The Center of the Universe

Me and the center of my universe

Last week, M and I decided to (finally) take the plunge, and start watching Breaking Bad. (This post might have a few spoilers if you've never heard about the show before, but nothing big.)

Neither of us are generally the sort of person to get caught up in a cultural hype, we geek out about what we geek out about, and there's a lot of overlap for us. But we both feel a bit uncomfortable when everybody we know and everybody they know and everybody else seems to be obsessed with something new. Especially when it comes to TV. We don't want much television, so when we do we sort of want it to count. Well, now that Breaking Bad is of the air, now that it's over and we've distanced ourselves from the popular obsession, we decided it might be fun to watch just an episode and see what we thought.

Of course, we quickly learned it's pretty much impossible to watch the first episode of Breaking Bad and not immediately put on the next.

There's a lot on the show that makes us uncomfortable. Not the murder and drugs and gruesome comedy of errors regarding those things. No, what makes us uncomfortable is scenes like this.





I get a visceral fury whenever Skylar, Walter's wife, talks to Walter about his treatment. It's not about what he wants. It's about what she needs. I understand where she's coming from, sure, but she's going about it all wrong.

She's made up her mind what's going to happen to Walt, and he's going to do what she says because the alternative is to die.

I understand that. I do, I profoundly do. I see myself in Skylar a lot. But where we fundamentally differ is in how we address those same fears and needs. For me, M's cancer was always about him. It has always been about him, and his life, and his needs. I refused to believe he would die, but I tried to make sure he was feeling good about life as he lived it.

Whenever Skylar tries to bully Walter into a different treatment, or into a different doctor, or simply into her way of thinking, it comes across to me as cruel. She doesn't care if Walter's happy, so long as he's alive. Whereas Walter doesn't care if he's alive, so long as he's happy. Or at least, so long as he feels he has some direction and control over his destiny.

M and I watch these scenes snuggled up together on the bed, our hands gripped together and our breath shallow. Because these are real conversations that people really have when they know what they're facing.

I wonder if Brittany Maynard was a Breaking Bad fan.

When Walt's hair fell out during chemo, I wanted to punch Skylar in the face. She couldn't speak. She cried when she saw him bald- exactly as he had predicted. I remembered how I locked down my own feelings when M's hair started falling out and stayed cool, calm, and as relaxed as I could, helping him shave the patchy growth left on his head.

Because, as it seems I forgot in my grief and rage over Ms. Maynard, it's only about one person.

When somebody you love is in pain, is truly ill, you get over yourself and remember who really matters.

It's like this wonderful graph from the LA Times article- "How Not To Say The Wrong Thing."

The idea is the sick person is in the middle, and nobody is allowed to complain them about how their illness affects anyone else. That person can complain, or not, to anybody. All you give, from the outside in, is support.

I might have worried that M would die and I would never see my Happily Ever After with my One True Love, but M never heard that from me. Never. Because it's unfair and unkind. What could he do about it? Stop being sick?

No, M, was the center of the universe. He had to be. His universe was terrifying and it was collapsing. You never put more burdens on the person holding together the center of all existence. You just don't.

Skylar turns it on its head. No matter what Walter tries to do, she is critical. Who the hell wants that kind of person for a support structure?

Watching the show has been fun, so far. Lots of humor, meth related violence, and people saying, "Bitch!" with wild and conflicting inflections.

But we were not expecting to turn into a medical drama. Not hardly. And it's the side of medical dramas we don't particularly want to see. While M was on chemo, we watched House and Scrubs fanatically. We spend a few colder nights of our honeymoon watching Grey's Anatomy. We like the doctor side of things- doctors having fights and drama, and somehow coming out in the end to either cure the patient or to fail.

Watching Walter fall apart as the chemo ruins his body and his family's poorly concealed despair... that's not so much fun.

That's everything we never wanted.

We're still watching the show. Of course we are, it's too damned addictive.

But I have a renewed sympathy for the Maynard family. Actually, I'd like to offer her and her family an apology, for every bit of anger I harbored about her decision.

Nobody has the right, not me, to question Brittany Maynard. For her, she was the center of the universe. I'm so far outside the circles of contact and support, I don't even exist.

Me and the center of the universe

That's what I think I need to remember.

End of the Month Controversy: Obamacare

I love this man.

Sixteen hours after he proposed to me, M awoke in an ambulance, rushing from his company softball game to the emergency room.

What looked initially like a stroke turned out to be a seizure, caused by several masses in his brain.

Six days later, an exploratory surgery told us that those masses were stage four astrocytoma- an incredibly malignant and aggressive brain cancer.

Three days after that, my fight with M's insurance company began. He was on an HMO, and while he had elected into "emergency" coverage, the company wanted to deny any payment for his surgery or cancer treatment.

Because the surgery wasn't an "emergency." And because, once he had the surgery, the cancer became a pre-existing condition.

We were lucky. I'm absolutely bloody terrifying, and I managed to frighten enough HMO representatives that I actually reached a person who could do something, anything, about the $100,000 bills coming in the mail for the surgery alone. That didn't even begin to cover the week he had to spend in the hospital, recovering. In fact, the only way I was able to secure their coverage was to convince M's primary care physician- a man pre-approved by the HMO- to tell his employer that he had been negligent with M's care.

The radiation guide/shield that kept M's head affixed
in the correct location to irradiate his tumors

The fact he was willing to do that still amazes me. I am grateful every day.

So there we were, newly engaged and spending every minute of every day dealing with doctors, insurance companies, and hospital staff. As I waited in lobbies day after day, I read articles in magazines about how many people were beginning to use bankruptcy to cover their cancer treatments.

They continued their treatment, going deeper and deeper into debt, and if they succeeded in saving their lives they lost their savings, their homes, everything.

But really, that seemed like a small price to pay to be alive.

Only it's not. Last month CNBC covered a study- the findings were that the most common cause for personal bankruptcy in the United States is medical debt. "Medical Bankruptcies," they're called.

But back to 2007, when M was fighting for his life.

He was in chemo and radiation, but he could not quit his job. Without his job, he would lose insurance coverage. And the minute he lost coverage, he could never get it again. And so despite the fatigue, the nausea, the pain... despite the frustrations and humiliations of going to work and suffering through seizures, he kept at it. Not because he was so tenacious (although he was), but because he had no choice.

For eighteen months, he went to work through chemotherapy. We only paid hundreds of dollars a month for his medication. Without insurance, his anti-seizure drugs would have run to the hundreds per day.

Each dose of his chemotherapy had a "street value" of more than $30,000. Each dose. That meant that over eighteen months, M's chemo alone would have cost approximately 17.2 million dollars.

And miraculously, he got better. For a whole year, things were stable, until the economy collapsed and M lost his job.

I was pregnant with DD and SI, and I couldn't walk let alone work. We both needed medical coverage- it wasn't optional. So we paid off the outrageous COBRA bills every month on credit cards, going deeper and deeper into debt. We had no choice, it was debt or death. When I rushed into the hospital in the middle of the night, hemorrhaging through a placental abruption. it was crystal clear. Having insurance was mandatory.

Handsome bald devil.

Through the first year of parenthood, M and I watched each session while Congress battled out whether or not they would extend unemployment benefits. And each time they did, I cried with relief. Even when M got a job, they did everything in their power to avoid paying for insurance. We kept shelling out thousands of dollars a month to keep our medical coverage. We tried to find other insurance, cheaper, private insurance. They would cover me and the kids, but not M. Not with his pre-existing conditions. And later, after my melanoma diagnosis, they wouldn't cover me either.

M will always have a pre-existing condition. I will always have a pre-existing condition.

Until Obamacare went into effect, just being a woman WAS a pre-existing condition.

This past week, the GOP in Congress tried for the fortieth time to get rid of Obamacare. It was an empty gesture, but one that spoke volumes.

"We don't care about you at all," they said.

"We, politicians who have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars from insurance company lobbyists- we care more about that than whether you live or die."

"We don't care if you have to lose your home, your savings, everything. It should be WORTH IT just to be alive."

So what are they trying to ban?

