10-29-09
Yoga is sparsely attended. Instead of the usual 10 people in class, there are 5.
“Lots of attention for you guys today. Lucky you,” my teacher jokes.
He trains his eagle eye on me. First it’s the hellish wide-legged squat that he says will help strengthen my lazy, pain averse legs--I call them lazy, not him—and allow me to backbend to my heart’s content without the lower back pains that have plagued me the last few years. I squat. I breathe.
“Lower,” he says. He kneels beside me and holds his hand against my knee. “Press out.”
I lower and press and try to breathe through the howling in my inner thighs. This…is…good…for…me. Even my thoughts are panting. Every time I feel the pain amp up to grimace levels in yoga, I remind myself that an even more painful event is on the horizon, a mere 3 months and some change away. If I can’t stay centered and breathe through some screaming thigh pain, I’m screwed.
After 8 breaths, my hands fall to the floor. I straighten my legs. Sweet relief.
“Maybe try it again with your legs wider,” he says.
“Tomorrow,” I gulp.
He doesn’t smirk and wisecrack about how tomorrow may never come like he does with my yoga buddy, but mercifully lets me go on to the next pose and the next unbothered…until Warrior 1.
“Kt. Deeper,” he says, walking towards my mat.
“What does that mean?” I ask, knowing exactly what he means but not wanting to admit it. Deeper = more ouch.
“Your knee. Bend deeper.” Again he is kneeling beside me pressing my hand on the outside of my knee as he coaxes me lower into the bend. “Still not parallel to the floor,” he says.
I go farther, cursing my long legs that require such deep bending to get anywhere close to parallel, “Still not parallel.”
I lose my balance and fall to my hands.
“Oh your center of gravity is shifting,” he says.
I look up from my fallen warrior. “That and the 20 or so extra pounds I’m carrying,” I say.
“The extra human you’re carrying!” he says, pushing himself up to standing.
Thusly the unspoken has become spoken in yoga class: I have played the pregnant card. My teacher has gone easier on me since I gave him the news a few months ago. I no longer feel a churning gut before approaching a pose he’s been known to “help” me with, and I’ve enjoyed him telling me to take it easy. Not that I have much of a choice in the matter. I feel like I’m carrying around rocks in my pants. Plus Purvis likes kicking around during my yoga practice. I imagine her striking fetal poses along with having a few WTF is going on here moments.
At home I whip out the pregnant card with increasing ease.
“Can you do the dishes?” I ask Mr. Crud during our post-dinner plop on the couch.
“I like how you start rubbing your belly when you ask that.” He says.
I shrug. “A lady’s gotta do what a lady’s gotta do.” I rub some more.
The one area where I’ve yet to play the pregnant card is transportation. I’m still biking into work to the consternation of some of my coworkers.
“You sure you should still be biking?” An elder prof asks.
“Yup, my doctor says as long as it feels okay and it still feels okay.”
“You didn’t bike in today, did you?” My student worker asks on a particularly rainy and breezy morning.
“Aw yeah.”
I try not to get my panties in too much of a bunch over their concern. I know that they only want me and Purvis to be safe. They aren’t trying to tell me that I am careless or don’t know how to handle my own body. (Which is the bratty place my mind goes whenever I am offered “helpful” unsolicited advice about pregnancy.) I smile and nod and say, “I still have a few more weeks in me.”
I’m trying to make it to December although I am perfectly willing to bow out earlier should my body dictate it. I am slow on the bicycle, slower than I ever thought I would be. The Wicked Witch of the East passes me regularly and I don’t care. Whenever I am pedaling fast enough to pass someone I think, “Damn Sam, you just got served by a pregnant lady.”
In some ways I look forward to playing the pregnant card and buying a parking pass. It will be interesting to see how the other three-quarters live. I won’t miss the blowing rain, the soaked boots, and the final slog up the hill to my house in the afternoon. I will miss plenty though, most of all feeling like a tough girl.
“Darn, Kt. You’re burly,” my yoga teacher said on a particularly blustery, drenched morning.
And don’t you forget it. Well, until I’m practicing asana and then you should really go easy on me.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Out and Proud
10-22-09
My heartbeat quickens as I type it. Finally, after all the hedging, the going back and forth--yes, today’s the day then no, I can’t, not yet--I type the Facebook status update that’s been rattling around in my brain: Kt Crud has one in the oven. There, I said it. Tis liberating in a strange way. Ever since ultrasound number 2 when had planned to start spreading the good word, I come up with reasons to not share the news with the social network-iverse. Oh, Purvis isn’t kicking much today. What if something is wrong? I don’t want to make all the ladies who’ve had miscarriages or struggle with fertility experience a bump of weirdness in their day.
Weekly Mr. Crud asks “So when are you going to tell Facebook?”
I shrug. “Tomorrow?”
I get a nudge in the sharing direction yesterday when several commenters to a seemingly non-preg-related post talk about my pregnancy. Aw hell, I think, but I’m not mad.
Last night at dinner Mr. Crud warns. “You’re being outed on Facebook.”
“I know, I know,” I say. “Looks like my time is up.”
I think of Ruby who outed herself long ago. If she can do it so can I. Deep breath. I take the leap. People respond with humor, kindness, and oodles of congrats. Mr. Crud is happy. I am happy. Purvis is having a particularly kicky day. I hope I don’t disappoint everyone.
The outings are coming fast and furious as my belly grows. I am still more of a Bactrian than a Dromedary (those not fluent in camel can google it) to my great dismay, but the humps are unmistakably pregnant rather than chub.
Yesterday it was a student.
“Are you pregnant?”
“Yep,” I say.
“Congratulations!”
“Wouldn’t it have been awkward if I had said no?” I say.
She nods vigorously.
I have to mess with at least one person: “No, I’m not pregnant. Why do you ask?”
My belly also attracts random eyes on the street. I wonder if some of the women are like me 6 months ago, scanning for all signs of pregnant life among the masses. The bump also attracted it’s first attempted belly-pat courtesy of my father-in-law during a visit last weekend.
He and I hug goodnight. His hand hovers around my belly and makes a patting sign. I pull back, mumbling “No touching.”
Not my most finessed response, but the first thing that comes to mind.
I am taking a hard-line stance with belly (and later) baby touching. I can’t go for that. No. No can do. It’s invasive and kind of creepy. I am not Buddha and my belly is my body, my choice. Two people have permission to rub—Mr. Crud and me. So far this hasn’t been a problem, but I hear from other pregnant ladies that the hands start to fly later in pregnancy. Perhaps a form of prenatal karate should be taught in all the childbirth classes, a section on belly self-defense included in What to Expect.
During their visit my mother-in-law announces. “I love shopping for baby clothes.”
Even though I know what is coming next, I’m still not prepared. The room tilts and tears spring to my eyes.
“Is it okay if I give you these now?” she asks, gathering two stuffed bags in her arms. She lives a plane ride away so this could be her only chance to shower us with baby gifts before the big day.
I nod. “Sure.” I swallow hard.
Mr. Crud squeezes my arm. “Are you sure? We don’t have to—“ he whispers.
“It’s okay,” I say.
If we talk about it anymore I will break down in sobs. I can get through this. I pep talk myself, remind myself of all the unpacked baby clothes in our basement. These are no different, right? My mother-in-law is so kind to us, her excitement at her coming grandchild barely contained. I can do this for her.
I pull what feels like 20 baby outfits from the bags. “How cute. Thank you so much,” I say after giving each a cursory examination. I hand them to Mr. Crud one by one for his chance to ooh and ah. I plunge my hand back in the bag. Plunge, smile, and hand off. Repeat.
Is this jinxing things? I keep thinking. What if we never get to see these clothes on anything but a hanger. What if something is wrong at this very minute? I try to breathe. I am pretty impressed that I am able to keep the tears from coming. I am on autopilot now, just waiting until the clothes end, the in-laws leave for the night, and I can collapse and cry in Mr. Crud’s arms.
The end finally comes.
“And that’s all that I could find in gender neutral colors,” my mother-in-law says. The unspoken being: why not just open the envelope already and find out girl or boy?
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” we say.
After the in-laws head out for the incredibly convenient guest house a few blocks from our house (Thank you, Bluebird!), I bury my head in Mr. Crud’s shoulder. “I didn’t know that would be so hard. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
He holds me tight and reminds me that as pregnant lady I have the right to get emotional over whatever I want. “You didn’t have to open them.”
“I know, but your mom was so excited. I didn’t want to spoil it for her.”
“Thank you,” he says.
“Put them away, okay?” I say.
He grabs the bags and puts them in his office closet. “I’m not ready for this,” I say.
“Is it the fear of losing Purvis or the reality that Purvis is coming that’s upsetting you?” He asks.
“Both.”
But mostly it’s the fear.
I tell my bro and sis-in-law of the baby clothes weirdness.
“Oo, it’s too early for that,” my sister-in-law says. “The Cruds fear a jinx.”
“Unfortunately we do.”
I have a feeling that Purvis’ nursery might be a last minute affair. That’s okay. I’m sure we’re not alone. Dr. Adorable suggested that we start looking for a car seat so that I can learn to install it before I’m too large and awkward. Because it is a prescription of sorts, I think I can handle the hunt for a car seat. But Purvis may have to sleep on the couch for a few weeks. And wear paper bags.
My heartbeat quickens as I type it. Finally, after all the hedging, the going back and forth--yes, today’s the day then no, I can’t, not yet--I type the Facebook status update that’s been rattling around in my brain: Kt Crud has one in the oven. There, I said it. Tis liberating in a strange way. Ever since ultrasound number 2 when had planned to start spreading the good word, I come up with reasons to not share the news with the social network-iverse. Oh, Purvis isn’t kicking much today. What if something is wrong? I don’t want to make all the ladies who’ve had miscarriages or struggle with fertility experience a bump of weirdness in their day.
Weekly Mr. Crud asks “So when are you going to tell Facebook?”
I shrug. “Tomorrow?”
I get a nudge in the sharing direction yesterday when several commenters to a seemingly non-preg-related post talk about my pregnancy. Aw hell, I think, but I’m not mad.
Last night at dinner Mr. Crud warns. “You’re being outed on Facebook.”
“I know, I know,” I say. “Looks like my time is up.”
I think of Ruby who outed herself long ago. If she can do it so can I. Deep breath. I take the leap. People respond with humor, kindness, and oodles of congrats. Mr. Crud is happy. I am happy. Purvis is having a particularly kicky day. I hope I don’t disappoint everyone.
The outings are coming fast and furious as my belly grows. I am still more of a Bactrian than a Dromedary (those not fluent in camel can google it) to my great dismay, but the humps are unmistakably pregnant rather than chub.
Yesterday it was a student.
“Are you pregnant?”
“Yep,” I say.
“Congratulations!”
“Wouldn’t it have been awkward if I had said no?” I say.
She nods vigorously.
I have to mess with at least one person: “No, I’m not pregnant. Why do you ask?”
My belly also attracts random eyes on the street. I wonder if some of the women are like me 6 months ago, scanning for all signs of pregnant life among the masses. The bump also attracted it’s first attempted belly-pat courtesy of my father-in-law during a visit last weekend.
He and I hug goodnight. His hand hovers around my belly and makes a patting sign. I pull back, mumbling “No touching.”
Not my most finessed response, but the first thing that comes to mind.
I am taking a hard-line stance with belly (and later) baby touching. I can’t go for that. No. No can do. It’s invasive and kind of creepy. I am not Buddha and my belly is my body, my choice. Two people have permission to rub—Mr. Crud and me. So far this hasn’t been a problem, but I hear from other pregnant ladies that the hands start to fly later in pregnancy. Perhaps a form of prenatal karate should be taught in all the childbirth classes, a section on belly self-defense included in What to Expect.
During their visit my mother-in-law announces. “I love shopping for baby clothes.”
Even though I know what is coming next, I’m still not prepared. The room tilts and tears spring to my eyes.
“Is it okay if I give you these now?” she asks, gathering two stuffed bags in her arms. She lives a plane ride away so this could be her only chance to shower us with baby gifts before the big day.
I nod. “Sure.” I swallow hard.
Mr. Crud squeezes my arm. “Are you sure? We don’t have to—“ he whispers.
“It’s okay,” I say.
If we talk about it anymore I will break down in sobs. I can get through this. I pep talk myself, remind myself of all the unpacked baby clothes in our basement. These are no different, right? My mother-in-law is so kind to us, her excitement at her coming grandchild barely contained. I can do this for her.
I pull what feels like 20 baby outfits from the bags. “How cute. Thank you so much,” I say after giving each a cursory examination. I hand them to Mr. Crud one by one for his chance to ooh and ah. I plunge my hand back in the bag. Plunge, smile, and hand off. Repeat.
Is this jinxing things? I keep thinking. What if we never get to see these clothes on anything but a hanger. What if something is wrong at this very minute? I try to breathe. I am pretty impressed that I am able to keep the tears from coming. I am on autopilot now, just waiting until the clothes end, the in-laws leave for the night, and I can collapse and cry in Mr. Crud’s arms.
The end finally comes.
“And that’s all that I could find in gender neutral colors,” my mother-in-law says. The unspoken being: why not just open the envelope already and find out girl or boy?
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” we say.
After the in-laws head out for the incredibly convenient guest house a few blocks from our house (Thank you, Bluebird!), I bury my head in Mr. Crud’s shoulder. “I didn’t know that would be so hard. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
He holds me tight and reminds me that as pregnant lady I have the right to get emotional over whatever I want. “You didn’t have to open them.”
“I know, but your mom was so excited. I didn’t want to spoil it for her.”
“Thank you,” he says.
“Put them away, okay?” I say.
He grabs the bags and puts them in his office closet. “I’m not ready for this,” I say.
“Is it the fear of losing Purvis or the reality that Purvis is coming that’s upsetting you?” He asks.
“Both.”
But mostly it’s the fear.
I tell my bro and sis-in-law of the baby clothes weirdness.
“Oo, it’s too early for that,” my sister-in-law says. “The Cruds fear a jinx.”
“Unfortunately we do.”
I have a feeling that Purvis’ nursery might be a last minute affair. That’s okay. I’m sure we’re not alone. Dr. Adorable suggested that we start looking for a car seat so that I can learn to install it before I’m too large and awkward. Because it is a prescription of sorts, I think I can handle the hunt for a car seat. But Purvis may have to sleep on the couch for a few weeks. And wear paper bags.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Knowing Me is Knowing You*
10-1-09
Whenever I start to sense a pattern in Purvis’ movement schedule, she switches up on me again. Just keeping me on my toes. How I adore those little jabs and pokes in the gut region like my sweet fetus is saying, “Hey lady, it’s okay. I’m just kicking around in here.”
Yes, lady. Not Mom.
The word Mom is freaking me out right now. Last week Mr. Crud and I meet with our friendly Human Resources rep to help us navigate the wilds of the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Oregon Medical Leave Act (OFLA). The Crud dream is that I will take leave starting with my due date, February 1, until the end of spring term so that we don’t have to contend with finding child-care for a 3-month-old. Mr. Crud’s department chair suggested he take the winter quarter off from his teaching job since our due date falls right in the middle. He’s not much use to his department or students if he’s MIA for half the quarter.
As Friendly HR Rep walks us through the maze of leave choices, she referred to us as Mom and Dad.
“Mom will take OFLA for the first 6 weeks then switch to FMLA for the next 12 while Dad is taking his OFLA.”
Every time she said Mom I pictured my own Mom. She is The Mom.
After our head-spinning meeting, where we did figure out a way to theoretically live the dream if our savings account can hold out for a few months sans paycheck, Mr. Crud squeezes my hand.
“Did it weird you out when she called you ‘Mom?’”
“Totally. I don’t see myself as a mom. I can do Dad, I think. I’ve already got that Superdad t-shirt.” One of my favorite t-shirts of all time in fact. Superdad is emblazoned across the chest in sparlkly rainbow puffy letters.
“It is Portland. Purvis can have 2 dads.” Mr. Crud says.
“That won’t be at all confusing for him.”
I have a few months yet to get comfortable with Mom. Maybe it’s my internalized sexism that sends me into an ick spiral when I hear the word. There are so many examples of awesome coolio mothers in the world. Now I can join their ranks, right? Other mothers have told me there is nothing as sweet as hearing your little one call say “Mom.” I’m sure I’ll get accustomed to the idea. But part of me is bothered that I am so bothered by it. Like what kind of feminist am I to have such a visceral reaction to the word Mom?
And now a moment to digress. I wish that I lived in France where maternity leave is salaried, where nurses come to check up on you after you give birth paid in full by the government. Or Sweden. A full year of paid maternity leave. Civilized, isn’t it?
And now a second moment to digress. I am now questioning our decision that Mr. Crud and I both stay home with Purvis during the first few months. Mr. Crud’s parents and my mom voiced concern when we told them of our dream scheme to spend some QT as a new family during Purvis’ first few months of being a Crud.
