Dh tidbits

I need to be reviewing grant proposals but I thought I'd take a break and indulge in some blogging...

Dh told me last night that he, "surprisingly," is already in love with little M even though he's really not into babies.

Dh was watching me blow-dry my hair the other day and out-of-the-blue said that my hair is "gorgeous."  Not a word I've ever heard him utter before.

Dh came downstairs this morning while I was stretching after my elliptical work-out.  I was in PJ bottoms and my bra and he said that I look really good, much less pregnant when "naked."  (that one was kind of weird)

Dh is thinking of submitting a very large collaborative research proposal that will be due about a week before little M.  My reaction: WTF are you thinking? 

Gotta love the guy.

News from the Dr.

Thank you all so much for your thoughts.  It really helps to hear your thoughts, since unlike everyone I know in real life, you all get all the complexity.

The Dr. called and left me a message at home yesterday after we talked.  She had gotten my scan results and said that the placenta is close to but not over the cervix, so her advice remains exactly what we had talked about earlier.  So, she says go.

Unless something changes between now and then, like I start bleeding, I will go.  Kind of scary though.  Why can't we just find out one day we are pregnant and then the next week get to bring the baby home?  That would sure take a lot of this worry out of the equation...  :) 

But I guess we are supposed to enjoy the journey.  Otherwise, my logic would imply that I should just adopt an 18 year old, since childhood will be pretty stressful too.  Life. 

Survey

Hi All,

I need advice. 

I spoke to my OB today about the placenta previa and she said that 25% of her patients end up going back at 28 weeks for a follow-up check.  90% of these women end up with no problem by that point.  While she hadn't yet gotten the results from my scan on Monday, she said that if the doctor was so nonchalant about it that this must mean that I do not have full placenta previa. 

Assuming this is the case, she said that the danger wouldn't come for about another month or more, once the placenta is big enough to result in significant bleeding.  Therefore, about the time it'd be an issue is about the time I go for the repeat scan (mid-December).

She said to go ahead and travel and exercise.  That said, if I do have any bleeding she will change her tune entirely.  But for now, there doesn't appear to be any reason not to continue doing what I'm doing.

I am supposed to travel across the country for a meeting Nov 7-10th.  I'm serving on grant review panel and it's a big deal/honor to be on it.  I have done it several times before and this is my last time before I'm rotated off.

It is a lot of sitting around debating the quality of grants.  I enjoy it, although it is a lot of work.


Would you go?

I will not freak out.

We had our anatomy scan/ultrasound this morning and so much of it was wonderful.  Little M has all the right body parts in the right places and is measuring right at average for her gestational age (20 weeks 6 days!) and has a strong heart beat.  She is SO freaking active in there.  Amazing that I can't feel her more.  When I do feel her moving she must really be freaking out.  Very, very cute.

And Dh went with me, asked questions, laughed at little M moving all around, and had that wonderful "my little daughter!" expression that just about brought tears to my eyes.  There were definitely hollywood moments in there that I will cherish forever.

The big important thing is that everything the doctors can't do anything about seems good with the baby.  She is as healthy as they can determine right now.  THAT IS A VERY VERY WONDERFUL THING.

But as you know, for us IF women it is really really hard relax into all of this when you know how fragile it all is.


Turns out that my placenta is over the cervix right now -- placenta previa.  I go back at 28 weeks to see if it's moved as my uterus grows more.

About 10% of women who are diagnosed with this at my stage end up with it being a problem.

The problem is that you are at increased risk of all kinds of things you don't want:

- premature labor
- losing the baby because of placental abruption
- and of course, C-section at 37 weeks (if you make it that long) because they won't let you go to full term b/c you might bleed to death if your cervix starts to dilate.
- severe bleeding (and need of blood transfusion)

And God only knows what else.

To me, 10% is a big number.  It's big enough that I may likely be in it.

So from now on, I am back to being fragile.  I will not make awkward movements of my torso.  I will not lift anything heavy.  I will not do anything that might result in losing this baby.

