Julia

Summer Of Patrick

Someone left a comment this week referencing Patrick and his old letter obsession. I was thinking about mentioning in my next post that he just isn't that into the alphabet anymore, which is sort of sad but three year old Bizarro Patrick really has morphed into five year old Totally Average Patrick. Then he sat down at the table yesterday and asked for a sheet of paper and a pen. No, no, a BLACK pen with a soft end.

"I am going to make an alphabetized font list," he told me.

After mentally checking to see if this would require any exertion on my part whatsoever (it wouldn't) I said, "Great!"

Reading top to bottom he gives you:

Apple (the little lines are teeth marks), Arrow, Art (made of paintbrushes), Berry, Bubble, Bib (for the babies), Cloud and (my favorite) Claw. These are, of course, all covered by applicable copyRIGHT laws so don't even THINK about stealing them, Redmond.   

It's been a while since I have done a Patrick update and I have been thinking about what he is up to these days. We did wind up canceling the YMCA camp, which was absolutely the right decision for me although we will never know if it was right for him. He might have had the best summer ever but I would have worried myself into a decline, rationally or not. There's always next year.

Montessori camp has been great, though. I think. I don't know. Maybe? He is so sparing it what he tells me that I never have a clear idea of how his morning went. He goes every other week for three hours a day and it is working nicely that way. Large chunks of boring summertime whatever with me spiced with little nuggets of kid-filled Montessori goodness. And yesterday he came home positively reeking of sunscreen (with white streaks still visible in his ears) so my big camp sunburn worry is obviously being managed. They took them to the zoo one day, which extended his morning all the way until 2 pm, and I admit that I was a nervous-wreck the whole time. I couldn't shake the belief that they were going to lose him. This will shock you, I know, but with Steve and I both having been around all day every day since birth, Patrick is rather used to be kept track of at all times. He is always free to wander off toward the shark tank to read the sign because of course Steve or I will know where he is and magically appear when he turns around again. Somehow I doubted that the adults chaperoning the field trip would be as vigilant in keeping Patrick from, say, hopping on the monorail as I am. Before the big day I drilled him repeatedly on what he should do in the event he got separated from the group. Look for a zoo volunteer wearing a purple vest, I told him. If you do not see one in the immediate area find a mommy with kids and tell her you are lost.

"Orrrrrrrrrr," said Patrick brightly, "I can just keep going! Until I get to the parking lot!"

I slammed my head against the table and contemplated stapling his camp name and the number 9-1-1 to his front and back in two foot high letters like a sandwich board. Steve took him that morning and I made him swear that he would pull Patrick's teacher aside and make him promise to keep both eyes on Patrick. Steve said the teacher responded by saying, "Oh, Patrick's a good listener. He'll be fine."

I asked Steve if he had then picked Patrick up bodily and held him aloft, saying, "No. THIS child is Patrick" as clearly the teacher had him confused with some other kid. If Patrick is a "good listener" I am Marie of Romania.

I was 10 minutes early to pick him up that day and when I hugged him hello I might have felt him a little more than usual for broken bones. It was as I was checking him surreptitiously for seal bites that this very nice older woman approached me. She looked as if she had come straight from central casting in response to a call for Sweet, Midwestern Grandmotherly Type.

She walked over and said, "I just had to come and tell Patrick's mommy what a great helper he was today. I am Henry's grandma and Patrick was in my group. My other two boys got a little rambunctious but Patrick was good as good."

I thanked her and thought how sad it was that she was losing her mind so young. I love Patrick. Heaven knows I love the child, but I honestly cannot think of a single time in which he has displayed a rudimentary, let alone exemplary, willingness to cooperate.

Do children become completely different people when their parents aren't around?

I was going to talk about other things but I promised I would take the boy outside and that was 15 minutes ago. So, next time.

