good night, sweet tadpole

we have lost the tadpole. there is no heartbeat, no blood circulating, no growth. there is my oddly-shapen, half-deflated uterus and what they initially feared was a huge fibroid but turned out to be beginning contractions. the genetic perinatologist believes it is most likely a trisomy problem due to my age. a biopsy will be done, although there may be no answers. we don't know how long it's been dead; if it's been awhile, there may not be enough chromosomal matter left to tell anything.

i'm having a d&c monday; i'm waiting to hear from the surgical coordinator for the time. meanwhile, i have been listening to "her majesty" from the decemberists and cleaning house, for the inevitable guests we will have, and already have - matt and sarah came over to help justin finish tearing the carpet of out of the carriage house and start laying the new floor. justin feels like he really needs to get the whole thing done this weekend; i think he would like for one thing to be completely done. justin's mom is coming over when she leaves work to help, too, and kath and mike and the ever-bigger charlie are bringing over pizza and beer at 7:00.

my mom offered to fly up. i don't know, though. i'm going to think about it today. i would rather go away somewhere, i think. plus my mom wanted to tell me how my nephew's gained two pounds since he was here and gotten his second tooth. i love that boy, but, god help me, it was like razors scraping against my brain to hear about it today.

a memorial service doesn't seem right this time, but i would like to do something, privately, to at least formalize the tadpole's departure. justin suggested we go to japan in january for a water baby ceremony. we'll see. we are going to make a tadpole box, with the one ultrasound picture we have, and the baby hat from cbgb's that deadbabymama got us, and the frog halloweeen costume i bought a few weeks ago in a spurt of hope. i think the frog clock we got in vermont will be a part of the next child's room, like hans's quilted jungle calendar with the days and months and seasons in french that we bought for him in belgium last year.

i don't know what to think right now. i've gotten a little teary, but mostly the pragmatic side of me has kicked in, asking the questions about my options and risks, making phone calls and plans for monday, getting ready to receive the people who love us and want to be with us. i think there will be more tears later, but it's more than i can manage right now. i'm going to talk to my ob on monday about a little short-term pharmaceutical help again. he was cool about it after hans, after he understood my history with depression and that i wanted an anti-depressant and not valium (with apologies to anyone reading this who has been helped by valium - it's only that it's not what i needed at that point); i think he'll work with me again.

i imagine my position will change 100 times, but as of this moment, what i want is to try again, as soon as possible, and if we have a healthy pregnancy and bring home a child, i will be ready to stop. justin mentioned waiting until after hans's birthday, in february, to try again; i know that a few days ago i was complaining that it was too soon to be pregnant again, but given the likely cause of this miscarriage, i feel even more desperate to try sooner rather than later. and after hans, who was supposed to be an only child, i wanted two more. but justin is already concerned about the effect of pregnancy on my health, and i am feeling less like taking more chances than necessary; i think i could live with being the mother of hans and the tadpole and one child we actually get to raise. but we'll see.

that's about it for now. in case anyone is wondering, i got six groovy pairs of knee socks last night, a picture of which i would post here if (a) i knew where the camera was and (b) i had a fresh battery for it. i actually got up this morning and wore a skirt and my groovy new socks and makeup (for maybe the 4th time since hans died) - i was so determined for this to be a festive day. there will be an impromptu party here tonight, but not the one i wanted.

p.s. to pengo and deadbabymama - we tried to call both of you but couldn't get through and didn't want to leave voicemails. forgive us for letting you know this way.

23rd post

lisa tagged me with the challenge to:

1. Go into your archives.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence along with these instructions.
5. Tag five people to do the same.


i wrote such horrible run-on sentences that i had to get to the middle of the third paragraph to find the fifth sentence, which was: "the tulips and irises are starting to push through the soil in the back and side yard as much as they have been in the treelawn, which i find very encouraging." it was monday morning, the day after easter. do with that what you will.

are there five people reading this blog, besides lisa and the other four people she tagged??? i'll give it a try: nervouskitty, bronwyn, pengo (if you want to play games with girls), deadbabymama (same goes for you) and justinian (if you've made 23 posts - ha!).

i'll have to catch up on the rest of blogland tomorrow. the time i've spent so well on this post has used up what little sleep time i have left - i have to get up two hours earlier than usual on ob appt days. lisa, if i'm grumpy tomorrow, i'm holding you personally responsible.

all i want for three-months-before-christmas

tomorrow's the fourth (!) ultrasound (if you're counting, i'm averaging one every two weeks for the eight weeks i've known i was pregnant), and at this point i don't care if we see the tadpole's hoo-ha or not. it could be a hermaphrodite, and i would be fine with it.

i want to see a heartbeat. i want to see a fully-formed spinal cord, and i want the skin over it to be sealed tight. i want to see zero jk factor-related swelling. i want to carry a report from the peri to my ob that says the tapole actually measures 10w6d, or better, and has a low risk of downs. a little dancing from the tapole would be a nice bonus, but not required.

