Friday, August 15, 2008

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!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

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.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

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.

Friday, August 1, 2008

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?