I will not let myself freak out.  Or at least I will try not to.

mismatched brain today

I have had one of those weeks that make me wonder how I will ever manage to juggle a child AND a career as a professor.  Seriously, 12 hours days every single day dealing with urgent crap and a baby are just not compatible...  oh well.  It will all work out somehow. 

As long as I managed to make it through the next month, that is.  I have a ridiculous number of very big deadlines and SOOOOO much to do before each of them.  Oof.

And all I can seem to make myself want to do today is search around on the internet for nursery decoration themes.  I'm thinking "jungle" would be super cute... I love monkeys.

Must get head back on work things...

Versatile blogging...

I have the honor of having been nominated TWICE for a Versatile Blogger award -- how cool is that?!  Many many thanks to Paige and Missing1! 

The instructions are to link back to the awesome person who nominated me, so if you don't know Paige and her inspiring story, then CHECK OUT HER BLOG.

And if you don't know Missing1 you gotta check out her heart-wrenching story HERE and give her lots of encouragement to jump with both feet into the blogging community -- let her know that we have lots of love here!

The rules of the game:  First, share 7 things about me.  Here goes.

1) I love chips and salsa.  And I mean LOVE chips and salso in all caps.  It's like a drug to me; I crave it.  This has been my condition since I was in elementary school.

2) I still sleep with the teddy bear I got when I was 15 years old.  Yes, it looks very very loved; it is very hard work being my bear and one of his feet is about to fall off.  You know the velveteen rabbit story?  I'm kind of that testing that hypothesis.  I'll let you know if the bear ever comes to life

3) I wear pink reading glasses despite my aversion to seeming "too girlie" at work.  I won't ever bring in baked goods for people in my lab for fear of the maternal label.

4) I often times still have a crush on my husband even after 6 years of marriage.  There's just something about him that just totally spell-binds me at times, even though I know him warts and all. 

5) So this isn't about me, but I think it's cool.  My cat likes to sleep under the covers with his head on the pillow.  He started doing this after I first moved in with my husband and he left on a business trip.  That first night the cat essentially stepped in and took his place in bed.  Too freaking cute.

6) I used to have a huge crush on Sting and secretly bought his biography when I was about 14 years old.  Funny thing was that my parents gave me a copy of it for my birthday because they didn't know I'd already bought it, and I wasn't about to 'fess up.

7) I still haven't told a soul at work about the baby.  I'll be 20 weeks on Tuesday.  I have no idea if it will ever feel right to tell them, but at some point I guess I'll have to. 

And the second part of the instructions is to forward this award to seven other bloggers.  Seems like this award has made the rounds in the little community I follow, so I apologize if I mess this up, but two people I don't think I've yet gotten to read 7 tidbits from are:

Illanare at My Worlds Fly Up My Thoughts Remain Below
Justine at A Half Baked Life

Love and hugs to all of you!  - InB

Getting emotional

I have heard many stories about the emotional rollercoaster of pregnancy but haven't really experienced it myself so far.  Mostly I have the numb self-preservation thing going on.  But that all changed last night.

I was changing into my PJs and Dh commented on how red my breasts and upper belly are.  And they are.  Under my breasts is really uncomfortable and kind of rashy from my bra (any bra).  As I mentioned before, my breasts are large and very heavy so supporting them is tough work for my bras and for me. 

Dh then proceeded to interrogate me on whether or not I had done research to figure out adequate support, almost accusing me of malpractice when he asked if I went to a maternity store to get my new bra and I replied that I had gone to a bra specialty store (that had a gazillion maternity bras, so I think it was the appropriate place to go).

The point of all of this build-up is that somehow this serious conversation lead to Dh saying that he had known that my belly would get bigger but he was truly frightened by what was going on with my breasts.

Think back to this post in which I admitted my breast self-consciousness.

Honestly, I don't care what I look like.  I would have loved to be one of those thin women who get the pretty round belly and stay thin everywhere else.  But what I really, really want is a child.  A cute pregnancy would have just been a perk.  And given that each of my breasts is now about the same size as my belly, I have the Venus of Willendorf thing going on in the front instead of "cute."  But honestly, it doesn't matter.  This is what my body does and as long as it takes good care of my baby and brings her into the world safely it can do whatever the hell it wants.