*****

i'm off now to buy knee socks. 'tis the season, you know. i also want some black mary janes. if i could buy pleated wool plaid skirts in maternity sizes, i would. i've got a serious case of fall fever.

if i can't feel good, at least i can look good

tonight in public square, where i made my bus transfer, i was told that i was looking fine. i had just been thinking how pregnant i feel. my belly protrudes in that way that makes people ask, "is she pregnant or just getting fatter?" my hair needs to be cut, and colored, for that matter (2 1/2 weeks until i'm clear for color!). i was trying not to puke. and this nice man tells me i'm looking fine. sometimes, i get what i need.

and one more thing

we have an ultrasound friday. i'll be 10w6d, so it would take an incredibly skilled technician (or freakishly devleoped genitals) for us to know the gender this time. this ultrasound is for the nuchal fold translucency test. but have no fear - we'll have another ultrasound by 15 or 16 weeks at the latest (to see if the umbilical cord has three blood vessels instead of two, like hans) and we should know something more then.

i'm starting to really crave knowing whether it's a boy or a girl. i want to start calling it by name. now that i think about it, that's when hans started to feel real to me. i think maybe i don't feel so connected to the tadpole now because i'm comparing it to how i felt with hans at 7 months. it's easy to forget, now, when i dwell in hans-ed-ness, that i didn't always feel about him like i feel now.

maybe there's hope for our mother-child relationship yet.

more jekyll and hyde

my vision is getting skewy. i was nauseated several times but have not actually thrown up today. i'm so happy! i'm so scared! i'm so psycho!

i am not only psycho but also psyched - about "commander in chief". i watched it tonight, in a rare moment of television weakness, and it's melodramatic, sure, but even a flaming liberal like me had to fight the urge to stand up and salute periodically. it's fluffy claptrap. and i liked it.

*****

there's a new member to the club. she's one of my field reps; she's been with my company for about a month. she's based out in a culturally-southern metropolitan market and has a name that screams honky-tonk angel. i found out today she lost her first child, her daughter, in april. she confided this to my motherly co-worker who inspires these sorts of confidences from everyone, including me. her daughter contracted a virus in utero, was born prematurely, and died four days later. my co-worker told her she needed to talk to me and briefly told her about hans. she said she'd like to talk to me, but she didn't want to make me uncomfortable. my co-worker suggested i call her this evening.

the thing is, i haven't exactly bonded with her already. she's a little high strung. maybe it's her personality, or maybe it's grief. i don't know, but she's high maintenance, professionally. we get things done, but i don't think we're each other's favorite. so i sent her an e-mail instead. i briefly summarized the hans story and then a little bit about this pregnancy. this woman is my age and desperate to get pregnant again but terrified she won't be able to. talk about deja vu, eh?

i asked her what her daugher's name was and told her i'm here to listen. we'll see what happens.

what can make me feel this way?

vixanne asked how i felt about having a girl, if we are, and i've been thinking about it quite a bit. i admit, the first time around, although i said i didn't care what it was as long as it was healthy (ha! i didn't even get that wish!), i was stunned when the ultrasound tech pointed out hans's penis. i realized that i had always assumed it would be a girl, i think because i'm a girl, and girliness is what i know. i shifted my dreams then, and hoped hans would be a boy who likes girls' clothes. we'll never know if that dream would have come true, will we?

this time, i feel like the tadpole should be a boy, because a boy is what i've been getting ready for for a year now. and yet the only vaguely scientific thing i have so far is that my beta levels were astronomically high, indicating a higher likelihood of a girl, but not guaranteeing anything.

i feel prepared for a boy now, and not so prepared for a girl. i'm bowled over by all of the utter crap marketed to and at girls. i was raised under the radar of that sort of nonsense because my parents had limited means and because i was raised in a rather conservative religious custom that eschewed worldliness. at the time, i felt so tortured to be excluded, but in retrospect it probably saved me some grief.

raising a girl feels like a heavier responsibility than raising a boy. not that as a society we're doing such a whiz-bang job of socializing our males, but it seems like there are so many more negative messages aimed at girls than at boys that it will take much more work to raise a girl strong enough to withstand the barrage. such a responsibility feels so leaden, so adult. and so anachronistic, too, akin to the old practice of locking up your girls but letting your boys run free. the thing is, when a teenage pregnancy happens, it's the girl that has to carry it or deal with it, and until science makes it possible for men to get knocked up, that fact isn't changing. pregnancy is just one example of how girls are more vulnerable, of course, but it's the most obvious one at the moment.

so if the tadpole is a girl, i will be scared. and also, i will be thrilled. i will start looking at hot pink geometric fabrics to go with the hot pepper green walls of her room. i will start coveting girly dresses with ruffles and smocking and bows. i will be a little less worried, because girls are a little less likely to be stillborn than boys. and i will start telling everyone who will listen what her name is.

dream until your dream comes through

no more boy or girl dreams, but here are two new weird ones, from the wee hours of this morning:

1. we were staying in a hotel suite, with some other people. something happened that my ob got called in to check on me. everything was fine, but while i was getting dressed in the bedroom, justin and the other people there were telling the ob that i had a crush on him. he said to justin, quietly, "under the circumstances, i think it would be best if she saw someone else from now on." when i came out of the bedroom, my ob was gone, and justin told me what had been said, and i was horrified. he is the only ob i can see, the only one who knows everything! i started leaving him endless voicemails saying things like, "look, i find LOTS of people attractive, and i'm not trying to bust up THEIR marriages! you HAVE to see me!" i was pretty happy to wake up and find that my dream was just that.
2. i was at a valentine banquet at college. they were going to name a queen and i was surprised to be one of the three candidates. it took FOREVER for them to go through all of the formalities and naming the runners-up, and while they were doing that, all of the insecure girls i went to school with were scheming to undermine me, which was stupid because the voting was already over. i wore an intensely red-orange formal dress, and the non-insecure people were all telling me how blown away justin would be when he saw me in it (nevermind that i didn't meet justin until i was 30, by which time the dress would have no longer fit and been pretty stinky). just as they were about to announce that i was queen, i woke up, not as happily this time, i must say.

i need to get it together to go to justin's brother's birthday party. i'm not really looking forward to going without justin, who is at work. also, at the birthday boy's request, my MIL is making chicken and potato dumplings. i've eaten a little bit of chicken lately, but her chicken is always undercooked, and the thought of potato dumplings is completely revolting. at least tonight i can claim my well-publicized nausea to get out of the dumplings, although it might raise eyebrows if i proceed to eat cake.

i've got sunshine on a cloudy day

i think we're having a girl. here's what i have so far:

1. remember those crazy high early beta levels i had? girls have higher beta levels than boys.
2. i had a dream last night that jill's girls gave me a present - a miniature jewelry chest. inside was a wardrobe of jewelry - necklace chains, bracelets, and two earring frames - all made for those mother jewelry charms - you know the ones - gold stick figures with blue stones for the boys' middles and pink ones for the girls. jill's daughters gave me a blue charm for hans and a pink charm for the tadpole. it must be a sign, right?

for what it's worth, in my dream, when i opened the little chest, most of the stuff was missing, and then i looked at justin - he had thought it was for him and had made boy/girl necklaces and a bracelet and earrings for himself and was wearing them already. he was very proud of himself and very upset when i told him they were for me and he had to take them off.

my husband is a big old girl, but jewelry is not one of his things. wearing a wedding ring was a huge deal for him. so i don't know what the dream means. maybe it was meant to be a nightmare; after seeing all the scary barbie outfits in toddler sizes marketed to girls in target today, i'm kind of scared to have a girl.

the state of things today

i had to put justin's shoes on for him and then help him stand up. later, i carried the heavy stuff in from the car so he wouldn't strain himself. it gave me a bad case of reverse deja vu - a year ago, it was exactly the same with us, only the roles were reversed. except that justin is not pregnant but instead threw out his back making beer - with four other men, any of whom could have done the heavy lifting, but instead justin with his bad back did it. that's perfectly logical, right?

justin likes to tell me he has the body of a god, and then admits that the god to which he refers is buddha. he's pretty fit except for a lovely pot belly which i find cuddly but which his doctor advised him this week may be contributing to his back problems. of course, that statement made me think of women with humongous boobs that give them back trouble, so i tried to console him by pointing out that at least it was his stomach and not his man-rack that she cited. i don't think it consoled him much, but then i've been on a roll for saying less than helpful things to him of late.

this morning, for example, we were immersed in, ahem, intimacy, when i suddenly remembered what i recently learned and had been meaning to tell him, but every time i had thought about it, he wasn't around. this being the first time i thought of it when i was in his presence, i proceeded to tell him about the real-life chef boyardee's ties to cleveland. it made the moment somewhat less satisfying than a can of spaghetti-o's for him, needless to say, but at least we've been laughing about it all day.

one of the things we accomplished today was buying new pillows. we are the proud new owners of two firms and two extra-firms. when we were changing the sheets last saturday, the overhead light was on and i saw how nasty our pillows had become. and then i realized it was because in the last six months there's been no shortage of crying done on those pillows. it made me feel less nasty but also more deserving of new pillows, and not just any pillows - expensive ones!

i swivel constantly between hopefulness and certainty that this pregnancy is over. it usually depends on whether i've got any nausea at the moment, so that when i feel worst i'm happiest. i'm trying to lay low until next friday, when i have my next ultrasound and checkup. if anything's gone wrong, it's not like knowing any sooner will change anything or save the tadpole. so i'm trying to concentrate on hope. over breakfast at the juniper grille this morning, i wondered aloud whether the tadpole will want to sit at a booth or a table when the three of us go there; if i were putting money down, i'd bet on the booth.

something's gotta give

va-va-va-voom! do i feel good this morning. last night? top-five.

but it's the best i've felt all week. i haven't been able to write because i've been busy crying.

i understand now what david and deadbabymama were talking about when they told us about taking a year after losing their children before trying to conceive again. i did not get it before. i respected their choices as right for them, but i felt ready to try again this summer, and frankly a bit frantic about avoiding the risk that just kept increasing the longer i waited.

but it was too soon. i'm struggling with connecting with the tadpole. i feel invaded. and the last two weeks have been filled with overwhelming grief for hans.

for the first time ever, the thought crystallized in my fevered brain: i was so sensitive to hans moving, or not moving - enough for a couple of emergency visits to the hospital - and yet i missed it when he died. the evening before we found out he was dead, i was getting a manicure and pedicure. my son was dead inside of me, and i was getting my nails done. it seems so obscene. and then the question came, for justin: does he blame me for not recognizing when something was going wrong?

for the record, he doesn't, and intellectually i understand that i was exhausted from telling nurses that something was wrong and getting eye rolls in return. i didn't know what to think, and i certainly didn't trust my judgment. but that sequence of events keeps playing in my mind.

so does the moment on the ultrasound table when the tech said she couldn't find anything, and i howled, and justin rubbed his face in the ultrasound gel on my stomach. so does the realization that hans would have been doing those things my nephew was doing two weeks ago.

it's all too much on its own, and combined with this new pregnancy - well, something's gotta give, and it's the tadpole that loses. i have 30 weeks, give or take, to get ready for the tadpole. i just don't know how to do it.

