Julia

And Because It Is My Heart

Sometimes I just have to finish the reference, no matter how unrelated it winds up being. Stephen Crane, by the way, although Joyce Carol Oates borrowed it for her novel (can we still call it borrowing if it is never attributed?) If you are here working on a book report I will give you a hint: yellow = cowardice. Now, do the best you can and don't copy from the internet.

Hmmm, as I look at it, though, I guess it could actually stand as my cheesiest title ever. I am not a sentimental person, generally, and I am not sentimental about early pregnancy at all. I was, once, but it hurt tremendously to discover all flesh is as grass so I knocked it off. Still and all, the ultrasound was good, the whatsit was good, and my heart did grow, just a little, to see so much goodness.

The fetbryo's heartbeat was 180-something. It measured 9 weeks, 9 and 1, 8 and 5, 8 and 6... an imperfect science, this "sonography". It lurched. Wiggled. Shimmered in grayscale. It looked like a lump of gruel but an undulating, good-sized lump and thus lovely in its own way.

Part of my drive to make local friends included getting in touch with some of the old communist playgroupers. I was horrified to learn that one woman I liked tremendously has been diagnosed with breast cancer. We have had a few playdates since I got back in touch, and I hope to talk her into dinner and a movie with me next week. I don't know what else to offer but normal, so that is what I try to give. I also volunteered to help with cooking and cleaning, as she is currently in the middle of her second round of chemo. Tonight is my night to bring her family dinner and it is going to take me a while to get it together so I should go. If you have any thoughts on what else I can do to make things easier for her I would love to hear them.

Thanks for checking on me. I am beginning to think something good might be happening here.

Because It Is Neurotic

I called my OB this morning and scheduled another ultrasound. What can I say? I would prefer to get bad news in a familiar environment rather than feel like a chump when the maternal-fetal specialist about to perform CVS gently explains that they would expect to see a heartbeat when the fetus is ten weeks... . I don't know why I get embarrassed by fetal demise but I do. Like I was foolish not to have known it all along or something. RIGHT. I am WEIRD. I KNOW.

A nurse actually picked up the nurse line when I called (which was a pleasant surprise) and she knew who I was and all about me before I finished spelling my last name (which was even pleasanter). She instantly agreed to another ultrasound, scheduling me for this afternoon. Then she laughed when I made an intensely macabre joke. Win win win win and win. I love this place. Hands down this practice beats the one where the OB told me he saw no reason for a followup ultrasound before CVS because even if I was miscarrying "it is not like they can give me a pill to fix it" and it smashes the brains out of  the place where my OB was convinced I wanted to have a preemptive abortion (embryonic heart rate was 70. I was asking about a D&C predicated upon what I thought, correctly, was inevitable demise. she thought I was, um, crazy, I guess. or a real downer. or vicious. or something) and refused to get on the phone with me. Ever again. Ass. 

Anyway, I cannot reach Steve and Julie is missing but I can at least tell you. Ultrasound! In two hours! Zowie!

As always, I am nervous as hell.

Weakly

First, thank you so very much for all the good wishes. I read them and wept as I have not wept since I discovered that I had already drunk the last mini-V8 in the pantry. But those, of course, were tears of fathomless sorrow whereas the ones you elicited were tears of affection. Also, plunging sodium levels.

I promised myself that I would not post anything until I had something to write other than: I FEEL AWFUL. So what you are listening to right now is the sound of the wind whistling through my computer. I've said it before and I will say it again, nausea trumps everything. My god I am sick. And yes, my OB forced a Zofran prescription on me after noting zee pounds, I 'ave lost zeem; and yes, I tried it one afternoon and yes, I was able to stagger out to my book club that night and back again which constitutes a small miracle. However, I don't know. For some reason I am not interested in taking it regularly. It is possible that I find the feeling of being hangover, stuffed in a smelly sack, tossed into the trunk of a very small car and driven very fast through the streets of Le Mans reassuring. Maybe I am a martyr. Possibly I don't really DO all that much in the first place so a few weeks of not DOING it will hardly make a difference. Whatever the reason I have decided to just slog through it as best I can (Julia: Drug-free Excluding Lovenox and Folguard since Wednesday, 2006) relying solely upon my unsinkableness and:

1. GUS (Grown Up Soda) Dry Meyer Lemon Soda - WOW! They also have a dry gingerale. WOW! I repeat.

2. Saltines with peanut butter (which seem to be giving me a slight rash...)

3. Odwalla Nourishing Food Bars - "Food Bars". I will leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Finally, Patrick has taken to doing impressions.

Last night he went, "Rrrrrrrrrrrrwwwwwwwrrrrrrr! Gkkkk! Gkkkk! Gkkkk! That is Rusty throwing up." Then he said "Uhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnhuhhhhhhh! Gkkk! Gkkkk! Gkkkk! And THAT is Mommy throwing up." He beamed around the table expectantly and Steve obliged him by applauding. I excused myself.

Hope you are well. Patrick has no school this week and Steve is traveling. I believe the time has come to stock up on children's videos- suggestions?

