herveryown

Three Conversations

"Holy crap, Akeeyu, you're huge."
"I know.  Considering that my major coping mechanism for this pregnancy is denial about the whole thing, imagine how surprised I am every morning when I wake up like this."

 

"Is this your first pregnancy?"
"No, it's more like my my fourth and fifth, I guess, but none of the other ones made it this far."
"Oh.  So...this will be your first child?  Er, children?"
"Not really.  I already have a wonderful stepdaughter."

 

"So, I hear you're...great with child?"
"Well, I don't know about great.  Pretty good, maybe."

If They're Smoking In There, We're Going To Have Words

Someone recently pinged me and asked if everything was okay.  I said this in response:

Yeah, I'm okay.  Allegedly, Fitz-Hume and Millbarge are, too.

I only say "allegedly" because I hate it when people at work say "How
are yoooooou?" while looking at my (stunningly large) stomach.  "I'm
fine, thanks."  "And how are the baaaaaaybees?"  This annoys me only
because...dude, I'm 14 weeks.  It's not like they're sending up smoke
signals from the bellybutton.  What are they expecting, here, some
minute by minute account of daily fetal life?  I always say "As far as
we know, they're fine, too."

Last week, my crotch put on a fantastic show of nonstop brown spotting, which was kind of annoying.  The rest of my body retaliated by becoming insanely clumsy. 

Over the weekend, I missed the last step coming down the stairs and landed very hard.  I still managed to land on my feet, but holy hell, I felt like a walking (stumbling) cliche: a pregnant woman falling down the stairs.  My round ligaments had this to say for the rest of the evening: "Fuck you, asshole.  That really hurt."  I considered going to Urgent Care, but decided not to because A, the total effect of the stumble was about the same as jumping eight inches into the air and landing on my feet, so it didn't seem like a big deal, B, I would undoubtedly deal with condescending assholes who would pat my hand (which has never made me feel better and usually just makes me worry more), C, if there was something wrong, there wouldn't be anything they could do about it anyway, and D, all they'd do is a doppler check, which I could jolly well do at home.

I laid down for about an hour, watched Hellboy (it's important to expose developing fetuses to culture, you know), then whipped out the doppler.  All parties were present and accounted for.  Also alive, which is always nice.

In other news, the spotting totally stopped after that.  I would list this as Not A Good Cure For Incessant Spotting, but it was kind of an interesting side effect/coincidence.  Maybe I just managed to scare my uterus into submission. 

You Can't Argue Your Way Out Of It

A million years ago, I lived with some people who were slowly losing their minds.  Their previously charming personalities were dissolving into hateful outbursts and jagged diatribes, their short term memory was nonexistant, and one of them was incontinent.  I shared a bathroom with them. 

At least once a day, I'd get locked out of my bathroom.  Upon regaining entrance to the bathroom, I would invariably discover that something of mine (usually something important or with longterm sentimental value) had been broken, mislaid, or peed on.

During this time, I suffered from two things: insomnia and blind fury.

On one memorable occasion, I waited outside the door for a good twenty minutes, getting later for work by the minute, only to discover that an irreplaceable handmade cup (a momento from a lovely trip I'll never make again) had been shattered.  I backed away from the shards of porcelain, took a deep breath...and stepped into a warm puddle.  I couldn't be angry at the people who had broken the cup or wet the floor.  They weren't remotely competant, and it wouldn't be fair to penalize them for something they would never remember doing.  I couldn't be angry at anybody else for getting me into the situation.  I'd done that to myself.  I was angry, but felt terrible about feeling that way.  It was clearly an inappropriate emotion for the situation, and fuck if I knew what to do with it.

At the time, I'd recently been put on psychiatric medication for the first time and was still required to check in with a psychiatrist on a regular basis.  Since you can only stretch "How's the medication treating you?" and "Eh, it's alright" over about five minutes (with effort), that left me with forty minutes to shoot the shit with an overeducated professional.  Eventually I brought up the roommates who were (surprisingly) crazier than I was.  I confessed my anger.  I say confessed because at the time, I was deeply ashamed of it.  I'd discussed it furtively with friends and family, gaining only shrugs and a reinforcement of what I already knew: It was useless to be angry at them.

But I was angry.  Oh, the wretched horror.  When I finally brought it up with the shrink, he did not recoil in revulsion or admonish me for my inappropriate reactions.  "Well.  It sounds very frustrating.  How do you think you're supposed to feel?"  "I don't know.  I just don't want to be angry about it."  "Why not?"  "It just feels wrong."  "It isn't wrong.  It's just anger."