The Hans Treatment

Hans arrived on a late flight today, a cute older Swiss man who wore a fuzzy cardigan. I couldn't help but be charmed by him.

Diligent as ever, I'd noticed his coming arrival, and met him at the gate. He'd been flying for more than 12 hours, Geneva to New York, then New York to Cleveland. Here he missed his connection to Phoenix. I met him and his party at the gate, introduced myself, and gave them their options: spend the night in Cleveland, a good nights sleep and a fresh start in the morning or fly to Las Vegas and make another connection, finally arriving in Phoenix beyond 1am, some 24 hours after they'd started their day.

He asked me if I'd give him a moment, so he could check with his travel companions. "Take your time" I said.

They decided that they best get a good nights sleep. I agreed. "Welcome to Cleveland Hans!" There were a few logistics to take care of, hotel voucher, shuttle information, all that airport stuff. I'd offered to escort he and his family down to the shuttle.

Hans noticed my family name, not uncommon in Austria-Czech, we chatted a bit about the violin player and the figure skaters that share my name. I then mentioned his name, and that I'd named my son Hans. This brought a smile to his face.

A few moments later, as we parted, he handed me a couple of Swiss chocolate bars ... thanking me for the Hans Treatment.

yet another reason to at least try for a vaginal delivery

apparently, babies delivered by c-section become children with more cavities, and earlier, than children who were delivered vaginally. scientists theorize the baby gets exposed to more bacteria coming down the pike, thereby establishing greater immunity to the appropriate bacteria sooner, than the baby who bypasses the tunnel exit altogether.

how to lose those last ten pregnancy pounds before you gain them! also, how do i love my ob? let me count the ways

a week ago today, i wore my favorite black pants, and i was sad, because it was going to be the last time i wore them. i could still fasten them, but when i sat at my desk all day, the pressure of the waistband was starting to give me headaches. today, i wore the same pants and had to keep hiking them up. they actually looked bad because they were too big. that never, ever happens to me.

while my mom and sister were here and we were out shopping, i got this great deal on a black corduroy blazer - perfect for my very casual office and fall activities in general. it was cut a little more generously in the waist area than most jackets, so i thought, aha! a great piece to get me through pregnancy! i survived last winter by wearing maternity tees with my regular blazers open; i thought i'd actually be able to button this new blazer for a while. i debuted it today and it hung on me like a sack. it looks like i borrowed my mom's blazer. well, not my mom's blazer - my mom is 5'2" and weighs about 100 lbs soaking wet - but someone's much larger mom's blazer.

i've had to keep reminding myself all day of the dr's assurances that the baby will be fine, not to mention the fact that i yakked three times today - always a good sign that the pregnancy progresses healthily. i'm trying to focus on the fact that i don't have to wear maternity pants for a bit longer.

*****

my ob called me this morning to check up on me. this kind of call is why i did not change doctors. he was glad the fever and diarrhea were gone and sorry for my misery but glad for the nausea because you know that's a good sign..... he offered me compazine or tigan for the nausea, but i tried tigan last time before the reglan and it didn't work, and compazine sounded vaguely menacing, so i told him the side effects of the zofran were ten times worse than persistent nausea and vomiting and i wasn't ready to risk any new side effects yet. the whole experience of repeatedly soiling oneself sort of puts nausea in perspective, you know? i only threw up once before work and twice at work, and i considered it a good day. a week ago i would have been in tears. things change.

*****

i checked with dr google on compazine and found it is commonly used as part of the comprehensive treatment of schizophrenia and is a sedative. maybe this is the way to get that coma i've been wanting!

on second thought, here is the list of possible side effects:

1. Abnormal muscle rigidity,
2. abnormal secretion of milk,
3. abnormal sugar in urine,
4. abnormalities of posture and movement,
5. agitation,
6. anemia,
7. appetite changes,
8. asthma,
9. blurred vision,
10. breast development in males,
11. chewing movements,
12. constipation,
13. convulsions,
14. difficulty swallowing,
15. discolored skin tone,
16. dizziness,
17. drooling,
18. drowsiness,
19. dry mouth,
20. ejaculation problems,
21. exaggerated reflexes,
22. fever,
23. fluid retention,
24. head arched backward,
25. headache,
26. heart attack,
27. heels bent back on legs,
28. high or low blood sugar,
29. hives,
30. impotence,
31. inability to urinate,
32. increased psychotic symptoms,
33. increased weight,
34. infection,
35. insomnia,
36. intestinal obstruction,
37. involuntary movements of arms, hands, legs, and feet,
38. involuntary movements of face, tongue, and jaw,
39. irregular movements,
40. jerky movements,
41. jitteriness,
42. light sensitivity,
43. low blood pressure,
44. mask-like face,
45. menstrual irregularities,
46. narrowed or dilated pupils,
47. nasal congestion,
48. nausea,
49. pain in the shoulder and neck area,
50. painful muscle spasm,
51. parkinsonism-like symptoms,
52. persistent, painful erections,
53. pill-rolling motion,
54. protruding tongue,
55. puckering of the mouth,
56. puffing of the cheeks,
57. rigid arms, feet, head, and muscles,
58. rotation of eyeballs or state of fixed gaze,
59. shock,
60. shuffling gait,
61. skin peeling,
62. rash and inflammation,
63. sore throat, mouth, and gums,
64. spasms in back, feet and ankles, jaw, and neck,
65. swelling and itching skin,
66. swelling in throat,
67. tremors,
68. yellowed eyes and skin.