Perfect

Embryo measured 8 weeks, heartbeat was a zippy 160 b's per m.

Personally, I cried. No, first I said, "No. No way. Really? Are you lying? Why would you lie? I am sorry, how rude of me. Of course you are not lying. But no. No way. Really?" THEN I cried.

I am very, very happy. Suddenly we are in a much smaller subset of comparative pregnancies. In the past I have always made it to 8 weeks, but only three times have I made it to 8 weeks with an appropriately sized embryo and a heart rate you can jitterbug to. And one of those times was Patrick, so there you go. Can't do much better than Patrick, as far as I am concerned.

Could something terrible still happen? Absolutely. Probably, even. If there is a piano in the sky it will land on me, I am convinced of it. However, and this is the point so write it down if you need to, something terrible did not happen TODAY. Thus, giddy strewing of roses and whatnot.

Next up: CVS in two weeks. TWO WEEKS. Where HAS the time gone? CVS (for you youngsters and Normals) is genetic testing of the fetus. Some people get skeeched by it because there may and/or may not be an increased rate of miscarriage associated with it. 1%... 2%... something like that. Since my assumed risk for a genetic problem is 50% (balanced translocation) and my observed risk is 90% (five hundred million miscarriages) I think our NOT doing CVS would be simple minded. Of course, that is just me.   

Um, so that is it. A good day and it is not even three o'clock yet. 

Sicker Than Ever

Remember when I wrote "I am not throwing up so much that I am dysfunctional"? That should now read: I am not throwing up so much that I am dysfunctional. Actually, if my prose wasn't always so damned purple, I would just say I am no longer functional due to throwing up. No, that's no good either... you know what I need around here? I need a nice, thorough edit. And a brow wax.

Yesterday I woke up at 9:30 and was asleep again by 8. In between I was ill. Rinse, repeat... you have my entire week.

Each pregnancy I try to be a new kind of fool. Last time I was the fool who secretly thought it was possible that an embryo would show up eventually to the party (see: IVF with PGD; see also: Should Have Worked). The time before that I was the fool who thought maybe the embryonic heart rate of 80 at 7 weeks (also known as the boom-putty of certain demise) was going to suddenly zing into action. This time I am the sucker who desperately wants to believe the overwhelming evidence of the Nausea rather than the underwhelming indications of lackluster growth and slow heart rate. What can I say? Everything looks possible when the bathroom tile is imprinted on your cheek.

Patrick has been very nice to me. The first time he discovered me bowed over the commode and hacking away, he solicitously inquired, "Hairball?"

He talks to me in the sing-song tone we use with our closet cat who is both three-quarters wild and insane. He offers me sips of water. He tells me to wait right there and then he bustles off, returning with some treasure like a tape measurer to soothe my clammy brow. He is, roughly, about five hundred times more helpful than Steve who is not now, nor has he ever been, so much with the "nurturing".   

I have another ultrasound scheduled for Tuesday morning. It could be good, right? I mean good things sometimes happen in pregnancies, yes?

Oh damn it. You don't suppose the Lovenox is poisoning me, do you?  The nausea, the pounding headache behind my left eye... rats. It's probably the bloody Lovenox (which, incidentally, comes with the dullest needles ever. it is like pushing a drinking straw through your skin. remind me to get insulin needles unless the stuff is killing me in which case remind me to stop taking it).

And all of my March Madness teams seem to have lost already. How is your pool going?

Last Week Was Better

Did you notice that I am lovingly going through and creating links for all of your blogs in the last post? Well I am. Because I love you. I had to ask Julie how to do it because I didn't know either but after she gave me specific instructions and I still screwed it up three times I finally got it sorted out. Voila. I am a hyperlinking weasel of great mastery. Last I checked I was about.... um, I have some more to do. But I will do them all.

The ultrasound sucked, frankly.

Alarms didn't go off and there was no blood streaming down the walls or anything, but I would hardly call the damn thing reassuring. The gestational sac grew nicely. Perfectly. Allow me to use the word "perfectly" here because it will not get seen again today. The embryo grew, too, but a little less nicely. Let's say it gained five or six days in a week. To be absolutely fair the last measurements were based upon random cursor placement since she could barely see it waaaaaaay over there in the corner, but still. Not the thumping good growth for which I was hoping.

Most damning of all, the heart rate was slow. 111 leisurely beats per minute to be precise. She said anything over 100 is fine but, people, ultrasound techs say a lot of things.

I came home and took a bath and then I was thunderously sick for an hour. Afterwards I crawled into bed and slept until Patrick climbed on top of me and we read a picture dictionary together. 

And now here I am.

Group Effort

*Weak smile, jaunty wave*

Hey, how's it going? Good? Good I hope.