I thought about this on the drive home.  I thought about it the next morning while I leaned on the wall and waited for a shot at the bathroom, already dreading what I'd find.  When the door opened, I sidestepped a puddle, feeling clever, only to overlook (and step directly into) the next one.  I decided to go ahead and feel angry.  What the hell, I'd roll around in it like catnip.  Even Martha Stewart couldn't make piss on the floor into a nice doily, after all.  Why not be angry?  I mopped up the floor with a dirty towel, then laughed.  Oh, what the fuck did it matter if I stepped in urine?  I was about to get into the shower anyway, right?

It wasn't a magic cure.  I still got angry after that, but not as often, and I didn't crucify myself over it anymore.

I haven't had that option lately about the fear.  I certainly haven't been beating myself up over the degree of apprehension I feel about this particular gestation, but Jesus Christ, that hasn't kept anyone else from lining up for the job.

Today at work, a coworker asked how the pregnancy was going.  I said fine, although we'd had some scares recently.  She asked if I knew what I was having.  I said "Well, hopefully babies, although kittens would be nice, too."  I expressed mild annoyance at some of the medical personnel I've had to deal with.  Standard stuff, which in turn led to the standard response: a well meaning scolding.  "Well, you just need to relax.   Stress is bad for the--"  I took a deep breath.  "No," I said.  "I don't need to relax.  I'm eating, I'm sleeping, my blood pressure is perfect, they're fine.  Considering all the genuine threats to their health like my thyroid and the anemia and the number of miscarriage risk factors I have, to say nothing of this jazz with the placenta and the fact that there are two of them in there right now, I feel pretty comfortable saying that my being worried is the least of their troubles."

I called my mother on the way home.  "It pisses me off," I said, "All these people who say I just need to relax?  I always want to say 'Oh, is this exactly how your high risk severely anemic multiple pregnancy went?'   You know what was even worse?  The doctor on Monday who refused to answer my questions.  I told her that I was afraid that if I had a miscarriage with the placenta in the wrong place, that I would hemmorage and die, and she didn't even fucking address that.  She just said 'the babies are fine,' and you know, I'm beyond glad that they're fine, but goddamn, what about me?  What if something happens?  What if I die?  I don't want to sound callous, but I am not willing to go down with this ship at 13 weeks.  That's not even close to viability.  All I wanted her to say was 'If something awful happens, we'll save you,' and she wouldn't fucking say it.  Somehow being concerned with my own safety is like a fart in church.  I'm not an asshole, I just don't want to die right now!  I want to know that they have a plan!"

So my Mom and I made a plan.  We talked about everything I was worried about, exactly what I was afraid of, what I would do in the event of an emergency.  We discussed which ambulance would come for me if I started to bleed heavily, what hospital I would go to and precisely how long it would take before I reached their doors.  I started to feel better.  "What you need to do," she said, "is write up a sheet with everything a new hospital would need to know to help you in an emergency.  Put it on the back of the door, or on your refrigerator.  Keep a copy in your purse.  Would that make you feel better?"  I thought about it.  "Yes," I said.  "I think it would.  But you know, I probably won't even need this, because that placenta is going to move in a couple of weeks anyway.  It better."

When I hung up the phone, I felt better than I had in a long time.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I still felt like I'd just swam the length of a pool without coming up for air, but I always feel like that.  It's the anemia.  I know that, although knowing it doesn't alleviate the constant feeling of suffocation.  I've had my pulse ox taken while desperately gasping for breath and it came up at 98%, so I know this isn't hurting Fitz-Hume and Millbarge, it's just a pain in the ass for me.

The point is, even though nothing had changed, I felt worlds better.  For once, I didn't feel like an asshole for being concerned for my own safety, or like I was being patronized or talked down to or judged or brushed off, I just felt...better.  This doesn't mean that I've seen the light and suddenly become a paragon of relaxation, or that I believe the line about stress being an instant recipe for Endangered Fetus.  Fitz-Hume and Millbarge will be fine, or they won't.  There are a lot of things that can still go wrong, and a lot of things that already have.  This is not a healthy pregnancy, and no amount of platitudes will make it one.  What might save all of our asses is vigilance, caution, and a hell of a lot of iron.

I'm up to it, but I'm not up to putting on a happy face while panting or while hanging on to the counter to keep myself from folding up like an aluminum chair. 

I'm not up to faking it, so I don't think I'm going to bother.

In Praise of Evil

Evil Insurance Company, Inc. has one good thing going for them: You can always get a same day appointment when you need one.

No suspense, here: Everybody's alive.

We saw the doctor on call, a rather patronizing woman we shall call Dr. (Hand) Patty.  I didn't care for her, mostly because she seemed perplexed as to why I was darkening her door.  Uh, because Dr. DoesNotSuck told me to get my ass down here.  Did you not see the note in my file?