given my track record with the odds, i'm not sure i want to risk much of anything on this list. it seems like another bad week waiting to happen.

sunday afternoon blues

i cannot stop thinking about hans today, and missing him. he should be here now. the only hand- and footprints of his that should be on my wall are the ones he's put there himself. i've had a very soggy, cry-y day.

and i'm still kind of off of talking to the tadpole. i don't trust it to stick around, i think. that's not true. what i don't trust is myself. i don't trust my judgment to know when things are okay or not with the tadpole. i don't have a good track record, you know.

i need a cookie. if only i could keep it down.

*****

i just saw something advertised on tv called "yoga booty ballet", to which i say, wha?????

a bodily-substance-free post!

i am going to live. and by all signs, the tadpole is still kicking.

*****

justin is thrilled he won at scrabble because he so rarely beats me. if it gives him satisfaction to win when i'm clearly so low, well, i hope he can sleep at night. and kwyjibo is not a word; it is a scrabble joke from the simpsons, and i most certainly did not allow him to play it. although clearly i was ill judging from some of the stuff i did let him get away with playing.

*****

i'm thinking of starting a new, concurrent, tadpole blog, something public. i would set it up under a separate user id and not link to anything in my current blog world, and i would use it as a chronicle of the tadpole's beginnings and a way for grandparents and long-distance friends to keep up with pictures and stories. i was thinking i could start with some of the things i've already written about being pregnant here (edited, of course!). i would still post here - it would be the place we could post freely. the new blog would just be a scrubbed, more tadpole-focused re-play of this blog. just thinking.

kwyjibo

kwyjibo (kwee-je-bo)

a big, dumb, balding North American ape with no chin and a short temper.

It's very rare that I beat Laura at Scrabble, well at anything really, short "rock, paper, scissors" - which since I developed a new strategy, I've become a sure fire ace. Anyhow, it happens from time to time, me winning, when the stars are aligned just right, or something equally as arbitary. Tonight just happened to be one of those nights: Justin - 351, Laura - 293. That's a fairly sound win. Yeah me.

Generally, I'd be doing a victory lap around the house, but now I too am bedridden. I've gone and thrown my back out while brewing beer. Quite a pair we are, eh?

A couple of asprins popped, a heating pad, an aching back, but a Scrabble victory nonetheless!

I feel like an old man.

i'm still standing (or at least laying)

after the worst episode yet, last night about this time, i called my ob's line, which sends you to labor & delivery after hours. l&d sends you to a triage nurse, who sent me back to l&d, who finally connected me with the ob covering for my ob. he was apologetic and swore he never got my message. he was kind and sympathetic, but the best he could do for me is to agree that i shouldn't take any more zofran and offer for me to come into the regular emergency room to get pumped up with fluids. i explained to him why i couldn't go to the emergency room, and how even if i was willing to do that, friday night in the level i trauma center er meant i'd be sitting there all night waiting for my fluids, and it didn't make sense to deprive myself of sleep and sit in a dirty diaper waiting for fluid i can give myself. actually, he was helpful in one way, in that he assured me that as long as i was getting a little sugar down and my temp didn't reach 100.7, i had nothing to worry about tadpole-wise.

i sobbed for a while. while justin cleaned the tub and ran a bath for me, which made me feel better, until i realized the rest of me was sitting in the same water my polluted behind was in, but by then i felt well enough to take a shower. justin changed the sheets on our bed, and i got some sleep, and sleep always makes things better.

so i'm back to overwhelming nausea, but periodic vomiting is still better than extreme gastroenteritis and fecal incontinence. for some bizarre reason, even gatorade has become intolerable to my system now, but i've switched to decaf tea with sugar, and i'm holding on to it, as well as a couple of apple slices and a couple of bites of pesto pasta i had at our friends' house tonight.

our friend successfully defended his dissertation thursday, so his wife threw a small party to celebrate. it was good to get out of the house for a few hours, even if i was not exactly the life of the party. the hostess had asked me at the beginning of the week to make a mandarin orange cake, which the new doctor adores, and justin - bless his heart - made the cake for me this morning with a little coaching from me. good husbands seem to be hard to come by, and despite my current misery i still feel lucky to have the one i've got.

justin remarked today that after last night's despoiling, he can handle anything that shoots out of a kid. for my part, i think it will make me a more sympathetic mother. i now understand firsthand the awfulness of sitting in one's poo, and the indignity of the clean-up process. although i would like to put this whole episode behind me, i guess it will help us both to be able to remember it when the tadpole is freaking out in its dirty diaper.