“What if you get appendicitis and don’t have any sick leave left?” Mr. Crud’s mother asked after he explained that he’d be forced to take all of his sick leave.
“Then I’ll take time off and get better,” he said.
“Will Mr. Crud still have a job to come back to?” My mom asked.
Sarcastic teenager in me longed to spit back, “No, we were planning on moving in with you,” but I remained mature. “That’s what family leave means. Both of our jobs are secure.”
The apparent parental worry over our plans sent us both into a furrowed brow tizzy. “I really didn’t need that,” Mr. Crud said. “I needed some support here.”
“Yeah, I know. I thought they’d be happy for us. Is our plan really so bad?”
We are both first children, first children who battled hard for our independence from our parents but who both hunger for their approval to a degree that pisses us off.
“They didn’t have maternity leave for men when they had us. We should keep that in mind.” Mr. Crud says.
I agree. But every once in a while my hackles raise. Who the hell are they to question our decision? Then I get a little conspiracy on the whole thing: Oh maybe they don’t want Mr. Crud to stay at home so I’ll need to ask the grandmas to come and help out. Hmmm…could be. I am still waiting to consult with my peers on this question. Speak up peer parents if you have some wisdom of wisdom to share on the question of who stays home during the first few months of baby-raising. Tag-teaming sounds like the way to go.
The same day that we meet with Friendly HR Rep, I turn in our application for daycare. Eeeee!!!! I put off turning it in as I was dogged by lingering fears that by turning in an application to daycare that I was jinxing my pregnancy. My jinx fears have also kept me from posting a pregnancy declaration on my Facebook page. It’s a hard line to walk between the fear of the jinx and being responsible. I negotiate it everyday. Responsibility seems to be in the lead. We are signed up for childbirth prep classes and Mr. Crud has started to read The Expectant Father, a longtime member of the pregnancy section of our bookshelf neglected out of fear of the pregnancy jinx. (My favorite Expectant Father tip to support the preg ladies: “Offer back and foot rubs.” Yes, offer, but do not give. Nicely done, expectant father.)
Milestones:
• I had my first dream of giving birth. In it, I was carrying Purvis in a kangaroo type pocket and she—in the dream she was a baby girl—just slipped out when I was bending over to pick something up. No blood or gore, just a dangling umbilical cord. Wow, that wasn’t too bad, I thought. “Maybe it’ll be like that in real life,” Mr. Crud says. I’ve started to read up on birth and I’m thinking the answer to that hopeful maybe is not bloody likely.
• The word is getting out. I got my first word of congrats from a yoga buddy this morning. Not easy to hide the bump (another word that gets on my nerves for some reason) with skintight yoga pants. I have more of a blob than a bump thought. During a fire drill a coworker let it slip that I was pregnant—yeah, I’m still not quite sure how to slip it into conversation with acquaintances—in front of a woman I’ve known for years who also works at the university. “I was wondering about that!” she said. Apparently my loose-fitting shirts are not as camouflaging as I thought. I’m not quite as clever at concealing my growing girth although most pregnant ladies agree that I’m not showing much for my 22 weeks. Such is the blessing of being a 6-foot tall, wide-hipped woman.
* Ever since Fernando was put under name consideration, my head has been on an ABBA loop. I’m wondering if the ABBA that I play as I do dishes and cook up Crispix mix will be the music that soothes a fussy Purvis. ABBA or Terry Gross’ dulcet tones.
Whenever I start to sense a pattern in Purvis’ movement schedule, she switches up on me again. Just keeping me on my toes. How I adore those little jabs and pokes in the gut region like my sweet fetus is saying, “Hey lady, it’s okay. I’m just kicking around in here.”
Yes, lady. Not Mom.
The word Mom is freaking me out right now. Last week Mr. Crud and I meet with our friendly Human Resources rep to help us navigate the wilds of the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Oregon Medical Leave Act (OFLA). The Crud dream is that I will take leave starting with my due date, February 1, until the end of spring term so that we don’t have to contend with finding child-care for a 3-month-old. Mr. Crud’s department chair suggested he take the winter quarter off from his teaching job since our due date falls right in the middle. He’s not much use to his department or students if he’s MIA for half the quarter.
As Friendly HR Rep walks us through the maze of leave choices, she referred to us as Mom and Dad.
“Mom will take OFLA for the first 6 weeks then switch to FMLA for the next 12 while Dad is taking his OFLA.”
Every time she said Mom I pictured my own Mom. She is The Mom.
After our head-spinning meeting, where we did figure out a way to theoretically live the dream if our savings account can hold out for a few months sans paycheck, Mr. Crud squeezes my hand.
“Did it weird you out when she called you ‘Mom?’”
“Totally. I don’t see myself as a mom. I can do Dad, I think. I’ve already got that Superdad t-shirt.” One of my favorite t-shirts of all time in fact. Superdad is emblazoned across the chest in sparlkly rainbow puffy letters.
“It is Portland. Purvis can have 2 dads.” Mr. Crud says.
“That won’t be at all confusing for him.”
I have a few months yet to get comfortable with Mom. Maybe it’s my internalized sexism that sends me into an ick spiral when I hear the word. There are so many examples of awesome coolio mothers in the world. Now I can join their ranks, right? Other mothers have told me there is nothing as sweet as hearing your little one call say “Mom.” I’m sure I’ll get accustomed to the idea. But part of me is bothered that I am so bothered by it. Like what kind of feminist am I to have such a visceral reaction to the word Mom?
And now a moment to digress. I wish that I lived in France where maternity leave is salaried, where nurses come to check up on you after you give birth paid in full by the government. Or Sweden. A full year of paid maternity leave. Civilized, isn’t it?
And now a second moment to digress. I am now questioning our decision that Mr. Crud and I both stay home with Purvis during the first few months. Mr. Crud’s parents and my mom voiced concern when we told them of our dream scheme to spend some QT as a new family during Purvis’ first few months of being a Crud.
“What if you get appendicitis and don’t have any sick leave left?” Mr. Crud’s mother asked after he explained that he’d be forced to take all of his sick leave.
“Then I’ll take time off and get better,” he said.
“Will Mr. Crud still have a job to come back to?” My mom asked.
Sarcastic teenager in me longed to spit back, “No, we were planning on moving in with you,” but I remained mature. “That’s what family leave means. Both of our jobs are secure.”
The apparent parental worry over our plans sent us both into a furrowed brow tizzy. “I really didn’t need that,” Mr. Crud said. “I needed some support here.”
“Yeah, I know. I thought they’d be happy for us. Is our plan really so bad?”
We are both first children, first children who battled hard for our independence from our parents but who both hunger for their approval to a degree that pisses us off.
“They didn’t have maternity leave for men when they had us. We should keep that in mind.” Mr. Crud says.
I agree. But every once in a while my hackles raise. Who the hell are they to question our decision? Then I get a little conspiracy on the whole thing: Oh maybe they don’t want Mr. Crud to stay at home so I’ll need to ask the grandmas to come and help out. Hmmm…could be. I am still waiting to consult with my peers on this question. Speak up peer parents if you have some wisdom of wisdom to share on the question of who stays home during the first few months of baby-raising. Tag-teaming sounds like the way to go.
The same day that we meet with Friendly HR Rep, I turn in our application for daycare. Eeeee!!!! I put off turning it in as I was dogged by lingering fears that by turning in an application to daycare that I was jinxing my pregnancy. My jinx fears have also kept me from posting a pregnancy declaration on my Facebook page. It’s a hard line to walk between the fear of the jinx and being responsible. I negotiate it everyday. Responsibility seems to be in the lead. We are signed up for childbirth prep classes and Mr. Crud has started to read The Expectant Father, a longtime member of the pregnancy section of our bookshelf neglected out of fear of the pregnancy jinx. (My favorite Expectant Father tip to support the preg ladies: “Offer back and foot rubs.” Yes, offer, but do not give. Nicely done, expectant father.)
Milestones:
• I had my first dream of giving birth. In it, I was carrying Purvis in a kangaroo type pocket and she—in the dream she was a baby girl—just slipped out when I was bending over to pick something up. No blood or gore, just a dangling umbilical cord. Wow, that wasn’t too bad, I thought. “Maybe it’ll be like that in real life,” Mr. Crud says. I’ve started to read up on birth and I’m thinking the answer to that hopeful maybe is not bloody likely.
• The word is getting out. I got my first word of congrats from a yoga buddy this morning. Not easy to hide the bump (another word that gets on my nerves for some reason) with skintight yoga pants. I have more of a blob than a bump thought. During a fire drill a coworker let it slip that I was pregnant—yeah, I’m still not quite sure how to slip it into conversation with acquaintances—in front of a woman I’ve known for years who also works at the university. “I was wondering about that!” she said. Apparently my loose-fitting shirts are not as camouflaging as I thought. I’m not quite as clever at concealing my growing girth although most pregnant ladies agree that I’m not showing much for my 22 weeks. Such is the blessing of being a 6-foot tall, wide-hipped woman.
* Ever since Fernando was put under name consideration, my head has been on an ABBA loop. I’m wondering if the ABBA that I play as I do dishes and cook up Crispix mix will be the music that soothes a fussy Purvis. ABBA or Terry Gross’ dulcet tones.
Monday, September 14, 2009
20 Down, 20 To Go
9-14-09
A lovely vacation and the subsequent work and life catch-up has kept me from the exhaustive (exhausting?) chronicling of pregnancy, but I’ll do my best to catch up and get back on track in this one mere mortal post. Wish me luck.
First of all, I just stepped over the 20-week threshold today. Halfway there! Also no longer in the miscarriage zone.
Last night as Mr. Crud and I chat before bed I say, “As of tomorrow I can no longer have a miscarriage.”
“Really?’ he asks, sitting up a bit.
“Yeah, from here on out it would be considered a stillbirth,” I say.
He slumps. “Oh. Great?”
Yeah, not so great, but still something. A friend of mine experienced a stillbirth and in my miscarriage research I’ve read heartbreaking stories of stillbirth, but they are far less common than miscarriage. I take my comfort where I can get it. Right now after having a good anatomy screen ultrasound (I marvel at the technician’s skill. How does that blob look like a kidney to you? And that hole an eye? The ultrasound was pretty cool, but I did not find myself cooing over how cute a 19-week old Purvis is. No, s/he looked more like a dinosaur to me.) and an all-signs-point-to-yes doctor’s appointment, I’ve got a spring in my step. Post-ultrasound I awoke in the middle of the night—got the midnight pee breaks down to one, yahoo!—and couldn’t get back to sleep out of excitement. This is really happening! I can start telling people I’m pregnant without that “but…” clogging my throat. I finally settled down enough to get a few more zzz-s, but the giddiness and sweet feeling of calm and well-being persists. (Probably the reason I’m not ripping my hair out because of a recent possibly pregnancy-related back injury. Thank you, hormones.)
Now our attention has turned to more important matters like what in the heck are we going to name Purvis? We did not find out the sex during the ultrasound. Well, we sort of didn’t find out the sex. After much deliberation and listing of pros and cons, Mr. Crud and I concluded that we definitely weren’t sure if we wanted to know the sex before Purvis’ birth. My compromise was to have the technician—not Super Tall Ultrasound Dude this time, but smiley young lady technician—write down the sex on a piece of paper. She went an extra step, aiding and abetting our indecision, by writing it on a post-it then covering that post-it with another post-it with “Answer inside” written on it, then sealing it in an envelope. An envelope. which beckons to me from the center of my desk.
“So when are you going to open it?” My doula asks.
“I don’t know. Mr. Crud’s new plan is to bring the envelope with us to the hospital and open it right before I give birth.”
“Great idea!”
I am the main proponent of not wanting to find out. I like the mystery. I like creating long lists of baby names for both sexes and not knowing which of them will get a chance at bat. On a more practical level, I want to avoid receiving a mountain of pink or blue baby things as much as possible. (Oh the assumptions I make about all the friends I’ve been neglecting the last few months. I’ll be lucky if we get a card.) I can be a bit sensitive about gender issues, but who knows what cues set into motion the masculine/feminine cage? A pink booty might just get us off on the wrong foot, sending Purvis into a princess spiral from which we’ll never recover.
Mr. Crud’s reasons for wanting to know are more practical: if it’s a boy we’ll need to plan a bris; we can be more targeted in our hunt for the perfect name; and the myriad of planning issues that come into play. Still, he kind of relishes the mystery too.
So our hunt for the perfect name of both sexes continues. Criteria:
• Must be unique but not too unique, i.e. no funny spellings of common names;
• Must have lots of nickname possibilities (as a person whose had 2 names all my life, I want to share a nickname-able moniker with my offspring.);
• Must be easy to spell (As a person whose name can be spelled many different ways, I want to spare Purvis the same fate):
• Must have a good song (All I have is the “Ballad of Katie” by the Hothouse Flowers, a horror that I have to live with every day of my life.)
We’ve come up with a ton of girl’s names that fit the criteria, but no real strong boy contenders, which is a bit of a problem because my spidey sense tells me that Purvis is a boy. (Also my mom dreamed I had a boy so what more proof do you need?) We have begun consulting websites, but still no clear leaders. Suggestions?
Next on our list of concerns is childbirth classes. So far I’ve found a good yoga for birth one, and a basic class offered by the hospital, but we can’t decide what more we need. Lamaze? The Bradley Method? Birthing from Within? (Actually we have decided against Birthing from Within on the advice of our doula. It sounds like it doesn’t match our personalities. We strive not to be cynical dicks who ruin the party for everyone else when possible.) I can’t quite believe that I’m at the point where I need to sign up for a class. Part of me still feels like I am jinxing something to sign up, but that kind of thinking will leave us class-less and clueless. Mr. Crud on the other hand wants to be signed up now, now, now. Somewhere between his urgency and my reticence, I hope we will meet and find something that will tell us what the heck exactly is going to be happening to my body in another 20 weeks or so. And I sure hope the birth experience is nothing like the scene I watched on last night’s Mad Men where Betty was so drugged, she didn’t know she’d had a baby until she awoke from a Demerol haze with a bundle in her arms. Throughout the episode Mr. Crud grabbed my hand and assured me that this wasn’t how it would be for us. I know that, but it’s still freaky to think that there was a time when a woman was whisked away while the father sat in a waiting room sipping whiskey and hoping for the best. I think I would like to be the one sipping whiskey. That really should be a service for pregnant women. I’m pretty impervious to pain when I’m drunk. How about it, medical science?
Miscarriage (sort of) in Pop Culture
I want badly to like the new series Glee. So far I’m semi-interested mainly due to the comic genius of Jane Lynch. But last week’s show left me pissed. A character, the wife of the main character, who we are clearly supposed to hate went in for an ultrasound. As she rattled on about all the tests she wanted, the doctor shook his head and removed the ultrasound wand.
“So what is it?” She asked. “Boy or girl?”
“It’s nothing,” he said snarkily and then made some crack about how her pregnancy was all in her head and the weight she had gained was from a chicken bone.
Seriously? Is this guy running for worst TV doctor in the world? I can’t imagine if either of my miscarriages had been broken to me with some sort of glib comment about how there is “nothing” in there. Mr. Crud and I stared at each other, momentarily struck dumb by the trivializing of the character’s “hysterical pregnancy.” (That may not even be the medical term for it anymore as the docs strive to be a tad more sensitive these days.)
“What the fuck?” We said practically in unison.
The fact that the woman believes herself to be pregnant while not being pregnant is played for laughs and ridicule. How stupid she is! This whole pregnancy thing is a ruse to keep her man. Selfish bitch.
We’ve both started to notice glaring errors in how pregnancy is represented in popular culture. Example: in the movies—such as Juno--women go in for their anatomy scan ultrasounds with hugely pregnant bellies while in reality, most women have this appointment around their 20th week when most first time mothers are still barely showing. (Well, at least I’m barely showing. Although Mr. Crud claims I look pretty and pregnant, I still feel like my bump could be mistaken for a nacho habit.)
“How pregnancy works isn’t some big mystery,” Mr. Crud says. “People could research how things really go.”
I agree. And they could also stop using miscarriage and hysterical pregnancy as some sort of character cue and punishment.
Consider yourself updated.
A lovely vacation and the subsequent work and life catch-up has kept me from the exhaustive (exhausting?) chronicling of pregnancy, but I’ll do my best to catch up and get back on track in this one mere mortal post. Wish me luck.
First of all, I just stepped over the 20-week threshold today. Halfway there! Also no longer in the miscarriage zone.
Last night as Mr. Crud and I chat before bed I say, “As of tomorrow I can no longer have a miscarriage.”
“Really?’ he asks, sitting up a bit.
“Yeah, from here on out it would be considered a stillbirth,” I say.
He slumps. “Oh. Great?”