The spotting was "probably nothing to worry about."  And my placenta?  "...will probably move out of the way in time."  Yeah, see, I totally get that, but one of my chief concerns is that if I were to have a miscarriage before the placenta shifts, wouldn't I be kind of utterly fucked?  Nobody wearing a white coat seems to want to talk about that.  Although the iron numbers are not improving, they're within low normal ranges, and as long as my hematocrit keeps going up, everybody is happy about that (except for me, but since I'm the only one who has to deal with the exhaustion on a direct basis, it's possible that I'm slightly biased on the subject).  My TSH has gone from .35 to .15, or "Ooooh, that's low," but because demands for thyroid hormone typically increase as pregnancy progresses, they'd like me to stay on my current dose and recheck in about a month.  Apparently they would prefer me to be slightly hyper rather than hypothyroid at this point. Among other things, the thyroid influences the rate of blood regeneration, so I can kind of see their point.  On the other hand, the warning signs for icky levels of hyperthyroidism are increased heart rate and feeling 'extremely jittery,' and...shya, like I'd notice the difference between that and my current level of nervousness?

"So, let's make sure everyone's okay," Dr. Patty said, and excused herself to fetch the portable ultrasound.

I got the same sick feeling I get just before every ultrasound, interrupted only briefly by the squirting of the subzero gel.  I still think they must keep that shit on ice.  Why else would it always be so much colder than the overall room temperature, hmm?

Millbarge popped up first.  Not moving.  I could see his chest, but I couldn't see his heart beating.  I was thinking "Oh no, no, not again, not again," when Dr. Patty moved the transducer, shifting the depth just slightly, and Millbarge's heart appeared, flickering steadily.  I started breathing again.  "So there's one," Dr. Patty said, and shifted over to Fitz-hume.  "And this one's kicking, so that's fine."  Wanting something more concrete than "fine," I enquired after their growth.  Come on, lady, we're not here for the 'aw' factor.  We'd like some hard numbers.  By the calendar, I am at 12 weeks, 6 days.  Fitz-Hume measured 12 weeks, 5 days, or damned close.  Millbarge, having been rudely awakened by the ultrasound, was superpissed and didn't feel much like being measured, forcing Dr. Patty to chase him all over the uterus and finally say "Ha!  Gotcha!"  Millbarge measured at 13 weeks, 3 days, then 12 weeks, 4 days, then he just started doing this insane jumping jack thing on his placenta, so that was about it.  Averaging it out, let's just say close enough.  "And there's no bleeding, right?" I asked as Dr. Patty was about to pack up her gear.  "Bleeding?" she asked, as if I'd just requested suckling pig at a vegan cafe.  She looked back at the screen and scanned her way around the placentas.  "No, no bleeding at all."

I am constantly stunned at how much they'll tell you if you ask, but how much they won't tell you if you don't ask.  My advice would be to always ask. 

"So, everything's fine," Dr. Patty said.  "Continue the pelvic rest, and bla bla bla..."

This was one of those times when it's handy that Sam and I are not typical Seattle residents.  If we were, we'd obviously both have a cardboard coffee cup practically grafted to our hands, and we both would have done some sort of mocha flavored spit-take when Dr. Patty said "Continue the pelvic rest," because hi, this was the first we'd heard of being on pelvic rest.  Points will have to be deducted from Dr. Eyelashes' final score.

"You're probably just having cramps because you're constipated."
"Oh, I'm not constipated."
"You're taking that much iron, and you're not constipated?"
"Fiber.  A lot of fiber."
"Oh.  Well, then...the cramps are probably just...nothing."

I love a well informed medical opinion, don't you?

Dr. Patty's overall impression was that one or both of us (probably the one with the tits) was just being paranoid about the whole pregnancy thing, and our overall impression was that we didn't particularly like her.

Honestly, I never know if I'm being overly concerned or not concerned enough.  I'm sure there's more than a little Habitual Aborter PTSD going on around here.  I also know that I am completely prepared to look like a nervous jackass if it means that Fitz-Hume and Millbarge get the best care that can be wrestled out of Evil Insurance Company, Inc.

After Dr. Patty left, I cried and Sam rubbed my back.  I cried out of relief, but also because Millbarge had scared me with that shit at the beginning, and I was still feeling a little shaky.

And then we went to Pagliacci's for a slice, and everybody lived happily ever after, or something like that.  Hey, two live fetuses and pizza for brunch?  That's a pretty good morning.

Boring Would Be Nice Right About Now

My iron's down again.
My TSH has dropped down into the abnormal range.
I'm cramping again.
Aaaaand spotting.

Considering that the last time we heard from Fitz-Hume's placenta, it was squatting right over my cervix, Dr. DoesNotSuck is a bit alarmed and would like to see me, or rather my lady bits, in her office tomorrow morning.

My Vicuna hasn't been this popular since the IVF.

