Archive for June, 2009

First Prenatal Appointment

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

I had my very first prenatal appointment today with the nurse.  I was the very first appointment after lunch (1:30) and I STILL had to wait 40 minutes to be pulled back from the waiting room.  While I was sitting there I could hear the staff cutting up and gossiping while I was impatiently waiting.  I think the doctor wasn’t there and they thought they could take their time and be lazy.  I am so impatient.

Once finally pulled back, I had to pee in a cup then sit in the exam room waiting for the nurse.  She had me fill out consents for vaginal delivery, consents for c-section, and consents for circumcision.  I guess they like to cover all their bases up front.  She gave me some papers that told me what to eat, how much to gain, what medicines I could take, and when to call the emergency doctor’s phone number.  Then she went through my history, all the usuals.  Asked my LMP.  I told her the date but said “Also I know the date I ovulated, it was June 4th.”  She didn’t seem to hear me and left it at LMP date.  Oh well, eventually they will see that I have the more correct due date.

Then I went down my list of questions and some of them she answered and some of them she said she would ask the doctor about.  Then it was time to take the blood tests.  I asked her if she was doing a beta hcg, she said yes.  I asked if I could get the results of it tomorrow (because I am obsessive like that) and she said it takes over a week for the results to come back!!  Oh my, how will I ever wait that long.

After the  blood work I walked up the checkout counter to schedule my ultrasound and doctor visist.  As I stood there suddenly  I didn’t feel good.  I thought I would fall or throw up or begin to float…   I looked at the nurse and told her I didn’t feel so well, and just then her face looked horrified as her eyes widened and her mouth opened, and she ran toward me and grabbed my arm, when I looked down I was bleeding from the venipuncture profusely.  She pulled me into an exam room and held down pressure then put a new gauze and cleaned it all up.  Apparently my blood wasn’t clotting.  I found this extremely weird because I have had exactly 892,343,987,234 blood tests done in my life and never had this happen.  The nurse said it was because of the pregnancy, it was making my blood thin.  In a very bizarre and perhaps macabre way, this made me feel good.  I AM pregnant.  It’s even affecting my blood.  I love it.  If the pregnancy made me turn purple and have hairy spots all over I would love it too, so long as it meant I was pregnant.

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First OB Visit Tomorrow

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
Christmas from the present's perspective
Creative Commons License photo credit: kevindooley

I am so excited I feel like a little kid on christmas eve. Tomorrow is my very first OB visit. Granted, it is just a nurse visit so I don’t see the doctor and I don’t get an ultrasound… but i am still excited.

I have a list of exactly 13 questions to ask the nurse. I’m sure she’ll assume I am crazy. But there are so many questions going around in my head. I never realized how complicated being pregnant is until now.

I’ve been having bad back pain, especially while driving. So on the way home today during a 2 hour car ride I stopped at walgreens and bought some of those icy-hot back patches. I used these while non-preggers many times and they really do help. I figured since I can’t take any pain medicine, this patch would help. After getting into car, I open up the package and stick one of those babies onto my lower back. Then as I am driving down the road I thought, surely this is safe during pregnancy since it’s only topical, let me check the box to be ridiculously extra cautious. Dammit!! Quickly remove patch while driving 80mph down the interstate. Then use handfuls of hand sanitizer to clean off back to remove any possible residue. The rest of the drive home my back hurt but it was nothing compared to my bitterness toward the people who decide what is safe and non-safe during pregnancy. I have decided a group of women-hating male doctors sit around a big table in plush leather chairs and stamp products “unsafe for pregnancy” while laughing manically at the silly women who blindly follow their lead.

I want to know exactly WHY icy-hot is not safe for pregnancy, I refused to blindly follow. So that is question # 8 on my list.

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The Force is Strong with This One

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Intruders - 156/365
Creative Commons License photo credit: tranchis

I had my second beta hCG done Monday. It went from 34 on 11dpo to 2059 on 18dpo. I was so relieved, this means it doubled nearly every 24 hours, well above the 36-72 hour range. When I told my husband he said, “Is this good? Can you have too much??” I told him it was very good and meant the little peanut was growing well. Anytime he referred to this number afterward, he called it my “Midi-chlorian rate” and he thinks he has a pro-athlete or master Jedi growing in my uterus.

Here’s to ever increasing midi-chlorians for the rest of the pregnancy!

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irrational fears abound

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

tests

Ever since seeing that magical second line, I have been consumed with fear. First I was worried the test was wrong. I took 5 more to confirm it. It wasn’t until I pulled out the big guns (digital) that I was some what eased. After the initial, “am I really pregnant” a new fear of “am I still pregnant” has taken it’s place. What if it’s dead and I won’t know until the 10th!!!! week when I see the doctor.

Yes, the fact that I have to wait until the 10th week to see the doctor and get an ultrasound is definitely making the irrational fears worse. I understand that it is protocol, I understand that you don’t really do anything until the 10th week, I know it’s “normal” but apparently you don’t understand that I am NOT normal and will end up driving myself off the deep end with worry for these 10 weeks.

I wish there was a green/red light located inside your bellybutton to indicate how pregnancy is going. Green light=it’s all good in the womb. Red light= now you can start worrying. But there isn’t, so instead I am trying to rely on cues from my body. I know everyone will think I’ve truly lost it, but I wish I had morning sickness and all the vomiting and everything that goes with it. At least then I would know I was still pregnant. It’s like the – if I feel pain then I’m alive type of mentality. This morning I was feeling kind of bad and couldn’t eat and apparently had the beginning of nausea, but as soon as it was gone by lunch time I was yearning for the yucky feeling to come back. I want to FEEL pregnant, to know that I have a peanut in me growing and reeking havoc in my body. I think once I’m far enough along I’m going to have to get one of those dopplers. Then I’ll probably use it 24/7 just to be certain I can hear a heartbeat.