OH! Before I forget, very important question. Socks! Patrick loves to wear mismatched socks, the more brightly colored the better. The Baby Gap 4-5 years socks were treating us ok, but the color selection was a little prep school boring: navy, cream, brown and khaki. I found some fabulous (girls, I suppose, but what difference is there in feet?) lime, turquoise and purple socks at the children's place but they are now the size of tiny little thimbles after about 6 spins through the washing machine. I need a good place to get some fun socks in the next size up from the biggest baby Gap ones. Any suggestions? I thought I could get him a grab bag full and make it his Welcome to Kindergarten present (a gift occasion I have just this minute invented).         

Patrick The Planner

My morning sickness is actually getting worse and I am not amused. Not amused at all. We had friends (blogger. great pal of mine. her part of the story is more interesting than mine so I will have her tell it - I just played the innkeeper) here for a quick visit and I had to take Reglan more than once in order to function. I am not a big fan of the anti-nausea medications but I have found them to be helpful when it is not possible to just go back to bed. And I have gained a couple of pounds, so apart from how gross it is to throw up things are ok.

I was just telling Steve how much I am enjoying being pregnant. It's fun to swing my arms and brush my elbows against parts of me that were not there a week ago. The twin thing has added a fast-forward feature to the pregnancy that I like. I don't remember when I started to really show with Patrick but I know it wasn't by 14 weeks. This time, though, there is already a crevasse forming between my breasts and my abdomen. Julie (whoops) looked at me last night and said, with surprise, "You look really pregnant" and I responded like any rational woman would by beaming and flashing her. It pleases me to be all roundifying.

I still cannot believe we are actually going to have another baby (babies!) but I have decided it does not matter whether I believe it or not. I can enjoy the process no matter how surreal it is continuing to feel.

Oh, and bummer about Patrick's prognosticating but I have gleaned further insight into his "black lightning" dream and I am forced to conclude that he might simply be observant not prescient. I was strolling naked through my bathroom (as one does)...

oh curses. The fraud department for our credit card company just called to confirm that Steve or I have been merrily charging gas all day in Miami, Florida. Um, no, although the eyebrow waxing in Minnesota WAS mine and I told them so in a manly, straightforward fashion that well became me. There is something about being ripped off that is just so fucking annoying, zero liability fraud protection notwithstanding. You lose your perspective momentarily, such that I just told Steve that I think it is sort of a pity we don't live in a digitally controlled totalitarian society in which the next time those thieves go to swipe our bogus card they would be surrounded instantly by robotic cops. Or electrocuted, Steve added helpfully.

I am not having a great day, all things considered....

but anyway,

I was naked in the bathroom and I glanced at myself in profile and noticed that I have these outrageously dark veins streaking across my lower abdomen. Veins that look more or less EXACTLY like the lightning on the book Patrick showed me. So much for Nostrapatricus. And, I dunno, I hadn't been thinking two boys myself. I had been thinking a boy and a girl, with B as the girl. Whether this is wishful thinking (covers all the bases, doesn't it?) or the fact that someone pointed out that the two vessel cord is more prevalent in females or the fact that the genetics counselor did start the FISH results by saying, "Well, fetus AAAAAAAAAAAAA..." as if fetus BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB would then be different I don't know. And as much as you guys snickered at the idea I can make it through weekly ultrasounds in the third trimester without finding out the sexes... well, we'll try.

We did finally tell Patrick that we think we are having babies and he has been so sweet about it he could be used as a sundae topping. I am really relieved. I was nervous although it helped to hear the stories of children who had complete meltdowns and... well, wound up being an older brother or sister anyway.

We went camping a few days ago (why? because we had agreed to meet friends who were on their way from Chicago to Wyoming and because I significantly underestimated just how often I get up to relieve myself in the middle of the night and just how crappily I would sleep) and had a three hour drive to the camp site. En route Steve and I started talking about re-doing the upstairs and solicited Patrick's views on how that should be done. The plans for our house called for four bedrooms upstairs. We assume that the people who actually built the house decided rather late in the process to just not add a wall, so two of the bedrooms form one long room with a fixed glass panel in one doorway. We originally had a TV and playroom there but when Steve finished the basement that moved downstairs. Now it is rarely used except as an awkward space for extra guests when the other guest rooms are full or when people sleeping upstairs have children they want to be near but not with or when Patrick wants to do something that requires uninterrupted space. We had always planned on turning that are into two separate rooms and now seems like as good a time as any, since that will let us keep a guest room up there and possibly have two different rooms for the, ah, 13a/b.