Starting on the first of next year, a ban on denial for coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
A healthcare marketplace for people without insurance to find coverage, and subsidies for people like us a few years ago- unemployed and uninsured.
And coverage that must include prevention services- mammograms, prenatal care, the neural pathway test that could have diagnosed M as much as a year earlier.

...so where's the controversy?

The controversy is that everyone wants to make sure that this is paid for. They want to be certain that this isn't going to run the country into the ground. And yes, it is paid for. In fact, it's going to save this country (and individuals) millions to billions of dollars.

But here's the truth- the country is already being run into the ground with medical debt. Not just because of the two million people this year alone who have filed for medical bankruptcy. It's also because people who don't have coverage still get sick, and those sick people flood into publicly funded hospitals, and we as a society are paying for it anyway.

Everyone alive and healthy.

If I didn't have insurance, would I have run into a hospital, 35 weeks pregnant with twins and gushing blood? You're damn right I would have. And the hospital would have treated me, and then had to make up the difference in the $89,000 I wouldn't have been able to pay them.

That's me- one pregnant woman. And five days in the hospital cost me two years of M's gross unemployment. And that is absurd.

The controversy is that the way we buy insurance in this country is ludicrous- we never know what anything costs, what anything is worth. You go to one hospital and they charge you $2,500 for an MRI to find out if cancer is growing in your brain, you go to a different hospital for the same kind of scan in the same month and they charge you $20,000. And there's no way to know until it's happening.

You can't waltz into an ER and say, "I'm shopping for the best deal on emergency care. How much do your ambulance rides run?" or "Does YOUR mammogram come with a complimentary radiologist evaluation, or is that going to be extra?"

It's as far from free-market economy as anything gets.

So now the GOP is going around, trying to scare people away from signing on and getting coverage, now that the Obamacare marketplace is going to open up.

Don't listen.

Instead consider what you have to gain.

Life, AND livelihood.

When cancer, or diabetes, or lupus, or a car accident, or pregnancy strikes- don't tell yourself that it's worth it if you get to stay alive.

You deserve both.



Learn more about the healthcare marketplace here: HealthCare.gov

Katie Couric, You're Not Helping

Yesterday, a woman that I admire and respect was on Katie Couric's talk show. It was kind of surreal to see a real person in the place that the green, black, and white button I usually picture in my head, but Honest Mom was... well... honest. She really impressed me.

Not so Katie Couric.

You see, the conversation was about moms who use drugs or alcohol to be better parents.

And that's where I started getting upset.

Yes, it's important to be a good mom. To be a great mom. But as I've always said, the most important thing that you can do to be a good parent is to be a happy and healthy human being.

Over and over and over again, Katie squeezed in occasional remarks about how "weird" it was that moms drink together, or how hazardous antidepressants can be to natural brain chemistry. Not once did she discuss what it is like to be a human being under constant pressure.

You see, our culture has utterly fetishized motherhood. I've written about it before, here, but it's much deeper than that. In the last decade or so, motherhood has been elevated to heights in our social consciousness that are frankly unreasonable.

Seventy five years ago, child abuse (as we know it today) was incredibly common. It was standard practice- if you were bad, your parents would hit you. And slowly, that has changed.

But when child abuse (as we know it today) was so mundane, the expectations on mothers were entirely different. The mother was part of the economic unit- and that meant work. It meant laundry and dishes and food preparation in a way that we simply don't understand it now, culturally. It meant actually knowing what to do with lye, it meant knowing how to can produce, it meant putting the laundry on the line and taking it down every day, no matter how much snow was on the ground. It meant walking to the market and carrying your food home without a fancy stroller with baskets or cupholders.

And when you have to do all of that, and one of your many children is hampering your progress, stopping you from doing what you need to do, you react as you would if anyone was threatening your domestic peace. Sometimes that meant yelling. Sometimes hitting. But things still needed to be done.

Now, we live in a very different world. It's full of electric dishwashers and clothes dryers and bread machines and two cars in every garage.

And now, we're "enlightened" about child rearing. And we've idealized our grandmothers- fetishized their accomplishments.

And here's the thing, they weren't bad parents. They sometimes hit their children, they left their children home alone- seven year olds in charge of infants- because they had to if they needed to leave the house. They didn't put babies in car seats. Their cars didn't have seat belts at all. they sometimes drank. They sometimes yelled. And they were not bad parents because of this.

There have always been drunks who have kids. There have always been mentally ill people who have kids. And that made them what they'd always been- people. Perhaps flawed, but still. People.

Now, we as mothers have these expectations. We're expected to look like we've never popped out a baby. We're expected to be full time moms- even if we work outside the home, we're expected to be constantly thinking about our kids. We're expected to have jobs- even unpaid, volunteer or temporary jobs- if we ARE full-time stay-at-home moms. We're expected to have Etsy shops, or make all our holiday cards by hand, or constantly be baking, or sewing, or something. We're expected to ensure that our kids are always well groomed, always well behaved. And we're expected to be super-wives as well. Always with dinner ready for our husbands, or to be super-cool about guys-weekend. We're supposed to have our homes decorated appropriately, with different shams for our throw pillows so that they can rotated seasonally to match the shifting and carefully arranged holiday or season specific decorations.

AND we're supposed to have hobbies. Like running, or salsa dancing, or scrap-booking. Hobbies that take time and energy, and give us something to show for it when we're all done.

And then, after all of those expectations, we're told that if we need to relax, we have to do it on our time. That if we're going to have a drink or two, it has to be out of the house, at a restaurant or something, with our friends.

Which means that if we want to relax with a drink, we need to a) pay three times what the alcohol is worth, and b) get a sitter.

In short, we are expected to treat our homes as though we are merely guests in them, as though they are places where we are not entitled to relax and enjoy ourselves. If we need to relax for ten minutes in our own homes, we're supposed to grab a book and read a chapter and a half, and laugh about how long it's been since we took a nice long bath by ourselves.

Because the worst part of the whole thing might be that it's a running joke that moms just want to sit down for five minutes once in a while.

The truth is that having kids isn't like any other endeavor on this planet. The fact is, when you are home with kids you cannot do anything without having your kids around. And you know what? It's exhausting. And it's frustrating.

And sometimes, although we are NEVER supposed to admit it, we just don't feel like we like our kids very much. Love, always, but like?

It's okay for a married person to have a day where they're just sort of pissed off at their spouse. It's expected. Cohabitation is hard. But cohabitation with children is harder.

They need you to do everything for them. Put their cereal in their bowls, clean all their spills, explain to them over and over again why you wear a bra, let them "help" with every chore that interests them.

You spend every waking second interacting with them at their pace. And kids? They set a manic pace. It's constant running from A to B to W and there's no stopping.

Seventy five years ago, if your kids bugged you incessantly while you were trying to make sure that the family was taken care of, you'd probably hit or yell at your kid. It's what people did. Now, when your kids won't let you fulfill all of your constant, varied, and unreasonable expectations, you don't hit them. You don't yell. Instead, you refer to your child-rearing technique of choice, have a conversation about it, breathe deep and remember to communicate with them on their level because they're just children who don't understand the world.

And so, instead of brushing them off and going going going, you slow down and you have yet another emotionally taxing conversation with no logic to it and no sense of direction. And yes, it's amazing. And it keeps you young. And it keeps you laughing because you can't imagine a world where the most logical explanation about why something like a fork isn't scary is, "It doesn't have legs." And so yes, being a mom (or a dad) is incredible.

But it is hard. It is frustrating. And sometimes, you need to do something to change the way you're looking at things.

Sometimes, you need to have a drink. And you know why? Because you've been working 24/7 since the moment your kid was born, and you will never get to stop, and you need to do something that reminds you that you are still in possession of your own being. That you're not a slave, that this is your home. YOUR HOME. That you can do the things that help you relax, AND be a parent at the same time.

Katie talked to women who used Adderall, meth, Prozac, and alcohol. And she very carefully divided them into two categories. Women who legitimately have some sort of problem that permits them some tools, and women who are at risk of having a problem.

If a woman had a job caring for a house full of somebody else's kids, and then went home to their own home, and had a few drinks with some other nannies? No big deal. Because they're not the mom. We, as a society, have elevated the importance of motherhood so high that as soon as you're a mom, you don't get to do the things that help you relax anymore. (There's some great discussion about it in this TED talk.)