I was kind of appreciating the fertility goddess look and was assuming that maybe Dh was too, although he had made comments about how it is ok since I am pregnant and he'll be my personal trainer once the baby gets here.

When I woke up at 3am and couldn't go back to sleep I started to get a little upset.  I went to the living room and googled more about bras for pregnant 32G women.

Dh woke up and came in to talk, and of course talking about it all just made me cry like a leaky faucet.  I hadn't realized how upset I was. I really don't care what I look like but I do care that my husband may be permanently scarred by seeing my body do all of these weird things.  He doesn't seem to understand exactly what I'm upset about.  He kept saying that all pregnant women get insecure about what their bodies look like, but that isn't what this is about at all.  

I'm not really even all that upset about his comments, but I couldn't stop the tears from flowing from my eyes.  I tried to tell him that he wasn't hearing what I was saying, that I really love being pregnant and don't care about what I look like.  But the words just made me cry more so it was really hard.  And then he said that he was really happy to hear that I love being pregnant as I hadn't said that before.  And that made me even more sad, and I'm crying as I type this just thinking about it all.

I think it comes down to this.  I am afraid to say how much I love it and how happy I am, and I'm afraid to wear clothes that make me look pregnant instead of just large because then people will know.  If I end up without a baby at the end of this everyone will know.  I won't be able to fake not caring about having a baby; I won't be able to pretend that I never wanted one. 

Anyway, that was my incoherent emotional bout that isn't quite over.  It started with a royally bad mood when I woke up yesterday and ends with a very teary InBetween who is having a hard time keep it together today, although I honestly have no idea why.

wave of light

7pm candles tonight in memory of the loss of my first pregnancy in Oct 2008 and for all of those other lost hopes and dreams 1 in 4 of us have faced. 

what I'm feeling today

trying not to freak out

baby books all say you feel movement between 16 and 20 weeks.

me?  at 19 weeks I got nothing. 

I am concerned about doing the fetal heart monitor too much, plus there is the concern that I might not find anything.  I also just realized that sometimes it's my own heartbeat I'm hearing...  oof.

and so I broke down and googled "miscarriage at 19 weeks" and there are lots of them out there.

And then I found this:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050416100616.htm

Not that it helps much, but at least it is acknowledged.

I love the idea of a little garden of lost babies.  The Japanese definitely have the right idea there.

little updates

Not much to report from this part of the world.  Well, technically I guess there are some really big things going on but I just feel pretty numb about it all, trying to stay zen for little M (the baby). 

Dh comes home from a really sad trip to his parents.  His dad definitely has prostate cancer and it has metastasized all over, even into his bones.  It's not good but hard to know what will happen from here since some men in his shoes live for another 6 years and others just 6 months.  I'm picking Dh up at the airport in about an hour.

I listened to little M's heart beat last night for a minute.  Nothing is more soothing to my ears.  I am so looking forward to feeling that first kick.  Soon, hopefully soon.  I'm 3 days shy of 19 weeks.  Crazy to think it.

I'm wearing a real maternity top today for the first time.  It does a really nice job with my enormous breasts, but I feel a little weird since I don't think the belly is quite big enough to justify it.  In fact, I don't think my belly has grown much over the last three weeks.

My hairdresser and dentist both guessed that I am pregnant yesterday (it was a "serious grooming" day).  It was the breasts, the major size change and disproportion with my body is apparently a dead give away to people who know about what pregnancy does to the body.  Too funny.  Makes me feel a bit better about 'em.

Grateful

I am over the top happy that the Nobel Prize for medicine went to Robert G. Edwards.  I smiled a lot on Monday after I heard, and am so pleased that there was so much media coverage of the positive impact that IVF has made on the western world.  Over one million children are the result of his amazing success in the laboratory, and my little one is one of them!  Thank you Dr. Edwards. 