So Steve and I were discussing this and asked for Patrick's opinion and he seemed to think the extra room would be used for his cousin when he comes to visit. Remembering that more than a few of you had urged me to seize my opportunities, I said, "Actually, Patrick, your cousin can certainly sleep there when he comes to see us but we think we are having two babies later this year so it will be their room most of the time."

Patrick immediately asked, "You think so? Why do you think so?"

I said, "Well, maybe you can come with me to my next doctor's appointment to make sure, but it seems pretty certain."

Patrick said, "Oh."

Steve said, "How does that sound to you?"

Patrick said, "It sounds good."

And we all sort of left it at that for a while.

Since then Patrick has been delighting me with his random thoughts on the subject:

while eating a sandwich - "Hey! I will be a big brother and they will be either small brothers or small sisters or a small brother and a small sister."

while playing with cars - "Whoa! WHERE are we going to get baby food?"

while bathing - "You know, the babies can just sleep together in my old crib. They can even sleep in my room. I won't wake up."

while driving to camp - "Good thing you saved those old baby cups of mine."

while surveying the long bedroom - "The new wall will need to go here. And we are going to need some hinges."       

All things considered, he took the news quite well.   

I have a post up at REDBOOK (it went up Monday, actually, but I assume it is still there somewhere) about the really dopey thing I did this weekend and I will probably get a new one in tomorrow about... something equally gripping.

Hope you are well. It's hot here again.

Too Hot For Titles

In no particular order:

When I asked my OB about whether they will induce a twin pregnancy at a certain gestation she just shrugged. She said that we can talk about it when it happens and implied with her smile a nice "as if." So no worries! If anyone is willing to let me go to 44 weeks with twins it is the good doctor I am seeing now. When I referenced "they" and "not letting" and "twin pregnancies go much past 38 weeks" I really meant the universal "they" as interpreted for me by google. Because there are a billion (seriously, forty?) studies from all over the world that show the risk of stillbirth with twins decreases after 36 weeks and then sky-rockets for some reason after 38 weeks. Simultaneously, twins generally stop gaining weight at that point anyway. So there is a school of thought that says: why risk it? However this is not to say that all, most, many, etc twin pregnancies go horribly awry at that point without intervention but... I think I am just used to worrying about things. I am trying not to do so. I am perfectly willing to just wait and see what happens. OM.

Steve has a December 8th birthday and I have always been horrified by his family's willingness to hand over Christmas presents with a casual, "Oh and THIS shirt was for your birthday." Birthdays in my world are sacred times of great specialness. So, if (per your advice) all I have to do to make a Yuletide birthday great for the (uh, MAN I need to come up with some kind of a name or names for these two) twins is mark it out as Uniquely Important we will be fine. Their birthday WILL be Important. No problem. Now if I am especially clever I can have one at 11:58pm and the other at 12:01 and give them each a day of their own.      

My very first Mom Moment post is up at REDBOOK. It is largely introductory but I do eventually get down to the trouble I am having telling Patrick about any of this so if you want to scoot over with your advice I would appreciate it. Now before you yell at me, I mean, ONLY if you have not sworn an oath to never darken their site after the Infertility imbroglio and ONLY if the login thing does not drive you nuts and ONLY if you want to do so. I don't want to encourage anybody to act against their conscience, I just want to get a little activity over there so REDBOOK doesn't think I am more trouble than I am worth. Is all.   

Oh! Speaking of Patrick I have the weirdest story.