Is it so traumatic to a child if a mommy waits until dinner time, when all that's left is bath and bed, and has a drink? Is it so horrible if that mom took a few puffs of marijuana? Is it so bad if she pops a Xanax? No. Because what she's doing is finding a way to let her stress go. To remain a happy, healthy person.

The fact that she's a mom is irrelevant. There have been moms since the dawn of humanity  And none of them have ever been perfect, because all of them are human. But now, now that we've put motherhood on this outrageous pedestal, we all believe we have to be perfect. And we judge each other. And we shame ourselves.

And that is a hell of a lot worse than getting a bit silly when you've been up to your elbows in somebody else's feces all day. Being a little silly can even help you relate to them when you're too wrapped up in your adult responsibilities to remember what is really important in the mind of a child. And they appreciate it. They enjoy playing with you. And sometimes, relaxing involves a little help.

And that's okay, for other people. It's okay if a guy needs a little "liquid courage" when he's introducing himself to people at a company party. It's okay if an adult woman has a beer or two when their friends are celebrating a birthday. It's okay when old friends on vacation sit by the pool drinking margaritas all day for a week.

So long as they don't have kids. So long as their kids aren't there. The minute a child is in sight, somebody must have a problem. Somebody must be making bad choices.

Is it a good thing when the only responsible adults in a child's life are so drunk, or so high, or so sedated, that they can't usher their family to safety if the house burned down? No. That's bad. That's not what most of Katie's guests were doing, though. Even the "drunk" mommy, she realized she'd had too much to drink before driving her kids home, and never drank again.

Is that the lesson to give our kids? That if you make a mistake, and you realize that you've made a mistake, you never get a second chance?  Or do you teach your kids that they can relax, they can socialize with friends, and they can still make good choices?

I remember my parents' parties from when I was a kid. I remember a kiddie pool in the back yard, filled with ice and turned into a cooler for bottles of beer. I remember a dozen Passover seders, my parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents getting sillier as their drank their fourth glasses of wine. I remember my mother, at a backyard party of some friends, having a drink and then breaking her wrist on a pogo stick.

These aren't bad memories. These are memories of responsible adults who behaved responsibly with liquor. My mom wasn't a drunk who went pogoing into traffic. My dad's friend in the gorilla costume wasn't some pedaphile, leering at kids while chugging beer from a kiddie pool. My grandmother wasn't suddenly angry or abusive. They were all adults, acting like adults. Not like they were suddenly the wardens of my innocence, keeping all exposure to the potential hazards of foreign substances at bay.

I don't want to teach my children that their lives have to end when they have kids. That the things they used to do to relax will be forever off limits. Because there are always choices that you can make.

Me? I choose to get a little loose at the end of the day, instead of running a bath and putting myself in a position where I can't see or hear what's going on in the house. Available mommy with a martini shaker is a lot more useful than other-end-of-the-house underwater mommy.

Happy mommy who maybe got a bit silly and LOVES watching Care Bears is a lot more involved and engaged than the mom who just doesn't have the energy to explain for the tenth time in a day why the dirty silverware doesn't get put into the clean drawers.

And is it really so bad if, even once or twice a week, a parent wants to just sit down and not do all that stuff- the cooking and cleaning and crafting and working and phone-tree-ing and school-play-costuming and piano-practice enforcement and yoga and laundry and baking and tweezing and PINNING and just have a freakin' drink?

Why on earth should somebody have to justify themselves to anybody for that?

And Katie Couric, who undoubtedly means well, all she did was point out how very, very, very careful us mommies have to be. Because if we're not careful, we'll be terrible mommies. If we're not legitimately in need of antidepressants or what-have-you, we're walking a slippery slope.

Katie Couric, like so many other talking heads these days, is telling us that now that we're mothers, we have to abandon all our flaws as people. All our pre-parenthood coping mechanisms. From now on, it's not our home. It's their home. We're just maids and cooks inside of these houses, and any freedom must be bought.

Katie, let's have a conversation about motherhood. Let's have a conversation about why women are only referred to as "wives, daughters, and mothers," instead of as "hardworking Americans" or "brave citizens." Let's talk about how mothers are just people, like any other person, and how conversations like this- conversations that make the standard use of anti-depressants or the occasional drink a big freakin' deal because the person in question is a mom- let's talk about how those conversations are hurting us as a culture.

Katie, let's have a conversation about how failing to teach children what responsible use looks like might be the cause of American problems like binge drinking in college, of cataclysmic declines into drug use in teenagers. We might talk about how those sorts of problems only exist in the periphery in countries where alcohol and drugs aren't put on a pedestal until kids don't even know how to comprehend them.

Let's have that conversation. That would be something new.

This? This is just more fuel to the fire.

SI and DD's Birth Story

October 1, 2009

I am happy to say that I am taking part in The Mom Pledge's Birth Story event!  Rather than simply write the girls' birth story as it stands alone, I have divided the tale into two parts- conception and birth.  In the first part, I revisited the sense of judgement that I experienced having used IVF while my husband underwent chemotherapy.  In this part I get down to what we all want to know... how DD and SI came into the world.






My pregnancy was anything but ideal.


I walked into my OB/GYN's office, happily pregnant, and informed the nurse that I was having twins.  My regular GYN already had a full list of pregnant patients, so she couldn't see me.  I was referred to her junior partner.  The junior partner was very, very excited.  She had never delivered twins.  She wanted to schedule my c-section that day.


I left and never looked back.


I went out and researched a local practice that specialized in multiples- every single doctor in the practice had multiples as a specialty.  It's just what they do there.  As a result, the office was a zoo of women like me- pregnant with multiples and trying to see the experts.  I never built anything like a personal relationship with the doctors there.  I was just pregnant lady with twins number eight or twenty seven of the day.


An early subchorrionic hematoma put me on bedrest, and the moment I finally stood up, the symphasis pubis dysfunction (SPD) took over.  It was excruciating.  My OB was completely unconcerned.  I was obviously fine, the babies were obviously fine, if I could do something for the pain, great... but if not, whatever.  Every other time I went in, she asked when I wanted to schedule a c-section.  I always told her I didn't, and she always said, "Great," and that was that.

But I was determined to have a natural delivery.

I started looking for alternatives.

A friend of mine offered to doula for me, and I bothered her nearly daily.  She gave me an impossible to follow diet (vegetarian Brewer diet for twins) that  I tried and tried to accommodate.  I just could not eat that much food.

I went to physical therapy and used moxibustion to help the babies get into position.

I learned to absolutely love acupuncture.

Through the intense rituals of creating familiarity between me and my babies, position wise, I became certain of who was who.  What they were like.  We began to develop a rapport.

But as the months wore on, my doula and my OB and even my chiropractor began trying to make me face facts- I was probably going to need a c-section.

Five months in...

My babies might be healthy and entertaining and awfully cute on ultrasound, but they were stubbornly transverse.

For those of you unfamiliar with the lingo associated with pregnancy and birth, "transverse" means that, rather than being head down (ready to exit as we all hope they will) or breech (butt or feet first), they were laying sideways, on top of each other.

No baby comes out sideways.

I tried.  Oh how I tried.  But I began to make peace with it.  I would have as "natural" a c-section as possible.  I wouldn't schedule one- I would wait to go into labor (probably early) and I would get an epidural, and I would at the very least be conscious for the birth of my children.  I wasn't thrilled, but I was beginning to make peace with it.

And still I tried.  Still I hung out upside down, shone flashlights into my lady bits, burned herbs next to my toes, spent hours and hours on my yoga ball.

I was so determined.  But I had changed my focus a little.

I stopped worrying quite so much about the c-section, and started worrying about pregnancy milestones.  How many weeks before the twins were viable.  How many weeks before the twins would experience no lifelong health issues if they were born prematurely.  How many weeks before they would be likely to just come home with us.

Every other week was a milestone, and  held up the next one in front of me- "Just stay pregnant another two weeks.  In another two weeks, they'll be so much better off..."

