Enlightened or Clueless

Today, I'm trying to keep it together.  Probably about 70% of my patients are on Medicaid, which means I see more than my fair share of rough family situations, but this year has been extreme.  We've had two parents die in motorcycle accidents, numerous kids taken from homes due to parental drug use (the vast majority of these kids have been home when the raids occurred, we've learned), and today we had our second parent murdered.  This is just since 2013 began.  In both situations, the parent was murdered by the child's father and in both situations, the kid was in the house when it happened.  I wish I had some words of deep thought or wisdom in this sort of situation, but I'm still just reeling.  I haven't the slightest idea what to do for this kid, besides making sure the family has all the equipment needed for hearing since the house is a crime scene and they can't go in.  See, this is why I always find out about these situations as they are unfolding.  The kid is ripped from the home, usually from bed in the middle of the night or early morning, and they can't hear because they don't wear their processors while sleeping.  The house is locked up, and no one can effectively communicate with the kid to tell them what's going on, because the stuff that lets them hear is in the house.  We get a phone call asking for loaner equipment from a family member or foster parent.  It's all just too unfathomable to me and really weighing on me.  I just don't know how to help.  I feel so useless.

On another note, one of my coworkers sent around some stupid video.  Maybe you've seen it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olSyCLJU3O0  Please note, if you not in a good place infertility wise, do NOT watch this video.  Just know that it's one of those, "motherhood is such a joy, cherish every moment, lalalalalala" movies.  First of all, I think I was supposed to feel privileged to have been let in on this email.  The note attached said something about being busy in motherhood, including those who have a little one on the way.  Since I was the only pregnant person in the cc list, I guess that was me.  Um, am I in the club?  I don't want to be in some weird exclusive club.  Everyone mothers and everyone could appreciate something from this movie... maybe.  It also hit me that there is only one person in my office with lady parts who is not a parent/expectant parent and that made it seem particularly shitty to me.  Anywho, so I watched the video, and maybe the exclusivity of begin let in on this wonderful video of wisdom made me a bit jaded while I was watching it, but good Lord what it an eye roller to me.

Yet again I was able to feel thankful for our infertility journey.  Being in the muck of it sucks so horribly badly, but I knew I was learning and still am learning so many valuable lessons.  I just couldn't help watching this and wondering how in the hell this woman and all of her adoring followers holding so intently on her every word, could have possibly gotten this far in life without learning the same lessons.  It took raising children for you to learn how little control you had over others?  You had to watch the kids grow up and leave the house before you figured out what a precious gift each little moment with them was?  I can guarantee you I will not take butterfly kisses, stubbed toes, broken hearts, bedtime stories, or dance recitals for granted.  I think a piece of me will even rejoice when my teenager gives me a big fat "I HATE YOU!"  So thank you, endometriosis, for helping me see so many gifts in life, and for helping to keep my blind stupidity about life to a dull roar.

Did I miss something in that video?  Maybe I missed something.  Please feel free to point it out if I did.  I could always learn some more life lessons.

Knowing Enough To Be Dangerous

My dreams of late have calmed down some.  In the first trimester there was an epic tale every night.  Of course none of my dreams were the "super cool fun sex dreams" my girlfriends told me to expect in pregnancy.  No, mine were more of the miscarriage, infant death variety.  It was 10 weeks of nightmare-ville.

They've slowed down, but when I do get them, they are not at all joyous or fun.  Last night was a prime example.  With our ultrasound coming up, I'm getting anxious.  My anxiety is higher for two reasons.  The first being that I know too much.  I know just enough to be dangerous.  I have over 900 deaf children on my caseload and deafness often comes with a lot of other things.  Things that could be seen on an ultrasound at this point.  You name it, I've seen a kid with it.  When I see a kid with some syndrome or anomaly,  I learn about it. This is backfiring on me.  The second reason for my anxiety is that my mother is flying in and coming with us.  This is great in theory!  Except for the part where she is SO excited about finding out the gender that she can't think of anything else.  I have to keep reminding her that the main point of this ultrasound is to check out ALL of Chipmunk's parts.  Not just the plumbing.  I have to tell her that asking the tech to do something silly to share the gender with us is really not a good plan since she's going to be measuring kidneys and such and I'd rather she concentrate on that.  I feel like a B crushing her little plans for fun, but I have to remind her that this is a Level II ultrasound.  There is this pessimism about me.  So many eggs wouldn't even fertilize.  Only one of nine embryos transferred stuck around.  How can this one possibly be really and truly chromosomally hunky dory?