Yesterday, Steve went to get his annual glucose/cholesterol blood check. Patrick and I were sitting in his office when he took the band-aid off his arm, prompting Patrick to inquire as to whether Steve had had a shot. Patrick got THREE at his five year checkup a few weeks ago and it is still a subject of considerable interest. Steve said no and Patrick observed for the zillionth time that he, personally, does not care for shots. I said, "Oh I get a shot every day, see?" and I pulled up my shirt so that Patrick could look at the dozen or so little bruises from my nightly Lovenox injection.

Patrick peered at my abdomen and then suddenly said, "Oh! That reminds me of a dream I had. There were kids here now and..."

I said, "We had other kids living here? Like you had sisters or brothers?"

"Um, yeah, maybe. No sisters. Brothers, I think. But they were here and... just a minute. I'll be right back!" And he stuck his index finger in the air like he always does, a conversational placeholder.

He returned a minute later carrying a book.

"So we had other kids here," he continued, "and you had black lightning across your stomach. Just like this." He held up the book, which had lightning on the cover.

"Right there, " he said, pointing at my stomach. "You had this black lightning and the other kids were here."

Now, not to sound as fruity as an old orchard, is it me or did Patrick just prophesy two boys and a c-section? 

January 19th

I have a due date. Of course, it is a due date with an asterisk because they do not let twin pregnancies go to 40 weeks, or even 39 weeks. So we are actually due right around Christmas. When you are overjoyed to be having a baby there is really no BAD time to have one; unless, of course, that time is Christmas. And it is not BAD so much as less than ideal. Just because... well you know. You were seven once. Remember your birthday? And remember Christmas? Wasn't it nice how they weren't at the exact same time (unless of course they were, in which case, how did that work out for you?)

One of my best coping mechanisms during the last, um, [quantity] pregnancies was to ignore them. I took whatever I was prescribed, scheduled my next whatever, worried more or less constantly just under the surface but as far as I was able I went about my day. I would tell my mom and my brother and maybe a couple of close friends (and you, of course) but apart from my online updates I never mentioned it. It was as if we hoped we had conceived but it was too soon to be sure if we had. For, like, three months.

The only thing that could not be ignored on a daily basis was the morning sickness, which varied by pregnancy from irritating to debilitating. I can remember lying in bed one night during the last pregnancy, WILLING myself to thing of something that would not nauseate me. Think of a meadow, think of a nice calm meadow, I kept repeating, but my mind produced seascapes - heaving, storm-tossed waves - and scenes from a busy restaurant kitchen - have you ever worked in a restaurant? then you know - until I had to bolt to the bathroom. DISgusting. Between realizing I was pregnant with twins (which quite honestly, for me, was the day it became obvious that the home pregnancy line failed to go away after the trigger shot) and week six when the vomiting usually kicks in I was really, really worried that the reportedly increased morning sickness would kill me. I was afraid that I would actually expire, just like poor Charlotte Bronte.

I was surprised to discover that the nausea really has been quite manageable. Every day (including today) I wake up, brush my teeth, start to make a nice cup of tea, and then race to the bathroom with a glass of water to throw up. This lasts for about ten minutes and then I have breakfast. For about a month (maybe 6 weeks) I repeated this routine before lunch, dinner and bedtime, which sounds kinda awful but in the interim I felt fine. Now I am down to throwing up before breakfast and dinner. I have had pregnancies where every second of every day was a misery, so to get hours in which I feel normal and can eat a sandwich is a blessing indeed. You would think all those sandwiches would have added up by now but somehow I have this one pound I keep gaining and losing and that's it. Sometimes I am -1, sometimes 0, sometimes +1. I have recently augmented my already sugar, protein, vegetable and butter-filled diet with: grilled cheese at bedtime, fried eggs and bacon at breakfast, and mint chocolate chip ice cream both mid-morning and mid-afternoon. I switched to whole milk and it's not like you burn all that many calories sitting on the floor racing Matchbox cars. So I am optimistic that I should start gaining weight soon. Which is good because I read that book you recommended (well, I read the first book I could find by Dr. Luke, which was specifically about avoiding preterm labor but the one about multiples is coming via Interlibrary Loan) and as far as I can tell the only thing standing between the fetbabies and certain death is my ability to 1) drink water, 2) lie on my left side all day and 3) gain 35 pounds before 30 weeks. Since I can already do 1 & 2 like a pro I am concentrating on the latter.    