I am not throwing up so much that I am dysfunctional. In the past few days I have laundered, cooked, provided a loving structured environment in which Patrick can thrive, met with ADP to outsource Steve's payroll and gotten the seedlings started indoors. I let Patrick select what we are growing from seeds this year and apparently we can anticipate a bumper crop of watermelon. Also, snapdragons. I suspect that Patrick is going to be very disappointed in these as he read the package and said something about "fire" but we shall see. Maybe he was merely using "fire" as a metaphor for how excited he is about the quiet joy of gardening.

That said, I am still throwing up plenty. The nice thing about nausea, I think, is that it trumps every other sensation and emotion. I am aware of the fact that I should be tense and worried about tomorrow's ultrasound but frankly I am just queasy. I am also busy trying to figure out how to turn cucumber into a beverage. Doesn't that sound refreshing? A nice icy glass of Cucumbale? Well I think it does.

Somebody wanted to know how this compares to other pregnancies of mine and I am right there with you. How do we handicap this one without an historical context? Um, I definitely was sick with Patrick. I was also sick with the pregnancy before Patrick, but that one is an outlier because everything about it was totally normal with the exception of the fetus who had fatal genetic flaws. Pregnancy number two was the sickest I have ever been for some reason. I had to take a week off from work because I couldn't go ten minutes without throwing up. Then, suddenly, around eight weeks I felt much better and.... (ominous music)... let's just say that didn't turn out too well.  Then there was the multiple pregnancy that wasn't... so in all I would say about 50/50 for morning sickness. I am feeling progressively more ill this week, though, so I think it is reasonable to hope for a good ultrasound tomorrow. I am, at any rate. I mean, as much as I am hoping for anything not immediately related to my need to hurl.

Would you do me a favor? I have been reading tons of blogs this week, I guess to distract myself. If you have a blog would you post the link (ESPECIALLY if you are an old friend who has never bothered to tell me you were keeping a blog, looking at you {Terri C} Cypress Hill)? And if you don't have one, would you give me a favorite of yours? I would appreciate it. I will let you know how the ultrasound goes.

Incomprehensible Gagging Noises

I hate it when I fail to make a substantial dent in my To Do list, especially on those days when the list is on the short side.

Today, for example, my raisin de etre du jour reads, simply:

1. Don't throw up

and I have already blown that to hell about 15 times.

Morning sickness (like getting kicked in the balls I presume) is one of those things that provoke quiet mirth on the sitcom set and yet somehow aren't so funny when you are on the thudding end.

I get that it plays a key evolutionary function. If the species is to survive (ok, let's be honest, if the survival of the human race is reliant upon Steve and me we are all screwed) I understand that we cannot have the gestating hordes eating poisoned berries or (I cannot even look while I type this) scarfing rancid woolly mammoth filets, but a goddamned English Muffin? With all those harmless nooks and crannies? That was an orange-level threat requiring neutralization with extreme prejudice? Feh. Feh, I say.

I have just composed a new list for the day:

1. Inform internet of impending demise

2. Assure internet oh yes you can too die from morning sickness, just look at poor Charlotte Bronte

3. Tell internet no, Charlotte, the other one

Check, check and... check.

I have done this before, you know, but the only thing that sounds remotely good is limeade and Granny Smith apple slices, both ice-cold. I am willing to hear suggestions if you promise not to gross me out.

Without Pausing To Even Remove My Coat

OK.

Thumbs up.

Fine.

Good so far.

Sac measured about 6 weeks 3 days. Fetal whatsit measured 6w 1 day. About right by my hazy calculations. Cardiac movement seen but not really measurable due to the angle of things. Next ultrasound: one week from today (in the morning next time, this late afternoon crap was too hard on all of us).

I am pleased. I don't feel any closer to having a baby, but I feel infintesimally farther from having another miscarriage. For what that is worth.

Oh, and I cried in the waiting room. I brought my new Fine Cooking with me and was flipping though the various Spring menus when I turned to the page with the Korean-influenced pork on Asian slaw. Just as I was trying to decide if chopping all that cabbage was worth it, I began to weep. Noisily.

So much for cool.

From The Desk Of Patrick

Patrick was sitting at my desk as I started dinner this evening.

"Can I help you?" he asked with his customary politeness.

Since I am cobbling this evening's meal out of leftovers that merely require something in a vegetable and reheating (tacos for Patrick and chicken for Steve and soup for me), the answer was no. However...

"Sure," I said. "Could you write my blog entry for me? Just type in the open box there."

"OK!" he said.

So here it is, exactly as he wrote it, Patrick's first blog entry (which reads like part of a dialogue for obvious reasons):

what ar we having for dinr?

we ar having tokos!

what did i do today?

can you think of 2 thins that  you did today?

we plad hid-and-seek

and we playd whith trans

GOOD-BY LOVE PATRICK

I am nervous about tomorrow's ultrasound. So nervous at times that I feel like I could throw up (but not in a reassuring way.)

I am torn between being convinced that there will be nothing to see or there will be something to see but it will be too small and there will be no heartbeat or there will be something to see but it will be too small and the heartbeat will be slow. One of those three. I flip. I flop. How could it possibly be ok? How could it possibly?

I think I am losing my ineffable cool.