Yeah, not so great, but still something. A friend of mine experienced a stillbirth and in my miscarriage research I’ve read heartbreaking stories of stillbirth, but they are far less common than miscarriage. I take my comfort where I can get it. Right now after having a good anatomy screen ultrasound (I marvel at the technician’s skill. How does that blob look like a kidney to you? And that hole an eye? The ultrasound was pretty cool, but I did not find myself cooing over how cute a 19-week old Purvis is. No, s/he looked more like a dinosaur to me.) and an all-signs-point-to-yes doctor’s appointment, I’ve got a spring in my step. Post-ultrasound I awoke in the middle of the night—got the midnight pee breaks down to one, yahoo!—and couldn’t get back to sleep out of excitement. This is really happening! I can start telling people I’m pregnant without that “but…” clogging my throat. I finally settled down enough to get a few more zzz-s, but the giddiness and sweet feeling of calm and well-being persists. (Probably the reason I’m not ripping my hair out because of a recent possibly pregnancy-related back injury. Thank you, hormones.)
Now our attention has turned to more important matters like what in the heck are we going to name Purvis? We did not find out the sex during the ultrasound. Well, we sort of didn’t find out the sex. After much deliberation and listing of pros and cons, Mr. Crud and I concluded that we definitely weren’t sure if we wanted to know the sex before Purvis’ birth. My compromise was to have the technician—not Super Tall Ultrasound Dude this time, but smiley young lady technician—write down the sex on a piece of paper. She went an extra step, aiding and abetting our indecision, by writing it on a post-it then covering that post-it with another post-it with “Answer inside” written on it, then sealing it in an envelope. An envelope. which beckons to me from the center of my desk.
“So when are you going to open it?” My doula asks.
“I don’t know. Mr. Crud’s new plan is to bring the envelope with us to the hospital and open it right before I give birth.”
“Great idea!”
I am the main proponent of not wanting to find out. I like the mystery. I like creating long lists of baby names for both sexes and not knowing which of them will get a chance at bat. On a more practical level, I want to avoid receiving a mountain of pink or blue baby things as much as possible. (Oh the assumptions I make about all the friends I’ve been neglecting the last few months. I’ll be lucky if we get a card.) I can be a bit sensitive about gender issues, but who knows what cues set into motion the masculine/feminine cage? A pink booty might just get us off on the wrong foot, sending Purvis into a princess spiral from which we’ll never recover.
Mr. Crud’s reasons for wanting to know are more practical: if it’s a boy we’ll need to plan a bris; we can be more targeted in our hunt for the perfect name; and the myriad of planning issues that come into play. Still, he kind of relishes the mystery too.
So our hunt for the perfect name of both sexes continues. Criteria:
• Must be unique but not too unique, i.e. no funny spellings of common names;
• Must have lots of nickname possibilities (as a person whose had 2 names all my life, I want to share a nickname-able moniker with my offspring.);
• Must be easy to spell (As a person whose name can be spelled many different ways, I want to spare Purvis the same fate):
• Must have a good song (All I have is the “Ballad of Katie” by the Hothouse Flowers, a horror that I have to live with every day of my life.)
We’ve come up with a ton of girl’s names that fit the criteria, but no real strong boy contenders, which is a bit of a problem because my spidey sense tells me that Purvis is a boy. (Also my mom dreamed I had a boy so what more proof do you need?) We have begun consulting websites, but still no clear leaders. Suggestions?
Next on our list of concerns is childbirth classes. So far I’ve found a good yoga for birth one, and a basic class offered by the hospital, but we can’t decide what more we need. Lamaze? The Bradley Method? Birthing from Within? (Actually we have decided against Birthing from Within on the advice of our doula. It sounds like it doesn’t match our personalities. We strive not to be cynical dicks who ruin the party for everyone else when possible.) I can’t quite believe that I’m at the point where I need to sign up for a class. Part of me still feels like I am jinxing something to sign up, but that kind of thinking will leave us class-less and clueless. Mr. Crud on the other hand wants to be signed up now, now, now. Somewhere between his urgency and my reticence, I hope we will meet and find something that will tell us what the heck exactly is going to be happening to my body in another 20 weeks or so. And I sure hope the birth experience is nothing like the scene I watched on last night’s Mad Men where Betty was so drugged, she didn’t know she’d had a baby until she awoke from a Demerol haze with a bundle in her arms. Throughout the episode Mr. Crud grabbed my hand and assured me that this wasn’t how it would be for us. I know that, but it’s still freaky to think that there was a time when a woman was whisked away while the father sat in a waiting room sipping whiskey and hoping for the best. I think I would like to be the one sipping whiskey. That really should be a service for pregnant women. I’m pretty impervious to pain when I’m drunk. How about it, medical science?
Miscarriage (sort of) in Pop Culture
I want badly to like the new series Glee. So far I’m semi-interested mainly due to the comic genius of Jane Lynch. But last week’s show left me pissed. A character, the wife of the main character, who we are clearly supposed to hate went in for an ultrasound. As she rattled on about all the tests she wanted, the doctor shook his head and removed the ultrasound wand.
“So what is it?” She asked. “Boy or girl?”
“It’s nothing,” he said snarkily and then made some crack about how her pregnancy was all in her head and the weight she had gained was from a chicken bone.
Seriously? Is this guy running for worst TV doctor in the world? I can’t imagine if either of my miscarriages had been broken to me with some sort of glib comment about how there is “nothing” in there. Mr. Crud and I stared at each other, momentarily struck dumb by the trivializing of the character’s “hysterical pregnancy.” (That may not even be the medical term for it anymore as the docs strive to be a tad more sensitive these days.)
“What the fuck?” We said practically in unison.
The fact that the woman believes herself to be pregnant while not being pregnant is played for laughs and ridicule. How stupid she is! This whole pregnancy thing is a ruse to keep her man. Selfish bitch.
We’ve both started to notice glaring errors in how pregnancy is represented in popular culture. Example: in the movies—such as Juno--women go in for their anatomy scan ultrasounds with hugely pregnant bellies while in reality, most women have this appointment around their 20th week when most first time mothers are still barely showing. (Well, at least I’m barely showing. Although Mr. Crud claims I look pretty and pregnant, I still feel like my bump could be mistaken for a nacho habit.)
“How pregnancy works isn’t some big mystery,” Mr. Crud says. “People could research how things really go.”
I agree. And they could also stop using miscarriage and hysterical pregnancy as some sort of character cue and punishment.
Consider yourself updated.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Nope, Didn't Need That
6-22-09
Last week I start writing this post in my head as I chase my 3-year-old nephew and 6-year-old niece around the Crud household. I marvel at their energy, their mercurial emotional life (from dancing to hysterical weeping in less than 6 seconds), and their general awesomeness. I also marvel that any mother could remain sane during a second pregnancy with a young ‘un scampering about the house demanding orange juice and yogurt. Kudos to you, ladies. I think that our plan to stop at one—G-d willing—is a wise choice because I can’t fathom keeping my shit together while feeling nauseous, exhausted and bargaining with a toddler.
Alas, such fun and games are not what this post is about.
Saturday shortly after the departure of the extended Crud family, I notice a bug bite like bump on my belly. And then another one. And another. As I stand naked in front of the mirror ready for my shower I see that they are all over my torso. My gut lurches. Should I be freaking out? I step out of my body and try to reason with myself. Freaking out will do no good. Take a deep breath. Take a shower. Get out and calmly call for a second opinion from Mr. Crud.
I shower. I bargain with myself. Chicken pox? Rubella? Measles? None of these are good for the pregnant. But I already had chicken pox. Oh, but it was a mild case. Maybe I didn’t have it enough. Calm. Stay calm.
I get out of the shower and notice the spots have darkened. Deep breath.
“Hon? Could you come take a look at something?” I call into his office en route to the bedroom.
He jumps up from his seat. “What? Is everything okay?”
Dang. My moderated tone is freaking him out more.
We examine the evidence. Yup, those are surely bumps. They don’t itch. They just are.
“I’d almost understand if they were itchy. Like hives or something.”
Mr. Crud’s face is worry. “You want me to call the doctor?” I ask.
“Please.”
I am lucky. My clinic has hours on Saturday and they can squeeze me in. I felt sheepish while dialing the phone. I imagine myself leaning on the counter, “Well, usually I’m a wait and see kind of gal, but I’m pregnant, you know.” I’d roll my eyes at the ridiculousness of coming to see the doctor mere hours after discovering a rash. But on the phone my voice waivers. “Normally I wouldn’t be so worried, but I’m 8 weeks pregnant.” I leave out the part about the miscarriages. I strive to not be overly TMI unless necessary.
“We’ll see you at noon.” The receptionist says.
I spend the next hour googling and consulting the preg books. Yup, chicken pox would indeed be bad news. There are pregnancy specific rashes, but they usually come on later. Wouldn’t it be just like me to be an exception. I am pretty fucking tired of being exceptional in the pregnancy arena. When will I be able to join the larger percentage? What is the secret code?
I check in at reception while a woman complains that she’s been waiting a half hour. You don’t know the half of it, sister, I think, remembering back to the eternal hour I waited for my first pregnancy test what seems like years ago.
“So this is for a rash?” The receptionist asks. “This isn’t pregnancy-related, correct?”
“Well, sort of. I wouldn’t be in here if I weren’t pregnant,” I say.
“Oh, I’m not sure how to code that.”
I blink. Me neither.
“I’ll let the doctor figure that out,” she says. “They’ll call you when they’re ready.”
In preparation for the appointment, I chugged a glass of water. I learned from my previous experience. I will be ready to pee in a cup this time. I’m starting to feel the fruits of my chugging as I take a seat.
“Kt,” they call me back.
They weigh me. 7 pounds more of me than my last appointment, but most of that is heavy clothes and water, I tell myself. I can’t have gained that much weight in 4 weeks. This is no time to beat myself up about being fat, but I get in a few good blows before being seated in an exam room.
We wait. And wait. The once vague sensation of needing to pee is now quickly becoming an emergency. I try to concentrate on my new book—the very fine Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles—but all I can think about is the bathroom down the hall. Do I risk losing my turn in line by going? What if they need a sample? Please ask me to pee in a cup! I’m ready for my pee cup!
After 30 minutes, the doctor du jour—not Dr. Awesome who has the weekend off—pops his pony-tailed head in. “Just a few more minutes. So sorry about the wait.”
He pops out again. Shit. I should have asked him if I could pee. But wouldn’t that have been an odd way to start out the relationship? Vaguely preschool. I cross my legs. Remember to be thankful that he could see you on such short notice, I tell myself.
Mr. Crud remembers that Dr. Du Jour is the one who gave him his much hated flexible sigmoidoscopy a few months ago.
“He was cool. He joked. He told me it was okay to fart.”
“Maybe you should take your pants off and see if he remembers you.” I say.
We laugh nervously.
Finally the doctor returns with more apologies. “No problem,” I say.
Dr. Du Jour sits down at the computer and pulls up my file. “So you have a rash.”
“Yes,” I say. “I wouldn’t have been so concerned except I’m about 8 weeks pregnant.”
“Congratulations!” His face lights up.
Both Mr. Crud and I look down. We look so glum that he starts to stumble into a question about whether it’s a desired pregnancy and do we need information about our options.
If I wasn’t so busy trying to convince him that yes, we do want this pregnancy, but that it’s a bit complicated, what with the 2 miscarriages in the last year and all, I would burst out laughing. Yes! An elective abortion would be a kind of relief. At least I would get to make the decision this time.
Instead we stumble through our little speech about our year of pregnancy loss. Yeah, we’re okay but nervous, which is why we’re here.
“So let’s take a look.”
I lift up my shirt and show him my spots. He touches them and makes “uh huh” noises and verbal notes to himself “raised areas.” “And you say it doesn’t itch?”
“Nope, not at all, unless I look at it too long.”
“Well, it’s not chicken pox if that’s what you’re worried about.”
I was. I let out a small sigh of relief.
“I think what you have is pityriasis rosea, which you’ll be glad to know carries no risks with pregnancy. But I can’t find a herald patch so I’ll need to get my colleague to confirm.”
Dr. Du Jour steps out.
“Feel better?” I ask.
Mr. Crud nods. “I’m glad we came in.”
Mr. Crud’s PCP returns with Dr. Du Jour for a second opinion on my rash. It’s a regular Mr. Crud medical care reunion up in here. Mr. Crud’s PCP takes a look and concurs with Dr. Du Jour. Pityriasis rosea it is! Neither are 100% sure since my symptoms are not classic but it’s “my story and I’m sticking to it.”
“Because I know you’ll do it at home, let’s google it and see what we can find.” Dr. Du Jour says.
First we find some nasty ass pictures of other sufferers which look nothing like my quaint bug bites. Damn, I hope this isn’t my future. Then he happens upon a recent study that links miscarriage with pityriasis rosea in early pregnancy.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m glad that we found it together though.”
We scan the screen together. In an Italian study of 38 pregnant woman (“Not a very large sample size,” says Mr. Crud), researchers found that women who contract pityriasis rosea in the first 15 weeks of their pregnancy had a 62% higher rate of miscarriage. While Mr. Crud and Dr. Du Jour tease out the actual numbers (“Does that mean 3 women had miscarriages?” the doctors asks.) I tell myself to stay calm. We do our best to rip their study a new one, but conclude that it was a peer reviewed study and might have some validity.
“Well, if you miscarry, they can test for this,” he says.
Uh, thanks? Good? What the fuck?
See what I mean about not knowing all the things to worry about. A weird, non-itchy rash hadn’t even entered my head.
“I’m really sorry,” Dr. Du Jour says. “But there isn’t a treatment. If you develop serious itching or it spreads, give us a call. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, well, I guess there’s not really anything we can do so…” My voice trails off.
We are the last patients to leave the clinic. My overwhelming urge to pee has taken a back seat to this new wrinkle in my pregnancy. I find myself almost wishing for bad news so that the waiting and worrying will be over. Not really. I’d much rather get good news and start buying maternity clothes, but there is something to be said about feeling normal again, not sick and tired and even more emotionally exhausted from attempts to keep oneself from collapsing into tears.
We get home and I beeline for the bathroom. Good thing we waited. Seems I terrified myself into a case of fear-arrhea. Now that would have been REALLY embarrassing. Glad they didn’t ask for a urine sample.
I emerge. “So, we see Dr. Awesome next week for the ultrasound,” I say.
“Okay,” Mr. Crud says and pulls me into a hug.
“Whatever happens we’ll be okay,” I say. This is my new mantra. I’m coming pretty close to convincing myself it’s true.
In other news, I make my appointment for what has historically been the ultrasound of doom. The scheduler tells me to come to the office on the hill, the office where I had my saline sonogram. “We no longer have an office on the Waterfront,” she says.
“That’s great,” I say.
“Uh okay. We’ll see you in a few weeks.”
I suddenly feel light. No Audrey Hepburn! No trolley ride to the gorgeous glass building by the water that has been our undoing the last 2 times. I dial Mr. Crud. “I made the appointment. We go to the hill this time. No Center for Sadness and Disappointment!”
“What’s going on? You sound so happy.”
“I didn’t realize how much I’d been dreading going back there.”
I feel like we are breaking patterns and taking names. I google pityriasis rosea and miscarriage one more time, but quickly close the window. Time to revel in this tiny slice of joy. I’ll take it where I can get it.
Last week I start writing this post in my head as I chase my 3-year-old nephew and 6-year-old niece around the Crud household. I marvel at their energy, their mercurial emotional life (from dancing to hysterical weeping in less than 6 seconds), and their general awesomeness. I also marvel that any mother could remain sane during a second pregnancy with a young ‘un scampering about the house demanding orange juice and yogurt. Kudos to you, ladies. I think that our plan to stop at one—G-d willing—is a wise choice because I can’t fathom keeping my shit together while feeling nauseous, exhausted and bargaining with a toddler.
Alas, such fun and games are not what this post is about.
Saturday shortly after the departure of the extended Crud family, I notice a bug bite like bump on my belly. And then another one. And another. As I stand naked in front of the mirror ready for my shower I see that they are all over my torso. My gut lurches. Should I be freaking out? I step out of my body and try to reason with myself. Freaking out will do no good. Take a deep breath. Take a shower. Get out and calmly call for a second opinion from Mr. Crud.
I shower. I bargain with myself. Chicken pox? Rubella? Measles? None of these are good for the pregnant. But I already had chicken pox. Oh, but it was a mild case. Maybe I didn’t have it enough. Calm. Stay calm.
I get out of the shower and notice the spots have darkened. Deep breath.
“Hon? Could you come take a look at something?” I call into his office en route to the bedroom.
He jumps up from his seat. “What? Is everything okay?”
Dang. My moderated tone is freaking him out more.
We examine the evidence. Yup, those are surely bumps. They don’t itch. They just are.
“I’d almost understand if they were itchy. Like hives or something.”
Mr. Crud’s face is worry. “You want me to call the doctor?” I ask.
“Please.”