So last night I had a dream that my baby had holoprosencephaly.

Don't look that up.

Where are those fun sex dreams again?

Other

The inter-racial issue rarely comes into play in our lives.  There is the occasional weird comment, but they are usually just silly.  The only thing that really annoys me is going to our favorite, closed-minded, bigoted  chicken sandwich place.  In every fast food joint in the world it goes something like this:  Husband and I reach the counter, standing side-by-side.  Typically his hand is on the small of my back because he likes to stand that way.  The cashier looks at us expectantly, I look to J, he says, "Go ahead,  babe," and I place my order.  The cashier then looks expectantly at J, he places his order.  They ask, "Is that all for you today?" and we get the total.  Not at Chick-fil-a.  Every freakin' time they give me my total before J has a chance to get a waffle fry in edge-wise.  It's as if the man touching me with a wedding band on can't POSSIBLY be ordering with me what with his Asian-ness and all.  We just don't fit into their neat little box.

Apparently, Chipmunk doesn't fit into any boxes and s/he doesn't even have a fingerprint yet.  We had to pre-register with hospital for the delivery.  I agree, it seems completely ridiculous to do this so early on, but I'm following the directions from my OB.  I was on the website, plugging through all the boxes.  Mother's name, father's name, mother's maiden name, mother's mother's maiden name, mother's race, father's race.  There it was.  "Ethnicity of newborn."  There weren't many choices.  Asian, Hispanic, Caucasian, African-American... I was stuck.  I'm sure Chipmunk will look Asian, but s/he is Caucasian also.  Do I discount one part of him/her with a click of my mouse?  No way.  I looked at J and we both said the same thing at the same time.

Other.

We chose the last item from the drop down menu.

It left me thinking, why does it matter?  Is this a battle my child will have to face for eternity?  Don't we live in a melting pot?  Isn't there supposed to be some sort of revolution soon where mixed race individuals are becoming the largest minority?  So why doesn't my child get a drop down box?  Why doesn't s/he get to choose how to describe his/her ethnicity?  Why does the birth certificate get to define such an important piece of an identity with limited wiggle room?

Ah, America.  Land of diversity and restrictive little boxes.

Sweet Sixteen

Yowza!  It's been more than a month since I've posted?  I promise I have not turned my back on this community.  I've been reading and keeping up with all of you, it's just been unexpectedly busy around here.  Here's my month in bullet form:

• I went for my colposcopy and the OB saw one spot on my cervix that was concerning.  She ended up doing a biopsy of two different areas.  I had a new kind of two week wait.  The "do I have cancer" kind.  I was freaked out enough that I did not want to blog or talk about it at all.  Happily, everything came back benign! I have a repeat pap at 28 weeks and I'm hoping the ASCUS will be gone.  A girl can hope.
• Something is going on with J's father.  We think.  It's really hard to tell with the language barrier, cultural schism  and distance.  He's been seeing a lot of specialists and we're trying to get a grip on what's going on.  All his tests have come back fine... it's hard to know.
• The tenant moved of out my old house (which we rent out) and we've been scrambling to get it all fixed up and back in shape on as little funds as possible.  I think we're almost done!  We've had to replace a whole floor.  Scratch that.  J had to replace a whole floor.
• We already have a new tenant lined up!  Even better, it's my coworker's very responsible and lovely 26 year old daughter who has always loved my darling little townhouse.  She's starting law school so it's possible we could have her there for 3 whole years.  Her BFF is moving in with her.  We're THRILLED!
• I traveled to see my future sister-in-law try on wedding gowns!  My mom was there too and we had so much fun.  We went to Bridal's By Lori and got to meet Monty and everything.  He is charming, but dumb as a box of rocks.  She did in fact say yes to the dress.
• I was teaching a distance learning course and MAN that was a time sucker!  Grades are in and it's all over until next spring.  
• Knock on something, quick!  I think I'm finished puking!  Woo hoo!  I'm still quite tired and I'm chalking that up to being old and pregnant rather than just pregnant.
• Now that I can eat consistently again, I've gained 10 pounds.  Weight control fail.  I am very disappointed by this and I'm having a hard time figuring out how to get things back under control.  I know I should just be happy about my growing belly, but I also want to be sure Chipmunk stays healthy.  Perhaps that starts with getting off the computer and getting on the treadmill.
• My MaterniT21 results were negative, did I tell y'all that?  Very good news indeed.  We are waiting to find out the gender.  Level II ultrasound is a few weeks away and my mom will be in town then.  It just seemed better to learn then rather than hear it on the phone.  Although I did have some fantasies about going home and telling J, "I know the gender, and I'll tell you if you clean out the garage."