The (what was it?) 28, 29 mature follicles I had during the last IVF cycle increased my ovaries to monstrous proportions. As recently as two weeks ago the nice Mayo technician said, "Whoa! Look at those things!" During the early ultrasounds I sometimes had trouble getting Doreen to focus on the good stuff because she was fascinated by measuring the ovaries, which as best as I recall averaged a rather impressive 10 cm apiece. When you add that to all the fluid that leaked out of 'em and loitered in my abdomen like so many allied tradespeople at a wharf, you would not be far off in describing me as instantly rotund. But fluid and ovaries are not uteruses and embryos so I did not look sweetly pregnant so much as unpleasantly bloated. I put on elastic waisted skirts, drank all the blue Gatorade Patrick did not steal (Patrick would walk through fire for just one drop of delicious electrolytes) and ignored it. In the past two weeks, however, it has become impossible to ignore the fact that my abdomen starts swelling right where my bra strap would be if I had not accidentally detonated all of my bras within seconds of the positive pregnancy test; and I can no longer blame my ovaries as they have finally admitted defeat. I look like I am about 16 weeks pregnant, a fact which my OB graciously confirmed during my first OB on Friday (first! OB! appointment! huzzah!) I felt better about this (not that I ever felt bad about it, to be honest) when they gave me my bonus ultrasound (my doctor says it is too unreliable to check the heartbeats with twins via Doppler so she just popped me in with Doreen for five minutes) and I finally realized that the fetii are RIGHT THERE. Like, here is my belly button and just below it are 13a and 13b, stacked and separated like a split-level ranch house.

This is as far as I have gotten with accepting the fact that we are having babies: how I feel physically and how I look. The whole twin thing freakout, what we'll call them (now and later), where we will put them, when and how we'll tell Patrick (soon! soonish. actually, that is the subject of my first REDBOOK mom post that I have not yet written but I should get up tomorrow or Wednesday - I'll let you know)... I'm not quite there yet. And, since I am just squeaking into the second trimester at 13w2d, I have time. Steve has reacted by telling everyone he knows and getting out the book of weird Celtic names to see if he still favors Aourgwenn for a girl. He is... he is so relieved and excited and giddy. He has been pro-twin since forever so he is also a little smug.

Oh and when I called my brother at the office to say that the CVS results were good, he (my brother) started crying.

Ah. The genders. Sorry, the sexes (words have gender; people have sex, ho ho ho). We really don't want to know until they are delivered. We did not find out with Patrick and we do not want to find out with these two. What can I say? We like to draw out our suspense. Prolong the surprise. Irritate Steve's stepmother. I honestly have no preference one way or another. My mother has already decided it is a boy and a girl and is knitting accordingly. I always paint everything a neutral color anyway. I have saved every article of clothing Patrick ever wore in purple plastic shrines/bins in the basement so, boys or girls, they are wearing a lot of hand-me-downs regardless. Oh. Actually, I just realized that after lovingly saving every sock for Patrick's presidential museum or Future Baby we have gone ahead and conceived at the apex of the Patrick equinox. So even if we have boys it is unlikely that they will appreciate the tiny blue sunsuits in which newborn Patrick first greeted summer's warming rays. I mean, unless we put all the summer clothes on simultaneously and then throw a parka on top. And a bear skin. You might not know this but Minnesota? In January? Gets cold.