*****

i've been crying for hans off and on all day. he should be here now. i shouldn't be going through another pregnancy so soon after the last one, because i should be overwhelmed with hans. i do want this tadpole, but i want hans to be here, too. he should be a part of our lives now. of course, he is and always will be a part of our lives, but not in the way he deserved.

i feel forsaken

i finally called my ob this afternoon - but he is gone, and the partner covering for him has not called me back. i'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt; i know, unlike my ob who returns calls between appointments, many doctors return their calls at the end of their day, after their clinical hours. but at 7:25 on a friday night, i don't hold out much hope.

i think my problem is two-fold. i have this viral infection, and then the super-duper extra-nifty zofran comes in and turns my intestines to mush. my 24 hour incontinence returned a few hours after i took my second zofran this morning (after the obligatory and forcible removal of my breakfast - the tater tots were awful and i gave them to justin, but i ate the better part of a cheese and egg croissanwich), in a pattern almost identical to when i took the first one wednesday.

i just can't make any more decisions about my healthcare. i can't decide what to try to eat or drink or when. i can't decide whether i have enough time to try to run for the bathroom. i can't decide which anti-nausea medicine to try. i need someone else to take over. justin did that this afternoon when he called my ob and handed the phone to me, but there's only so much he can do. i want my coma, dammit.

on the mend

i've been fever-free for 8 hours, and elimination is under control. i woke up at 4:54 am desperately craving burger king tater tot coins, and justin is taking me there now. i will stay home today, and he is off and will look after me, and i will take it easy and drink more gatorade and what slushy foods i can manage (but no bananas, julie, as i am allergic to them). and i've still got morning sickness, so the tadpole is doing something right.

in which a little hope appears on the horizon

i did not call the doctor. i have never seen my new primary physician, and i know the office would have either offered me something next week or told me to go to the emergency room. and i think i've made it clear that i'm not returning there.

i thought about calling my ob. and then i thought, if he admits me, i won't have a proper bath for who knows how long, so i took one, and then i realized, i'm starting to feel better. so i waited.

i have not soiled myself in 3.5 hours. i have eaten a quarter of a can of amy's split pea soup with mashed up saltines and a half of a cup of cinnamon applesauce and i drank about 80 oz of gatorade. my temp is up only slightly. if i'm not better in the morning, i will call my ob. but for now, i'm just going to sleep.

update with minimal gross content

justin kindly walked home from the train in the rain last night so i wouldn't have to get up and pick him up, and he brought me two bottles of green gatorade. was there ever a better husband?

seven soilings, two tylenol, 40 oz of gatorade, a pudding cup and two saltines later, my temp is down to 97.6. but i am still incontinent. and i am down 6 lbs in the last 48 hours. and i am almost paralyzingly weak. i had to force myself to eat the pudding cup justin brought me in bed, but i just don't have the energy for it. justin has gone to the store to get more gatorade, and he handed me the computer before he left, but typing two paragraphs makes me feel like a good nap.

i told my boss this morning i'd try to come in for a half day this afternoon, but right now i don't feel confident about driving the car, and since my last bout of incontinence was about 10 minutes ago, i don't feel too confident about being able to stay at work if i got there.

and i'm terrified that if my body can barely sustain me, it's going to decide that little parasite has got to go.

i would like to be put in a coma for the next 30 weeks. they could feed me and the tadpole by iv. they could catheterize me and i wouldn't have to worry about voluntary vs. involuntary elimination. a good physical therapist could come in and exercise me every day. it seems like the way to go.

the mother of all skid marks, or how i went totally fox channel and sunk to new levels to gross you out

last night, the fever raged, and diarrhea set in. how could i have diarrhea, you ask, if i haven't kept anything down? excellent question. the answer is: liquids. apparently liquids are rerouted from the bladder to the bowels when solids are in short supply. who knew.

justin brought me the contraband tylenol, and the fever came down enough for me to sleep off and on, with an occasional trip to the potty. i woke up feeling depleted but less feverish, and justin kindly brought me a piece of bread with a little bit of jelly spread on it. i laid in bed and munched my bread and felt proud of myself for getting it down and allowing myself time in bed after eating, like all the books advise. my pride lasted for about 10 minutes; i jumped out of bed and hurled until i couldn't hurl any more. and then i hurled some more anyway, just dry heaves.

when i came back to bed, i asked justin for the phone. i told my boss i would not be in, and then i called my ob and told his secretary i was at the end of my rope and the reglan was not working for me like last time. my ob called me back almost immediately, bless his heart, and after chiding me for not having a thermometer in the house, prescribed (1) a new thermometer, (2) tylenol if my temp went over 100, and (3) the new-fangled zofran that dissolves on the tongue. he offered no help for the diarrhea, because there isn't any when you're pregnant.