I am lucky. My clinic has hours on Saturday and they can squeeze me in. I felt sheepish while dialing the phone. I imagine myself leaning on the counter, “Well, usually I’m a wait and see kind of gal, but I’m pregnant, you know.” I’d roll my eyes at the ridiculousness of coming to see the doctor mere hours after discovering a rash. But on the phone my voice waivers. “Normally I wouldn’t be so worried, but I’m 8 weeks pregnant.” I leave out the part about the miscarriages. I strive to not be overly TMI unless necessary.
“We’ll see you at noon.” The receptionist says.
I spend the next hour googling and consulting the preg books. Yup, chicken pox would indeed be bad news. There are pregnancy specific rashes, but they usually come on later. Wouldn’t it be just like me to be an exception. I am pretty fucking tired of being exceptional in the pregnancy arena. When will I be able to join the larger percentage? What is the secret code?
I check in at reception while a woman complains that she’s been waiting a half hour. You don’t know the half of it, sister, I think, remembering back to the eternal hour I waited for my first pregnancy test what seems like years ago.
“So this is for a rash?” The receptionist asks. “This isn’t pregnancy-related, correct?”
“Well, sort of. I wouldn’t be in here if I weren’t pregnant,” I say.
“Oh, I’m not sure how to code that.”
I blink. Me neither.
“I’ll let the doctor figure that out,” she says. “They’ll call you when they’re ready.”
In preparation for the appointment, I chugged a glass of water. I learned from my previous experience. I will be ready to pee in a cup this time. I’m starting to feel the fruits of my chugging as I take a seat.
“Kt,” they call me back.
They weigh me. 7 pounds more of me than my last appointment, but most of that is heavy clothes and water, I tell myself. I can’t have gained that much weight in 4 weeks. This is no time to beat myself up about being fat, but I get in a few good blows before being seated in an exam room.
We wait. And wait. The once vague sensation of needing to pee is now quickly becoming an emergency. I try to concentrate on my new book—the very fine Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles—but all I can think about is the bathroom down the hall. Do I risk losing my turn in line by going? What if they need a sample? Please ask me to pee in a cup! I’m ready for my pee cup!
After 30 minutes, the doctor du jour—not Dr. Awesome who has the weekend off—pops his pony-tailed head in. “Just a few more minutes. So sorry about the wait.”
He pops out again. Shit. I should have asked him if I could pee. But wouldn’t that have been an odd way to start out the relationship? Vaguely preschool. I cross my legs. Remember to be thankful that he could see you on such short notice, I tell myself.
Mr. Crud remembers that Dr. Du Jour is the one who gave him his much hated flexible sigmoidoscopy a few months ago.
“He was cool. He joked. He told me it was okay to fart.”
“Maybe you should take your pants off and see if he remembers you.” I say.
We laugh nervously.
Finally the doctor returns with more apologies. “No problem,” I say.
Dr. Du Jour sits down at the computer and pulls up my file. “So you have a rash.”
“Yes,” I say. “I wouldn’t have been so concerned except I’m about 8 weeks pregnant.”
“Congratulations!” His face lights up.
Both Mr. Crud and I look down. We look so glum that he starts to stumble into a question about whether it’s a desired pregnancy and do we need information about our options.
If I wasn’t so busy trying to convince him that yes, we do want this pregnancy, but that it’s a bit complicated, what with the 2 miscarriages in the last year and all, I would burst out laughing. Yes! An elective abortion would be a kind of relief. At least I would get to make the decision this time.
Instead we stumble through our little speech about our year of pregnancy loss. Yeah, we’re okay but nervous, which is why we’re here.
“So let’s take a look.”
I lift up my shirt and show him my spots. He touches them and makes “uh huh” noises and verbal notes to himself “raised areas.” “And you say it doesn’t itch?”
“Nope, not at all, unless I look at it too long.”
“Well, it’s not chicken pox if that’s what you’re worried about.”
I was. I let out a small sigh of relief.
“I think what you have is pityriasis rosea, which you’ll be glad to know carries no risks with pregnancy. But I can’t find a herald patch so I’ll need to get my colleague to confirm.”
Dr. Du Jour steps out.
“Feel better?” I ask.
Mr. Crud nods. “I’m glad we came in.”
Mr. Crud’s PCP returns with Dr. Du Jour for a second opinion on my rash. It’s a regular Mr. Crud medical care reunion up in here. Mr. Crud’s PCP takes a look and concurs with Dr. Du Jour. Pityriasis rosea it is! Neither are 100% sure since my symptoms are not classic but it’s “my story and I’m sticking to it.”
“Because I know you’ll do it at home, let’s google it and see what we can find.” Dr. Du Jour says.
First we find some nasty ass pictures of other sufferers which look nothing like my quaint bug bites. Damn, I hope this isn’t my future. Then he happens upon a recent study that links miscarriage with pityriasis rosea in early pregnancy.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m glad that we found it together though.”
We scan the screen together. In an Italian study of 38 pregnant woman (“Not a very large sample size,” says Mr. Crud), researchers found that women who contract pityriasis rosea in the first 15 weeks of their pregnancy had a 62% higher rate of miscarriage. While Mr. Crud and Dr. Du Jour tease out the actual numbers (“Does that mean 3 women had miscarriages?” the doctors asks.) I tell myself to stay calm. We do our best to rip their study a new one, but conclude that it was a peer reviewed study and might have some validity.
“Well, if you miscarry, they can test for this,” he says.
Uh, thanks? Good? What the fuck?
See what I mean about not knowing all the things to worry about. A weird, non-itchy rash hadn’t even entered my head.
“I’m really sorry,” Dr. Du Jour says. “But there isn’t a treatment. If you develop serious itching or it spreads, give us a call. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, well, I guess there’s not really anything we can do so…” My voice trails off.
We are the last patients to leave the clinic. My overwhelming urge to pee has taken a back seat to this new wrinkle in my pregnancy. I find myself almost wishing for bad news so that the waiting and worrying will be over. Not really. I’d much rather get good news and start buying maternity clothes, but there is something to be said about feeling normal again, not sick and tired and even more emotionally exhausted from attempts to keep oneself from collapsing into tears.
We get home and I beeline for the bathroom. Good thing we waited. Seems I terrified myself into a case of fear-arrhea. Now that would have been REALLY embarrassing. Glad they didn’t ask for a urine sample.
I emerge. “So, we see Dr. Awesome next week for the ultrasound,” I say.
“Okay,” Mr. Crud says and pulls me into a hug.
“Whatever happens we’ll be okay,” I say. This is my new mantra. I’m coming pretty close to convincing myself it’s true.
In other news, I make my appointment for what has historically been the ultrasound of doom. The scheduler tells me to come to the office on the hill, the office where I had my saline sonogram. “We no longer have an office on the Waterfront,” she says.
“That’s great,” I say.
“Uh okay. We’ll see you in a few weeks.”
I suddenly feel light. No Audrey Hepburn! No trolley ride to the gorgeous glass building by the water that has been our undoing the last 2 times. I dial Mr. Crud. “I made the appointment. We go to the hill this time. No Center for Sadness and Disappointment!”
“What’s going on? You sound so happy.”
“I didn’t realize how much I’d been dreading going back there.”
I feel like we are breaking patterns and taking names. I google pityriasis rosea and miscarriage one more time, but quickly close the window. Time to revel in this tiny slice of joy. I’ll take it where I can get it.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Duhhhhhhh
6-16-09
Me tired. This is my third attempt at writing a blog post feeling like my brain is swaddled in bubble wrap. The past two times I wrote notes to myself that make only the vaguest sense to me now and swore that tomorrow, that fine day when the sun will finally come out, I would be infused with both energy and wit. No dice. This fog is in it to win it and I am a mere mouse being tossed about in its mousey paws. (Yes, the fog is also a cat. No mixed metaphor that.)
Yup, still pregnant. Pregnant and too tired to get too worked up about being pregnant. Is that why the first trimester symptoms are such a beat down? To let the worries of what’s going on in there take a back seat to worries about how I’m going to make it through the workday without slumping over my computer in a sudden narcoleptic fit?
Sadly this onslaught of symptoms coincides with the much anticipated visit from JADE, the power quartet of my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew. I’m thrilled to have them here, but wish that I could be my sparkling self instead of this creature who lumbers about the house fantasizing about an 8:00 bedtime. Last night I beat my niece Emma to bed. She’s 6. She read to me from a novelization of Disney hit, Enchanted. In my sleepy state, I almost started bawling at the sweetness of the moment. Just a few years ago, it was I who read a picture book about witches to her. They grow up so fast.
What was I saying again?
New pregnancy developments: Dr. Awesome has given us our referral to the Center for Sadness and Disappointment so I will again be making an appointment for early genetic testing. Again be faced with the Audrey Hepburn ultrasound room. I was too chicken shit to call today. I wonder if our genetic counselor will see our names on her docket and say a silent prayer that she doesn’t have to be the bearer of bad news and boxes of tissues yet again.
Next week I see an acupuncturist who is also a nurse midwife. I don’t know what she can do, but I’ll take all the help I can get. Well, almost all of it. In addition to acupuncture she offered an herbal drink that would support the fetus. I am declining for the time being. I’ll need to confer with Dr. Awesome about that one. Plus I’ve never actually made it to the fetus stage. I’ve been arrested at embryo.
Question of the day: How do women with small children survive the first trimester? My sweet nephew is 3-years-old and a bundle of chaos. Even following him around for 15 minutes tires me out. Props to the pregnant mothers in the house. May you find peace.
And a note of congrats to Jan, my yoga buddy. She gave birth to her healthy son last week. May I follow in her footsteps.
Me tired. This is my third attempt at writing a blog post feeling like my brain is swaddled in bubble wrap. The past two times I wrote notes to myself that make only the vaguest sense to me now and swore that tomorrow, that fine day when the sun will finally come out, I would be infused with both energy and wit. No dice. This fog is in it to win it and I am a mere mouse being tossed about in its mousey paws. (Yes, the fog is also a cat. No mixed metaphor that.)
Yup, still pregnant. Pregnant and too tired to get too worked up about being pregnant. Is that why the first trimester symptoms are such a beat down? To let the worries of what’s going on in there take a back seat to worries about how I’m going to make it through the workday without slumping over my computer in a sudden narcoleptic fit?
Sadly this onslaught of symptoms coincides with the much anticipated visit from JADE, the power quartet of my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew. I’m thrilled to have them here, but wish that I could be my sparkling self instead of this creature who lumbers about the house fantasizing about an 8:00 bedtime. Last night I beat my niece Emma to bed. She’s 6. She read to me from a novelization of Disney hit, Enchanted. In my sleepy state, I almost started bawling at the sweetness of the moment. Just a few years ago, it was I who read a picture book about witches to her. They grow up so fast.
What was I saying again?
New pregnancy developments: Dr. Awesome has given us our referral to the Center for Sadness and Disappointment so I will again be making an appointment for early genetic testing. Again be faced with the Audrey Hepburn ultrasound room. I was too chicken shit to call today. I wonder if our genetic counselor will see our names on her docket and say a silent prayer that she doesn’t have to be the bearer of bad news and boxes of tissues yet again.
Next week I see an acupuncturist who is also a nurse midwife. I don’t know what she can do, but I’ll take all the help I can get. Well, almost all of it. In addition to acupuncture she offered an herbal drink that would support the fetus. I am declining for the time being. I’ll need to confer with Dr. Awesome about that one. Plus I’ve never actually made it to the fetus stage. I’ve been arrested at embryo.
Question of the day: How do women with small children survive the first trimester? My sweet nephew is 3-years-old and a bundle of chaos. Even following him around for 15 minutes tires me out. Props to the pregnant mothers in the house. May you find peace.
And a note of congrats to Jan, my yoga buddy. She gave birth to her healthy son last week. May I follow in her footsteps.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts
6-8-09
Back during preg #2, I picked up a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting despite the warnings from my doctor and doula that it wasn’t the best of resources. The true title should be What to Freak Out About When You’re Expecting as it contains extensive lists of all the things that could go wrong along. Not to mention the hyperventilating tone. (More exclamation points per paragraph than notes from my niece who is enamored of this most charismatic of quotation marks.) And the condescension. But such is the way of pregnancy world. A woman has sex, starts growing a being in her uterus and somehow morphs into a kindergartner in the eyes of the pregnancy industrial complex. The situation is improving with the publication of From The Hips and other such resources from the sassy and smart Gen X intelligentsia. But those books aren’t as detailed as the classic.
The hip, blue-jeaned woman on the cover beckons. Okay, fine. I’ll just take a quick look at what to expect during week 6. Sore tits: check. Nausea: yup. Food cravings/aversions: And how! (Though I always have my finger on the pulse of my appetite so I might be exaggerating.) My eyes drift to a sidebar “Stay positive!” Women who remain positive during their pregnancies have easier labors and fewer pre-term labors. Well, good for them. All the entreaties to stay optimistic are the fingernails-on-chalkboard of my subsequent pregnancies. I wouldn’t say that I’m all doom and gloom, but I’m certainly not bouncing around, spreading the news of my pregnancy far and wide, and plastering a smile on my face. Now that sounds stressful.
Mom and I are having our weekly chat. She asks how I’m feeling.
“Oh you know, a little sick, very tired, but on the whole I’m okay.”
“I hope you’re feeling better by the time I get there,” she says.
“I’m just hoping that I’m still pregnant by the time you get here.”
“Oh sweetie. Think good thoughts!” she says.
My mom does not appreciate my gallows humor. I try to explain to her that I am staying positive for the most part, but that it’s hard to be blindly positive when I know how things can turn out. When other women tell me of their pregnancies and aren’t aware of my history, I don’t instantly regale them with my story. I smile and congratulate them and envy them their uncomplicated joy. But for those who know, I am honest. Yes, I am thrilled. Seriously. I want it to work out very badly, but I just don’t believe it yet. Talk to me after my ultrasound at week 9. (Thanks for fitting us in before you give birth, Dr. Awesome!)
My yoga pal Jan said that her pregnancy was transformed after her positive ultrasound. I am waiting for similar magic. Not that I mind other people being optimistic. I rationally know that my chances are good, but I’m just not feeling it yet. When you’re on the wrong side of statistics twice in one year, it’s hard to believe that you can get back to the right side. In this case I am so ready to not be special.
Now if I may totally contradict myself. I also feel like I am supposed to be wary when I spread the news like if I were totally thrilled and jumping for joy that my friends would smack a smile on their faces while secretly thinking, “Is she delusional?” I feel like I need to acknowledge that we are in a precarious position. Sometimes I trot out the statistic that 3 miscarriages in a row is extremely rare. To others I just say, “We’re excited, but you know,” and look down at my growing pot -belly. At some point I will want to be balls-out thrilled. Oh probably around month 8 (g-d willing). And then no one will need to entreat me to be positive. I might even glow.
But we’re not there yet.
Random: As I lay in bed, contemplating pregnancy an image of 2 babies popped into my head. Twins? Not bloody likely. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days swearing to G-d that we didn’t use fertility drugs. For the record, we didn’t.
This weekend I devoured Elizabeth McCracken’s excellent An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, a memoir about her first pregnancy, which ended in a stillborn baby, and her second, which ended in a happy, healthy, breathing child. She nails many of my feelings: how I must remind myself over and over again not to assume anything of a pregnant woman’s history lest I judge harshly, and the anguish, the deep, bone-rattling, soul-painful anguish. Probably not the best book to read while pregnant, but I certainly feel less alone.
Back during preg #2, I picked up a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting despite the warnings from my doctor and doula that it wasn’t the best of resources. The true title should be What to Freak Out About When You’re Expecting as it contains extensive lists of all the things that could go wrong along. Not to mention the hyperventilating tone. (More exclamation points per paragraph than notes from my niece who is enamored of this most charismatic of quotation marks.) And the condescension. But such is the way of pregnancy world. A woman has sex, starts growing a being in her uterus and somehow morphs into a kindergartner in the eyes of the pregnancy industrial complex. The situation is improving with the publication of From The Hips and other such resources from the sassy and smart Gen X intelligentsia. But those books aren’t as detailed as the classic.
The hip, blue-jeaned woman on the cover beckons. Okay, fine. I’ll just take a quick look at what to expect during week 6. Sore tits: check. Nausea: yup. Food cravings/aversions: And how! (Though I always have my finger on the pulse of my appetite so I might be exaggerating.) My eyes drift to a sidebar “Stay positive!” Women who remain positive during their pregnancies have easier labors and fewer pre-term labors. Well, good for them. All the entreaties to stay optimistic are the fingernails-on-chalkboard of my subsequent pregnancies. I wouldn’t say that I’m all doom and gloom, but I’m certainly not bouncing around, spreading the news of my pregnancy far and wide, and plastering a smile on my face. Now that sounds stressful.
Mom and I are having our weekly chat. She asks how I’m feeling.
“Oh you know, a little sick, very tired, but on the whole I’m okay.”
“I hope you’re feeling better by the time I get there,” she says.
“I’m just hoping that I’m still pregnant by the time you get here.”
“Oh sweetie. Think good thoughts!” she says.