Someone once asked (actually many people over the years have asked this) when I get to relax and just enjoy being pregnant. The answer is now, apparently. Good genetic results were all I needed. We still have the two vessel cord on B and the 7 D&Cs = vastly increased risk for an incompetent cervix and the 50% of twin pregnancies deliver early and my trips to L&D with managed preterm labor with Patrick... but all I can do about that is just take care of myself and be vigilant and hope everything goes well. Without the translocation looming over me I can be happy, truly deliriously happy, to just be pregnant with a reasonable expectation of a good outcome.

And I am.                

PS I have always welcomed advice on pretty much every topic and this is most definitely no exception. So if you want to suggest anything that worked for you with... anything, by all means feel free. No apologies necessary. I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to hear from you, too.

Wow

I am overwhelmed and so touched by all of your good wishes. I am also flattered that some of you think I have something better to do with my time than read every comment and get all weepy with each one; calling Steve over to enjoy them too. Thank you so much. You have made my hard times easier to bear with your sympathy and my long-awaited HAPPY that much happier with your joy.

Grateful, humbled, happy - that's me.

When I first decided to do the REDBOOK thing I consulted extensively with alittlepregnant Julie. She told me to go for it but to never, ever write one of those posts here that read (in its entirety): New post up at REDBOOK! or she would curse me and my typing fingers would swell to even more improbable dimensions. When the person who has brought the world the definitive treatise on Mammography and the Play-Doh Form gives you a direction like that you do not question it. You just obey.

So this is just to say thank you so much. And to let you know that if you do go over to the REDBOOK site I have a post up describing the details of the Big Call - what they said, what I said, what Steve did, and what everyone smelled like at the time. Also, what my future is with them now that things are finally finally looking promising. If you want to check it out.

Tomorrow I might just write a pregnancy post here. Or tonight even. You know, about my normal pregnancy and how normal it is. Hot cha cha!    

Sometimes Stars Explode Too

NORMAL!

Normal normal normal normal normal. Not balanced. Not carriers. Normal. Both (aw what the hell, let's celebrate a little shall we?)... both BABIES are normal.

Details on the longest wait in the history of time (but other than that, Elder Pliny, how was the 1st century) to follow. Right this second I am going out to dinner; as I picked up the phone and told my friend, "Actually, it turns out I will be crawling out from under my bed today after all."

Did I mentioned the 13s are NORMAL!

Title

Did we have any theories as to whether my head would go with a bang or with a whimper?

It was a whimper.

Briefly (because I honestly cannot stand to sit here within a fingernail of google for one more second):

the genetics counselor called to say that the lab has requested additional information. They need to know where the breakpoints are for Steve's translocation. I said that doesn't sound good. She said she had thought that, too, but the lab said not to read into it. I called her back with the breakpoints and she said she did not know when she would hear anything (today? tomorrow?) but that she would call when she did.

I waited as long as I could reasonably expect even the most dedicated of perinatology staffers to still be at work on a lovely summer's evening before posting this, but they are not calling again today. 

Not sure what this means. I have some guesses. Some are really really awful. Some are minorly worrisome. None are of a sort to have me breaking out the fireworks (which I am actually afraid of anyway) just now. I am trying to believe that they have not even looked at the samples yet but... meh.

Dog Days

My mom was here and now she is gone and I feel sad. I always feel sad when my mom leaves. I also feel sort of guilty because this time I was kind of a lump. I still feel gross most of the time and the combination of nausea, sleepiness and anxiety over the CVS results conspired to make me fairly doltish. I don't think she minds but I wish in retrospect I had exerted myself to be a better hostess.