i struggled into my clothes and justin drove me to walgreens. i bought ginger ale and vanilla pudding cups and saltines plus the prescribed items. my co-pay for the zofran was $30.00, but i figured, hey, if it works, it'll be worth it. on the way home, i opened the package and found eight pills. for a $30.00 co-pay. i was incensed. i'm supposed to take 1-2 pills per day, as needed. if i average 1.5 per day, the prescription will last me for 6 days. i suppose for the other 24 days of the month i will just wretch all the time. bastards. i'm afraid to ask what the stuff costs if i pay for it off-insurance. i'm sure it's nothing compared to what people pay for ivf or other treatments to have children, but i was not prepared for such a thing. shit.

speaking of which...

the zofran has worked, hallelujah, but the diarrhea goes on, even though there is absolutely nothing but ginger ale in my body (water totally turns my stomach right now). a few hours ago, i was blog-surfing, and i felt like i was going to toot a little. and then i did, and i felt a warm flush across my cheeks. those cheeks. i jumped up (to the extent possible) and ran into the bathroom and there was the mother of all skid marks - more of a skid puddle, actually - in my underwear. i cleaned up, and scrubbed my underwear by hand, and i was very angry. i didn't know what to put on. if it happened again, i didn't want to potentially ruin another pair of underwear. but if i didn't have any underwear on and it happened again, i would soil the bed, and that would be much more work to clean up than underwear. maybe i should have put on justin's.

i put another pair of my underwear on and went back to bed. my temp was 99.5, and even on a normal day my temp is closer to 98 than 98.6, and i don't want to mess around with the fever, so i went ahead and took the two tylenol and went to sleep.

i woke up when the phone rang - justin, calling to check up on me. i told him what had happened, and then i felt it coming on and told him i had to go before it happened again, and then it happened again. i can't believe on top of everything else i am now fecally incontinent. this is what happens to very old people, and when it does, family members start discussing quality of life, and take fewer resuscitation measures.

after scrubbing a second pair of underwear, i switched to a cheap cotton pair i bought after i came home from the hospital from delivering hans. at the time, i kept making messes and bought the six-pack from k-mart so that if i messed up my underwear i could just throw them away. i came back to bed and called my mom to complain. and then the feeling started. "ihavetogoit'shappeningagainbye." as i ran to the bathroom, i soiled myself for the third time today.

i am now wearing a depends.

in which tuesday is very monday-like

i woke up still feeling lighter and went downstairs to put leftover pancakes from sunday in the toaster oven. then i noticed a lovely, warm ball of light in the toaster oven; the toaster oven was on fire.

last week my mom told me she was getting us a new toaster oven for christmas because my ten-year-old one had so much crap in the bottom that it was a fire hazard. she repeated this claim several times. i admit, it does look like we laid a nice layer of charcoal in the bottom. and then two days after she leaves, her prophecy comes true.

maybe the compensation for her occasionally having questionable, age-impaired judgement is to occasionally have prophetic visions.

i turned the oven off and watched while the fire gradually choked out, then i inadequately heated the rest of the pancakes in the microwave, much to justin's utter delight. serves him right. he dropped a big glob of pizza cheese in there yesterday and meant to clean it up but forgot. we could have died. our house and everything in it is made of wood, for pete's sake.

as i got ready to walk downstairs, i felt the wave, and dashed to the bathroom in time to vomit in the sink, as the toilet was currently occupied by firestarter jr. actually, the sink is my most frequent target, since the brushing of teeth often inspires nausea, followed by the shower - hey, that's where it happens, okay? the toilet is a distant third.

i cleaned up and mumbled to justin, "well, maybe that will be all for today." just as he said, "huh?", i whirled around and unloaded all of my pancakes, my orange juice, and, i'm certain, my prenatal vitamin. for the second day in a row. i'm afraid of overloading on vitamin a if i take another vitamin, in case by some narrow chance the first vitamin had already disintegrated into my system. but now it's happened two days in a row.

there goes the tadpole's other eye.

the second round (i like to think of it as my long program, after my short program with fewer jumps and spins) was aggressive enough to cause a sponging down, a change of clothes, and a late arrival at work. no one said a word. i was probably just that green.

usually, once i have a good round of upchucking, i can coast through the rest of the day, even if i feel a little shaky. but today i had the shakes and undending nausea. the reglan did not stem the tide and it made me drowsy. on the drug company's website, it says one of the "less serious side effects" is "confusion". i think i've got that one.

i called justin to complain and he told me to call my ob. but honestly, can't i just have ONE WEEK of pregnancy that does not require medical attention??? and then, you know, actual work took over, and i didn't get the call made, so instead i left early and came home for my favorite remedy - laying on the bed and moaning. such a shame it's no where near as dirty as it sounds. and now i'm pretty sure i'm running a fever again; i got rid of the thermometer a few months ago to quell the urge to temp and chart and thereby save my sanity, so i can't be sure, but i'm red and hot (again, just not that dirty) and woozy.

of course, on saturday the tylenol bottle came uncapped in my purse, so all the tylenol i have are covered in black, slightly curly, leather lint; the sight of them is not good for nausea. so i interrupted my laying and moaning to call justin to tell him how i am, and he offered to check the first aid stash at work. he called me back and said, "i've got the stuff." my husband, my dealer. i said, "so you're gonna hook me up?" and he says [in monotone], "meet me at the barn."

there was a pause. i said, "uh, you DO know we live in a city, right?" he informed me "barn" was code. i'm not really sure for what. but he loves me enought to steal tylenol from work, so whatever. let him be dorky.