I am also very happy that the Nobel committee decided, whether intentionally or not, to validate infertility as a disease by awarding the prize in medicine to IVF.  This is a major step in the right direction.

I am not grateful that the NYTimes decided to interview this doctor as the expert on infertility.  He says the main problem is that women are waiting too long before having children, and that the solution is for women to have babies in their 20s.  I wonder if he had children in his 20s, or did he marry a 20 year old when he was 50 with an established career and financial security? 

The reason so many women delay child bearing is financial career stability.  Had I had significant resources to help with childcare I just might have had a kid earlier in my life.  I seriously day dreamed about having a baby before graduate school, but the financial reality of my $18,000 a year job made that seem very irresponsible.  If people want fertility trends to change in this country, the country needs to prioritize childcare subsidies.  Otherwise, stop criticizing women for waiting until they can afford children before having them.  Nothing quite like a little financial security to make sure that child won't end up on being a paycheck away from living on the streets.

I am grateful for the Heartbeats at Home people.  I tried to have faith that all was going ok with my pregnancy, but when my ob appointment was delayed for more than  a week, I decided I couldn't take it anymore.  I rented one of Heartbeats at Home's dopplers. It came last night and I got to hear her heartbeat...  it was really sweet. 

blankets, hugs, and tears

About 5 years ago I had a bad neck injury that landed me in surgery followed by years of physical therapy (PT).  I ended up in a fantastic group PT class that I kept going to long after my neck was well because I really enjoyed the company of the other women and the physical therapist (though the continued maintenance has been good for my neck too).

There are three of them that I particularly bonded to.  All of them are in their early 50s with children between 17 and 27.  So they are in a very different place in life than I where I've been for the last 5 years, but it was always my weekly sanity check to get to laugh with them, be outraged with them, hear stories about their children.  They were the only people outside my family who knew about the miscarriage, and one of them was the only person who sent me a condolence card.  It meant the world to me.

I stopped going to PT in May because of scheduling conflicts, and then was afraid to for emotional and pregnancy reasons (hiding and fragility). 

Last night we all got together to make blankets for a Christmas charity thing one of them organizes (worthy of  a post itself when we get closer to December).

They all know about my pregnancy as I wrote them emails a few weeks ago, so there were lots of congratulations and stories and laughs.  The lady who sent me the card brought me a little Beatrix Potter book and two swaddling blankets, my first baby gift. 

On one level I loved it all.  It was so nice to be a part of this "motherhood club".  But at a fundamental level, I was extremely uncomfortable.  It just didn't feel right.  I can't quite put my finger on why, but here are some possible reasons I've come up with:

1) I feel like an imposter.  Since I had to work so freaking hard to get pregnant, it's kind of like I cheated my way into the club.  I don't really belong there since I didn't get there "naturally".

2) It feels premature.  Shouldn't we wait until I actually produce a baby before we celebrate?  I could easily lose this one too; we are nowhere near the finish line.

3) I can't relate to that innocent attitude towards pregnancy, the one where a pregnant woman has a baby and it is all laughs and sorority over the crazy symptoms on your way to motherhood.

I keep kicking myself for not jumping in and forgetting the past, but I can't.  I just can't shake the last three years.  In some ways I wonder if I love this baby more because I have been on an incredible journey to find her.  Maybe I'll be a better mother because of what I've been through.  I shouldn't worry about trying to be an innocent positive pregnant lady when that just isn't me anymore.

I don't know.  There are no answers to all of this.  But last night, when I was driving home all I could think of was all of you and how I wanted to write about this on my blog.  I wanted to tell you that I feel an overwhelming need to take all of us in my arms and give us a big hug, the kind that a large-busted rose-scented grandma would give you, and tell us that it will be ok.  It will all be ok.  And even though none of the details between here and ok are worked out, we all believe it because that hug feels so damn good and reassuring.  We all deserve that hug.  

I cried this morning when I unfolded the swaddling blankets and let myself think about how that soft pink blanket with ducks and hearts on it just might get to be wrapped around my baby in 6 months...  it was pretty overwhelming.