We took Patrick to see Ratatouille yesterday, mostly over his objections but he was fine once we got there. I mean, fine apart from being a little scared by the all the loud chasing of the rat with the shotgun and then the knives. This was his second movie theater experience and his ability to sit quietly in the dark for over two hours was exemplary. He even managed to keep it together for Shrek the Third, which was a terrible movie. Now I try, heaven knows I try, not to judge my fellow parents. When I see some kid freaking the fuck out in the aisles of Target I do not sniff and glare but always offer a warm smile of commiseration. Granted my child does not throw loud public tantrums but he also will not use a zipper. We all contend with things that others might easily dismiss with the words "I would just/never/always... ." Yes? It is easy to assume we would manage the situation better but we do not know the child or what the deal is - so judge not. I have discovered, however, two personal exemptions to my tolerant acceptance of all. One is when the freaking out goes on and on and on and on and the parent fails to remove the kid. This is particularly true in restaurants and other places (like libraries) where a well-behaved child is not necessarily a problem for other people but a screaming one is. When it becomes clear your shhh shhh shhh'ing is not having the desired effect as the kid increases Defcons, you need to go outside for a bit. No hard feelings, just scoot along. And my newest one: DON'T TAKE A TODDLER TO A TWO HOUR MOVIE. Good lord, man, that child is barely walking! I don't know if you are giving Mommy some time alone or if it is your custodial weekend or what; but surely there are things your less-than-two-year-old might enjoy more than sitting still for one hundred and twenty minutes listening to someone rhapsodize about well-seasoned food? A playground, perhaps? The public pool? And you there, sir and madam in the front of the balcony row, your little girl did manage not to yowl for almost an hour so perhaps it was a well-intentioned treat for her, but the small brother started to lose his mind before the previews were even over. And while it might not have disturbed your viewing pleasure to have him dangling precariously headfirst over the railing like that I thought I was going to have a coronary. It's not even that the children were irritating me, personally. It is the fact that they clearly were not enjoying themselves and I just cannot understand the point of the outing if the child is not having fun. It's summer! It's the weekend! Go... play.

Patrick came home from the movie and announced that he would now be preparing his own dinner. I said, um, ok, maybe, what were you thinking of making? "I don't know yet!" he snapped and rummaged around for a pan. He placed the pan on the stove, brought a chair over to the stove to stand on, and imperiously demanded some butter and some water for boiling. Part of me was tempted to just go along with it because now we will never know what else he would have put into the pan. Eggs? Apples? Vinegar? However, I was able to coax him away from the stove and we settled on my picking the recipe, his reading me the ingredients, our kinda chopping the choppables together, and his putting everything into the pans. I try really hard not to push Patrick in one direction or another (you know, since he is not me and he is only five) but I would LOVE to have him get into cooking. How great would that be? Him, making dinner. Me, sitting there with a book waiting to be fed. So can you recommend any good cookbooks for children or for cooking with children? Not that I am pushing, I add hastily. Encouraging. Nurturing. Whatnot.   

The REDBOOK blog is so ugly right now that I am reading it while shading my eyes with my hand and squinting. My editor/co-blogger started posting and people... took it badly. And I can see so many of the sides of the situation that it is like being blinded by a prism. On the one hand I am getting to know this woman and she is terrific - funny and edgy and bright and just cool. In fact, everyone I have ever dealt with at the magazine has been as kind and supportive as a bunch of first-rate kindergarten teachers. I watched "The Devil Wears Prada" just before I started with them and I had these visions of mean professionals sending all of my stuff back covered with red (blue? purple?) corrections attached to sneering emails but really they are as sweet and gooey as s'mores. And they mean well. The blog means well. They saw room for another online infertility whatsit and decided to provide one. It's not their fault my IVF cycle worked and I spent two weeks talking about e2 levels followed by two months obsessing over genetic results. But as a long-standing reader of infertility blogs I can only imagine how people felt when first I get pregnant (with twins!) right off the bat (genetics notwithstanding) and then Lili introduces herself to Infertility Diaries as just returning from her maternity leave (with twins!) Ai-yi-yi. And I feel awful about it. I know that she was just explaining her infertility connection before swinging into less personal topics but I also know that this was not made clear. And people freaked. And I don't really blame them. Gak. I always feared the REDBOOK blog would wind up generating a lot of shrill and acrimonious comments but I had also assumed that they would be directed at me. And hey, maybe they still will. It's kind of a mess and I hope it blows over. In the big scheme of things it is not important (my brother, who must've been having a tough day at the office, listened to my infertility blog related hand-wringing for a while and then said, "Do you know what is REALLY sad? Eighteen year olds dying of cancer. That's what") but I like my blogs and I hate it when people are upset by them.               

