still betting on an early gummy

My appointment went well yesterday morning. Thank you for keeping me in your thoughts.

I didn't know what to expect. I fanned out the scenarios and ran them through my head a few times per hour. My blood pressure was fine on Wednesday morning, but when I stopped at the drug store later that evening, it was 145/100, which seems crazy to a girl who often has average to low b/p. I also had pain on my right side, which I know is not a great constellation of symptoms to have when one is 35 weeks pregnant.

I got home and felt like crying. Whaaaaaaaaa. I don't want gummy to be evicted now. She is so protected in there. And I know just how to feed her in her fetus state (worries over breastfeeding have emerged anew, and you will find me ruminating on this topic several times per day. HOW, oh HOW, will I feed my child? - It gets a little dramatic).

But my b/p was ok this morning at my appointment, and there wasn't any protein in my urine. Dr. Smiley didn't like Wednesday night's numbers at all, and wants to see me next week instead of in 2 weeks.

I am still getting pain on my upper right abdomen, and it worries me. Like I've said before, I'm really good at worrying. It's a bonus when there's an actual reason to worry. Right on cue, my aunt called last night to give me a stern talking to. I assume she spoke to my mother, who as Mr. A said this morning, believes I should have been on bed rest since July. My aunt is a nurse in a NICU. She laid it out to me like this: women die, babies die and I need to stop work right now if I don't want that to happen to me or gummy. Thanks. Those are some really swell reminders. It's always awesome to be reminded of one's incompetence by being told exactly how one should behave. It's all coming from a place of caring of course, but it drives me nuts.

Anyway, I am home today. And resting. Our office is closed because of a massive snow storm I ordered for Mr. A's birthday. He's really pleased with his present, and it makes the bitter pill of 40 a little easier to swallow.

new picture on gummy bear page - evidence to support 'big as home' assertion

First babies come late, right. Right?

Let me start by clarifying that Gummy is still an inside baby (otherwise known as a fetus). But at 35 weeks on the dot, I am starting to wonder about how long she'll decide to stay in there. Or how long she will be allowed.

My last visit to my OB was all good, except for my blood pressure, which was higher than usual. Dr. Smiley said to keep an eye on it, stop by the pharmacy and get a reading whenever convenient. I've been doing that and the tricky diastolic number is rising. Crap.

For the last 30 some odd weeks, I've been banking on Gummy arriving on the late side of her due date: March 11. I've told my employer that I would work until March 8. Being that it is International Women's day, it seemed an appropriate one to go on maternity leave.

I'm not sure if it was the initial high blood pressure reading, my colleague who is due the day after me being ordered to stop work last week to go on bed rest, or a fellow DE mama I correspond with whose darling girl showed up at 35 weeks, but I'm thinking my early prognostications might be bunk. If the blood pressure keeps going up, Gummy will get an eviction notice I believe.

I have an OB appointment this Thursday, and plan on asking many 'what if' questions. We've already established that I'm a high maintenance patient at my last appointment (when I remarked I was and she laughed, the international sign of acquiescence). And I am mentally switching gears at work and trying to wrap things up as much as I can each day.

Maybe if I visualize what date I need her to come on, she will abide. (loved your comments on my last post, women. Thank you for not throwing tomatoes at me).   

In the mean time, I have fully settled into the fatigue of T3. It is more intense than T1 for me. I am as big as a house (more like a home, my beloved friend said). My sleep is on the crappy side of bad (but I don't want to say that one too loudly, since you know, it's about to get worse). Heartburn, digestive upsets, and sadness and tearfulness. Bring it on, I say. Embracing pregnancy is where it's at, women. It's a glorious journey.

birth day

That's been on my mind lately. Birth.

It is related to the extra dose of prepping for gummy's arrival in the last few weeks. We had our  prenatal classes for the last two Saturday. That was interesting. The first 3/4 was prenatal stuff and I felt amply familiar with the material (and I did have to very annoyingly correct the lovely instructor when she put up a slide that said that brain development starts in the second trimester and goes on after birth. Major structural brain development occurs in T1, and if that doesn't count as brain development I'm not sure what does).  But Mr. A found it useful. He hadn't been reading up on pregnancy and prenatal development so he soaked it all up. The second Saturday was again about birth, and about newborn care and breastfeeding.