Robot Roll Call

Last week, when Dr. Eyelashes was running the doppler over my abdomen in search of Fitz-Hume and Millbarge, and mostly finding placenta ("That's you...that's you, too...") we'd occasionally hear a sudden burst of harsh squawks and mechanical sounding interference.  "Oooh, listen, honey," I said to Sam. "There's robots in there!"

I'm not totally sure what generates the robot sounds, but we get them at home, too.

Given Millbarge's documented aversion to sound waves, we're using the home doppler sparingly.  Some people feel that frequent ultrasounds and/or doppler checks disturb developing fetuses.  Then again, some people also feel that high levels of maternal stress are detrimental to fetal development, so we're kind of fucked either way.

Fitz-Hume and Millbarge popped up alive and well this evening.  The robots put in a guest appearance, too.  I can't honestly say that we're relaxing or bonding or picking out cribs or any of the things we're supposed to be doing, but we're grateful as all hell.

Counting Crows

Puget Sound has a great deal of crows.  This is, of course, a gross understatement, as I cannot quite find a way to express the magnitude of the flocks without lapsing into hyperbole (that isn't actually hyperbole).  If you live here, you already know what I mean.  Here, the crows have driven out the ravens, set up a permanent business harassing the raptors (many of which are publicly percieved to be more noble, but aren't), spent untold hours entertaining the scholars, and generally carved out quite a nice life for themselves.

This morning when I stepped outside for the paper, the crows were already up.  Three had strung themselves along the power lines like jagged black beads.  I thought of the song, of the rhyme about counting crows.  Three for...  For what?  I didn't know. 

I went back in for my camera, not the digital one with its technological frills and disappointing limitations, but the old black clunky thing with the overly phallic lens, the one I love.  I sat on the damp porch and photographed the crows.  They didn't seem to mind.  When the roll ran out (another forgotten advantage of film--you can't just sit there endlessly clicking off shots like an automaton but must appreciate your limits and consider each frame), I set the camera aside to sit with the crows for a while.

They were getting ready for their commute.  It's apparently uncommon knowledge that crows, or at least Puget Sound crows, have this in common with us.  Every morning the families gather, patching themselves into larger groups, and then go to work.  They seem to travel for quite a distance, moving from the woods to the city centers, going to their jobs at fast food dumpsters, parking lots, the sides of roads, all sites to be scrubbed clean of forage before they regroup and return home in great cawing masses.  If you stand quietly in the evening, you can hear the flocks as they pass above your house, their wings rustling and swirling like water over stones.

I thought of Roald Dahl and about how his father insisted that his mother, when pregnant with him and each of his siblings, go on Walks of Great Beauty to theoretically teach the developing fetus to appreciate such things.  I did something similar (although arguably a bit more futile and a damn sight more depressing) the morning of Better Embryo's beta.  Having watched the lines grow fainter all week, I knew the numbers would be bad, would indicate a dead or dying embryo.  Until the phone call confirmed it, however, I decided that Better Embryo wasn't quite gone yet.  I still had a few hours, so I walked along the water, naming the flowers and trees, identifying the birds and turtles, trying to absorb as much Great Beauty as I possibly could in the limited time we had left.  It was the only thing I had left to give Better Embryo, I theorized.

This morning I wondered if Fitz-Hume and Milbarge would appreciate crows, if in fact they lived.  I wondered what three crows meant in the rhyme, or if I should recalculate based on the number now amassed on the neighbor's roof, or the small crowd that had gathered to watch a squirrel dash to the top of a telephone pole across the street.  I watched them, watching it, and became invisible to them.  They would swoop low over my head, punching stark feathery holes in the sky, treating me to that unearthly whispering rustle of theirs, and seem as oblivious to my presence as I currently am to Fitz-Hume and Millbarge's.

It seems almost impossible to believe that there are two fetuses somewhere in my body (although if you saw me, you'd probably be able to make a pretty good guess as to where based on my rather alarming and sudden bulk).  You'd think I'd notice when Millbarge started auditioning for the Rockettes, but I can't feel a thing.  I know they're in there.  I've been shown pictures and video, listened to incontrovertible evidence of their beating hearts, but it seems odd that I can't feel something of such magnitude.

I certainly feel different.  I have become quite ungainly and ponderous, and constantly hungry.  I pack a full lunchbox just to go shopping and constantly snack between meals.  Hell, I eat entire meals between mid-meal snacks.  I now have this in common with the crows by the side of the road, this constant search for food.  I have become ravenous, a word that oddly has no connection to ravens.

I hardly feel pregnant, although I suspect that has something to do with the self protective denial employed by those whose para numbers are so grossly unbalanced by their gravida numbers.  I can't help but think if I actually get to the point of birth and see one or more live babies, I'll be as startled by them as if they'd unexpectedly fallen from the sky.