This was complicated by the fact that I started feeling that something was wrong.  Something seemed not quite right with DD, and I couldn't exactly put my finger on it.  I insisted on the OB checking it out, and as a result every few days we went in for an non-stress test (NST).  While these are only *supposed* to take an hour, they could never keep both babies on the monitor.  It was our twice-a-week-or-so seven hour long routine.  It was awful.  And every time the end result was that the babies were both fine, that there was nothing to worry about, and that I could continue being pregnant.

But I hated being pregnant.  Oh, how I hated it.  I was in so much pain, my gall bladder was shutting down, I had heartburn peeling enamel off my teeth, I couldn't sleep... I was ready to be done.

I started making really awful jokes about it.  I started shouting at my belly to GET OUT OF THERE!!!!!

And then, after one long evening of making incredibly tasteless jokes and complaining that my children could evacuate my womb any time thankyouverymuch, I went home and went to bed.  That was 11pm.

At 2am, I woke up feeling a gush of warm fluid between my legs.  I was about 99% certain that I hadn't just wet the bed, and I shook M awake.  "I think my water just broke!" I managed to get out.  He practically jumped out of bed in his haste to turn on the light.  I closed my eyes against the glare of it, and heard him say, "The bed is covered in blood..."

It was.  There was so. much. blood.

Blood was dripping off the bed onto the rug on my side.  It was pooling between my legs.

I jumped up and called my OB's emergency after-hours number.  I got a call back two minutes later.  In those two minutes, I had run to the bathroom, and discovered something sticking out- something sort of fleshy but... wrong.  I couldn't feel any fetal movement.  I was desperately trying not to panic.

M was sopping up blood as I took the call, the OB told us to head straight to the hospital, to bypass triage, and that we were going to be admitted directly because they were now waiting for us.  The moment I hung up, the thing came out.  It was bloody and red and fleshy and about the size of my fist.  But it wasn't a baby, and it wasn't a baby part, and so I managed to calm myself enough to rinse the blood off my legs and throw on some clothes for the trip to the hospital.

What was normally a half hour drive took us closer to fifteen.  In that time, I had called my doula, who said would come as soon as she could.  I had called my parents, which was a disaster.  My mom was on ambien and had no idea what I was talking about and couldn't register the urgency in my voice- after all, I wasn't due for weeks.  I called my sister and left utterly panicked messages on her voicemail.  And I sat in the car, trying not to panic.

We got to the hospital and bypassed triage, just as we were supposed to.  But we still needed to wait for our room.  And because we had bypassed triage, they sat us down in the labor and delivery waiting room.

Where at 2:40 in the morning, there was a crowd of ecstatic grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews to-be.  It was full of balloons, and flowers, and... happiness.

And we sat there for a few minutes.  Me, bleeding into a maxi pad, M holding me, trying to separate whatever was happening to us from the joy in that room.  Because we just didn't know what was happening, or what the outcome would be.

After about ten minutes, I couldn't take anymore.  I left the waiting room and demanded that we be allowed to wait somewhere else.  The lady at the L&D waiting room desk was less than helpful.  She eventually agreed we could just stand in front of her desk while we waited.  She wouldn't even offer me a chair.

Finally, we went into our room.  I was quickly hooked up to all sorts of monitors and an IV, and for the first time ever the nurses had no difficulty at all in locating both babies, and seeing that both of them were just fine.  Normal heart rates.  No signs of distress.

The OB (the one on call, not my regular OB) explained that they had no idea where the blood was coming from, but that as long as I wasn't having contractions (I wasn't) and the babies were fine, I would just be staying there.

...that it might be as long as a few weeks.

Me?  I had just had the most self controlled full blown panic attack of my life.  It had been six hours since I'd eaten.  My blood sugar was crashing.  In my relief and the expectation that I was now moving into the hospital, I asked if I could have something to eat.

They told me... no.

No, because I might have to have a c-section at any minute.

But, I thought, I might be here for weeks.  Am I not supposed to eat anything the entire time?

Eventually, once they knew what was going on, they said, I could eat.

Until then, no food.  No drinks.  Nothing.

So the waiting began.  Hours passed.  I was starving.  "Can I eat now?  Can I just have some orange juice?  Anything?"  I asked them over and over and over again.  Nothing.

As my blood sugar continued to plummet, I started having contractions.  Excruciating contractions.  Nothing like what I had anticipated, but that didn't matter.  When I'm having a blood sugar crash, everything is the worst that it has ever been.

I was desperate.  I knew that if I could just eat something I would be fine.  But they wouldn't let me.

I finally asked for something for the pain.  It was what they had been waiting for.

"If you're in that much pain, we need to get those babies out.  Now."

I wasn't ready.  They weren't ready.  I tried not to cry.  I was exactly 35 weeks pregnant.  I had one more week to go until I thought everything would be fine.

And then the OB dropped a bomb on me.  She explained because they didn't know why I was bleeding, they couldn't do an epidural.  I would have to be unconscious.

I freaked out.  I told her that there was nobody else in the hospital right then- almost true- and that they could RUSH the blood work.  That they could do something.  I don't know why, but it seemed to finally get through to her.  Maybe it was because this was a different doctor- she'd just changed emergency shifts with the OB who met me when I was admitted- and she actually understood how much terror I must be experiencing.  Maybe because she didn't know what was going on with the previous OB.  I have no idea.  But she said, "We'll try," and directed the nurses to get me ready for surgery.

M was moved to wait for me in the recovery room.  I was wheeled into surgery alone.

Anesthesia is bad for babies, so they don't give it to you until the last possible moment.  That meant that I was fully unsedated for all the pre-op nastiness.  The catheter, which HURT, the mail line insertion... all of it.  Finally, I was laying down, surrounded by doctors and nurses who informed me that as soon as my OB entered the room, we would begin.

Still numb, but holding my babies for the first time

She walked in and the first word out of her mouth was, "Wait."

She leaned over me and said, "I just got your blood work back- we can do the epidural.  They'll go get your husband scrubbed in right now- and then we'll begin."

The next two minutes were a blur.  The epidural was inserted, and I went completely numb from the chest down.  M came in, looking both terrified and relieved.  He stayed next to me with his hands on my shoulder while the procedure began, and then...

...they invited him to look over the curtain for the birth of our babies.


I'll never forget the sound of his voice.  It was high and cracked, he sounded like he might faint.  "Oh my god, I see her.  I can see head now..." and then I heard her cry.

SI

I don't know what the doctor said.  I just wanted M to tell me everything- what did she look like?  Was she okay?

A few moments later, the next baby was out.

They took the girls away from M and me to clean them up, get their Apgar scores, weigh them... while they did that, they stitched me up.  M got to hold them first.  I couldn't quite register what I was seeing.

8:34am, SI- 4lbs 6oz.  8:36am, DD- 4lbs 14oz.

Once they had finished cleaning me up, I was propped up a bit and handed my children.

DD

It was bliss.  It was overwhelming.  I looked at them both and thought, "How can I love you so much?  Who the hell are you?"

Surprise surprise, their blood sugar was low.

I agreed to giving them bottles of basically sugar water to see if that would help.  SI got hers first.  As a result, when they checked her blood sugar again, it was perfect.  DD's wasn't, so they insisted on sending her to the NICU.  By the time she made the trip via elevator and had her blood sugar checked again, it was perfect.  They started telling me that any time now I would have her back.

It would be almost nine hours before I finally did.

In that time, my doula, and then my parents arrived.

As soon as DD was back with me, life was perfect.

I had my daughters, they were healthy.  They were tiny, but they were healthy.

Reunited

I don't know if it was the rush of oxytocin, or the morphine, but I was the happiest I had ever been in my life.  We spent five days in the hospital, during which friends and family came to visit, I snapped picture after picture after picture of them, and I ate all the oatmeal and hard boiled eggs I could possibly want- brought to me in bed.  I would stay up in bed while M desperately tried to sleep on the cot/bench/thing in the room, watching the girls sleep and singing them lullabyes.  I knew how crazy it was- soon enough I would be desperate for a few hours sleep and they wouldn't let me have it... but I was too enamored of them.  I just wanted to take in every single detail for as long as I could.

I still look back on those days as one of the best vacations of my life.

