to contracept or not to contracept? that is the question...

so, firstly i'd like to point out that ez has recovered from the manhandlings of yesterday. he spent his day today as normal: drooling copiously, jamming his hands and anything else unlucky enough to cross his path as far into his mouth as possible, and practicing his new skill--shrieking. his mama, i fear, has PTSD. oh well.

anyway, as a veteran IVF'er, now post baby, i find myself in the odd position of deciding whether to proactively contracept. on the one hand, i would like another, but i'd like to wait until this one is no longer up 3x/night, every night. if the next one is also up 3x a night...well, that's 6x a night, at which point you might as well just give up entirely and enjoy the sleep-deprived visual hallucinations that creep in around the edges of your non-functioning state. maybe keep a thick pot of coffee on hand at all times. i believe i'd go slightly mad in relatively short order. so: yes to a second and yes to not now please!

but actively trying to prevent pregnancy seems odd to me right now. essentially, using bc means one believes that random, untimed, non-charted, unknown CM, non-ovarian stimulated, no-turkey-baster-in-sight type of s.ex could get them pregnant. and i'm not too sure about that. could random s.ex get me pregnant? it never has before. hell, even lots of timed/turkey baster style s.ex didn't do the job. using bc seems wasteful at best and smack full of hubris at worst. so, i dunno.

and i'm still waiting around to get the first baby AF yet, so who knows?

poor ez

about an hour ago i was upstairs in the bathroom doing stuff. i had ez seated on the countertop/sink area facing me. he's not an independent sitter yet, so i was holding both of his hands in one of my hands to provide sitting support while i futzed with things with my other hand. of course, ez decided to suddenly arch backwards while aiming the back of his head at the mirror and i put ***SLIGHT PRESSURE*** on his hands to keep him from ramming his noggin into the glass.

i think i felt a little pop, but what isn't in dispute is that ez started screaming. panic crying. tears falling. wailing. i scooped him up and started singing to him and walking him but he just kept crying. i thought somehow i may have broken his wrist. when i was able to get my wits about me somewhat, i realized that i must have given him a nursemaids elbow. and, it did pop back in when i reduced it. and he did stop crying shortly thereafter. but, i feel like a giant shithead.

i guess on the upside, i broke him, but i fixed him, right?

the astounding thing is how little pressure it took both to cause the nursemaids and to fix it. i mean, most ER nursemaids i get are 3yo's who decide right then and there to either take off into traffic or unweight their bodies at target while mom or dad has them by the hand. you know, a significant force. oy. it was so easy to cause it makes me wonder why there aren't more 6mos olds with nursemaids. or maybe their mothers have more common sense than i have.

mmmm...ducky...


hey! who turned out the lights on the baby??


so we survived The Colic. mamas of colicky infants, don't despair...it ends. we started seeing the light about 3mos and by about 4mos it was mostly dissipated. i'm happy to report at 5mos, ez is a mostly happy, fairly mellow baby. most days. and NO he doesn't sleep through the night. so, there's still improvement to go.

as a total aside rant: i *hate* when cashiers comment on my purchases. nothing makes you feel more like a tool than hearing 'WOW, those are EXPENSIVE batteries!' while sliding your ener.gizer li.thium 4pack across the scanner. so, cashier lady, not that you give a crap but i MEANT to pick these up far cheaper at ta.rget at least 3 different times over the past few weeks, but i keep forgetting, so it's down to get them here, now, or don't get them at all. so i made the painful decision to buy the overpriced batteries at your expensive little tienda here, can we let it go at that? i don't mention that however much you've spent on toothpaste, it wasn't enough.

emerging from the morass

so, don't let anyone tell you different. the newborn period is very very tough. ez is a beautiful lovely baby, but he is NOT portable. he tends to be a bit screamy, especially in the evenings. so, cl and i don't go out in the evenings unless, maybe, the house is on fire.