The labor and delivery parts were interesting.

Having taken a page out of Misfit's book, my birth plan so far has been: Have baby.

I now gather there are many more details one needs to consider about birth, some of which I vaguely knew about and some of which are new. I don't feel wedded to too much at this point. We met our doula for a pre-birth meeting and when she asked what are our hopes for the birth, I said I was hoping gummy would be alive. Yeah, I still live there in the land of fear.

Well apparently fear is all wrong for wanting to birth a baby. I learned that in the hyp.nobir.thing class we started to take last week. It's a 6 week class, but we will not attend anymore than one. We are hyp.nobir.thing dropouts. Honestly, I thought some of the basic premises are right on and they fit with my understanding of human physiology and psychology (the part about the fear - tension - pain cycle, the part about enabling the parasympathetic nervous system to take over during birth). The techniques seem pretty useful.

- Beginning of rant -

Mr. A and I had some deep philosophical issues with some of the underlying premises and the wild claims made by our instructor*. Things like, having a relaxed birth = a relaxed baby. Things like, visualizing the right positioning of the baby is what makes the baby turn to the right birthing position. Things like, the birth process would determine the child's personality (the developmental psychologist found that one hard to swallow). When the instructor asked why we are afraid of birth in our society, Mr. A raised his hand to say that in distant history, a number of women died in childbirth. The instructor replied that yes, when women started using drugs during childbirth, many of them were dying.

Needless to say that we left there irritated. Mr. A got in the car and said "I'm surprised you didn't walk out of the class." Well, I wasn't that incensed, but certainly didn't feel welcomed or feel like I wanted to return. We talked about it and decided we would do some relaxation exercises at home to prepare for the birth, and forgo the dough we would have to fork to be fed some of that crap.

I think the thing that we both have the hardest time swallowing about it is the whole 'if you visualize it, it will be so' approach (discussed as the law of attraction, I believe). Akin to the 'maybe if you just relax' approach to infertility. You know, there is no amount of relaxing, visualizing, praying that would have helped me make a baby with my nonexistent eggs. And yes, I think that being in a calm state and learning to relax and manage the sensations/intensity of birth will be very helpful for the birth, I don't get to control exactly what happens on the day gummy makes her appearance. The extension of that sort of thinking is that if a woman needed intervention, then she didn't work hard enough at visualizing the perfect birth. That would be the same as saying that one is causing one's infertility by not wanting it badly enough. I've never met a more dedicated crowd of hopeful parents than I have here, in the IF community.

- End of rant -

All that to say that I am not anti hyp.nobi.rthing and I have been practicing some of the exercises. So please don't come down too hard on me in the comments. I know that I would have enjoyed the class in a different context, perhaps with a different instructor.

I have lots more to write about, if only we insert a few hours in each day. Work is intense these days, as I try to wrap everything up before mat leave. And of course the T3 insomnia and ensuing fatigue are in full effect. All very manageable, but it leaves less time for blogging. Oh, and we started painting the gummery. More to come on that topic.



*If you are a big proponent of hyp.nobirth.ing, this may boil your blood. Remember that this is just my opinion.

G is for gummy

And G is for girl.

We had the growth scan/biophysical profile on Wednesday morning and although gummy wasn't all that cooperative, the tech said she was 80% sure gummy is a girl. Although people keep telling me they think it's a boy, I had been thinking for some weeks now that gummy is indeed of the XX chromosomal variety. Boy fetuses kick a lot more than this wee little lady. Just an article I remembered from grad school (and of course I remember the author's name - why is all this info kept so diligently in my memory stores? je ne sais pas).

I am thrilled beyond words. A girl. A GIRL.

To be sure, I would be singing the same tune if the tech had said we are having a boy.

I guess finding out the sex of the baby isn't so much about the sex itself. For me, it's that it makes it all the more real. There is a baby in my belly, and it is a baby girl. And she is arriving about 9 weeks from now.

This is so amazing. 