Recovery from the c-section was not what I had expected.  I wasn't in as much pain as I thought I would be, but the muscles in my abdomen never fully recovered.

"I missed you."

And I still feel like I was right about my body- that if they had let me just get my blood sugar up, I could have stayed pregnant a while longer.  Long enough to already have my doula and my parents with me, long enough to be calmer and more prepared.  At least a little.

It turned out that I had a partial placental abruption, caused most likely by the blood clot that was responsible for my subchorrionic hematoma during my first trimester.  That's what had passed in the wee hours of October 1, 2009.  It was DD's placenta.

I learned that my instincts are good.  I was probably right about my blood sugar, but I was definitely right about DD.  There was something wrong.  Not wrong enough for it to cause her any damage, but enough that I knew.

I have felt judged by other moms for having a c-section.  Judged enough that I always say emergency c-section, to make it clear that it wasn't my choice- that it wasn't my idea.

DD and SI

But the judgement over my c-section has never bothered me as much as that over IVF.  Possibly because I can't imagine anyone reacting very differently when they wake up in the middle of the night soaked in blood.  Possibly because I don't have the baggage of M's cancer and treatment attached to the process.  Partially because I feel so justified in my own knowledge of my body, regardless of having a c-section.  Mostly because I simply can't complain about the outcome.

My daughters?  They're as perfect as children come.

When Baby X is ready to arrive, I will have the confidence to assert myself, to say, "I know me better than you, I know this baby better than you, and these are the facts.  Now give me some damn orange juice."

This time, I'm going to try again for that natural delivery, but not for me so much as for DD and SI.  I don't want to spend five days having an awesome hospital vacation.  I want to have my family together.  I don't want to spend nearly a week separated from my twins, I don't want to spend over a month unable to hold them because of the sutures in my stomach.

First night at home with the girls

I want that natural delivery because I believe it's what will make us a whole, happy family fastest.  And maybe best.

But if I have to have another c-section?  If it turns out that my uterus is only comfortable to transverse babies, or that there is some sort of fetal distress...

I'll have that c-section without more than a moment's hesitation.  Because what matters is that all of us get through this okay.  Not that I do it with my hippie ideals perfectly intact.

And I promise, In another month and a half... I'll tell you all about it.

You're Going To Be Okay

Recently, I discovered a blog post by a lady calling herself Honest Mom.

It's about fighting depression.

I may have been the youngest goth
known to mankind.

As you might or might not know, I battled depression for a long time.  I still do, really.  I began to write a comment on her blog post, and I just found that I couldn't stop.  I just kept writing and writing and writing.  Before I published it, I paused.  Was it really okay to just sort of dump all of this on somebody?  And I decided the answer was 'yes.'  Because I wasn't just dumping this on anybody.  I was telling a story, and it was a story with a moral.  A good moral.

And so I share that comment here, with all of you, because I know how many people fight with depression in silence, feeling more isolated and helpless than people who have never experienced depression could possibly imagine.

I write this because, particularly as I find myself struggling occasionally with thoughts that I know are fundamentally depressive thoughts, that suicide is the fifth leading cause of death for pregnant women.

So pregnant mamas, PPD mamas, PPD daddies, and everyone else out there who has ever battled depression, I write this for you as well.


---


I totally understand.

I have battled depression for basically my whole life.  When I was about eight, I stopped sleeping.  Just... stopped.  Nobody has ever seemed really clear if the depression caused the insomnia, or vice versa, but in either case I found myself contemplating suicide before I was nine.  I attempted once, when I was fifteen.  It was a genuine attempt, and a miracle that it didn't succeed.  I kept fighting both the depression and the insomnia until I was in my twenties, when after a sexual assault I DID start sleeping, but had chronic and uncontrollable night terrors.

The only thing that helped was meeting my husband, who's presence in the bed keeps he night terrors away.  When he gets up in the night, or wakes up early in the morning, they come back.  Still.

That said, I'm doing a lot better.  Miraculously, I didn't have any problems with PPD... or at least, I don't think I did.  I think I had waves of depression that continued from the other waves of depression in my life.

But I can say this, after almost twenty years of fighting depression... it gets easier.  It really, truly does.
I can't tell you how long it takes for it to get easier.  In my case, it took about nine years.  It never truly went away, but it became... easier.

Dealing with depression is like dealing with losing a limb.  You have to relearn to function, and the more vital the limb or more profound the depression, the harder that is.  But it does get easier.  And then, one day, you realize that you're actually sort of kind of *happy*.  Inexplicably.  And that realization ruins it.  But then you have another one.  And another.

And then one day you catch yourself worrying about what would happen if you fell in front of that oncoming bus and died, and you think to yourself, "My god was THAT morbid," and it hits you that you've actually been pretty much happy for a long time.

So yes, I still battle my depression.  And sometimes, my insomnia.  I've been on and off a million meds (not one worked for me, and I flat out refused drugs that would be hard to quit if they didn't work (much to the chagrin of my shrinks)), and I've tried a million things to make it go away.

But there are only two things that I know make it go away even a little bit, and I can't vouch that they'd ever work for another person.  And those things are sleeping well, and finding a couple of diversions that actually get you out of your head a little.  Hard with kids, I know, but there are some.  With kids, one of my new ones is photography (not that I'm any good), and one of my old ones that sticks with me is reading comic books.

I can't imagine how difficult it must be to learn to live with depression while you're learning to live as a mom.  I can't imagine how hard it must be to believe that the thing that is making you depressed is something that you love and absolutely cannot quit.

I recommend that you stop thinking about "what is making you depressed," ever.  Because it doesn't matter what is MAKING you depressed, what matters is how you DEAL with it.  And it seems to me, having only just discovered that you exist, that you're doing a pretty good job.

Sorry to write you a whole novel over here... I just understand how hard this must be, and I really truly sympathize and wish you only the best.

Good luck.  And again, I promise... it sucks in the meantime, but it DOES get better.

It really does.

And you're going to be okay.

Marijuana as Medicine and Illegal Parenting

I'm linking up again with Secret Sunday- this time for my End of the Month Controversy!

What feels like an extremely long time ago, I wrote a post about women's health issues and marijuana.

I didn't write that post because I'm some sort of enormous pot head.  I didn't write it because I had been looking for an excuse to be stoned my whole pregnancy with the girls.  I wrote it because the information I found about cannabis as medicine was utterly fascinating.  And learning all about something that could have REALLY helped me get through a very difficult pregnancy made me very, very angry.
 
Every time a major study has been done to look for all the bad things that marijuana is supposed to do to people, it finds the opposite results.  Yet it is still illegal in most of the United States, and in states where it IS legal the judicial branch of the government is doing everything in their power to keep people from having access to it.

I think about hyperemesis gravidarum, which can kill the women suffering through it, and knowing that something as simple as a gram of marijuana a week can practically cure their symptoms makes me so angry.

I think about women at risk for pre-term labor, and the fact that maternal use of marijuana helps a fetus develop its lungs- the last organs to completely form before birth- seems incredibly important and helpful.  How many preemies might get out of the NICU sooner, or avoid it all together, is they had properly developed lungs?

And then I think about myself, and all the pregnant women I know.

Women who are unable to keep food down, or who can't maintain their appetites.
Women in constant pain, who are unwilling to take narcotics that have been proven time and time again to be dangerous to a fetus.
Women who are trying to deal with depression and fear, and who can't use traditional anti-depressants or anxiety medications.

And I would like very much for all of us to be able to smoke a bowl and feel better.

Sadly, that isn't going to happen.

Despite the fact that pregnancy lasts for nearly a year, it's just not considered a "chronic condition" like cancer, or MS.  So even in states where medical marijuana is legal (and more importantly- SAFE), no doctors will prescribe it to a pregnant woman.

Despite the fact that studies done of childbirth in pro-cannabis cultures show that infants have a higher survival rate when the nursing mother uses cannabis (which stimulates the infant's suck reflex and as a result causes them to nurse more effectively), doctors in medical marijuana states will not prescribe nursing mothers cannabis either.