I am also afraid that every tiny thing I do might cause me to miscarry. I started the week with severe constipation. So the nurse told me to take Metamucil. Yesterday I took metamucil, and I little bit more than a teaspoon feel into the glass. I thought it was fine and drank it. This morning I suddenly had diarrhea. This created a link in my head that I might have overdosed on metamucil and miscarried the baby. Yes, I am fearful of overdosing on old-people poop medicine. I’ve reached new lows I once though inconceivable.

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Monday, June 15th, 2009

testdigital

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When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.

Thursday, June 11th, 2009
crazed
Creative Commons License photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

Today I was bored and decided to pee on a whole new kind of stick. Today was my first HPT. No longer pinning for ovulation, now I am on the edge of my seat waiting for any sign of implantation and it’s after effects.

I did not realize just how crazy staring at a strip searching for any sign of a pink line could make you. Seriously. I am surprised they don’t have TTC mental wards from women staring into the white abyss searching for a line they want so badly to be there. I tilted the stick forward and backward, brought it 2 inches from my eyes..under the bathroom light…maybe try the florescent lights of the kitchen. Maybe natural lighting is what I need. Walk outside in pajamas and a pee stick, searching for a pink line that does not exist!

The insanity did not stop there, sadly. I took a picture of it, pulled it up into Photoshop and tried every imaginable combination of effects. Hue, saturation, invert, difference, exclusion, I tried it all. I managed to correctly identify the white antibody strip. You know, the part of the test that is there in manufacturing but does not in any way indicate that I have achieved my prize.

Defeated, I decide maybe it’s because I used afternoon urine and I had been peeing almost every hour on the hour. Maybe the hCG wasn’t concentrated, I thought. My unbounded optimism can sometimes be very very annoying. So like the crazy person I am, I cried in the bath and had a long talk to myself. And yes, I mean to, not with. My rational self was lecturing my silly heart to stop being so pathetic and irrational. It’s annoying. I am annoyed with myself. Surely I’ve now crossed over into some sort of schizophrenic disassociate identity territory thanks to the stark white abyss of that damn pee stick.

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Einstein Never Used Flash Cards

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Einstein Never Used Flashcards

Einstein Never Used Flashcards

Einstein Never Used Flash Cards by Kathy Kirsh-Pasek, Ph.D. & Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, PhD. was my favorite of all the books in my new library. It is based in cognitive psychology and often refers to psychology studies to explain how your child learns and develops. And what does all this fancy scientific research prove? That you don’t need to buy expensive “developmental” toys or push your child to memorize presidents at a young age. No, you just need to allow them to play with the same simple toys children have been playing with for decades. Things like blocks and babbling and books make for more natural learning.

One of my favorite parts of this book is the “Bringing the Lessons Home” at the end of each chapter. It recaps the chapter in a sort of to-do list for parents. These items are simple things that everyone can do. One example :

Let the buyer beware! Don’t let yourself be taken in by the messages about enhancing your baby’s brain development that appear on flashy product lines. Just as sex is used in advertising to sell products to adults, marketers have figured out that brain development sells to parents. There is no evidence, however, that particular educational programs, methods, or techniques are effective for brain development.

I think part of the reason I loved this book so much is that I NEEDED to read this book. I am somewhat wrapped up in the romantic idea of intelligence. For me I feel like intelligence is all I have, so I have to excel at it. This made me want very badly to have an intelligent child. I’m a nerd, what the hell would I do with a dumb kid? It would kill me. But this book stopped me in my tracks and pointed out that I don’t need to try to make my kid smart. Just love it and let it have a childhood and things will work out for the better.

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Waiting and waiting…

Monday, June 8th, 2009

waiting
Creative Commons License photo credit: ButterflySha

I am officially in the two week wait of our TTC cycle #2. In a matter of two cycles, or 58 days, I have sunk into desperation. How pathetic is that?? Since it didn’t happen the very first cycle, I am demoted to underachiever in the conception department. I failed. So now, just as any nerdy overachiever would do, I went to the library and to amazon and I got books. Books that tell me what to eat, what vitamins to take, how to relax, and so much more that I don’t particularly care to follow. I am taking a total of 5 pills every night and now that I in the two week wait, I’m slathering progesterone cream on myself twice a day.

How could I have imagined in 9th grade health as I was taught sperm are naughty little things that can infect you if you so much as come into close proximity…that I would have to swallow loads of pills, pee on sticks daily, and slather cream on me just to get pregnant. I feel quite disappointed and frustrated with my education. No one ever told me it would be this hard.

No one told me I would want something so bad yet curse myself for the masochistic nature of the desire. Allowing myself to give into the want and entertain the fanciful day dreams, that only makes coming back to reality more harsh a contrast. And to be honest “want” or “desire” are much to nice of words to describe this feeling. I would call it more of a compulsion, covetousness, necessity.   Those are all better ways to describe it.

No one told me how complicated husbands are. One minute he’s on board and eager, the next minute he’s concerned about finances. He doesn’t seem to have that innate need to procreate. He just agrees to it like he’s agreeing to have scrambled eggs for breakfast, “Sure, that would be fine”.

No one told me how lonely trying to create another human being would be. I can’t talk to my husband about it because he thinks I am an irrational hormone driven women gone bat-shit baby crazy. I can’t talk to anyone else because the prospect of hearing “are you pregnant yet?” over and over again isn’t in the least bit appealing.

No one told me how long 14 days could feel.

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