My mom does not appreciate my gallows humor. I try to explain to her that I am staying positive for the most part, but that it’s hard to be blindly positive when I know how things can turn out. When other women tell me of their pregnancies and aren’t aware of my history, I don’t instantly regale them with my story. I smile and congratulate them and envy them their uncomplicated joy. But for those who know, I am honest. Yes, I am thrilled. Seriously. I want it to work out very badly, but I just don’t believe it yet. Talk to me after my ultrasound at week 9. (Thanks for fitting us in before you give birth, Dr. Awesome!)
My yoga pal Jan said that her pregnancy was transformed after her positive ultrasound. I am waiting for similar magic. Not that I mind other people being optimistic. I rationally know that my chances are good, but I’m just not feeling it yet. When you’re on the wrong side of statistics twice in one year, it’s hard to believe that you can get back to the right side. In this case I am so ready to not be special.
Now if I may totally contradict myself. I also feel like I am supposed to be wary when I spread the news like if I were totally thrilled and jumping for joy that my friends would smack a smile on their faces while secretly thinking, “Is she delusional?” I feel like I need to acknowledge that we are in a precarious position. Sometimes I trot out the statistic that 3 miscarriages in a row is extremely rare. To others I just say, “We’re excited, but you know,” and look down at my growing pot -belly. At some point I will want to be balls-out thrilled. Oh probably around month 8 (g-d willing). And then no one will need to entreat me to be positive. I might even glow.
But we’re not there yet.
Random: As I lay in bed, contemplating pregnancy an image of 2 babies popped into my head. Twins? Not bloody likely. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days swearing to G-d that we didn’t use fertility drugs. For the record, we didn’t.
This weekend I devoured Elizabeth McCracken’s excellent An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, a memoir about her first pregnancy, which ended in a stillborn baby, and her second, which ended in a happy, healthy, breathing child. She nails many of my feelings: how I must remind myself over and over again not to assume anything of a pregnant woman’s history lest I judge harshly, and the anguish, the deep, bone-rattling, soul-painful anguish. Probably not the best book to read while pregnant, but I certainly feel less alone.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Trial Period**
5-26-09
By the end of last week I am convinced that there is no way I’m pregnant. Thursday brought cramps. Friday brought more cramps, but also a bit o’ nausea. I tell myself that my body is imitating pregnancy out of habit. It picked up a few things that it liked during the previous tangles with the knocked up life. Now when I feel hunger pangs, nausea will be their annoying sidekick. At least that’s my theory. Thanks again, body.
By Saturday I’m not so sure. My calendar is marked with one To-do: Period? Since MC #1, I’ve grown all too fond of the question mark. Instead of “End of first trimester” during the reign of Dewey, I added the question mark as insurance. Ditto for the due date. So what have we—we being my body and mind even though I know they are connected because I do yoga and shit-- learned? Nausea and question marks. Miscarriage really is the gift that keeps on giving.
The nausea persists on Saturday. I have a massage appointment with my hopeful-doula-to-be, Kelley. At my last appointment I regaled her with my suspicions.
“I mean I got a negative on my pregnancy test, but I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant,” I said.
She clapped her hands with excitement. “That’s so great.”
This time I return chastened. No special feelings or spidey senses tingling although you can set your calendar by my period. 26 days, baby. And I’m usually woken up by it. My 5:00 scrambles for Advil are legendary in the Crud household. Not today.
I tell Kelley my symptoms.
“Those could mean you’re pregnant or getting your period,” she says.
“Yeah, pretty smart system.”
(Later that day Mr. Crud chimes in with his favorite “Now that’s intelligent design for you!” when I tell him that pregnancy and period symptoms are identical.)
Kelley massages away the thoughts bumping around in my brain and for a blessed 60 minutes I feel relaxed. The cramps stop. I float away not caring one way or the other.
For dinner Mr. Crud calls for fancy tacos, which means Por Que No?!? I heed the call. And order a sangria. I told Kelley that one of the reasons I was holding off on the pee test was my desire to have a few drinks tonight. “That’s totally fine. Especially if it calms you down.” She’s a midwife-in-training so I order my sangria guilt-free.
“Could be the last one,” I say to Mr. Crud.
Instead of going to the party at a friend’s house or the Lady Sov show at the Doug Fir, we stay in. I drink the rest of my bottle of wine and finish off the last couple forbidden cigarettes (yeah, yeah, I know. A week ago I saw a very pregnant woman walking down the street sucking on a cigarette. Instead of mental recriminations, I thought “Wow, that’s brave.” I wanted to follow her and catalogue all the expressions of disgust and snorts of disapproval that she left in her wake.) I had planned on more excitement—a.k.a. drunken party time—had my period arrived, but the waiting game makes me want to stick close to home.
I awake at 3:44 in the morning, mind racing. Fuck, am I pregnant? Shit. What do I do then? What have we done!!!!!????!!!! I go out to the couch, my insomnia cure, and rest there until sleep (and f-ed up dreams) find me. I return to bed. 5:30. Still too early to get up. I contemplate peeing on the stick now, but know that neither I nor Mr. Crud would be able to fall back asleep no matter if it’s a 1 or 2 line kind of morning. I awake for good at 8:00.
“I gotta pee,” I whisper to Mr. Crud.
“Are you going to do the thing?”
“Yep.”
I unwrap the final pee stick and, after re-reading instructions that I can probably recite by heart, I take the test. I set the microwave alarm and busy myself by brushing teeth and putting in my contacts. I avoid looking at the pregnancy test stick like it’s my naked brother. I check on the time. 40 seconds left. I contemplate flossing as further distraction. I let my eyes stray to her honor sitting atop the hot pink EPT box-throne. I spy with my little eye 2 lines. But it’s not official so I look away. Enough time to floss? The alarm: beep beep beep.
It’s official. I’m pregnant. Again. Unlike the first and second times I do not feel the rollercoaster revving up in my guts. Calmly I walk back to the bedroom and kiss Mr. Crud on the cheek.
“So?”
“It’s positive.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
We hold each other tight. I wait for something to come over me: tears or waves of panic, but I feel calm. I choose to enjoy this pregnancy. I choose to be a warrior instead of a victim.
“Bad things can happen at any time. Might as well enjoy it while we can,” I say as much to reassure myself as Mr. Crud.
After breakfast I turn to my old buddy old pals: the internet pregnancy sites. “You just got a positive on a pregnancy test!” they say. I remember that pregnancy websites have a romance with exclamation points and how I hate the forced cheer. They caution me that it may just be too early to have taken the test, that I should wait until a week after a missed period for accurate results. False negatives are far more common than false positives (false positives in fact being very early miscarriages). I try to remember if these cautions were here before or if I just chose to ignore them. As I scroll through websites I’ve read before my heart rate takes it up a notch. I close the open windows on my screen. I can’t read these yet. Too soon.
Sunday—which I mark on my calendar with “Positive test” instead of “Pregnant!”—feels like it lasts 3 days. Mr. Crud and I walk around in a haze, hugging each other, offering weak smiles, cleaning. If all else fails, I will have a clean house.
“It doesn’t feel real,” I say. “I feel like I’m only kinda pregnant.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Mr. Crud says.
We debate telling our families. I go back and forth. Can I handle my mom’s cautious congrats? I should know how to do this by now. I’ve already done it twice.
In the afternoon we Skype with JADE (Mr. Crud’s brother, sister-in-law, and our niece and nephew). Niece Emma swoops in on the monitor camera and growls at us. We growl back. Mr. Crud and his brother discuss the recent end of the Sri Lankan civil war. The elephant in Mr. Crud’s office snorts behind us. JADE exits the camera’s view while Mr. Crud’s brother soothes my nephew’s puzzle demands and Emma runs off to check on dinner. “Should we tell?” he asks.
“Yeah. When the kids are gone.” I say.
“Of course.”
“You tell.” I say.
“You.” He says.
“No you.”
His brother and sister-in-law come back into the frame. Mr. Crud and I look at each other, take a deep breath and he spills the beans. “We got a positive pregnancy test result today.”
Just like I would have done it. “Kt is pregnant!” has become too presumptuous. Just the facts, ma’am. We’re still in kinda-sorta territory,
They raise their arms in a cheer. I suddenly feel bashful. I don’t want to discuss it further or talk about the particulars. I want to talk about their visit to Portland in a few weeks or the lovely weather we’ve been having. Mr. Crud does most of the talking, taking up my slack. I decide to hold off on calling my family. Wait until the trial period is done.
This morning, Tuesday, I call Dr. Awesome’s office for an appointment from my desk at work. Over the weekend I was haunted by nightmares of the bad doctors that would treat me while she is on maternity leave. Plus I feel like I need her to tell me it’s real. The receptionist asks me for the reason for my appointment.
“I think I’m pregnant,” I say.
“You took the test at home?”
“Yes. It was positive.”
“And you want to come in to confirm it?” She asks.
“Yeah. I’ve had miscarriages. I don’t know. I want to see my doctor.” I mumble, eyes on the work horizon. Not quite ready to let my coworkers in on my status.
“Okay, sure. How about Wednesday?”
Tomorrow. Hmmm…
“Do you have anything on Thursday or Friday?”
“No, she’s booked. You could call back later.”
“No, Wednesday is good. Tomorrow.”
I want to tell the receptionist about the trial period, how I’m not sure if this one is going to take, how the others didn’t take but it took me a trimester to discover that, but I keep it to myself for once. She and the other receptionists will know enough about me in time.
I imagine Dr. Awesome’s face, her pulling up my chart on the computer screen. I make my mental list of things to ask: how sweaty is too sweaty in yoga practice? Can I take a fiber supplement to head off pooping problems? I turn on the internet and do my early pregnancy ritual of re-reading all the websites that tell me it’s okay to practice yoga. Again I pray this is the last time I have to do this.
Symptoms: Hello, middle-of-the-night pee breaks
Light nausea when the hunger pangs strike
Ever so slightly bigger boobs (or maybe that’s hopeful augmentation)
This week in Miscarriage Pop Culture: Mr. Crud and I are catching up on our new favorite TV show, Battlestar Galactica. In tonight’s episode, Cylon Number 6 miscarries her baby Liam, the hope for the Cylon future. I totally called it. When she got knocked in the gut during a fight scene and then hyperventilated as her Cylon fellow’s newly returned-from-the-dead wife told her of his infidelity, I looked up at Mr. Crud. “Total miscarriage.” It was a sad scene, but also funny (for us) in a well-that’s-fucking-great way. Still, totally opposed to miscarriage as a plot point. Hollywood and Sci-Fi Channel, take note.
** To my friends who are finding out the big news via blog, I apologize for not telling you personally. I owe you a drink, which I will buy you once I’m not pregnant anymore. Hopefully in 9 months or so. Fingers crossed.
By the end of last week I am convinced that there is no way I’m pregnant. Thursday brought cramps. Friday brought more cramps, but also a bit o’ nausea. I tell myself that my body is imitating pregnancy out of habit. It picked up a few things that it liked during the previous tangles with the knocked up life. Now when I feel hunger pangs, nausea will be their annoying sidekick. At least that’s my theory. Thanks again, body.
By Saturday I’m not so sure. My calendar is marked with one To-do: Period? Since MC #1, I’ve grown all too fond of the question mark. Instead of “End of first trimester” during the reign of Dewey, I added the question mark as insurance. Ditto for the due date. So what have we—we being my body and mind even though I know they are connected because I do yoga and shit-- learned? Nausea and question marks. Miscarriage really is the gift that keeps on giving.
The nausea persists on Saturday. I have a massage appointment with my hopeful-doula-to-be, Kelley. At my last appointment I regaled her with my suspicions.
“I mean I got a negative on my pregnancy test, but I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant,” I said.
She clapped her hands with excitement. “That’s so great.”
This time I return chastened. No special feelings or spidey senses tingling although you can set your calendar by my period. 26 days, baby. And I’m usually woken up by it. My 5:00 scrambles for Advil are legendary in the Crud household. Not today.
I tell Kelley my symptoms.
“Those could mean you’re pregnant or getting your period,” she says.
“Yeah, pretty smart system.”
(Later that day Mr. Crud chimes in with his favorite “Now that’s intelligent design for you!” when I tell him that pregnancy and period symptoms are identical.)
Kelley massages away the thoughts bumping around in my brain and for a blessed 60 minutes I feel relaxed. The cramps stop. I float away not caring one way or the other.
For dinner Mr. Crud calls for fancy tacos, which means Por Que No?!? I heed the call. And order a sangria. I told Kelley that one of the reasons I was holding off on the pee test was my desire to have a few drinks tonight. “That’s totally fine. Especially if it calms you down.” She’s a midwife-in-training so I order my sangria guilt-free.
“Could be the last one,” I say to Mr. Crud.
Instead of going to the party at a friend’s house or the Lady Sov show at the Doug Fir, we stay in. I drink the rest of my bottle of wine and finish off the last couple forbidden cigarettes (yeah, yeah, I know. A week ago I saw a very pregnant woman walking down the street sucking on a cigarette. Instead of mental recriminations, I thought “Wow, that’s brave.” I wanted to follow her and catalogue all the expressions of disgust and snorts of disapproval that she left in her wake.) I had planned on more excitement—a.k.a. drunken party time—had my period arrived, but the waiting game makes me want to stick close to home.
I awake at 3:44 in the morning, mind racing. Fuck, am I pregnant? Shit. What do I do then? What have we done!!!!!????!!!! I go out to the couch, my insomnia cure, and rest there until sleep (and f-ed up dreams) find me. I return to bed. 5:30. Still too early to get up. I contemplate peeing on the stick now, but know that neither I nor Mr. Crud would be able to fall back asleep no matter if it’s a 1 or 2 line kind of morning. I awake for good at 8:00.
“I gotta pee,” I whisper to Mr. Crud.
“Are you going to do the thing?”
“Yep.”
I unwrap the final pee stick and, after re-reading instructions that I can probably recite by heart, I take the test. I set the microwave alarm and busy myself by brushing teeth and putting in my contacts. I avoid looking at the pregnancy test stick like it’s my naked brother. I check on the time. 40 seconds left. I contemplate flossing as further distraction. I let my eyes stray to her honor sitting atop the hot pink EPT box-throne. I spy with my little eye 2 lines. But it’s not official so I look away. Enough time to floss? The alarm: beep beep beep.
It’s official. I’m pregnant. Again. Unlike the first and second times I do not feel the rollercoaster revving up in my guts. Calmly I walk back to the bedroom and kiss Mr. Crud on the cheek.
“So?”
“It’s positive.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
We hold each other tight. I wait for something to come over me: tears or waves of panic, but I feel calm. I choose to enjoy this pregnancy. I choose to be a warrior instead of a victim.
“Bad things can happen at any time. Might as well enjoy it while we can,” I say as much to reassure myself as Mr. Crud.
After breakfast I turn to my old buddy old pals: the internet pregnancy sites. “You just got a positive on a pregnancy test!” they say. I remember that pregnancy websites have a romance with exclamation points and how I hate the forced cheer. They caution me that it may just be too early to have taken the test, that I should wait until a week after a missed period for accurate results. False negatives are far more common than false positives (false positives in fact being very early miscarriages). I try to remember if these cautions were here before or if I just chose to ignore them. As I scroll through websites I’ve read before my heart rate takes it up a notch. I close the open windows on my screen. I can’t read these yet. Too soon.
Sunday—which I mark on my calendar with “Positive test” instead of “Pregnant!”—feels like it lasts 3 days. Mr. Crud and I walk around in a haze, hugging each other, offering weak smiles, cleaning. If all else fails, I will have a clean house.
“It doesn’t feel real,” I say. “I feel like I’m only kinda pregnant.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Mr. Crud says.
We debate telling our families. I go back and forth. Can I handle my mom’s cautious congrats? I should know how to do this by now. I’ve already done it twice.
In the afternoon we Skype with JADE (Mr. Crud’s brother, sister-in-law, and our niece and nephew). Niece Emma swoops in on the monitor camera and growls at us. We growl back. Mr. Crud and his brother discuss the recent end of the Sri Lankan civil war. The elephant in Mr. Crud’s office snorts behind us. JADE exits the camera’s view while Mr. Crud’s brother soothes my nephew’s puzzle demands and Emma runs off to check on dinner. “Should we tell?” he asks.
“Yeah. When the kids are gone.” I say.
“Of course.”
“You tell.” I say.
“You.” He says.
“No you.”
His brother and sister-in-law come back into the frame. Mr. Crud and I look at each other, take a deep breath and he spills the beans. “We got a positive pregnancy test result today.”
Just like I would have done it. “Kt is pregnant!” has become too presumptuous. Just the facts, ma’am. We’re still in kinda-sorta territory,
They raise their arms in a cheer. I suddenly feel bashful. I don’t want to discuss it further or talk about the particulars. I want to talk about their visit to Portland in a few weeks or the lovely weather we’ve been having. Mr. Crud does most of the talking, taking up my slack. I decide to hold off on calling my family. Wait until the trial period is done.