About the XX/XY thing... now honestly. Do you think I found out the sex of the fetuses and then did not tell you? Like I would be able to keep this massive secret for... well for however long? Do you even KNOW me? Have I ever kept a secret? Like, EVER? No. The conversation went like this. First she said things were great, then we covered the delay in getting results, then she said:

"Now, fetsus Aaaaaaaaaaaa... wait, do you want to know...?"

And I said, "No no no no no. No. Just whether the chromosomes are ok."

So she said, "Yes. 21 18 13 and the... the sex chromosomes look fine."

So that, my friends, is exactly what I know. And the question mark was placed in the last post to convey that I know there are at least two Xs but an unspecified number of Ys, if any. I DID see an unbelievably large penis on fetus A during the Mayo ultrasound but shortly after identifying it I realized the ultrasound tech was checking it for blood flow so I concluded it was actually an umbilical cord.

Do you think my head will explode before the CVS results show up? What if they are not really available tomorrow?       

Drinks On Me At The Regal Beagle

Like one of the great Three's Company episodes, my failure to get the FISH results from the Mayo in a timely (or even remotely acceptable) fashion was actually just the result of a biiiiiiiiig misunderstanding. See, whereas I knew that Janet's sister was going to be staying in Jack's room while he housesat for Larry, Mr. Furley overheard Chrissy telling my perinatologist that he could call my cell phone...

Chromosomes 21, 13, 18 and X//Y/? of both fetii are all present and duly accounted for. The genetics counselor (who could not have been any sweeter if she was distilled) was very excited (and apologetic but honestly it was just a miscommunication) and has promised the rest of the story by Tuesday. In sum: FISH = good. Meaningful results = pending.

I would like to call this ironic but I have been reprimanded in the past for my shameless misuse of the word so I will simply present the following facts without adjective: I have been staying home ALL WEEK (less the 4th) for fear I might miss the call from Mayo. I cannot get cell phone service in our house because we live in a hobbit hole. I finally tracked down my test results and celebrated by going out to dinner tonight with Steve Patrick and my mother - only to discover once I was in cell phone range again that I had gotten results left there on Tuesday morning (when we were in Rochester the cell was my only phone so I listed it as primary in case they needed to cancel or reschedule and I neglected to change it back to the home phone when we were done; and yes I specifically said it was fine to leave a message).

All that worry for nothing, I guess. This is not our big hurdle, true, but it is so rare that I get good, nay GREAT, genetic results that I am pausing to savor it for what it is. Good news.

Sorry that you guys waited so long. For what it is worth, I finally had her paged when I realized the weekend was about to start and then we went right out to dinner. So breaking news, minus about two hours. And thank you, as always, for checking.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

I Also Do Children's Parties

As I said to my mother when she called on Tuesday, "Oh my GOD! NO! OK? They did not call with the FISH results. What do you think - that they called and I just didn't tell you? Aiiiiee! And no, they are not open tomorrow. So, no, I have no idea what is going on and I will not know anything else for days. Also, my uterus hurts. HAPPY?"

For some strange reason she got off the phone very quickly. My guess is she turned to Papa Stan and told him I had always been a disagreeble child. Then she probably tried to change her travel plans to go visit my brother this weekend instead of flying to Minnesota. But HA! She is coming here anyway. She is stuck with me.

So, no, no FISH results, thank you very much for asking. And all that quiet confidence and nonsense about things being fine and our having twins? GONE, baby. I am one tightly wound ball of pessimism.

REDBOOK post up, such as it is, mainly about what little self control I have and how stupid summer is, and the 4th of July. Also, sunshine and flowers and the laughter of children.

More as events warrant. I have to go pick up my mom at the airport. I'll bet she cannot wait to see me.