From the Gracious May shop on Etsy

On the brink of 30

Oh, if only that were my age! Well, I'm still pretty darn grateful to be on the brink of 30 weeks in this pregnancy. I'm sorry to bore you with this again, but it still is completely unreal (and I say that as gummy elbows me in the ribs).

I am surviving the Holidays. It is not my favorite time of year. This year, I decided that being a good daughter was more important than being true to what I really want. So I traveled to Montreal and played the good daughter part for far too many days. Despite it driving me almost completely bananas (my current visit to my in-laws is actually completing the process), I'm still glad I went. There were important moments to take part in. Chats about life and death. I still always feel peripheral in my family (in my life, really - which is another post), but there is value to being there, even in the periphery.

The family, both on my mother's and my father's side, is convinced I am carrying a baby boy. The best explanation was from my darling grandmother who explained that my tummy wasn't pointy, but more round and even, which clearly signaled a boy. I find it all amusing. I don't have a real sense about whether gummy is a girl or a boy. But I've got a requisition for a growth scan that might shed light on the matter.

I saw my OB on Friday, which is truly always a pleasure. Dr. Smiley is like a brook in spring. Despite the Christmas eating, I had gained only 3lbs since the last appointment. She asked about that, and my best explanation was a stomach bug combined with my licensing exam, followed by a cold. One cannot be earnest in their effort to gain weight in those circumstances. And Christmas brought some good eating, but meals were often consumed with a dose of irritation, since most of them were with my mother. And irritation can fill you up. Oh, to be more tolerant of my poor mother.

My blood pressure was great, again. I was thinking it would be awful, since I was running on a few hours of sleep (we left Montreal in a record breaking snow storm, which meant that our train was delayed by 5 hours. We got home at 4:30am, to the very lonely and relieved Chicken). I also just started having the ankle swelling everyone warns you about. My socks leave troughs of significant proportions on my lower legs, which is fascinatingly gross.

I was happily surprised to learn that I am nowhere near having gestational diabetes. Woohooo! The nurse said I wasn't even flirting with the borderline range. My iron, B12, etc. were all good.

Dr. Smiley did note that I was measuring ahead in terms of fundal height. Knowing who she is dealing with, she told me twice not to worry about it. I've avoided asking Dr. Google about it, and I will continue to tell myself that baby gummy is just long. From her palpation, she could also tell that gummy is breach right now. It clarified that what I have been feeling at the top of my abdomen are in fact elbow pokes and wee head butts.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for the Holidays, I feel thankful. I rub my belly and think that if gummy arrives safe and sound, I will be a mother. I am so lucky. So very lucky. 

Infertility: yours and mine

Third attempt at this post. Did you know T3 gives you writer's block. Apparently, it does.

I have regular lunch dates with some very close friends. I love them to bits. We talk about everything: work, life, good wines, narcissistic parents. You know, the gamut. They have been very supportive to me through IF hell. One had a child in the last years. One actively started trying. I was always apart because of IF, but they never let me feel that in their company. These are pearls, people.

By early last spring, our lunch conversations migrated to infertility, and not just when it was my turn to speak. Turns out they were both facing this scourge. The thing I wouldn't wish on my enemies was now afflicting my good friends. I stood dismayed at how we could all get taken by the wide-cast net of those nasty statistics. Could it not spare one of us?

I didn't have much experience with IRL infertile friends. I had one friend who struggled with IF. She moved away soon after getting pregnant, although we did support each other through at least a year of IF hell and I was very thankful for it. I have another friend with IF who started trying at 40 and was never successful. She is also very supportive. All my other IF friends are reading this blog right now.

My two close friends are in the thick of IF/Loss hell right now. That's about all I can write in an effort to protect their privacy, but they are in the kind of hell we have all experienced here. It breaks my heart into a million pieces to know that they are going through this, just like it breaks my heart when you go through this (most recently Adele - I'm so sorry, lovely woman).   

I'm not sure if there is more to say than I am sad. That it is unfair. That I don't understand why this even happens at all. I struggle with pop-ups of just-world beliefs* in my brain: it's not fair...but life is not fair.