we've also recently learned how important his regular daytime naps are...consequently we don't go out during the day much either. compounding this is the fact that ez's favorite nap spot is *on us.* sweet, yes, but incapacitating as well.

it is getting better though. now, at 8w, we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

long lost greeting

please excuse my absence of the last 4 months. i've been busy! i know, who cares right?

well, please allow me to introduce EZRA, born 10/27 @ 41w, weighing 7lbs even. he is a delightful baby, despite his propensity to sleep all day and cry all night. i feel like a complete zombie. and the short, cold days DO NOT HELP.

anyway...yay! ezra!

yes, she did

my mother actually said to me today 'you look like the goodyear blimp.' and when i took offense she said: 'fine. you don't. you look svelte.'

*headdesk*

i know she loves me and means well, but damn!

supposedly fun things (i'll never do again)

APW with LJwas a blast. even the contract-o-rama that occured for about 2 hrs before the onset of the radi.ohead only diminished the pleasure slightly...and in retrospect was to be expected, given the lengthy history i have regarding drama of some sort or another involving radi.ohead shows. so: two thumbs up.

the trip to la.svegas with my long-suffering spouse immediately following apw as sort of a 'pre-babymoon' was a little less enjoyable. the spouse was lovely and the accomodations were nice. but, as no doubt smarter people than me have put together. la.svegas is in a desert. in august, day temps are about 108F on average and at night it 'cools down' to about 85. sometimes there is a breeze, which more or less feels like one is trapped in a convection oven. so, suffice it to say i didn't leave the hotel much. at least the olym.pics were on, and gym.nastics, which is my favoritist :). we also saw a few great shows including la mystere.

i have a dr's appt tomorrow to check on ms. contract-y. OH, and i am now taking the nif.edipine prophylactically just like i should. i'd say it works 85% of the time but when things really get going, it doesn't seem to me like it makes much of a difference at all. but who knows...maybe it would be even worse if i weren't tossing them back 4x/day.

not how i planned it, part dos

tonight i started regularly contracting again, which led to stomach pain. previously its been the other way around. things did quiet down with as much fluid as i could possibly ingest (ugh, heartburn) and ni.fedipine.

i know ni.fedipine is supposed to be taken prophylactically...that is, you take it 4x/day to prevent contractions. i've been taking it in the evening once i feel contractions. taking it the right way makes me feel like a$$ though...headache-y and nauseous. it sort of seems to work if i take it the wrong way, just sometimes like tonight i've gotta get through rhythmic ctx first.

oy.

it would be *really* nice if i could just get to 36 wks. i'm only 5 wks away.

late and hoping to stay that way

so, i know i'm about 4 yrs behind trends but right now 'new sl.ang' by the sh.ins is rocking my face off. (it is also in a sorta delicious scene from sc.rubs, which only adds to the allure).

so, i'm late and my poor, long-suffering spouse is early. last monday the bean tried to take after it's father when the omnipotent and ever-irritable ute started contracting, appropos of nothing. well, not exactly nothing. i had spent the day shuttling around airports and squashed in the middle seats of airplanes. and when i say 'squashed' i mean my seat mate to the immediate left needed to raise their armrest to fully accomodate their expansive girth. somehow during this debacle, i failed to intake a sufficient amount of fluid. le sigh.

so, fast forward 6 hrs and 600 miles, i got off the airplane and had a stomach cramp that nearly brought me to my knees. following quickly on it's heels, another. what commenced was a trip to the army hospital, an 8 hr stay in L&D triage, me contracting while slowly and not so slowly losing my mind, an IV, 3 bags lactated ringers, one shot of terbut.aline, a cervical check and gbs swab that felt something akin to a cross between getting friendly with the business end of a spade and and being manhandled by a three fingered sesame street puppet. while the endless search for the posterior cervix was commenced, my mom, there at the hospital with me, passed the time by offering helpful suggestions to the medical staff. some of the highlights: suggestion to place a "stitch" to bring my posterior cervix to a more anterior position in order to facilitate finding it with greater ease; endless incredulous queries as to whether i go through this every single time i have a gyn exam, and what the function of the several swabs were and when results from said swabs would be available. this, while i laid on my back, fists under my heinie, and tried to breathe normally and, you know,RELAX as the attending dug around my insides with excavating tools and the resident looked over his shoulder at the girl with the crazy anatomy. i kept saying: mom, shhh...mom, shhhh...mom....SHHHHHH!