Still, doctors prescribe drugs to pregnant women that are NOT safe.  Antibiotics that can build up immunities in the fetus, pain killers that can cause addiction, and even Tylenol has been proven less that harmless.  (For those of you unaware, several years ago research concluded that showed Tylenol use in pregnancy can cause infertility in male fetuses.  While that might not be directly dangerous, I would certainly say that being infertile as an adult may have a serious impact on happiness and quality of life- so no thank you, I'd rather not risk it.)

I'm pregnant, and the fact of the matter is that I am just plain dreadful at pregnancy.  Between the constant pain of my symphasis pubis dysfunction, the appetite and nausea problems caused by my pregnancy-induced gall bladder disease, and the incredible stress of simply being pregnant while taking care of two toddlers and going to school- not to mention the continual melanoma related anxiety- is enough to make anybody truly miserable.

And having read those studies, all those carefully monitored and vetted and peer reviewed articles, after spending years seeing the news of new things they've learned that THC can do to heal human bodies...

It makes me angry that there is SAFE* medicine that I can't access.

That even if I lived in a state where medical marijuana was available, nobody would give it to me.  Although it's probably the safest and healthiest medicine I could possibly use during a pregnancy.

...

I have always believed that people are generally best at governing themselves.  That there are some good laws, but that the majority of them are simply in place because groups of people- not people on an individual level- are idiots.  Speed limits are set because people feel the need to compete on some absurd level on the highway.  Most people by themselves are responsible drivers who know when a car is going as fast as it safely can or should go.  In fact, almost every public safety law pretty much conforms to that idea.

But drug use is sort of different.  There ARE drugs that people can't self-regulate.  And, sadly, some of those are the legal ones.  Alcohol is deadly in large doses, tobacco is deadly in much smaller doses, and caffeine has hosts of health problems it can cause or exacerbate.  Prescription drugs, so easy to legally obtain, can be even worse.  And frequently are.

Among the illegal drugs in this country, there are some that are indisputably bad.  There is no single person on this planet that can responsibly use crack cocaine.  And the likelihood that somebody can actually self regulate the use of powder cocaine or heroin is borderline laughable.

But marijuana?  Marijuana can kill people, yes, if you bludgeon them over the head with a bong or choke them on a plastic baggie.  But the plant itself literally cannot.  The human body only has THC receptors in places that do not effect critical function- you can only react to THC with parts of your brain that have no relation to your autonomic nervous system, and your uterus.

Seriously, if you haven't you should read my review of Women and Cannabis.

So we continue to lock people away for years and years for using a substance that is, in fact, harmless.

Not just less harmful than alcohol, HARMLESS.

Yes, I would very much like to be stoned through much of my pregnancy.  I would like that.  I would like to be using a medicine that allowed me to function pain free and relieved my anxiety and restored my appetite.

But if I deliver a baby, and I or the baby test positive for marijuana?

Then I go to jail, not just for having used it, but for child endangerment.  And that, as absurd as it is, is something I am simply not going to risk.

I have always said, the things that you do to make yourself a good parent are GOOD PARENTING.  But what if those things are illegal?  What if in order to get through my day, to take care of my children while M is at work and then at school, I must break the law?

Is it better for me to be a good parent, or to make sure that I am with them rather than in jail?

And what kind of example am I setting, obeying a wrong and arbitrary rule when all fact and evidence and necessity prove that the rule is wrong?

I don't know.  I don't know if it's better to be hungry and in pain and angry when my potty training children are peeing on the floor, or to smoke two hits of pot and get down on the floor to clean up those puddles without crying or swearing when the consequences are that severe.

But the laws against marijuana as medicine are bad laws.  And the ideas we have about using marijuana as treatment for chronic conditions need to include conditions, like SPD, that last 8-10 months.  Or like hyperemesis gravidarum, that lasts the entire duration of a pregnancy.

When studies show that day old mice with their THC receptors blocked die 100% of the time, it's time to consider that maybe we have those THC receptors for a reason.

And when studies show that THC can not only alleviate the symptoms associated with cancer, but can actually CURE cancer, we have to start thinking differently about marijuana as a "drug" versus marijuana as a "medicine."

I would like to treat my medical condition, pregnancy, and the very unpleasant conditions associated with it with this kind of medicine.  But I can't.

And that is simply ridiculous.




*The only negative effects found in children of women who smoke during pregnancy were that with VERY heavy users- approximately 30 grams (an ounce) each day- the children of those pregnancies were approx. 30% more likely to develop ADHD.

Sick, sick, sick

Pretty much what I've been doing.

Hello, lovely readers.

If you've been wondering where I was all weekend (which I'm sure kept you up at night), I can tell you.  I'm sick.

I was hiding in bed, alternately sleeping and listening to M take care of the girls.

That's where I am now.  Except that M is work, and I'm avoiding getting my children up from their "nap."  They didn't sleep anyway.

I am surrounded by a very attractive halo of dirty tissues, empty vitamin water bottles, and sundry medical supplies.  I have my thermometer, I have empty bowl of soup (well known important medical tool), hand sanitizer, and antibiotics.

Oh yeah, we reached that point.  I've got the antibiotics.  Haven't taken them yet.  Can't decide if I'm willing to suffer the repercussions.  I handle antibiotics about as well as I handle entrenched bacteria.  That is to say, I don't.

Of course, I didn't get sick all by myself.  You don't get sick in a vacuum.  You get sick from having kids.

Filthy, germ infested monsters they are.  Giggling in their room, calling my name and jumping on the beds.  Covered in snot and just waiting to get me even sicker.

I knew I couldn't afford to be ill this winter, so I got us all flu shots.  Nobody in this house will be getting the flu.  So that's good.

Unfortunately, there are lots of non-flu viruses that are going around.  And this one, call it what you will, is a freakin' DOOZY.  Fevers, chills, the runny nose of doom, the aches and pains of a flu, a migraine that just won't quit, every single flu thing but the nausea.  And thanks to the post nasal drip I'm getting plenty of that anyway.

My lips are chapped, my face is pimply and gross, I might be getting bed sores... in short, my lovely readers, I am a freakin' MESS.  I am grosser than gross.

I've lost five pounds in three days.  And after my last eating adventure (damn you, lentil soup!) it looks like that trend might continue.

The laundry situation is dire.  The catbox is unclean.  Dishes have been unwashed for the better part of a week.

But yet, somehow, life must continue.

Somehow I must climb from my miserable little sick bed, wipe off my kids butts and noses (you caught the part where they were sick too, right?), and park them in front of the TV where we can all be miserable together.

They're holding up better than me.  DD seems completely oblivious of the croup that she has... AGAIN.  SI got the thing first, so she's pretty much better anyway.  M is miraculously unscathed.  I think he'll probably start showing symptoms as soon as we get into the car to go to Thanksgiving.

Oh, winter.  My old nemesis.  You think you've beaten me, but you're wrong.

You think you'll have me laid up through all the snow, through all the storms, through all the ice cold misery you can inflict, and that I'll waste away to nothing before the spring can come.

You are WRONG, winter.  WRONG.

I will defeat you.  I will get out of this bed, I will clean the damn laundry.  I will pack the suitcases.  I will make the meanest pumpkin pie you ever freakin' tasted.  And I will suck it up and be well until spring comes and my allergies kick in.

...that said, to my lovely readers and my friendly neighbors:
If you happen to find me passed out from fever while my children build megablock towers on my prone form...  If you see through the window that my mummified corpse has melded with the couch and is being used as a staging area for a toy feast that the grublings are preparing this holiday... if smell of illness and neglected cat droppings lures into my home just to check that everything is okay...  Please...

Just roll me back into bed and start a load of laundry?

Thanks.

How I Got Pregnant With Twins (Part 2)

Back in the day, I kept a Livejournal.  It was on this blog that I chronicled the actions taken by me and M to get ourselves a baby.  And here... for all of you... that journey, republished for Becoming SuperMommy.  What can I say?  The girls turning two has made me sentimental.  :)

Warning: it does contain a fair amount of profanity.


How to Make a Grubling, Part II  (2/12/2009)
Part I

Lies, lies, lies!

All that wonderful information I was able to give you in advance? Take everything after the point where I had actually completed the step, and throw it out the window.