This morning, Tuesday, I call Dr. Awesome’s office for an appointment from my desk at work. Over the weekend I was haunted by nightmares of the bad doctors that would treat me while she is on maternity leave. Plus I feel like I need her to tell me it’s real. The receptionist asks me for the reason for my appointment.
“I think I’m pregnant,” I say.
“You took the test at home?”
“Yes. It was positive.”
“And you want to come in to confirm it?” She asks.
“Yeah. I’ve had miscarriages. I don’t know. I want to see my doctor.” I mumble, eyes on the work horizon. Not quite ready to let my coworkers in on my status.
“Okay, sure. How about Wednesday?”
Tomorrow. Hmmm…
“Do you have anything on Thursday or Friday?”
“No, she’s booked. You could call back later.”
“No, Wednesday is good. Tomorrow.”
I want to tell the receptionist about the trial period, how I’m not sure if this one is going to take, how the others didn’t take but it took me a trimester to discover that, but I keep it to myself for once. She and the other receptionists will know enough about me in time.
I imagine Dr. Awesome’s face, her pulling up my chart on the computer screen. I make my mental list of things to ask: how sweaty is too sweaty in yoga practice? Can I take a fiber supplement to head off pooping problems? I turn on the internet and do my early pregnancy ritual of re-reading all the websites that tell me it’s okay to practice yoga. Again I pray this is the last time I have to do this.
Symptoms: Hello, middle-of-the-night pee breaks
Light nausea when the hunger pangs strike
Ever so slightly bigger boobs (or maybe that’s hopeful augmentation)
This week in Miscarriage Pop Culture: Mr. Crud and I are catching up on our new favorite TV show, Battlestar Galactica. In tonight’s episode, Cylon Number 6 miscarries her baby Liam, the hope for the Cylon future. I totally called it. When she got knocked in the gut during a fight scene and then hyperventilated as her Cylon fellow’s newly returned-from-the-dead wife told her of his infidelity, I looked up at Mr. Crud. “Total miscarriage.” It was a sad scene, but also funny (for us) in a well-that’s-fucking-great way. Still, totally opposed to miscarriage as a plot point. Hollywood and Sci-Fi Channel, take note.
** To my friends who are finding out the big news via blog, I apologize for not telling you personally. I owe you a drink, which I will buy you once I’m not pregnant anymore. Hopefully in 9 months or so. Fingers crossed.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Word to Your Mother's Day
5-11-09
What could be a more wholesome, uncomplicated celebration than Mother’s Day? At least this is what I used to think. Mother’s Day = flowers, cute kid-made cards, champagne brunches (that’s my kinda motherhood), and burnt toast breakfast attempts by tow-headed kindergartners with gap-toothed smiles. Now I’m more in tune to the complications. Mr. Crud is more bummed about it than me. Throughout the day I catch a glum expression on his mug.
“You okay?” I expect it to be an early onset case of the Sundays.
He shrugs. “I don’t know. It just feels weird.”
“That I’m not a mother?”
“Yeah.”
I chalk up my lack of reaction to the holiday as minor denial combined with minor hope. Maybe next year I will be a mother to a real live crying, pooping baby instead of an idea. Wouldn’t that be something.
Per usual, Facebook shakes me out of my denial with the flood of Mother’s Day-related status updates. All the mothers that I know had lovely days with their kids. Precious moments a-plenty. I feel the now-routine dip into contradiction: Good for you. Why not me?
Mr. Crud and I head to yoga class. “Happy Mother’s Day!” says our teacher as a welcome.
I know that she isn’t herself a mother so somehow this greeting feels okay. “And to you,” I say.
I pat Mr. Crud on the back. I hope I’m pregnant by Father’s Day. I already have a complicated enough Father’s Day what with my dad being dead and all.
We find our places among the yogis and wait for class to begin. Our teacher hands out slips of paper with a chant to honor Krishna’s mother. We clap to a beat. We chant. I know that Mr. Crud enjoys the clapping, that he can lose himself in the rhythm. As we clap I think of the other women and men of the world who may not be lost in the lavender-scented wholesomeness: The other wannabe parents like us who struggle with infertility and miscarriage; the parents of dead children with their wounded hearts; the children of incarcerated women, of abusive mothers, of dead, beloved or hated mothers; and simply those people who have complicated relationships with their mothers. I keep clapping. My wishes are for you, my complicated Mother’s Day compatriots, to find peace today. Just a little, whatever you can handle.
After class, Mr. Crud and I walk on sore, warriored-out legs back home. “Mother’s Day isn’t as simple as it seems,” Mr. Crud says.
“My thoughts exactly.”
“I keep wondering what next Mother’s Day will be like,” he says.
“Yeah, me too.” I wonder if we’ll be able to gross out Peabody with the story of how she was conceived on a Mother’s Day a lot like this one. I hope so.
What could be a more wholesome, uncomplicated celebration than Mother’s Day? At least this is what I used to think. Mother’s Day = flowers, cute kid-made cards, champagne brunches (that’s my kinda motherhood), and burnt toast breakfast attempts by tow-headed kindergartners with gap-toothed smiles. Now I’m more in tune to the complications. Mr. Crud is more bummed about it than me. Throughout the day I catch a glum expression on his mug.
“You okay?” I expect it to be an early onset case of the Sundays.
He shrugs. “I don’t know. It just feels weird.”
“That I’m not a mother?”
“Yeah.”
I chalk up my lack of reaction to the holiday as minor denial combined with minor hope. Maybe next year I will be a mother to a real live crying, pooping baby instead of an idea. Wouldn’t that be something.
Per usual, Facebook shakes me out of my denial with the flood of Mother’s Day-related status updates. All the mothers that I know had lovely days with their kids. Precious moments a-plenty. I feel the now-routine dip into contradiction: Good for you. Why not me?
Mr. Crud and I head to yoga class. “Happy Mother’s Day!” says our teacher as a welcome.
I know that she isn’t herself a mother so somehow this greeting feels okay. “And to you,” I say.
I pat Mr. Crud on the back. I hope I’m pregnant by Father’s Day. I already have a complicated enough Father’s Day what with my dad being dead and all.
We find our places among the yogis and wait for class to begin. Our teacher hands out slips of paper with a chant to honor Krishna’s mother. We clap to a beat. We chant. I know that Mr. Crud enjoys the clapping, that he can lose himself in the rhythm. As we clap I think of the other women and men of the world who may not be lost in the lavender-scented wholesomeness: The other wannabe parents like us who struggle with infertility and miscarriage; the parents of dead children with their wounded hearts; the children of incarcerated women, of abusive mothers, of dead, beloved or hated mothers; and simply those people who have complicated relationships with their mothers. I keep clapping. My wishes are for you, my complicated Mother’s Day compatriots, to find peace today. Just a little, whatever you can handle.
After class, Mr. Crud and I walk on sore, warriored-out legs back home. “Mother’s Day isn’t as simple as it seems,” Mr. Crud says.
“My thoughts exactly.”
“I keep wondering what next Mother’s Day will be like,” he says.
“Yeah, me too.” I wonder if we’ll be able to gross out Peabody with the story of how she was conceived on a Mother’s Day a lot like this one. I hope so.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Um...No
4-30-09
(Sorry for the cliff-hanger, folks.)
Saturday I awake with a rollercoaster tingle in my belly. Sure, it’s 2 days before the supposed arrival of my period, but I’ve been feeling all the symptoms: random nausea, weird bursts of energy, and haven’t my boobs been looking a little larger? Plus my dreams were all about Neal Pollack a.k.a. Alternadad. No interesting narrative arc to report. We were just hanging out, palling around, talking yoga and the like. But I associate him with fatherhood, and with this leap of faith that Mr. Crud and I have taken twice so far so this dream is Significant, right? Right? I whisper in Mr. Crud’s ear, “I gotta pee. I’ll be back in a sec,” lest he worry about my disappearance from our lazy Saturday morning in bed.
I walk to the bathroom. Each step is a change of heart: no, I should wait, it’ll just be a waste of pregnancy test. Why the hell not? I spend more on drinks that I don’t finish than I did for the pee stick. Nah, this is silly. Just wait. 2 more days. You can wait.
Even though I’m not sure I am knocked up, I’ve been acting like a preg. Friday I skipped the sauna and my weekly martini. All week I loaded up on sushi in preparation for a possible sushi drought. I even used my possible pregnancy as a bargaining chip for the last piece of Gonzo Roll, the favorite roll of Mr. Crud and I that is cut into 5 pieces, which necessitates an alternating extra piece rule.
“This may be the last time I can have this for a long time,” I say to Mr. Crud over our weekly Thursday night sushi binge.
He looks at me skeptically. “Maybe.”
“If I’m wrong, I’ll give up my Gonzo rights for 2 weeks,” I say.
“Deal.”
In the bathroom I skim the side of the EPT box: detects pregnancy in 93 % of women 2 days before their period begins. Good enough.
I do the test like I’ve done before. As I wait the 3 minutes for the results, I realize that I’ve never gotten a negative result on a pregnancy test. Always 2 lines for me. I steal a glance at the stick. One line. The other one isn’t even faint. I zip back to check the microwave. 30 seconds until the results. My gut sinks. Negative. The microwave beeps. I pick up the stick and face the result window. Negative.
“Oh well,” I say and head back to bed.
Mr. Crud mumbles, “What took so long?”
“I took a pregnancy test,” I say.
“And?” He perks up a little.
“Negative.”
“I don’t even know how I feel about that.”
“Me neither.”
The cramps on Sunday and blood-streaked toilet paper on Monday confirm it. Not pregnant. Negative. All my inklings and stories were not intuition, just imagination. For the first time in the history of the Crud’s pregnancy attempts, we have not gotten pregnant our first month of trying. I tell myself that this is good. We are breaking the cycle of immediate impregnation and miscarriage. This time will be different. Third time is the charm.
“I feel both sad and relieved,” Mr. Crud says. “Is that weird?”
“Nope, that’s about how I feel.”
While I plot my week of pregnancy-less life—totally taking a Vicodin tonight, I think—I wonder if maybe my body has finally learned to tell the difference between a good egg and a bad one. Our timing was on. I felt ovulation cramps shortly after we, uh, you know. Maybe just maybe my uterus has learned discernment. (See, I knew that some part of my body was learning something from all that yoga.) For lack of finding any scientific reason for the miscarriages, I find myself tunneling deeper into superstition. I write and rewrite the story of conception, of the baby that I envision us holding one day.
Last night I tell Mr. Crud of my future fantasy that my niece Emma will one day come visit us all by herself. (No offense intended JADE, I just had this vision of Emma and me going about town on a niece-auntie mission for chocolate and costume jewelry.)
“By that time we might have a Peabody of our own,” he says. “That’ll change things.”
“If we don’t have a Peabody by then, then we’ll probably never have one,” I say.
“Yeah,” Mr. Crud says. “If that happens then we’ll have our house full of mangy cats.”
“And our well-groomed dog.”
Plan B is becoming the crazy cat and dog couple. For some reason the idea of having a lot of cats that we don’t treat well and a dog that we do cracks us up. Such is what passes for humor in Miscarriage World.
(Sorry for the cliff-hanger, folks.)
Saturday I awake with a rollercoaster tingle in my belly. Sure, it’s 2 days before the supposed arrival of my period, but I’ve been feeling all the symptoms: random nausea, weird bursts of energy, and haven’t my boobs been looking a little larger? Plus my dreams were all about Neal Pollack a.k.a. Alternadad. No interesting narrative arc to report. We were just hanging out, palling around, talking yoga and the like. But I associate him with fatherhood, and with this leap of faith that Mr. Crud and I have taken twice so far so this dream is Significant, right? Right? I whisper in Mr. Crud’s ear, “I gotta pee. I’ll be back in a sec,” lest he worry about my disappearance from our lazy Saturday morning in bed.
I walk to the bathroom. Each step is a change of heart: no, I should wait, it’ll just be a waste of pregnancy test. Why the hell not? I spend more on drinks that I don’t finish than I did for the pee stick. Nah, this is silly. Just wait. 2 more days. You can wait.
Even though I’m not sure I am knocked up, I’ve been acting like a preg. Friday I skipped the sauna and my weekly martini. All week I loaded up on sushi in preparation for a possible sushi drought. I even used my possible pregnancy as a bargaining chip for the last piece of Gonzo Roll, the favorite roll of Mr. Crud and I that is cut into 5 pieces, which necessitates an alternating extra piece rule.
“This may be the last time I can have this for a long time,” I say to Mr. Crud over our weekly Thursday night sushi binge.
He looks at me skeptically. “Maybe.”
“If I’m wrong, I’ll give up my Gonzo rights for 2 weeks,” I say.
“Deal.”
In the bathroom I skim the side of the EPT box: detects pregnancy in 93 % of women 2 days before their period begins. Good enough.
I do the test like I’ve done before. As I wait the 3 minutes for the results, I realize that I’ve never gotten a negative result on a pregnancy test. Always 2 lines for me. I steal a glance at the stick. One line. The other one isn’t even faint. I zip back to check the microwave. 30 seconds until the results. My gut sinks. Negative. The microwave beeps. I pick up the stick and face the result window. Negative.
“Oh well,” I say and head back to bed.
Mr. Crud mumbles, “What took so long?”
“I took a pregnancy test,” I say.
“And?” He perks up a little.
“Negative.”
“I don’t even know how I feel about that.”
“Me neither.”
The cramps on Sunday and blood-streaked toilet paper on Monday confirm it. Not pregnant. Negative. All my inklings and stories were not intuition, just imagination. For the first time in the history of the Crud’s pregnancy attempts, we have not gotten pregnant our first month of trying. I tell myself that this is good. We are breaking the cycle of immediate impregnation and miscarriage. This time will be different. Third time is the charm.
“I feel both sad and relieved,” Mr. Crud says. “Is that weird?”
“Nope, that’s about how I feel.”
While I plot my week of pregnancy-less life—totally taking a Vicodin tonight, I think—I wonder if maybe my body has finally learned to tell the difference between a good egg and a bad one. Our timing was on. I felt ovulation cramps shortly after we, uh, you know. Maybe just maybe my uterus has learned discernment. (See, I knew that some part of my body was learning something from all that yoga.) For lack of finding any scientific reason for the miscarriages, I find myself tunneling deeper into superstition. I write and rewrite the story of conception, of the baby that I envision us holding one day.
Last night I tell Mr. Crud of my future fantasy that my niece Emma will one day come visit us all by herself. (No offense intended JADE, I just had this vision of Emma and me going about town on a niece-auntie mission for chocolate and costume jewelry.)
“By that time we might have a Peabody of our own,” he says. “That’ll change things.”
“If we don’t have a Peabody by then, then we’ll probably never have one,” I say.
“Yeah,” Mr. Crud says. “If that happens then we’ll have our house full of mangy cats.”
“And our well-groomed dog.”
Plan B is becoming the crazy cat and dog couple. For some reason the idea of having a lot of cats that we don’t treat well and a dog that we do cracks us up. Such is what passes for humor in Miscarriage World.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
April Fools and Anniversaries
4-2-09
How does one mark the one-year anniversary of their initiation into Miscarriage World? I got my period, which seems pretty bloody appropriate (pun very intended and also protesting its use in the previous sentence). I thanked G-d that I wasn’t in the same place I was a year ago—devastated and terrified that I would die during my D & C. While smoking my first cigarette since my positive pregnancy test, I felt gripped by a fear that I was going to die--not just feel like I was dying--the next day. I made the decision that I wanted all my journals burned and told Mr. Crud as much.
“You’re not going to die,” he said.
“But if I do.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
From a year distance—and through the eyes of a D & C veteran—my hysterics seem melodramatic. I don’t view myself harshly. My whole world-view had been upended in the course of a single, sunny afternoon.
Last night after dinner Mr. Crud’s face fell into a frown.
“You thinking about--?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
It had been hard not to think about it since leaving for our annual spring break trip to Florida. The night we arrived I lay in my niece Emma’s bed tossing and turning as images from our previous trip zipped about my brain: Me going through maternity and baby clothes while Mr. Crud packed up the Pack ‘n Play and breast pump accessories. The terrible cold that kept me in bed for most of our visit since I couldn’t take any cold medicine. Even though I could have since my reason for abstaining was actually already deceased. Infuriating. For lack of anything more solid than Mother Nature to direct my anger, I get mad at my poor, dead collection of genetic material, Primo. Why the fuck couldn’t you have just rode the red menstrual tide instead of sticking around and stinking up my uterus with your baby-to-be-that-never-was death? I could have taken cold medicine. I could have tasted the delicious scallop dinner that I couldn’t eat because, lacking the ability to smell and taste due to my horrible cold, the texture was disgusting.