anyway, the bean looked fine, hr reactive, cervix long and closed, fet.al fib.ronectin negative and somewhere between the second cervix check two hours after the first, the bags of fluid and the terbu.taline shot i stopped contracting. that night. only for the old ute to start up the next night with no loss of enthusiasm. i went back to the clinic yesterday to impress upon them that my fragile mental state would simply not tolerate contracting for the next 12 wks. i must have impressed them with a particularly wild-eyed gaze because i left with not only ni.fedipine, but also some macro.bid and a few ambien. :). hell, why not, eh?

for the record: duly noted

dear brand-spanking-new-resident who has been an MD all of 5 days:

it is not my fault that you do not know how things work in an ER. your failure to put in cosigned orders before 5 minutes to shiftchange does NOT, i emphasize: **NOT** equal my emergency 5 minutes before i am supposed to leave work for the day. don't even THINK about asking me when x-and-so is going to get done if you didn't even bother to put the order in before 7pm. and no, we don't have a 'float nurse.' surely you are familiar with the complexities of health care in the modern era. nurses with no assigned patients who merely flit around ER's waiting for some a$$hole to put in last minute orders simply do not exist anywhere outside of your internal fantasy-land. i suggest the next time you feel you need something done absolutely immediately without fail you ALSO take the time to get your orders cosigned and posted in a timely fashion. d&ck.

it has come to my attention that i might be somewhat moody. this is true. i can admit to some moodiness on my part. however, i would like to note that i would be less moody if less provoked.

nur.sing wars--how tedious (rant)

can i just say...UGH. or maybe UUUUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

one of the message boards i regularly post to had an all out war for the last week on bf vs ff. i agree, and will not argue, that bm is the optimum nutrition for infants. there isn't really a debate, the science is more or less unanimous. what i will argue to the end of the earth though, is that ff is 'dangerous.' i think to say or allude that is at best misinformed and at worst treacherous. example: infants *can* and *do* grow and develop normally on a diet that consists of ff in whole or in part. this is not so where the main nutritive input is, say, diet soda. or even regular soda. formula DOES supply the caloric and nutritive support needed for infant growth and development, soda does not. whatever. either way, maybe ff is perhaps dangerous if you mix it incorrectly or use tainted water in the preparation, but to call it dangerous under normal circumstances in this country is absurd.

taking it a step further, in my experience, the infants that i've seen on a partial or full ff diet do not, as a whole, differ in any substantive way from their entirely bf peers. i also think that if you took a randomized sample of high achieving amer.ican adults, you could make no estimation of their infant feeding patterns with any reliability. you would be far more successful if you tried to guess the SES, race, gender or educational achievement of such individuals. i would argue that a distressed mother and an underfed bf baby is at far greater risk of poor outcome than a relaxed mother and a well-fed ff baby. after all, the underlying point is FEED THE BABY. babies need adequate food, end of story.

one could read the above and maybe think that i am pro-ff or anti-bf. i am neither. i am just not prepared to denigrate mothers who feed their babies in a way that works for them and the baby, however they accomplish it. some are aghast that mothers could elect to ff knowing that bf is better and label these mothers as misinformed or lazy. i whole heartedly disagree. people are NOT scientific models who are always able to perfectly enact ideal situations. in the real world, people are complex and their lives are complex. their choices are complex and exist in a realm of competing motivations that don't exist in scientific models. people make all kinds of suboptimal health choices for various reasons. they don't get 8 hrs sleep/night, they smoke, they overindulge in alcohol, they get sun exposure between 10a-3p, they eat fatty foods and not enough veg, they don't exercise at moderate intensity for 30min/day 5 days/wk, they watch more than 5hrs TV/wk etc. should we stigmatize all individuals not living at goal? should we assume that their failure is due to lack of adequate information or inherent slothiness? are *we* stone throwers living lives beyond scientific reproach? i believe that mothers who have found a way to rear their infants in a way that works for their family deserve our praise and support, not our scorn.

