of a more invasive surgery if I waited too long to have them out, I went in for a lap on Tuesday.

When the surgeon looked inside, she discovered some unexpected things. First, both my ovaries are sitting underneath my uterus. Second, the left ovary had become so enlarged that it was as big as the uterus. Third, there are adhesions from endometriosis everywhere in there. And finally, one of my tubes is blocked.

Wow. Ok. I don't feel good about this at all.

First, somehow I feel like I should have known there was something wrong in there. Maybe I could have done something earlier, if I hadn't been in denial, except I wasn't really in denial, since nothing really hurt. But still, how could I not know?

And proceeding from this somewhat irrational reaction, I feel like I've been running my life wrong. Or something. Should I have been more invested in being the one to get pregnant? Baby really wanted to be pregnant, and I didn't really feel strongly that I did want to, so it seemed totally right to have her go first, (or just to be the one to do it, if we only have one). But now it's looking like I won't have an easy time if I do want to get pregnant. Plus I'm older that Baby. But I was just going right along assuming I could get pregnant if someone put some sperm up there, like an idiot, so I had all the time in the world (or at least 6 or 7 years).

Not helping is the fact that my really nice and cheerful surgeon keeps asking me about when I want to get pregnant. I know she is happy she was able to preserve both of my ovaries and concerned that my sudden endometriosis seems severe, but, hello, we are expecting a baby in March. I'm not going to try to get pregnant right now, because that would be a nutty thing to do. I was lying in bed, addled from pain medicine, the day after the surgery, when my surgeon called to check on me. After ascertaining that I was recovering normally, she launched into a discussion of how I would probably have to do IVF. Ack! At least wait until I'm off the meds!

Baby has been a great a help through all this. The poor thing is exhausted from being pregnant and has also been doing everything for me for the past three days as I lie here and moan about how percocet gives me a raging headache and the urge to weep. I will be happy to be on my feet again, which right now feels like it won't be until the distant future, but will really probably be something like three more days. I've been a bit surprised at how this recovery is sucking, but I'm not sure why I didn't put together the fact that getting abdominal surgery = getting stabbed in the stomach. As Nick Swardson says - "no thank you to getting stabbed. I don't want any part of that process"

Now with working link to the funny! -- Ed.

A Quick Sono Update and Fret

Oooo, lordy, it's been too long since we've written here. The cliff's notes are that things are fine, my back/legs/hips are starting (already! crap!) to be a problem but I otherwise feel good, and that we got a big, sudden freelance job that is keeping us busy for a couple of weeks but will provide a few bucks for the "what in the hell will we do when Bionic isn't working, and have you seen the cost of health insurance these days*?" fund. I'm supposed to be transcribing an interview right now, so this will be quick and sloppy:

We had the anatomy scan last week, at which Sweet Sonographer and Dr. Russian fussed that it was too early to see things well. (At least they didn't blame me for getting the date wrong, since it was someone at their office who told me to come in that day.) Nevertheless, they eventually saw what they needed to. I am beyond relieved to report that the Bean's heart has four chambers. A friend had to terminate after that scan because of a heart problem, and she is in our thoughts often. I am further thrilled that the Bean has a spine! My father was born with a slight spine problem that isn't considered spina bifida but is close enough for my mother to have been fretting about that since the pee dried on the stick. Likewise cheering were the ghostly images of a two-hemisphere brain, a three-vessel cord, and the dark circle of a bladder.

As before, Sweet Sonographer could find only one cervix, but they were happy enough with it to take me off of incompetent-cervix-watch.

From an "Awwwww!" perspective, some parts of the scan were rather unsettling. We had a brief view of the baby's face, and boy, do I hope my impression of "terrifying dragon creature" proves to be unfounded. Or at least that it's a good Dragon-Bean, friendly with the cats and not constantly setting the furniture on fire.

The cutest part was when Sweet Sonographer found the feet. The Bean was wiggling up a storm in there, but keeping its feet neatly together, like so:

I giggled as the picture was taken, which accounts for the extra toes. I think there are only ten, not multiple rows like shark's teeth.

You've probably noticed the continuing use of "it." Upon MUCH reflection, we decided not to find out the sex yet. We're happy with that decision. We're only just getting to know each other, after all, and Sugar and I don't think of sex as an essential characteristic (gender, yes, but that's not visible on ultrasound just yet).