Because I wasn’t pregnant this time around, I popped a Xanax and eventually drifted off to sleep with visions of playing witches with my niece dancing in my head. She did not disappoint. Nor did her little bro, nephew Jonah. The chief recruiters did their job of kicking me back into the baby-making mode. Emma with her Lemony Snicket and Stephin Merritt obsessions (for real now, how cool is that for a 6-year-old?), and Jonah with his Caesar-style conquering of potty training--He came, he saw, he crapped, AND wiped—reminded me that the struggle is worth it. Well, unless it isn’t and the events of the past year repeat themselves and we end up sad, bleeding, and hating the g-ds. But what can you do? Hello, fertility calculators. Good-bye, cigarettes.
How does one mark the one-year anniversary of their initiation into Miscarriage World? I got my period, which seems pretty bloody appropriate (pun very intended and also protesting its use in the previous sentence). I thanked G-d that I wasn’t in the same place I was a year ago—devastated and terrified that I would die during my D & C. While smoking my first cigarette since my positive pregnancy test, I felt gripped by a fear that I was going to die--not just feel like I was dying--the next day. I made the decision that I wanted all my journals burned and told Mr. Crud as much.
“You’re not going to die,” he said.
“But if I do.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
From a year distance—and through the eyes of a D & C veteran—my hysterics seem melodramatic. I don’t view myself harshly. My whole world-view had been upended in the course of a single, sunny afternoon.
Last night after dinner Mr. Crud’s face fell into a frown.
“You thinking about--?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
It had been hard not to think about it since leaving for our annual spring break trip to Florida. The night we arrived I lay in my niece Emma’s bed tossing and turning as images from our previous trip zipped about my brain: Me going through maternity and baby clothes while Mr. Crud packed up the Pack ‘n Play and breast pump accessories. The terrible cold that kept me in bed for most of our visit since I couldn’t take any cold medicine. Even though I could have since my reason for abstaining was actually already deceased. Infuriating. For lack of anything more solid than Mother Nature to direct my anger, I get mad at my poor, dead collection of genetic material, Primo. Why the fuck couldn’t you have just rode the red menstrual tide instead of sticking around and stinking up my uterus with your baby-to-be-that-never-was death? I could have taken cold medicine. I could have tasted the delicious scallop dinner that I couldn’t eat because, lacking the ability to smell and taste due to my horrible cold, the texture was disgusting.
Because I wasn’t pregnant this time around, I popped a Xanax and eventually drifted off to sleep with visions of playing witches with my niece dancing in my head. She did not disappoint. Nor did her little bro, nephew Jonah. The chief recruiters did their job of kicking me back into the baby-making mode. Emma with her Lemony Snicket and Stephin Merritt obsessions (for real now, how cool is that for a 6-year-old?), and Jonah with his Caesar-style conquering of potty training--He came, he saw, he crapped, AND wiped—reminded me that the struggle is worth it. Well, unless it isn’t and the events of the past year repeat themselves and we end up sad, bleeding, and hating the g-ds. But what can you do? Hello, fertility calculators. Good-bye, cigarettes.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Riding a Bummer
3-17-09
Last night as we hunker down for a (hopefully) good night’s sleep, Mr. Crud says, “I’m feeling overwhelmed.”
“Is it like every anxiety you have is coming at you at once?” I ask.
“Yeah, like that.”
This morning I awake with a chip on my shoulder. I don’t want to go to work and deal with whining students. I don’t want to ride my bike through the rain. I don’t want to go to yoga and listen to myself criticize myself for not being thin/strong/skilled enough to get into mayurasana or bakasana B for that matter. I don’t want to make dinner. Whatever malaise infected Mr. Crud spread to me somewhere in our tossing and turning last night.
Get on my bike I do. Ride through rain I will. Talking like Yoda I will stop. I make it to yoga, lock my bike, and head inside to (hopefully) find my way back to feeling fine. Or at least make peace with my discomfort. I stand at the top of my mat in tadasana, hands together in prayer. “Surrender. Ease. Peace. Contentment,” I think. One of my yoga teachers says that we can become our mantras over time. Probably not in the white knuckle state of mind that I’m in right now, but you never know when grace steps in to give you a moment of joy.
I open my eyes and begin. Before I’m even done with my first sun salutation, the thought hits: The one-year anniversary of Primo’s miscarriage is on the horizon. April 1. Oh joy. I think back to my previous spring break trip to Florida. The innocence of packing up hand-me-down maternity clothes and a breast pump, baby clothes and the Pack-and-Play which we’ve since tucked into a corner of our basement. I think of the cards my niece Emma made congratulating me and Mr. Crud (although she wasn’t sure what role he had played in the baby-making enterprise). I remember how sick I was during our last spring break and how I didn’t take any medication lest I harm the unborn baby that was, at that point, already dead. Hmmm…maybe this spring break that I’ve been anticipating and counting down won’t be quite as simple as Cuban food and playing auntie. I worry that my niece, who forgot about my pregnancy, will somehow remember it upon seeing me.
“What happened to your baby, Aunt Kt?” she’ll ask.
“Uh, well, some babies aren’t ready to be born yet so they, uh, decide not to come out.”
I don’t know how honest I’m supposed to be, how much disillusionment a 6-year-old can handle.
In yoga class, I keep breathing and twisting myself into asanas as the miscarriage mist envelops me. I want to go home, bury my head in Mr. Crud’s chest, and cry.
One of my best friends from college sent news of the recent birth of her daughter yesterday. Quickly I replied with congratulations. I am happy for her. And I am sad for me.
How all of this fits into my current lack of desire to attempt pregnancy is unclear. I wanted at least one pregnancy-free vacation this year and my will shall be done in 5 days. At least there is that.
Last night as we hunker down for a (hopefully) good night’s sleep, Mr. Crud says, “I’m feeling overwhelmed.”
“Is it like every anxiety you have is coming at you at once?” I ask.
“Yeah, like that.”
This morning I awake with a chip on my shoulder. I don’t want to go to work and deal with whining students. I don’t want to ride my bike through the rain. I don’t want to go to yoga and listen to myself criticize myself for not being thin/strong/skilled enough to get into mayurasana or bakasana B for that matter. I don’t want to make dinner. Whatever malaise infected Mr. Crud spread to me somewhere in our tossing and turning last night.
Get on my bike I do. Ride through rain I will. Talking like Yoda I will stop. I make it to yoga, lock my bike, and head inside to (hopefully) find my way back to feeling fine. Or at least make peace with my discomfort. I stand at the top of my mat in tadasana, hands together in prayer. “Surrender. Ease. Peace. Contentment,” I think. One of my yoga teachers says that we can become our mantras over time. Probably not in the white knuckle state of mind that I’m in right now, but you never know when grace steps in to give you a moment of joy.
I open my eyes and begin. Before I’m even done with my first sun salutation, the thought hits: The one-year anniversary of Primo’s miscarriage is on the horizon. April 1. Oh joy. I think back to my previous spring break trip to Florida. The innocence of packing up hand-me-down maternity clothes and a breast pump, baby clothes and the Pack-and-Play which we’ve since tucked into a corner of our basement. I think of the cards my niece Emma made congratulating me and Mr. Crud (although she wasn’t sure what role he had played in the baby-making enterprise). I remember how sick I was during our last spring break and how I didn’t take any medication lest I harm the unborn baby that was, at that point, already dead. Hmmm…maybe this spring break that I’ve been anticipating and counting down won’t be quite as simple as Cuban food and playing auntie. I worry that my niece, who forgot about my pregnancy, will somehow remember it upon seeing me.
“What happened to your baby, Aunt Kt?” she’ll ask.
“Uh, well, some babies aren’t ready to be born yet so they, uh, decide not to come out.”
I don’t know how honest I’m supposed to be, how much disillusionment a 6-year-old can handle.
In yoga class, I keep breathing and twisting myself into asanas as the miscarriage mist envelops me. I want to go home, bury my head in Mr. Crud’s chest, and cry.
One of my best friends from college sent news of the recent birth of her daughter yesterday. Quickly I replied with congratulations. I am happy for her. And I am sad for me.
How all of this fits into my current lack of desire to attempt pregnancy is unclear. I wanted at least one pregnancy-free vacation this year and my will shall be done in 5 days. At least there is that.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Fantastic Voyage
2-2-09
As Mr. Crud and I are driving to my latest appointment with the dreaded ultrasound machine I say, “You know, I haven’t even prepared myself for bad news. I’m not worried at all.”
“Can you ever really prepare yourself? Does worrying really prepare you for anything?”
“Nah I guess not.”
Mr. Crud turns the car, our family-perfect Subaru station wagon, onto the curving uphill road that improbably leads to the hospital where I hope to give birth someday. During the recent snow-fueled clusterfuck I frequently thought of the pregnant ladies destined to give birth at OHSU. Were they totally freaking?
“We should aim for a due date not during the winter,” I say. “This hill is outrageous.”
“We got a lot more important things to think about,” he says.
I sense that he’s felt the gravity of this appointment, which I have dubbed my uterus-scape, more than I. This morning I realized that I hadn’t even googled the procedure I was about to undergo. I’m getting soft.
As is our way, we are 25 minutes early for the appointment. We check in, peruse the Sam Adams sex scandal-laden paper and pretend that we aren’t dreading the dark room and the ultrasound screen with its Rorshach blobs.
In the tradition of our past ultrasound appointments, the doctors are running behind. We have some seriously bad ultrasound karma. More Sam Adams. More staring at the backwards baseball-capped guy with the “Ice Ice Baby” ringtone.
Once we get into the examination room and I am half-undressed and raring to go, my pulse rises. “God, I hate ultrasounds.”
“I hear that one good one erases the bad ones,” Mr. Crud says.
I raise an eyebrow. “Oh really?”
“Well not erase but fade.”
A perky blonde lab-coated lady does some preliminary ultrasounds, taking pics of my lovely uterus, my charming ovaries, and those devilish fallopian tubes. She says “Sorry” when the wand jammed up my hoo-ha needs to be rotated in weird contortions. I appreciate her care. The most painful part about the procedure is my trapped right leg. I feel like it may spasm and kick her so I concentrate my efforts on keeping it safely in the stirrup. I watch the blobs on the screen until I flashback to my first ultrasounds. I look away. I keep expecting her to read from the ultrasound technician’s script of bad news, “I’m not seeing what I expected. I need to get the doctor.”
She leaves without incident.
“At least there aren’t pictures of Audrey Hepburn and Julia Roberts up in here.” I say.
“Yeah, what IS up with that?” Mr. Crud says.
For my next ultrasound in that hated room in the Center for Sadness and Disappointment, I will uncover the mystery of the black-and-white photos of actresses. Bad news or good.
The red-haired, jean-skirted Dr. German—named for her accent, so clever—gives me the rundown of the procedure with all the risks. Perforating the uterus is on this list of risks too. I feel like a grizzled veteran, a stream of cigarette smoke seeping out my nose, “Perforated uterus? Yeah, I know from perforated uteruses.” Basically they’ll be injecting a balloon and a saline solution into my uterus via a catheter. It’s uncomfortable but not painful. If a doctor ever tells you something is going to be painful, run. Or demand good meds.
A second doctor with curly brown hair and a name neither the doctor nor the technician is sure how to pronounce enters the room. She is the HBIC. She shakes my hand and then Mr. Crud’s.
“Is there any way that you could be pregnant?” She asks. “I thought I saw something.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Mr. Crud and I look at each other. If I am pregnant, that sperm had some serious work ahead of it. Or else I am shitty at counting.
“When was your last period?”
I rattle off the date. I’ve grown accustomed to keeping track of my LMP. Guess-timation will no longer do.
“Okay, probably just a cyst then.” Dr. HBIC says. “Ready?”
Dang, another missed opportunity for an immaculate conception joke.
The room remains dark as the doctors and Ms. LabCoat crowd around my nether regions and inject the balloon and saline. Dr. German aims a flashlight between my legs and I so want to make a spelunking joke, but I resist. The urge to be inappropriate in these situations is so strong. I bite my tongue and stare at the ceiling, waiting for the next visit from the discomfort fairy. I don’t wait long. I feel a pinch inside me and then cramps.
Mr. Crud holds my hand. I listen to the doctors and try to decipher what their words mean, what the spaces between the words mean. Does “move to the right?” actually mean “something is totally fucked over there on the right. Shit, she doesn’t even have an ovary left.” Again I turn to the screen and try to make something familiar out of gray blobs. If someone had pointed at one of the blobs and told me it was a heartbeat, I would have nodded in agreement. Of course. I’ve never seen an ultrasound of my own that resembled anything but a bean. They inflate and deflate the balloon. Snap pictures. The cramping comes and goes.
Dr. German asks if I am hurting. “No, it’s okay. I’ve experienced much worse.”
Dr. HBIC looks me in the eye. “I know.”
I almost tear up at that. I feel that she does know, that she has read my story and understood it. I’m glad that I have dropped the cheery good patient façade for a moment of understanding.
Dr. HBIC removes the wand from my lady parts. She points to one of the square photos on the screen. “That’s your uterus. If there was a septum, it would be here.” She draws a pen along the center of the black blob. “But there isn’t.”
Mr. Crud and I exchange a glance before turning back to the screen. “Everything looks fine,” she says. “Your anatomy does not explain your loss.”
“That’s good, right?” I ask.
“I think it is. Sometimes we find things that aren’t so easy to correct.”
Mr. Crud asks a few more questions, logistical ones about if she’ll be doing anymore analysis, when we’ll hear more news. I feel relieved and glad that I didn’t waste any time fretting over this appointment.
Dr. HBIC leaves us with a smile and handshake. “Good luck.”
Dr. German pauses at the foot of the gurney. “On a personal note, this happened to me and I now have two beautiful daughters.”
I tear up again as I do whenever I meet a sister-visitor to miscarriage world. Words get caught in my throat. “Thank you for telling me,” I say.
“It’s happened to a friend of mine. She has children now too. Just relax. It will be okay,” she says.
I feel like I want to say either too much or too little. Ask for every detail of her miscarriages or pull myself into a tight ball and mutter thank you. I thank her again. The perky technician closes the door behind Dr. German as they exit.
“Wow. That was really cool of her to share that.” I say, pulling on my pants.
On our way out the technician wishes us luck. My uterus is officially not funky. I feel ready to tackle the remaining tests so we head down to the Center for Sadness and Disappointment. I talk Superbowl with the phlebotomist while he fills at least 10 vials with my blood.
As Mr. Crud and I navigate through rush hour traffic, I feel my confidence returning again. It will work this time. I know it. But how do I know it and is that part that knows it the same part that detected nothing wrong the first two times?
The not-so-fantastic voyage continues.
As Mr. Crud and I are driving to my latest appointment with the dreaded ultrasound machine I say, “You know, I haven’t even prepared myself for bad news. I’m not worried at all.”
“Can you ever really prepare yourself? Does worrying really prepare you for anything?”
“Nah I guess not.”
Mr. Crud turns the car, our family-perfect Subaru station wagon, onto the curving uphill road that improbably leads to the hospital where I hope to give birth someday. During the recent snow-fueled clusterfuck I frequently thought of the pregnant ladies destined to give birth at OHSU. Were they totally freaking?
“We should aim for a due date not during the winter,” I say. “This hill is outrageous.”
“We got a lot more important things to think about,” he says.
I sense that he’s felt the gravity of this appointment, which I have dubbed my uterus-scape, more than I. This morning I realized that I hadn’t even googled the procedure I was about to undergo. I’m getting soft.
As is our way, we are 25 minutes early for the appointment. We check in, peruse the Sam Adams sex scandal-laden paper and pretend that we aren’t dreading the dark room and the ultrasound screen with its Rorshach blobs.
In the tradition of our past ultrasound appointments, the doctors are running behind. We have some seriously bad ultrasound karma. More Sam Adams. More staring at the backwards baseball-capped guy with the “Ice Ice Baby” ringtone.
Once we get into the examination room and I am half-undressed and raring to go, my pulse rises. “God, I hate ultrasounds.”
“I hear that one good one erases the bad ones,” Mr. Crud says.
I raise an eyebrow. “Oh really?”
“Well not erase but fade.”
A perky blonde lab-coated lady does some preliminary ultrasounds, taking pics of my lovely uterus, my charming ovaries, and those devilish fallopian tubes. She says “Sorry” when the wand jammed up my hoo-ha needs to be rotated in weird contortions. I appreciate her care. The most painful part about the procedure is my trapped right leg. I feel like it may spasm and kick her so I concentrate my efforts on keeping it safely in the stirrup. I watch the blobs on the screen until I flashback to my first ultrasounds. I look away. I keep expecting her to read from the ultrasound technician’s script of bad news, “I’m not seeing what I expected. I need to get the doctor.”
She leaves without incident.
“At least there aren’t pictures of Audrey Hepburn and Julia Roberts up in here.” I say.
“Yeah, what IS up with that?” Mr. Crud says.
For my next ultrasound in that hated room in the Center for Sadness and Disappointment, I will uncover the mystery of the black-and-white photos of actresses. Bad news or good.