in a larger question, why can't women and mothers support each other? as long as the baby is being fed in a way that supports growth, why must mothers judge other mothers? what difference does it make to anyone outside of the mother/child dyad how that baby is fed? motherhood is so hard and such a long haul. surely we can support each other along this path, whether their babies are bf or ff.

update

sorry for the long absence! every now and again (actually, just recently for the first time) i have a crisis of conciousness regarding my blog. it started out as a loss/IF blog, and then after the sucessful IVF cycle it sort of morphed into one of the few places i could unload my utterly all-consuming 'when-will-i-miscarry' dread.

i'm right now between 22 and 23wks, and it has started to occur to me that this could possibly happen. i'm jubilant about making it this far, but don't really want to post much in that vein because a) i'm concerned that the fertility god is so ornerny that giving voice to my internal celebration might be met with 'HOW DARE YOU' type old-testament retribution for my haughtiness. also b) what about our sisters still fighting the IF fight? i don't want to be disrespectful. finally c) there are things here and there i'd like to complain about (frikking WICKED A$$ heartburn, for one, and sciatica as a legacy of continued PIO shots for another) but does that take away from my greatfulness? i get caught up in loops and find it hard to post.

regarding my earlier post, i had not thought of the "birth" until recently. and then when i did think about it, my head was populated with images of poorly-trained, sleep-deprived, hero-complexed residents at the military hospital slicing open my perineum with rusty scissor blades and yanking on poor Bean's little head with whatever instrumentation happened to be handy: forceps, vacuum, shoe horn, etc. i eventually found a midwife practice in the area that took my insurance and who i believed would not unnecessarily instrumentate (a word?) my poor hoo-ha or Bean's skull. and now i think i may be moving in about a month to six weeks to accomodate a job. so, brand-new city, and starting all over again with trying to locate providers. le sigh. i wish i could magic the baby out when that time comes.

birth providers: wwyd?

i could use your opinion or advice or reality check or something. i've thought around this situation so much i'm thinking in circles. this post is prob going to be too long too, as i sort things out.

so, i am on my husbands tricare insurance. it is military insurance, as he is currently on active duty. there is a huge military medical hospital near me (i'll call it army clinic--original huh ) where active duty and dependents give birth. the funny thing is, i have a history with this place even before my current involvement in it; i happened to spend 2 mos rotating there in L&D full time as an elective in nursing school. there are pros and cons to this place.

pros: it is completely, 100% covered. every lab, every test, every IV, every everything. all of the births i witnessed there were professional, and even the ones with unexpected turns of events were handled well. they also have a level III nicu, where i also spent time, and which i was impressed with.

cons: if i deliver at army clinic, there is no opportunity to meet the staff who would be present at my delivery ahead of time. none. there's no way even to narrow the universe of people it might possibly be. whoever will be with me that day or night is whoever is on duty that shift at army clinic. if my delivery crosses shifts, then the personnel that i've gotten to know the previous 12 hrs shifts as well. i have always known this about the army clinic, both because it was that way when i rotated there, and because they told us about it in 'orientation' . but, to be honest, it didn't bother me as much before, because i think part of me never thought i'd make it this far. now that i'm about halfway there, i'm starting to think i might make it the whole way. thus, the newfound concern.

another con about army clinic is they do things their own way: for ex, i could not get an NT scan through them at all, so i had to pay out of pocket for one through another provider.