Sweet Sonographer and Dr. Russian did see something they didn't like the look of in the abdomen, which is the subject of today's fret. Dr. Russian said she couldn't tell if it was a dilated blood vessel or just a cyst, and has referred me to the high-risk clinic with the fancier u/s machine for a follow up today. She said not to worry over it, and mostly I haven't. But as the hour approaches, anxieties creep in on little spider feet. The Bean keeps kicking and wiggling, though, which is reassuring, even though I know it doesn't mean nothing is wrong. It is just so hard to believe that anything could be -- and harder to believe that I think that, given that my feelings were the opposite for so long.

That was the second time I saw Dr. Russian, whom I quiet like, despite a bit of brusqueness. This time, after announcing my (substantial) weight gain and then taking something of a pause before saying it was okay (Good doctor; you're learning), she asked after my diet. (Note to self: asking to be left alone about food made them think you are an anorexic and has led them to ask you about food constantly. Dumb move.) I said I thought we ate well and turned to Sugar for help. Sugar said that we cook all our own food, that we eat a variety of things, lots of vegetables. And then she said something I thought was a bit strange:

"We eat meat every day."

We do eat meat every day, I thought, but what an odd thing to mention. But Sugar is wise. Dr. Russian immediately brightened and began heaping praise on us and meat. "Eating meat is so good! Lots of red meat, and chicken and fish...." She carried on in this vein for some time -- it was certainly the longest topic of discussion at the appointment.

Later, I remarked to Sugar how cheering I find the fact that Russians love it when you eat meat. (My college roommate was a vegetarian Russian major, and the department never did take to her; her many wonderful qualities never quite compensated for that essential failing. On the other hand, when she'd take me to the Russian Department lunches, the professors would fall over themselves in praise, just because I'd eat the sausages and cured meats they'd brought in.)

Sugar replied, "I know. That's why I told her that."

Clever girl.

*Anyone have the Aetna POS 90 plan? It is by far the cheapest premium on the list. What's the catch? And why is this confusing?

What'll It Be?

Over the past few weeks, we’ve taken a crucial step in practicing belief that the lump in my belly will one day be a Real Live Baby TM: we’ve told lots and lots of people. We’ve told the friends we hang out with but don’t make the “we’d want you to know about a miscarriage anyway” list (GULP). We’ve told my boss I can’t teach in the spring (financial GULP). We’ve even told Facebook (high-school-frenemy GULP).

By and large, this has been great. Most people have said something nice, and no one’s been rude — one of the great things about being loudly gay is that the suckier-type people don’t want to be friends with you anyway. Excitement has come from unexpected quarters: Sugar was suddenly hugged by a moderately nerdy male colleague running for the train yesterday, and the father of our favorite toddler, who was luke-warm at best on the topic of reproduction prior to the arrival of his daughter, checks in on my health nearly as solicitously as my mother does.

Nearly everyone we tell in person immediately asks, “Do you know what you’re having?” which sounds like something a diner waitress would say.

I have an impulse to answer, “BLT, fries, and a coke, please; no mayo on the BLT,” but that would be unhelpful. Instead, I tell them, “I’m hoping for a puppy, but it’s looking more and more like a baby.”*

Partly Mostly, I answer that way because I’m a congenital smart-ass, and I’d hate for my friends to think pregnancy has changed me (though apparently they expect it to — a shockingly large number of them have not laughed, but rather stared at me as if I’ve lost my mind). Partly, though, it troubles me that even now, at whatever fruit-metaphor size it is this week, the bean is already supposed to be defined primarily by its sex.

Now I know, I know. I know it’s just small talk, that no one is saying our baby can’t wear a tutu while operating a steam shovel or be the butchest kid on the synchronized swimming team. I get it. It’s meant to be nice, a way of thinking of the baby as a real person. But though I’m pretty darn gender-conforming in lots of ways, I’m still not nuts about the whole business of tying personhood to sex.

||||||

Our anatomy scan is a week from today, and we haven't decided yet whether to find out the sex. Sweet Sonographer has promised she will not let me find out if I don't want to know, even through I'm on deck for lots of extra scans to look out for IUGR. So that means the decision really is up to us.

On the one hand, knowing would make it a little easier to buy/beg for clothes. It is remarkable how much is either pink or blue. I don't hold with the whole pink/blue thing -- both of those colors are a little blah -- but it sure is a lot of what's out there. And even though I grew up in the South, where pink is a normal color for men's shirts and even though I know that pink was the baby boy color in the nineteenth century (apparently because of its association with powerful red) and even though my dad does look very smart in a pink oxford, I'm not so sure I want people to think we're those lesbians, if you know what I mean.