So here we sit, 16 weeks and things are going well.  At this moment, there is no drama going on with my lady parts for the first time in years and I am so grateful for that.

Now, on to some posts that have meaning and catching up on my commenting!

Visit to the OLD

Sorry I've been MIA, but I've been pretty freakin' sick.  I knew I would whine and moan about it here and that just didn't sit right with me.

*This post is about a prenatal visit.  If you aren't in a good place right now, feel free to pass.  If you're in a great place, read on and check out Chipmunk's updated page.*

Today I went to the OLD.  That's Old Lady Doctor for those of you not in the know.  Okay, some people say it's the perinatology group, but I'm calling it the OLD, because that's why I have to go there.  I'm turning 35 in 12 whole days.  That apparently gets the dreaded AMA stamped on your chart.  Advanced Maternal Age. Oooooh.

First we went to the regular OB for a checkup.  There are 5 OBs in this practice.  I liked the first one and today I liked the second one.  She was very grandmotherly and just lovely.  She commented several times on the rough road we've had.  We got to hear the heartbeat for the first time.  I've seen it a few times now, but I've never had the chance to hear it.  It was quite possibly the most beautiful sound I've ever heard in my life.  She let us listen for a good long while.  She did a regular old exam and told me that because of my small stature and small pelvis (which of course seems gigantic to me!) we're aiming for a 6 lb baby.  No bigger than 7.  Not only would I have a hard time with a vaginal birth with a baby bigger than 7 lbs, but there just isn't a lot of room in there for a "big" baby.  I kinda saw that coming.  So the goal is to keep my weight gain to 1/2-3/4 lb a week for the rest of the pregnancy. Wowzers.  I have to behave, people!  I was only 6 lbs and J was 7 lbs so hopefully things will be just fine.

Then I got some not so good news.  My pap showed atypical cells.  This is a first for me.  So they ran an HPV test and I came back positive for high-risk HPV.  At the time the OB seemed really nonchalant about it, so I really wasn't worried.  She said 80% of women have HPV at some point in their lives, but I still felt like a big ho.  She assured me that it Chipmunk isn't at any sort of risk either.  I was okay at the time.  Then I of course started Googling as soon as I got in the car, and found things that bothered me.  Like how high-risk HPV has an increased chance of turning into cervical cancer, and of women who had to abort their pregnancies because they had malignancies.  Thankfully, these women in my OB's office are really awesome, and she called to check in later.  So I asked her if these sorts of things are usually a big deal.  She told me that I could have had it for years and it just laid dormant until now, when my immunity is down.  Most of the time it's either completely benign or there is some mild-dysplasia.  I'm having a colposcopy on 4/16 and they will hopefully decide that nothing looks concerning and they can postpone a biopsy.  They'll do another pap at 28 weeks to see if anything has changed and then another after I deliver (me... delivering... and not pizza... crazy).  We'll decide from there what to do if it's still there.  She also assured me that if there is a cancer risk it typically takes years to develop, so we should have some time to decide what to do.  That call really put my mind at ease.  I'm seriously tired of the drama, however.  Just for the record.

Then we headed off to the OLD.  First we met with the genetic councilor.  She went over my family history and J's in detail.  Nothing stood out for either of us putting us at a higher risk, so that was good to hear.  Then we had our ultrasound.  You guys, Chipmunk actually looked like a baby.  It was amazing.  S/he was wiggling all around, kicking arms and legs.  She took a nuchal fold measurement since Chipmunk was in a good position.  She measured arms and legs (two of each!) and looked at my uterus, ovaries, and cervix.  She said everything looked good.  Then the maternal fetal medicine specialist came in, declared we had a "very cute fetus" which cracked me up, and took a look at things. She too declared that everything looked great.  I'm measuring right on time.  11 weeks 0 days exactly.  I had my blood drawn for the MaterniT21 testing and we were all done!  I'll get the results in 7-10 days.

It's been a good day.  I'm finally starting to feel like I'm bonding with this little one.  That's been hard to explain to J.  I guess I've just been so scared that it's been hard for me to really fall in love with the Chipmunk, but after hearing that heartbeat and seeing that little wiggle worm today, things are certainly changing.