The red-haired, jean-skirted Dr. German—named for her accent, so clever—gives me the rundown of the procedure with all the risks. Perforating the uterus is on this list of risks too. I feel like a grizzled veteran, a stream of cigarette smoke seeping out my nose, “Perforated uterus? Yeah, I know from perforated uteruses.” Basically they’ll be injecting a balloon and a saline solution into my uterus via a catheter. It’s uncomfortable but not painful. If a doctor ever tells you something is going to be painful, run. Or demand good meds.
A second doctor with curly brown hair and a name neither the doctor nor the technician is sure how to pronounce enters the room. She is the HBIC. She shakes my hand and then Mr. Crud’s.
“Is there any way that you could be pregnant?” She asks. “I thought I saw something.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Mr. Crud and I look at each other. If I am pregnant, that sperm had some serious work ahead of it. Or else I am shitty at counting.
“When was your last period?”
I rattle off the date. I’ve grown accustomed to keeping track of my LMP. Guess-timation will no longer do.
“Okay, probably just a cyst then.” Dr. HBIC says. “Ready?”
Dang, another missed opportunity for an immaculate conception joke.
The room remains dark as the doctors and Ms. LabCoat crowd around my nether regions and inject the balloon and saline. Dr. German aims a flashlight between my legs and I so want to make a spelunking joke, but I resist. The urge to be inappropriate in these situations is so strong. I bite my tongue and stare at the ceiling, waiting for the next visit from the discomfort fairy. I don’t wait long. I feel a pinch inside me and then cramps.
Mr. Crud holds my hand. I listen to the doctors and try to decipher what their words mean, what the spaces between the words mean. Does “move to the right?” actually mean “something is totally fucked over there on the right. Shit, she doesn’t even have an ovary left.” Again I turn to the screen and try to make something familiar out of gray blobs. If someone had pointed at one of the blobs and told me it was a heartbeat, I would have nodded in agreement. Of course. I’ve never seen an ultrasound of my own that resembled anything but a bean. They inflate and deflate the balloon. Snap pictures. The cramping comes and goes.
Dr. German asks if I am hurting. “No, it’s okay. I’ve experienced much worse.”
Dr. HBIC looks me in the eye. “I know.”
I almost tear up at that. I feel that she does know, that she has read my story and understood it. I’m glad that I have dropped the cheery good patient façade for a moment of understanding.
Dr. HBIC removes the wand from my lady parts. She points to one of the square photos on the screen. “That’s your uterus. If there was a septum, it would be here.” She draws a pen along the center of the black blob. “But there isn’t.”
Mr. Crud and I exchange a glance before turning back to the screen. “Everything looks fine,” she says. “Your anatomy does not explain your loss.”
“That’s good, right?” I ask.
“I think it is. Sometimes we find things that aren’t so easy to correct.”
Mr. Crud asks a few more questions, logistical ones about if she’ll be doing anymore analysis, when we’ll hear more news. I feel relieved and glad that I didn’t waste any time fretting over this appointment.
Dr. HBIC leaves us with a smile and handshake. “Good luck.”
Dr. German pauses at the foot of the gurney. “On a personal note, this happened to me and I now have two beautiful daughters.”
I tear up again as I do whenever I meet a sister-visitor to miscarriage world. Words get caught in my throat. “Thank you for telling me,” I say.
“It’s happened to a friend of mine. She has children now too. Just relax. It will be okay,” she says.
I feel like I want to say either too much or too little. Ask for every detail of her miscarriages or pull myself into a tight ball and mutter thank you. I thank her again. The perky technician closes the door behind Dr. German as they exit.
“Wow. That was really cool of her to share that.” I say, pulling on my pants.
On our way out the technician wishes us luck. My uterus is officially not funky. I feel ready to tackle the remaining tests so we head down to the Center for Sadness and Disappointment. I talk Superbowl with the phlebotomist while he fills at least 10 vials with my blood.
As Mr. Crud and I navigate through rush hour traffic, I feel my confidence returning again. It will work this time. I know it. But how do I know it and is that part that knows it the same part that detected nothing wrong the first two times?
The not-so-fantastic voyage continues.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Practice Makes Perfect
1-22-2009
I curl over the toilet seat for the third time in as many hours. 4:30 a.m. I am supposed to be sleeping. It is Mr. Crud’s birthday. We are supposed to be celebrating with meals at our favorite restaurants, martinis (for me), gin and tonics (for him), and all around good cheer. Instead I am puking my guts out and cursing shellfish.
I am dying.
I better lose some fucking weight if I don’t die.
I’m glad I’m not pregnant for this barf-storm.
I wonder if breastfeeding women must stop if they come down with the flu or, as in my case, food poisoning. Can the toxins be transmitted to the infant via breastmilk? I have my next random question for my doctor when I hear back from her.
Mr. Crud and I have decided to ditch the genetic tests for now and go with the ones recommended by Dr. Awesome: thyroid, thrombosis, and the saline sonogram. The sonogram will be a more detailed look at my uterus, a uterus-scape in fact, to see if I have any stray membranes that might have suckered an egg into attaching to it although it doesn’t have adequate blood flow. I look forward to regaling my visiting in-laws with tales of my uterus. I am the dark artist daughter-in-law. Also the potty-mouthed daughter-in-law as evidenced by my mother-in-law’s reluctance to speak of the copy of my zine I once gave her. I have a rep to uphold.
My plan to get blood drawn the next workday hits a snag thanks to the revenge of the paella that Mr. Crud and I are suffering. No matter. Throwing up the entirety of my being hasn’t left me feeling very sexy. Or in the mood to do something that will make me nauseous 24-7. We are recovering from our bout with food poisoning but still wary of food. I call Mr. Crud to make dinner plans.
“Let’s play it by ear. Like when you were pregnant,” he says.
“Guess we should start practicing.”
The post-food poisoning nausea is different from pregnancy nausea. When I was pregnant I felt like my gag reflex was on high alert. The slightest whiff of burnt beef from Chipotle sent me reeling. My current nausea flavor is more subtle, more of a burning in the gut.
My personal night of living vomit had me wondering if maybe, maybe, I could be pregnant, if this was a sign of things to come. (Dehydration has been known to play games with ones sanity.) Yoga buddy Jan mentioned that her current pregnancy felt different than the miscarried ones. Maybe that period that I got a few days ago was a hoax. That uterus of mine is tricky. She likes to prank.
When Mr. Crud came down with my symptoms, I knew for sure that this was all the fault of some rogue microorganism and not a miracle spermatozoa. I’m waiting for a more complete recovery before the hike down to the Center for Sadness and Disappointment for my blood draw. Mr. Crud is coming with me. At least our return trip won’t involve any horrible news. Yet.
I curl over the toilet seat for the third time in as many hours. 4:30 a.m. I am supposed to be sleeping. It is Mr. Crud’s birthday. We are supposed to be celebrating with meals at our favorite restaurants, martinis (for me), gin and tonics (for him), and all around good cheer. Instead I am puking my guts out and cursing shellfish.
I am dying.
I better lose some fucking weight if I don’t die.
I’m glad I’m not pregnant for this barf-storm.
I wonder if breastfeeding women must stop if they come down with the flu or, as in my case, food poisoning. Can the toxins be transmitted to the infant via breastmilk? I have my next random question for my doctor when I hear back from her.
Mr. Crud and I have decided to ditch the genetic tests for now and go with the ones recommended by Dr. Awesome: thyroid, thrombosis, and the saline sonogram. The sonogram will be a more detailed look at my uterus, a uterus-scape in fact, to see if I have any stray membranes that might have suckered an egg into attaching to it although it doesn’t have adequate blood flow. I look forward to regaling my visiting in-laws with tales of my uterus. I am the dark artist daughter-in-law. Also the potty-mouthed daughter-in-law as evidenced by my mother-in-law’s reluctance to speak of the copy of my zine I once gave her. I have a rep to uphold.
My plan to get blood drawn the next workday hits a snag thanks to the revenge of the paella that Mr. Crud and I are suffering. No matter. Throwing up the entirety of my being hasn’t left me feeling very sexy. Or in the mood to do something that will make me nauseous 24-7. We are recovering from our bout with food poisoning but still wary of food. I call Mr. Crud to make dinner plans.
“Let’s play it by ear. Like when you were pregnant,” he says.
“Guess we should start practicing.”
The post-food poisoning nausea is different from pregnancy nausea. When I was pregnant I felt like my gag reflex was on high alert. The slightest whiff of burnt beef from Chipotle sent me reeling. My current nausea flavor is more subtle, more of a burning in the gut.
My personal night of living vomit had me wondering if maybe, maybe, I could be pregnant, if this was a sign of things to come. (Dehydration has been known to play games with ones sanity.) Yoga buddy Jan mentioned that her current pregnancy felt different than the miscarried ones. Maybe that period that I got a few days ago was a hoax. That uterus of mine is tricky. She likes to prank.
When Mr. Crud came down with my symptoms, I knew for sure that this was all the fault of some rogue microorganism and not a miracle spermatozoa. I’m waiting for a more complete recovery before the hike down to the Center for Sadness and Disappointment for my blood draw. Mr. Crud is coming with me. At least our return trip won’t involve any horrible news. Yet.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Have You Heard the Good News?
Mr. Crud emails his uncle that, unfortunately, he probably won’t be able to procure tickets to the Obama inauguration. Mr. Crud’s Uncle Jon excitedly purchased plane tickets to the nation’s capital and booked a hotel room the night of Obama’s victory. Now he just needs the important tickets, the ones that seemingly everyone (whose head isn’t lodged up their ass) wants. Fat chance. In his “thanks for trying” reply, Uncle Jon mentions that they have a lot going on with Rachel’s due date approaching and all.
Rachel’s due date?
“I can’t believe this,” Mr. Crud says as he emerges from the murky depths of his office a.k.a. “the dungeon.”
“What?”
“Rachel’s pregnant.”
“Oh my G-d!” I look up from the newspaper. “But she’s not married!!”
“Uh, yes she is.” Mr. Crud spares me the “duh” as he reminds me of their wedding. “You know, the martini ice sculpture?”
“Oh yeah, that wedding.” The one where I made multiple trips to the martini ice sculpture. The one where Mr. Crud and I announced to his brother and sister-in-law that we might just start trying for one of those baby thingamajigs in the near future.
“I can’t believe nobody told us,” he says.
“You know your mom. She was probably doing her version of protecting us.”
“Yeah, right,” he snorts.
Like most parents, both of our sets err on the side of keeping potentially upsetting news close to the vest. In high school, I learned that my grandfather had cancer on the way to the hospital to visit him after surgery. Mr. Crud learned that his parents were in the market for a new home after they had purchased a house and sold the one that he’d grown up in. Mr. Crud calls this technique the “Fait Accompli.” We are informed of family news after it’s a done deal.
As a teenager this communication style was one more way that adults were trying to screw me. Now that I’m adult, the Fait Accompli makes me feel like a child. A fragile butterfly instead of a tough-knuckled survivor.
“How do you feel about the whole thing?” Mr. Crud asks.
“You know, the usual, happy and sad and all fucked up.”
After remembering that Rachel is in fact married, I move to the next phase of emotion after learning of a friend or acquaintance or family member’s pregnancy. Why them and not us? My actual, uncensored thought was “Why does that turd—a.k.a. Rachel’s husband—get to be a father and not Mr. Crud?”
Then I grit my teeth and remind myself that I can add a “yet” to that last statement. Mr. Crud isn’t a father YET. I roll my eyes at myself.
I think I’ve entered the teenage years of my miscarriage existence. In short, I’m pissed. Why me? Why in the fuck me? Why twice? Why after two miserable months of nausea and exhaustion? That none of these questions will ever have an answer that I don’t make up to make myself feel better doesn’t keep them from multiplying like those fucking rabbits that seem to have so much luck with the whole birth thing.
All around me, smiling dads-to-be walk hand-in-hand with fecund partners. My old high school buddy updates the Facebook world on the news of her gestating twins. Don’t get me started on the celebrities. Jenna fucking Jameson? Who the fuck do you have to fuck to have a fucking successful pregnancy? I would really like to know.
My yoga friend whose had two miscarriages is pregnant. We email about getting together for coffee to share battle scars, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. She hasn’t told me that she’s pregnant. My yoga teacher let it slip.
“I think she’s at her 11th week now. Out of the woods,” he said with a raised eyebrow.
Not exactly, I think, but I am too flustered too respond. He is the final yoga teacher that I have to tell. When he left for a month-long trip to spread the word of yoga in Japan, I was a dragging pregnant lady. Upon his return today, it’s obvious that I’ve lost my drag, that my belly has not expanded to the size it should be for a 5 months pregnant lady, but he has said nothing all morning.
“Well, I obviously didn’t make it,” I mumble.
Either he didn’t understand me or he ignores my stuttered words. “Yeah, she should be coming back soon.”
“I hope so.” I don’t mind that he didn’t stop to give me a pitying stare, to tell me how sorry he is.
After telling him, I feel a weight lifted. He is the last one. Everyone else in the world who knew of my pregnancy knows that it is no more. The stress of knowing that you’ll have to tell somebody about a miscarriage is great. An albatross around the neck. Next week I am meeting up with old work friends. One knows about MC #1. One knows nothing. I’ve been putting off this meeting for months, wanting to postpone until I have good news to share. A fait accompli with a happy ending.
Rachel’s due date?
“I can’t believe this,” Mr. Crud says as he emerges from the murky depths of his office a.k.a. “the dungeon.”
“What?”
“Rachel’s pregnant.”
“Oh my G-d!” I look up from the newspaper. “But she’s not married!!”
“Uh, yes she is.” Mr. Crud spares me the “duh” as he reminds me of their wedding. “You know, the martini ice sculpture?”
“Oh yeah, that wedding.” The one where I made multiple trips to the martini ice sculpture. The one where Mr. Crud and I announced to his brother and sister-in-law that we might just start trying for one of those baby thingamajigs in the near future.
“I can’t believe nobody told us,” he says.
“You know your mom. She was probably doing her version of protecting us.”
“Yeah, right,” he snorts.
Like most parents, both of our sets err on the side of keeping potentially upsetting news close to the vest. In high school, I learned that my grandfather had cancer on the way to the hospital to visit him after surgery. Mr. Crud learned that his parents were in the market for a new home after they had purchased a house and sold the one that he’d grown up in. Mr. Crud calls this technique the “Fait Accompli.” We are informed of family news after it’s a done deal.
As a teenager this communication style was one more way that adults were trying to screw me. Now that I’m adult, the Fait Accompli makes me feel like a child. A fragile butterfly instead of a tough-knuckled survivor.
“How do you feel about the whole thing?” Mr. Crud asks.
“You know, the usual, happy and sad and all fucked up.”
After remembering that Rachel is in fact married, I move to the next phase of emotion after learning of a friend or acquaintance or family member’s pregnancy. Why them and not us? My actual, uncensored thought was “Why does that turd—a.k.a. Rachel’s husband—get to be a father and not Mr. Crud?”
Then I grit my teeth and remind myself that I can add a “yet” to that last statement. Mr. Crud isn’t a father YET. I roll my eyes at myself.
I think I’ve entered the teenage years of my miscarriage existence. In short, I’m pissed. Why me? Why in the fuck me? Why twice? Why after two miserable months of nausea and exhaustion? That none of these questions will ever have an answer that I don’t make up to make myself feel better doesn’t keep them from multiplying like those fucking rabbits that seem to have so much luck with the whole birth thing.
All around me, smiling dads-to-be walk hand-in-hand with fecund partners. My old high school buddy updates the Facebook world on the news of her gestating twins. Don’t get me started on the celebrities. Jenna fucking Jameson? Who the fuck do you have to fuck to have a fucking successful pregnancy? I would really like to know.
My yoga friend whose had two miscarriages is pregnant. We email about getting together for coffee to share battle scars, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. She hasn’t told me that she’s pregnant. My yoga teacher let it slip.
“I think she’s at her 11th week now. Out of the woods,” he said with a raised eyebrow.
Not exactly, I think, but I am too flustered too respond. He is the final yoga teacher that I have to tell. When he left for a month-long trip to spread the word of yoga in Japan, I was a dragging pregnant lady. Upon his return today, it’s obvious that I’ve lost my drag, that my belly has not expanded to the size it should be for a 5 months pregnant lady, but he has said nothing all morning.
“Well, I obviously didn’t make it,” I mumble.
Either he didn’t understand me or he ignores my stuttered words. “Yeah, she should be coming back soon.”
“I hope so.” I don’t mind that he didn’t stop to give me a pitying stare, to tell me how sorry he is.
After telling him, I feel a weight lifted. He is the last one. Everyone else in the world who knew of my pregnancy knows that it is no more. The stress of knowing that you’ll have to tell somebody about a miscarriage is great. An albatross around the neck. Next week I am meeting up with old work friends. One knows about MC #1. One knows nothing. I’ve been putting off this meeting for months, wanting to postpone until I have good news to share. A fait accompli with a happy ending.
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