And yet.... I have a strong feeling that once we know one way or the other, the follow-up to those diner-esque questions will be non-stop advice based on stereotypes or anecdotes of babies of whatever sex. Which sounds annoying. (Yes, we can use "Pregnant Women Are Smug"**-style evasion, but I don't think I could really keep that up. Sugar could.) Whether to circumcise isn't going to be a tough decision for us, and nothing else seems like something we really need to decide right away. We like the green IKEA crib. We can pick two names, as our parents did for us.

||||||

Yesterday (when I started writing this, for what it's worth), was National Coming Out Day. I don't remember to think about it every year, but it is a day I hold fond. In college, it was the day of my favorite party, after which everyone would stream out all over campus armed with sidewalk chalk. In the morning (and, with lucky lack of rain, well through fall break, when prospective students and parents often tour, heh), every sidewalk and pathway would be covered in explosions of support and affection, everything from "I love my gay roommate" and "I love my parents (even though they're straight)" to triumphant labia and, when Sugar was around at least, the sweetest love poems. It was late on the night of that party, my first year, that I first (tentatively, awkwardly) came out to a friend. These days, when it is so easy to forget how hard that was, it's a good reminder that there are plenty of people, especially teens, who need us to be loudly, gladly out, who need the reassurance that full, happy lives are not only possible but actually easier when we tell the truth about ourselves.

But even though being out is important and often a pleasure (see note about lack of sucky friends, for instance, plus the fact that, in my case, it means being able to marry Sugar), coming out is mostly scary. It's scary because it requires you to tell everyone in your life that you are not, in fact, the sum of the expectations and assumptions of your sex; you are yourself. It's amazing how difficult it can be to remind people of something that shouldn't be so hard to remember.

||||||

As you may have gathered from my earlier post, the bean has gotten big and strong enough that we can feel it now. And I mean "we." This has been so far an unusually physically non-mutual pregnancy -- not only didn't all those years of, erm, "trying on our own" work, not only didn't we do this at home with the baster, but Sugar wasn't even allowed in the room for the transfer. It's therefore even more magical that the first time I felt something I couldn't explain away as anything other than its beanship, Sugar was holding her hand on my belly and she felt it, too. The strongest movements don't feel to me like "flutters" or whatever else the book says. They feel like throbbing, like very strong blood. Like another heart, held in my belly.

For now, I like just feeling the bean move on its own, reminding me that it is its own person, even inside me. I'm not sure I'm ready to cover it up with all my expectations and fears about boys or girls. When*** it's out in the world, I will no doubt learn soon enough that it isn't every boy or every girl or even primarily a boy or a girl, just itself. While it's inside, not knowing seems to help.

---

*On balance, I’m glad it’s not a pony. Those hooves intimidate the hoohas rather a bit.

** You HAVE seen "Pregnant Women Are Smug," right? On the off chance you haven't, go watch it now. I command you.

***Knock wood, knock wood.

What We're Googling, 17 Week Edition

cribs

drop-side cribs

CRIBS FOR SHORT PEOPLE

(Seriously, thoughts, fellow shorties? How the hell am I supposed to reach all the way over the side?)

cold sore

cold sore pregnancy

cold sore depression

cold sore pregnancy treatment

lysine

lysine pregnant

valtrex

valtrex side effects

...

quickening

Round About Week 15

Hiya, friends. Sorry for the silence.

Not much to report around here except for the IF equivalent of first-world problems: feeling blue about feeling fat; feeling terrified at the prospect of an actual baby in our actual apartment; feeling like stabbing someone in Old Navy while attempting to buy maternity clothes and settling for having a melt-down in H&M instead. Fascinating stuff.

I have an OB appointment tomorrow, so perhaps there will be more to report then. I'm hoping it will at least help with the fat-freakout -- I know it's moronic, and it isn't as if I was skinny before this, but it turns out I'm having a bit of trouble ignoring the past 30 years of societal conditioning on the subject. With luck, said OB (The Russian, OB 3 of 4. Haven't met her yet.) will not tell me I am gaining too fast, eating too much, etc. With further luck, that will help my brain get off this hamster wheel. If she *does* say I'm gaining too fast, batten down the hatches, 'cause we'll all be in for a stormy ride. (In point of fact, I *am* eating more than "they" say to, because I'm freakin' HUNGRY. There is no reasoning a stomach into peacefulness at 4 in the morning, and there is no going back to sleep for me while said stomach is restless.)