Here's the problem. Straight from the nurse's mouth, they don't want to tell you what's coming because they don't want to scare you. Well, I would rather be scared than misinformed.

Injection A for two weeks, then injection B AND injection A for two weeks. Then injection C (variable dose) for one day. Then retrieval. Which is NOT what you had been told it was. No, this is not some "comfortable" abortion-like procedure where they suck out the eggs. Oh no.

Picture, if you will, a futuristic white dildo. Now, attach a few cords and buttons. This is an ultrasound wand. You should be very familiar with it by now, because you've been getting it shoved unceremoniously up your twat every day for the last few weeks.

Now, as it turns out, this machine is actually more sinister than it looks. All those knobs and buttons and whatnot, they hide a secret switch. What does this switch do? It shoots out a big, thick, TEN INCH LONG NEEDLE. Then the NEEDLE will suck up each egg, individually.

This means that once you wake up from the procedure, you will learn that you did not just have a very angry pap smear. Oh, no. you've just had a NEEDLE of DOOM shot through your vaginal walls approximately 25 times. And THAT is why the pain is different from what you expected. And THAT is why you'll be walking funny for a few days.

Oh- and now that you have a bunch of extra holes in your vagina, you've got to stick big freakin' pills in there three times a day. Yes, very comfortable, THAT is.

How do they propose to make this all better? Every day, you are also to take an extra special pill. No explanation why, but it DOES have a little embossed heart on it.

...because you can't make a baby without love?



Getting COMPLETELY Knocked Up  (2/16/2009)
I suppose that now, technically, I am officially knocked up.

Please, no congratulations.

You see, it can take up to eight weeks to be sure that the grublings *take*.   For the time being, I have a minor medical condition for which I am prescribed rest, routine doctor's visits, and lots of ice cream. M will be doing the laundry and cooking for a while.

Oh yeah, best medical condition ever.

A far as I'm concerned, I'm not pregnant until I have some kind of evidence that there's a little person inside of me. Like... it kicks me. Then I think I'll buy it. For the time being, I have a two useless clusters of cells that will make me bitchy, nauseated, and eventually- fat.

When I'm convinced there's a new human life inside me, I'll let you know.

As for the actual procedure, it felt like there was a Vaudeville show going on in my vagina. Lights, curtains, audience... the whole nine yards. It was about ten minutes of actual procedure, and I got to watch! They inserted a small plastic catheter, and then the embryos went through the tube, they showed me on the ultrasound. Then they gave us a picture of my uterus with a little glowing white spot. The spot is two embryos, and the HUGE BLACK MASS above it is my INSANELY FULL BLADDER. Because I had to have a giant bladder to make insertion easier. Honestly, that was the worst part. I had to pee SO BAD during the whole thing. Because no part of getting pregnant should be pleasant.

And now no sex for at least ten days. And then... I can put my pants on!




Down to the wire  (2/26/2009)
Well, today is the day. First thing this morning I went back to the clinic. Not to have anyone shove things into my vagina, no. I had my pregnancy test.

You see, what with all the hormones I'm taking, an over the counter pee type test probably wouldn't be effective. I'd be likely to get a false positive, which- of course- the boxes on those things say is impossible. Not so. There is such a thing as a "chemical pregnancy." You can test positive and be negative. Usually it means that you were recently pregnant for a minute or two. Well, I had embryos implanted. So I was preggers for at least a few minutes. So no over the counter test.

I won't know until this evening.

If I am NOT pregnant, I have to wait three months before trying again. Suck.

Something I've recently learned, though. A few days ago Mike and I were wrestling, and I pulled a muscle in my abdomen. I had a full fledged panic attack. Not only that, the mind altering pain was accompanied by a crazy FLOOD of hormones. I was absolutely positive that the strain had eliminated any shot of staying pregnant. Now, this is EXTREMELY unlikely, but I did come to a realization. If I'm not pregnant, I'll be upset. Very, very upset. This is precisely why I didn't want to think of myself and pregnant yet. Between my extended family CONSTANTLY asking how the baby's coming, some friends getting pumped up to babysit and throw showers, and my father's immoderate excitement, I'm going to feel like I'm letting a lot of people down if I'm not knocked up.

Of course I'll let all of you know if I'm still testing preggers today, but that still doesn't mean I'm actually pregnant. MOST pregnancies don't result in grublings, you know. Most times that people get pregnant their body rejects the fetus pretty damn quick. True enough, if I AM pregnant, thanks to all this protocol I'm likely to stay pregnant. But even so, no excitement, please. I have an obnoxious medical condition where I can't take medications, drink alcohol, or eat spicy foods (seriously) for another few months. Then, either I get to be healthy for a few months, or I go into a second trimester with excitement and glee.

In the meantime, I am NOT pregnant. No matter what the test says. I am merely ill.








P.S.
I'm "pregnant." :)

Also, my hcG levels are nearly double normal. This is fair indication of multiples. So, maybe twins? We'll see.

Feel free to congratulate. I want it now. :) Hormonal hypocrite, that's me!

How I Got Pregnant With Twins (Part 1)

Back in the day, I kept a Livejournal.  It was on this blog that I chronicled the actions taken by me and M to get ourselves a baby.  And here... for all of you... that journey, republished for Becoming SuperMommy.  What can I say?  The girls turning two has made me sentimental.  :)

Warning: it does contain a fair amount of profanity.


Coming Out, so to speak  (1-13-2009)
By now most of you probably know that M and I are planning on having a baby. Not in that, "Oh, someday we'll be awesome parents!" kind of way either. As in, this blog is about to be primarily a log of all the insane crap that goes along with getting intentionally and very technically knocked up.

So, if you don't want to have all kinds of icky, medical, vagina related stuff on your feed, now is the time to mention it and I'll make a filter.

Why am I making all of this public NOW? Here's why. I have lots of friends with children. I have NO friends who intentionally went through the process of MAKING one. I have friends who are married and planning on having kids... someday. I am, unless I'm very much mistaken, the first among my friends to do this procreation thing intentionally. The first person to go through the insanely irritating steps leading to the pregnancy, versus the very entertaining steps of accidentally procreating. I am not casting judgment, I am merely observing. I haven't seen anybody do this yet- this "now it's time to make miniature copies of ourselves" thing. (Note: we do not actually want to make miniature copies of ourselves.) Therefore, if you are in any way curious about what might happen to you if you should DECIDE to have a baby, feel free to keep reading.


M and I knew from the week after we got engaged that we were going to have to freeze some embryos (if you don't know why, read this.). This has resulted in a few inconveniences for me and M. For example, it is now M's job to clean that cat box, never mind that the General is MY cat. It also meant that I basically had to start acting as though I was already pregnant in some other ways. The most obnoxious of these being the new need for pre-natal vitamins.

I had a lovely prescription for creepy vitamins. The box had variously colored women with ethnic babies in their tummies. Green ladies with black babies, purple ladies with Asian babies, yellow ladies with Latino babies... terrifying. Perhaps most terrifying of all was the INTENSE intestinal distress, which naturally led to the AGONIZING endless yeast infection. Needless to say, I stopped taking pre-natal vitamins.

Well, I'm back on now. It seems you're supposed to take them for at least 30 days before you conceive. I've got a new bottle, ones that hopefully won't make me horribly ill. Unfortunately, I've been nauseated since I started taking them yesterday, but I'm kind of hoping that will go away. It's better than the endless diarrhea and yeast infections. So far.

This bottle has a wonderful little phrase on it- "Science Safe."

...I'll give you a moment to ponder that.

Tomorrow M and I get to have TONS of blood drawn so that we can find out what sort of awful genetic diseases we've got. I'm wondering what the chemo will do to his blood work. I also get to have a saline ultrasound.

This is when you get an injection of mild anesthesia in your cervix, and then have your ovaries filled with fluid. The point, I believe, is to get you prepared psychologically for when your water breaks and you go into labor. Other than that, it lets the doctors see if you have any abnormalities in your uterus.

The fun part is for the next two hours when each time you hiccup or sneeze tons of water shoots out of your cooter.

Then, onward to medication! According to the doctors, there's only one way to see if the hormones will make my heart explode.

...Science Safe!

I'll keep you all informed as events progress.