what i'm worried about: what worries me is the instrumented vaginal delivery. as odd as it sounds, i'm really not worried about a planned c-sect. i have confidence that whoever is my provider is proficient at c-sections. further, i have a bicornuate uterus so my risk for c-sect is higher in the first place. i've made peace with that along time ago. frankly, i'm just going to be happy to have a real live baby, the planned c-sect doesn't bother me. in fact, if i could just plan a c-sect right now i wouldn't even have an issue. the vag delivery where nothing goes wrong doesn't bother me either. what worries me is the worst case scenario: the stuck baby, the crash c-sect, the bottoming out heart rate, the dystocia, the forceps, the vacuum, the episiotomy, the 4th degree tear, the retained placenta etc. etc. etc. THOSE are the situations where i want to be able to be able to concentrate on nothing but myself and SB, where i want to take for granted that my provider is skilled and qualified, and has done thousands of these before and i'm in good hands. in short, i want to be able to trust my provider so that in a worst case scenario, i don't also have to worry that they might not know what they're doing. its sorta like what nicole said in her thread, she trusts her doc to make the right call re: her induction. i want to do that too...but i have no opportunity to do that because i can't meet anyone ahead of time. instead i have to trust the institution that whoever is there when i'm there knows what they're doing. i feel like it's alot different to trust a whole clinic than to trust one person or even a group of people.

so, i wrote an email to my old ob-gyn whom i've known for-EVER and who has known me for-EVER and who did my laparoscopy. i have utmost trust in her. the problem is, her practice doesn't take tricare. i called the hospital where she delivers and they do take tricare, i just have to switch the version of tricare that i have. if the hospital didn't take tricare, i couldn't even contemplate this switch because it would just be too expensive. but they do. her flat fee is $3200 which includes prenatal appts, vag or c-sect delivery, and postpartum care. it's a significant discount from what she generally charges. labs/sonos are NOT included.

pros: trust is not an issue. i know her. she is very good, very skilled, very experienced. if she busted out the forceps, i would not worry that my babe would end up with a mashed skull. i know she would never cut a senseless episiotomy. she would always treat me with dignity and respect.

cons: $3200 is a LOT of money for us right now. especially when that seems to be a floor, not a ceiling, as what if i need extra labs/a sono at the end for some reason? money would suddenly become a huge factor in the delivery, where it isn't now. plus, i'm spending on what is essentially a luxury item. it's not like i don't have care and would have to pay for the delivery no matter what. i have full coverage, and would be not using my coverage (wasting it) and then paying out of pocket for sort of the same service. it's not money i have to spend.

there is one more option. i could ask her to recommend to me someone within the tricare network that delivers at this other hospital (not army clinic) that takes tricare. then i could try to meet everyone in this other practice in the next 20 wks to try and get comfortable with them. it would cost alot less, but i don't know if i can meet and get comfortable with someone or someones that fast. i'm sorta under the gun as i only have 20 wks left. i would have thought of all this before hand, but i really just wasn't sure i'd make it this far.

thanks for making it this far through this rambly post. now, wwyd?

bad reasons to have children

i guess there are alot of really good reasons to have children--and probably twice as many really bad ones--but having comfort in your old age is probably NOT a good reason to have children.

my grandpa has two children (my mother and uncle), two grandchildren (me and my sister) and two great grandchildren (my sister's twins), but since the death of his second wife he just feels lonely. he definitely feels like his children and grandchildren don't visit often enough, and don't do enough for him when they visit. i know i'm guilty on this score...but since the first half of any encounter with him is chock full of guilt "who did you say you were again? my granddaughter? oooooohhhh, i thought my granddaughter FORGOT about me. it's been SO. MANY. WEEKS. since i've heard from you, i thought you didn't REMEMBER that you had a grandfather." cue repeat x10 minutes, or until my end of the conversation falls completely silent long enough for him to take note. (maybe he would use a different guilt tack if he were aware of how rampant alzheimers is among his peers where 'WHO did you say you were?' actually inidicates genuine confusion on the part of the inquisitor...but somehow i doubt it.)