Enough ado! Here is your photographic evidence of my state at 14w6d (their count) or 15w1d (mine), in an Old Navy tank top wrested from roiling Herald Square this weekend and a very stretchy skirt of Sugar's (double-wardrobe is one of the great benefits of the Homosexual Agenda):

ETA: Oh, gawd. I just realized that this turned into one of those "I'm so fat (now tell me I'm skinny)" posts. Yuck. Not the (conscious) intent, really. Please just take it as evidence of the crazy I referred to above -- I swear I have regressed to my 15 year-old self vis-a-vis body image, and frankly, that was not the best or most interesting aspect of her personality.

Good Morning

Hello, all.

It's 5 in the morning here. I've been awake for at least an hour.

Nuchal this afternoon. I sat down with a calendar yesterday to make notes: I've been spotting and/or bleeding for exactly one month.

Not nervous at all, why do you ask?

Heavy Lifting

Hey there, internets. How are you?

Things are basically fine around here. We've gotten several chances lately to spy on the bean, who seems to have arms and legs and a steady heartbeat. It even *moved* while we were watching last Monday -- a kind of quick sit-up, prompting my mother to observe that it obviously has genes not from our family.

The reason we've been getting so much screen time is more nerve-wracking. I keep bleeding. First was the two weeks of brown spotting leading up to the wedding. Once I'd gotten used to that, it turned pink, starting just before the sit-up look-see. A few days of pink, and I was feeling pretty proud of myself for learning not to panic at every trip to the bathroom, so my body upped the ante: bright red blood, and plenty of it, in the middle of the night.

PANIC.

After the long wait until the OB office opened the next morning -- I didn't see much point in waking up whoever was on call, since there isn't much they could do about it if I was miscarrying and at least one of us ought to get some sleep -- another scan. Less cute time looking at the bean, more v.e.r.y. slow examination of the ute, after which Sweet Sonographer said she didn't think there was any blood flow from in there, so it is probably my sensitive-soul cervices. (Why no one has cranked open a speculum or two and taken a look, I don't know.)

More brown spotting, plus a new, sandpapered sensation in my upper hoo-ha regions; a period of self-imposed, er, pelvic rest. Things seemed to be settling down. And then I cut the cheese.

Sugar and I belong to a hippie food coop (*the* hippie food coop, really) of the sort where all members work. (Well, almost all members -- as the underemployed member of the household, I do both of our shifts.) When we toured the place and entered the food prep area, our guide said, "this is where we cut the cheese. If you join the coop your job might be cutting the cheese." Naturally, I signed up at once.

It's not all fun and games. Besides cutting the cheese, I wrap it, weigh and label it, and carry it upstairs in grocery baskets. Because of summer school and the wedding, I am behind several shifts, which jeopardizes our access to Waldorf-educated kohlrabi, so I made one up yesterday. I was careful not to fill the baskets the way I normally would, but instead to go up when I had ten pounds or so ready. I had them ready at waist-height, and carried them held against my body, for minimal strain, as my back has been unreasonably testy these past few weeks.

After my 3-hour shift, I found a huge streak of red in my underpants. Slightly more controlled panic. Hovered in the public but uncrowded hallway, left a message with the nurse, did some speedy, highly disorganized shopping (extra shallots? Yes. Trash bags? No.), took a cab home. Nice Nurse called back and said that since the bleeding stopped quickly, I should just rest and stop lifting "heavy" things.

Relief, of course. Followed by a nap. Followed by some feelings of pathetic worthlessness.

I like being pregnant. I like how it feels, for the most part. But while I am hardly a tower of physical might, I am used to thinking of myself as strong enough to manage things. I don't like not carrying things, not being able to open the stubborn window. For that matter, I don't like being so easily exhausted that I had to stop gardening after an hour the other day, when I had planned at least two.

I can live with being lazy, but I hate being weak.

Bah.

Bitchy Spam, Symptom/Crazy Watch, and So On

Dear Chinese spammers,

I know, I know, you don't read the blogs you spam. And it's true that I'll delete your comments no matter what, since they all contain those silly links that are long strings of ellipses. (While we're on the topic, the rule is three dots when the ellipsis falls mid-sentence, four if it ends the sentence. There's no call ever for using 15-20. I will deduct points for this error from now on.) Nevertheless, I'd appreciate it if your comments were at least not obliquely discouraging. Take my last post, for instance, the one where I was happy that my beta went up, even though I know the pregnancy could still end. I am fully aware that while the beta is a good sign, it is no guarantee of continued progress. Your comment, "one swallow does not a summer make" was frankly rude. I will expect better in the future.