Makin' Babies  (1/22/2009)
The injections have finally begun. Waiting was the worst part.
I nearly had a panic attack. I'm just grateful that M was calm and collected enough to stab me with a needle.

That said, it was not so bad. The injections (at least the first round) are administered in insulin needles, so it's really not bad at all. I still couldn't do it. I hope I get over that.

As for my physiological response to the hormones- I got lightheaded, warm, dizzy, and my heart started feeling very light- as though it was about to start skipping beats. This feeling lasted for about three minutes and then abated. That's the biggest relief. Thanks to my hormone sensitivity, we were worried that I might immediately go into cardiac arrest. I didn't, so, full speed ahead!

Pretty soon I'll get to stop shooting myself up with hormones, and then... onward to grublings!




Ala Dolores Claiborne  (1/29/2009)
"Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hang on to."

I fucking hate medical "professionals."
I'm tired of being poked and prodded, being told that I have no idea what I'm doing while having information withheld and misdirected.

Grumble grumble grumble...
I sure fucking hope having a baby is worth the trouble.



Internal countdown at four hours twelve minutes and counting  (1/30/2009)
I'm done with round one. Moving on to round two. The big round. The gigantic doses of drugs that might make my heart stop.

I am fucking terrified. Every hour I get a little closer to hyperventilating. I'm sure it won't be that bad. I'm sure this will be virtually identical to the initial injection fear. Only this time... well... we'll see if two shots is actually better than one.

...God I'm a wreck.




Grubling goo, round two  (2/1/2009)
Two shots a night.
My stomach is covered in little bruises and scratches.
My lungs and chest hurt and I'm more bloated than I've ever been in my life.
Next assault by the fertility staff is Tuesday morning.


...I am no longer seeing much humor. Hopefully the hormones will stop deadening my sense of humor and I can go back to thinking this is a big joke.

Hopefully.




Step 2: ? (2/8/2009)
It seems I have been misled. I must offer my most sincere apologies. I have passed along incorrect information to all of you, out there in livejournal land.


It is not two weeks on injection A and four weeks on injection B.

Actually, it is two weeks on injection A, two weeks on injections A and B, and then two days on injection C. With daily blood draws and vaginal ultrasounds. Then, six days on patch D and ovule E.

...which you are NOT to put in the refrigerator with the rest of the drugs. Those last two have all gone bad now. You need to spend another $100 on replacing them. NOW. Or we start all over again.

Carry on.

Ode to an Egg

I have an Easter confession to make.  About what makes this holiday so incredibly precious to me.

Being Jewish, there's not much about Easter that ever particularly appealed to me. Eggs hunts? Why can't we just play in the sun? Fake plastic grass? What's the point? The Easter Bunny? This has never been satisfactorily explained to me. But there is one part of Easter that I cannot deny carries appeal. Not just appeal, but that sort of giddy excitement usually reserved for the first snow-day of the year, picking out Halloween costumes, and birthdays.

I'm talking about Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Oh, those amazing confections. The soft, creamy chocolate shell. The whimsically egg-like insides. The sweet, sweet nectar of the filling.

As a child, there was no time that I longed to NOT be Jewish like Easter. If only for the delicious, delightful, decadent Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Each time they appeared in the stores, I would lose my head. "They're here! The eggs are here!" And I would stand, frozen, before the displays of their majesty.

Of course, they were EXPENSIVE as far as one-shot sugar explosions go. So their simple availability didn't guarantee that I'd get even one a year. Imagine, as a child, seeing those eggs on the shelf and thinking to yourself, "WE'RE ALMOST OUT OF TIME! SOON THE EGGS WILL ALL BE GONE!" It was harrowing.

My mother understood the appeal of the eggs. The day after Easter was an occasion. The day after Easter, the Cadbury Creme Eggs go on sale. So frequently, the day after Easter was the day that I got to eat an ovoid capsule of creamy dreaminess.

There is a ritual in eating a Cadbury Creme Egg. You can't just gobble it all up. No, far too precious. A Cadbury Creme Egg requires time and attention. And ever so much care.  So here, without further ado, is the method by which I recall the childhood enjoyment of consuming a Cadbury Creme Egg reaching its pinnacle.

First, you peel away the top of the wrapper, but not the whole thing. You don't want to actually touch the chocolate with your tiny, grubby little fingers. No, that's a recipe for disaster. Your warm, eager hands will melt the chocolate, waste it.  You might melt through that fragile chocolate shell and spill its ooey gooey contents all over the place.  And then that would be it.  The end.  Until maybe next year.  No.  You only partially unwrap the egg, carefully exposing the tiniest portion of the crest of the chocolate coating.  You use only the tips of your fingers to support the egg, gently supporting its gigantic psychological bulk with every fingertip you have.

Now comes a delicate operation.  You nibble, ever so gently, at this exposed bit of chocolate.  You savor the unique creaminess of Cadbury's Dairy Milk, so unlike our American Hershey's milk chocolate.  You close your eyes, roll the rapidly dissolving chocolate around on your tongue.  You breathe slowly, filling your nostrils with the aroma of chocolate.

As your heart rate quickens, your tongue finally breaks through the barrier- that solid, creamy perfection of all confections.  You don't taste the creme immediately, holding the egg upright allows the contents to settle towards the bottom.  This leads to a moment of panic.

Once in a while, the egg is damaged.  This damage EXPOSES the magical creme, and it dries up before it can be properly consumed.  This is a disaster.  A catastrophe.  One of the worst things that can possibly happen to you in your entire life.  Because it will be a whole year before you even get another opportunity for an egg, let alone the egg itself.  There is no sight sadder than the crustified contents of a Cadbury Creme Egg.

But not this time.  This time, the egg is perfect.  Its contents liquid, viscous and shiny.  Reflecting the hungry, desperate gleam in your eye.

Ever so delicately, you extend the tip of your tongue, and dip it into the eggy contents.  You must try not to moan aloud, or your mother might take the egg away.  But this is a sacred moment.  The gloop begins to coat the inside of your mouth, and a sharp intake of breath causes a burst of sugar to burn the back of your throat.

This is the sacrifice you must make to the Cadbury Gods.  This sugar burn.  It hurts, but it's good.  and now that the moment has passed, the consumption of your egg can continue.

You slowly lap up the creme inside, until your tiny tongue can no longer reach.  The nibbling of the chocolate recommences.  Again, you must be desperately careful.  If you nibble to quickly, you'll crack the egg.  So tiny, tiny bites- only scrape away at the chocolate with your teeth.  Only peel away as much foil as you must.  Gently juggle the egg, don't allow your greasy fingers to let go, even for a moment.  The foil between your hands is slippery with your sweat, but there is not putting the egg down once the process has begun.  Not even on the Equinox can you balance a Cadbury Creme Egg on its end.

As you work your way down into the belly of the egg, the sides open up for you.  A veritable ocean of Cadbury Creme shows itself, and there- suddenly, is the yolk.  That peek of yellow, that incomprehensible smear surrounded by white.  How does it remain?  How does it stay apart and intact?  You may never know.  You carefully lick out the yolk, made even sweeter through the alchemical process of desire and amazement.

Soon your tongue begins to scrape the bottom of the shell.  The cream is nearly gone, and you are left with a concave, and somehow heavy, disc of Dairy Milk chocolate.  Victory is yours!  "Hallelujah!" you cry, and as you finally discard the colored foil wrappings, you pop this disc, roughly the size of a nickel, whole into your mouth.

It is somehow imbued with the flavor of the creme.  It is somehow hard and still soft, mystically difficult to chew.  Again, the sugar burns your throat.  This time you breathe into it, relishing the last, perfect bite of Cadbury Creme Egg for the year.  Letting it fill every inch of your psyche and soul.

Once the egg is gone, the time has come for silent reflection.  You sit back, licking your fingers and running your tongue over every tooth, reliving each moment of Cadbury Creme Egg glory.  Already desperate to find even another morsel, any taste of eggy perfection to tide you over the next long, twelve months.

And then, with a sigh, it's over.  You return to your activities, but the rest of the day has a bit of a glow about it.  A touch of magic.

Because today was the day that you had your egg.