anyway, one gets the feeling that the feckless children and grandchildren are something of a dissapointment to the grandfather. and, honestly, he has a point. i live close enough to him that i could and probably should visit alot more often than i do.

i guess it just makes me think that being a parent will probably bring you nothing like what you thought it would...or at least you can't count on it bringing you what you hoped for. you can hope to get something back from it at the end, but there are no guarantees. just ask grandpa nathan.

my a$$ really hurts

so, the irony is thick being a health professional and all, but i'm pretty sure i gave myself sciatica with all of the self PIO injections into my buttocks. today i had excruciating pain with **walking**. that's right, walking. and since people tend to need to walk, i spent alot of today gimping around hurting quite a bit.

so, my sisters in the IF wars, watch where you shoot yourself because the sciatic nerve is unforgiving if tampered with.

in other PIO news i am just NOW--mind you, 6 or 7 wks since my last shot--gaining feeling back in the old top half of the tusheroo in general. for a while it was just straight numb, and then i'd have deep tingly itchy feelings, and when i went to scratch i couldn't actually feel my own fingers on my skin. now i get zings as the traumatized nerves and tissue slowly regain feeling, combined with feelings of warmth and itching. the rebirth of my a$$.

science babe seems to be doing ok, as far as one knows from the doppler, which is the good news at least.

jiving and surviving

hello blogger my old friend
i've come to talk with you again.
because the blog as yet unwritten,
attached to the LOL kitten,
and the post, that was planted in my brain
had this refrain--
you must get your a$$ up from where it is sittin!!!

my only big news is that the NT screen that i got thanks to leah is neg. downs risk is 1 in 7901 and trisomy 13/18 is 1 in >10,000.

i also must say that the purchase of a doppler has done more for my fragile mental state than the SSRI's, relaxation tapes, and tepid baths combined. i realize i'm setting myself up for disaster by saying it (saying what? did somebody say something? ptu! ptu! ptu!).

this semester is KILLING me. praise jeebus that it's almost over. today my preceptor scolded me for not completing a history and physical on a brittle diabetic patient in under half an hour. well, my dear, you frequently fail on that score as well. so bite me.

but i digress. this weekend i will be at jazzfest. ste.vie won.der baybeeee!!!! heeyaw!

ultimate

so i play a sport called ultimate frisbee. technically, it's a no-contact sport, but there is alot of incidental contact with other players and the ground. i've played for about 10 years, but haven't played at all this spring.

last night i stopped by a teammates for dinner after work and he asked me if i was going to play tomorrow. i said no and reminded him i was pg (he knew, but i don't look it so i figured maybe he forgot). neither he nor his wife (also on my team) gave me any grief about it, but the wife casually mentioned that she knows other women who played up to 5mos pregnant and even beyond.

the more i sat with that, the worse i felt. i love ultimate, and i hate letting my team down, but there's no way i could take the risk of even incidental contact. and to avoid all contact basicaly means taking no risks while playing. i've spent years trying to teach myself to play more aggressively, i don't want to start trying to play more passively. and it isn't worth the worry. if i did fall or get run into (which doesn't always happen, but always could) it would take days of reassuring sono's for me to even feel remotely ok. so i know i can't play. i can't even put myself in the mindset of the 5mos pg woman who does play...does she figure she won't have contact? does she just assume that everything will be ok if there is? otoh, i feel bad that maybe other pregnant women in my position are doing more, and maybe my paranoia is restricting me even beyond what i thought it was. it didn't occur to me that pg women played much past getting a hb (the limit i set for myself) and now that i know they do, it makes me feel a little bit bad about myself. :( oh well.

on unrelated good news, my doppler came last night and after i got a 9v battery for it this morning i heard the HB. strong, regular, 160's. i think if i can get the hb every morning maybe...maybe...maybe...i can let myself think beyond just a few days from now into the months ahead. maybe. i've passed other milestones where i thought that would happen and it didn't, but hopefully this will help.