Dear Rest of The Internet,

Hi. Sorry for the posting slow-down. Obviously, we're very happy (so far, knock-wood, spit-on-a-swallow) with the whole being knocked up thing, but it is true that compared to the daily shots and blood-draws and dildocamming of an IVF cycle, it's pretty uneventful. (Outwardly. I'm aware that in principle the Bionic apple seed is developing a circulation system and probably also learning the basics of Newtonian mechanics or something in there, but how in the heck do I know that, except that BabyObsessed.net or RUKILLINGURBAAAAAYYYYYBBBBEEEEEEEE?????.com or whatever says so? It's pretty hard to believe.)

So here's your update:

I am still intermittently convinced I've made this whole thing up. This is partly because I'm always paranoid I'm doing the wrong thing socially, and the most wrong thing I can think of in terms of the scheduled trip to the RE on Monday for a first u/s would be if I'd somehow misunderstood everything they've told me and am going to be up on the table with no pants for no reason, and someone will have to explain it to Sugar, so she can gently take me home. AWKward.

My boobs are mostly a comfort to me, as they are full and painful and the nipples are definitely looking different. But then yesterday morning, they were smaller and not that painful, leading to a wee nervous breakdown. (Hmmm, when has that happened before?) By evening, they were back to their new old selves. I keep chanting Shroe's "sanity-defying logic all their own" wisdom in my head.

The whole idea that I can't trust my body to tell me what's going on is very difficult to get used to. I'm accustomed to being able to figure out a fair amount by paying attention to small signals -- a certain sore throat means a virus is settling in; wacky vision means a migraine is coming -- and trying to ignore what seems like real information is unsettling.

I am having periods of nausea from time to time, most enjoyably during my 2-hour commute via a variety of public transit conveyances and hot waiting areas. No vomiting, but lots of sucking on ginger candies and fretting.

I can't say I'm having cravings per se, but I do have these moments when a very specific flavor will arrive in my memory (with no outside stimulus) and I have to spend a while thinking of what it is before I can do anything else. The first few times, the flavor proved to be beer, so I attributed the whole experience to my brain's liking beer and not understanding why we can't have some. Yesterday, however, the long-forgotten flavor that possessed me halfway through class was elementary school cafeteria fish sticks.

For that, I have no explanation.

Practicing Belief

Thank you again for all your kind congratulations and general huzzahing. I have read and reread the comments an embarrassing number of times. You are lovely.

Not much new to report around here. Crampiness seems to have tapered off. Have flirted with nausea a few times, but nothing serious yet. Might be having some new strangeness vis-a-vis temperature regulation, but it could be just that it's sensationally hot around lately. Progesterone has me sleeping like a drugged kitten.

I will but tease you with the suggestion that changes are afoot in the nipple region.

We will go in for a second beta on Saturday. Part of me is, of course, steeling for bad news. Why shouldn't the news be bad? Plenty of other news has been, for plenty of people. And just because my body has seemed pregnant this week doesn't mean everything couldn't be going south...right...NOW.

On the other hand, why shouldn't the news be good? People do have babies, after all, or at least that is the rumor. Pregnancies progress normally. Embryos become fetuses become infants. These things happen. To plenty of people, as well.

Since I can't know and there's not a thing I can do at this point to influence the situation (at least positively), I am for now practicing believing that the news will be good. Practicing believing there is a living tadpole of a creature in me now, that it will stay put and grow appropriately and come to meet us after a sufficient number of weeks.

Practicing believing those things doesn't make them true, of course, but it's a lot nicer than my usual habit, which is to practice believing everything will go terribly wrong. So I will spend tomorrow and at least half of Saturday doing that.

And staring at my nipples.

Feeling Blue

When I woke up this morning, my boobs were no longer big and painful (nor as awesome-looking, I should add).

I don't understand how that can be the case, when I'm sticking 200mg of progesterone up my hoo-has three times a day, but as it is exactly what happens three days before my period every month, I'm not exactly brimming over with happiness.

Beta is Saturday. Not planning to POAS before then, as the thought of having to go in for the test when I know it's negative seems exquisite torture.

Yes, I know I have quite a few embryos in the freezer, but if I can't get pregnant with that embryo, the one that looked like it belonged on a fertility factory website (and it did; the picture I put up here was fuzzy, but I saw it onscreen), and with my "beautiful" lining, then it's hard to feel terribly hopeful.