I guess the other thing I can say about it is how entirely strange it is to be a pregnant infertile in the face of what my dear friends are going through. There was a time when I had to psych myself up a great deal before going to lunch with them because I was certain they would have pregnancy announcements. And now when I see them I feel sad that they have to look at my belly. I know they are happy for me. And yet, I can't help but perceive myself like my old infertile nonpregnant self would: a difficult reminder.

It is strange to negotiate the world as someone who is hypersensitized to infertility and someone who is pregnant at the same time. I even make assumptions about who might be infertile in my viscinity and try to avoid them if I see them and they don't know I'm pregnant yet. It happened at the gym the other morning. A woman I know showed up (I don't usually see her there in the mornings so I was surprised see her). I remember her telling me about a miscarriage within the last year, and I purposely avoided her. Why should she be subjected to me at this point, I thought.

I realize that I am not realistic in my quest to protect everyone around me and that I might, you know, have issues. But darn, it hurt so much to be surrounded by all the bellies all the time. I walk the halls at work and wonder who is suffering in silence (and let me tell you, there are plenty-a-pregnant-belly walking around at work right now).

You want to know if I'm feeling survivor's guilt. Maybe. But am I a survivor yet? That's the other side of the coin, the side where I'm not sure this is for real yet. Someone asked me the other day where I was thinking we would send gummy to school. I answered that we were still hoping gummy would be born. The person laughed. I was serious.

My beloved friends who are in IF hell worry about dragging me back into the world of IF with sharing their struggle and their pain. They would like this to be all unicorns and butterflies and kittens' whiskers for me (I'm paraphrasing: my friends have huge hearts but are not one ounce of corny). I'm not sure how out of the IF world I am, to be honest. I sure am not done dealing with my own feelings about the years of infertility and childlessness I faced. (But you know, I'm a licensed psychologist now so I should be done with that by next week). I can relate to my friends much more easily than say, to this couple we visited last week. They wanted to talk about their decision to only have one child when the world expects them to have two. I could appreciate their questionning process around the number of children they would have, and I could give my view on having been an only child myselt, but I was glad they never asked: 'what are you thinking about: one or more?' We're still working on being able to have one child. Still hoping and praying and holding our breath.


*the notion that people get what they deserve - which I try hard not to believe in too much because it's simply not how life works.

the updates keep being boring

It's been a bit of a roller coaster this week, the reason on which I will pin my absence of posts. But this morning, thanks to insomnia, I got up at 5am (after tossing and turning since 2am) and have some time to cough up a lengthy missive (yes, I think this is sleepless boot camp for the mother-to-be).

I got a stomach bug on Tuesday. Hum, stomach bugs and pregnancy are not a winning combo for more reasons that one. I was also trying to prepare for my oral licensing exam through the stomach bug situation. I will remember this week, mark my words. Probably mostly because I DID get my license! I can now practice my profession autonomously, which is a huge deal in my little world. I am thrilled.

I went to visit my OB last week. I continue to like her so much. She was once again very pleased with everything, and said so. It still feels a bit suspect to have everything be going well, but I'm trying to roll with it. She did send me for some blood work and the glucose tolerance test. I'm still concerned that I will fail my glucose test because of a family history of diabetes on both of my parents' sides. But let's wait for the facts to emerge, shall we. So far, no phone calls from the OB's office, although it's only been a week.

At the OB's, I looked at her while she was measuring my uterus and preparing the doppler for the symphony of the heartbeat, and asked "is there really going to be a baby?" She seemed to think so. "Well, there is something in there!" is what she said. It's still not entirely real, although the wiggling and kicking does help.

Oh, and I got a diaper bag. Received it in the mail this week. After much back and forthing, I chose this one. I'm sure gummy will approve (this is me being sarcastic about my own penchant for consumerism. Gummy for sure will not care). In a separate package, I received a whole whack of formula products. I'm not sure how that got to me, probably through signing up for one thing or another. It's nice to have though, in case my double A breasts don't deliver on their promise of milk.

So apparently, the third trimester is around the corner. I think there is nothing more to say after that. Except: !