It's time

I've been in stirrups so many times in the past week that I've started wearing skirts to the clinic, just to save the trouble of taking my pants on and off. I take my shoes off anyway, because not doing so seems somehow inappropriate, even though there's no real need.

I went into the Baby Factory for blood work and ultrasound this morning, as I have for the past seven consecutive days. First stop: blood draw room. There are lots of nurses, most wonderful, and I hadn't had this one before. She said something sympathetic about how much time I've been spending there -- both arms are pretty bruised at this point -- and I said I didn't mind, that I appreciated being watched so closely, that it helps me worry less. And anyway, I like having more data.

Oh, she asked, do you work in medicine?

This question comes up a lot. I don't work in medicine, but I was raised by two doctors in an area where hospitals and labs are major employers. Medicine is my mother tongue.

So I told her no, that my parents were doctors, though. And then she said what easily fifty percent of people do after that revelation:

"Aren't they disappointed that you're not a doctor?"

Now I ask you, what kind of small talk is that? To tell you the truth, I'm not entirely convinced they're not disappointed, though they never say so. Heck, sometimes I'm disappointed in myself for not being a doctor -- I'm pretty sure I'd be good at it -- and I never wanted to be one. But is this really a conversation I need to have with a stranger first thing in the morning? Public Service Announcement: If you find yourself about to ask someone who is not a very close friend whether her parents are disappointed in her, JUST DON'T.

Onward to ultrasound.

At the Baby Factory, all IVF patients on a given day are seen by the same doctor, no matter who your regular doctor is. Each day of the week has a doctor assigned to it; Dr. Baby Factory, for instance, is Dr. Monday. Ultrasounds are done by one of a trio of lovely fellows -- all women, just to complicate the nomenclature -- or by the doc of the day. Today I met Dr. Thursday, a jovial, paternalistic jackass.

First of all, I appreciate it when folks introduce themselves before sticking anything up my privates. Call it a quirk of my Southern upbringing. Second, when I tell you, since I'm not counting on your having read the details of my chart, that I have a vaginal septum and that you should aim to the right with that dildocam, the preferred response is, "thank you for telling me." Not:

"Why didn't somebody take that out?"

Luckily, my pre-cycle anxiety dreams had prepared me for this moment (only with more knives), so instead of blubbering I managed,

"Because it belongs to me."

The examine continued in that vein. Dr. Thursday is the only one of the docs I've seen who didn't adjust the u/s screen so I could see it, and I bet he wouldn't have told me the follicle measurements I'd asked for if he hadn't had to call them out to the resident in the corner. He ended the session with a pat on my knee and a "Good job" that made me feel like livestock.

So now I know why they want you barefoot in the stirrups: a kick to the face is bound to hurt less that way.

ONWARD.

I am triggering tonight. Ten minutes to midnight, which my sweet, strictly diurnal Sugar is bound to hate. I'm nervous as heck about the shot and mostly about the retrieval and continue to appreciate your reassurances and general support.

Biggest follicle is about 19.5 mm. Dr. Thursday said about 10 on each side. So now I'm nervous about OHSS, too. E2 is 3364. Talked to Dr. Baby Factory, and he sounds a little nervous, too, but not nervous enough to have me trigger with Lupron. So I guess we just hope for the best and stock up on gatorade.

Retrieval is Saturday.

Which means a 5-day transfer would fall on...Dr. Thursday's shift. Awesome Sauce.

More To Say

...but not tonight. Holy Moses, this stimming business has me worn out, internet. I seriously do not know how some of you have done this and had real jobs, other kids, etc., at the same time.

Things continue apace around here. Back still hurts, but other side effects have tapered off. Mostly between a 4 ("My pain is not fucking around") and a 6 (Ow. My pain is super legit now) on Hyberbole and a Half's* brilliant pain scale. Definitely nowhere near 10 ("I am actively being mauled by a bear").

E2 rising. Follies growing in fits and starts. I've been in for monitoring every day since Friday, as my quicker than expected response made them think OHSS thoughts. It's sort of annoying to schlep in every day, but mostly it's comforting to feel so cared for.

They said today I'll probably trigger tomorrow or Friday ('course, they said that yesterday, too), which means ER this weekend. I'm still a little scared, though mostly I'm too tired to remember to be anxious.

That said, your "it was no big deal"-type ER stories are very appreciated, in comments or links.

xo

Bionic

*Do you need more funny in your life? 'course ya do. (Try this one, for instance.) Exercise extreme caution when reading Hyperbole and a Half at work, as Sugar points out that sudden, repeated laughter in your cubicle is not very professional.