justin won't be home until 10:00, so in the mean time i thought i'd take a room-temperature bath, only i came in the bathroom and there's a rust-colored stain in the tub that i'm sure wasn't there this morning, and in the middle of it is a dead bug. ix-nay on the ath-bay. so now i'm sitting naked on the toilet (still not dirty), trying to decide if i can handle a lukewarm shower. and when i took off my shirt, i tried to throw it across the room into the existing pile of dirty clothes, but i came up short and it landed on top of the syrupy plates from this morning's breakfast, still sitting on the floor at the top of the stairs waiting to be taken down.

please god, just let this day be over.

on god and friendship and risk - a really long post

i finally did it. i called jene, my college roommate, kindred spirit, soul sister, fellow talker. i haven't talked to her since hans died. she lives in the west now, with her husband and two kids. she is a writer and editor and actor. she is a huge proponent of the bradley method and breastfed her son until he was 22 months and i think even then only stopped because i harassed her about it so much. she is the one person i have always been able to talk about anything with, and she has been for 18 years, since our freshman year of college (how old do i feel right now? pretty damn old). we have always been all about the talk.

there were protocols for when i gave birth, who we would call (my mom, justin's mom), who they would call, and so forth. we arranged that my mom would call jene when i went to the hospital. a few hours after i delivered my son, i asked my mom to make that call, and she went out into the hall and did it. when she returned, she looked a little dazed; the only thing jene had said was, "oh, crap."

between her two living children, jene had a miscarriage, right after 9/11. the last guy she dated before her husband died in one of the towers, and it shook her up badly; she blamed her miscarriage on that shock. jene didn't call after i got home, didn't write, and i thought my stillbirth must have brought up bad memories of her miscarriage - that's why i didn't hear from her. i didn't feel like talking on the phone in those early days, but i wanted to talk to her, so i sent her a long e-mail, telling her how sorry i was that this must have brought up those old memories, and telling her the whole story of what had happened, the story i was dying to tell her.

she sent back a one-sentence reply, that she was sorry, that it wasn't the miscarriage - she never thought about it -but that she just didn't know what to say.

i was so hurt. and so angry. the one person i expected, needed to talk about it with didn't know what to say??? i understood that what had happened was so horrible that there was no way to wrap your mind about it and nothing really could be said, and i was able to cut pretty much everyone some slack about it. but not her. she was the one person that had to be able to say something about it. but no. silence.

god, have i missed her. i talked to my mom about it last week. it occurred to me around then that, if a number of other people, for reasons i still don't entirely understand, felt palpable relief at news of the tadpole, and that relief opened up the floodgates of talk about hans, then maybe it would be true for jene. and she is worth the risk. i've been looking for the right time to call her the last few days, sometime when i'd have a couple of free hours, and she would, too, because we never talk less than two hours at a time.

then, at the same time, this whole god-thing has been brewing in me. i've come to the point that it's easier to believe that there is no god than to believe there is a god cold enough to stand by and allow my son to die. what an utterly worthless god. and yet i am so angry at the hole made by that loss of faith. that loss is almost is bad as the loss of hans; the pain is almost as sharp.

and in the midst of that pain, there was anna's post, a really beautiful, honest post (one she should re-post, frankly) about her struggle with her faith and making sense of it in light of her miscarriage and their mistreatment by other christians, among other things, and it hit right to the core of my misery. and then today, while i was feeling the loss of faith so strongly, and worrying that i had offeneded anna, i read an article on salon, the transcript of a speech bill moyers gave at union theological seminary recently (worth watching a 60 second commercial to get to it, by the way, if you're not a subscriber to salon already), and it stirred up so many other god-thoughts (at the moment, it's not up on salon, but i did find a transcript here on wesley clark's pac's website). as i walked out of my office tonight, i was thinking, what i would really like about now (besides a chipotle burrito) is a religious professional to fight with, someone who could get it together to either satisfactorily prove me wrong - or prove me right and let me live in peace.

when i got in the car, i didn't start it. instead, i called justin and told him about my frustration. he said, "you know who you should call? jene." and he was right. before hans died, she was the person i would have worked this out with. religion was one of her three majors, and she's thinking about going back to school by way of a theological seminary now. towards the end of my pregnancy, we were having an ongoing discussion about the religion in which we were raised (our fathers happened to both be ministers in the same evangelical denomination) and what we've left behind and what she is exploring (open theism).

i knew justin was right. i had to call her. i put the windows down in the car and dialed her number. she answered; her 2 1/2 year old son was hollering in the background, but she assured me it was a good time to talk. i immediately told her i was pregnant, and she started to cry. she apologized for not having called or written; she had just never known what to say. i told her how angry i had been, how much i had struggled with allowing her the same silence i had allowed everyone else, how much i had missed talking to her. she kept saying, "this is it. this is the last time. it stops here." when she stopped crying a little, she told me that she had been certain in the immediate aftermath of hans's death, when she didn't immediately respond, that i must hate her, and after that she had been afraid to contact me. but she's always had that fear, of saying or doing something to make her dearest friends hate her, and she did it with her husband, too, and at that moment she had just realized how ludicrous it was. of course, by this point i was crying, too.

then she told me that the other reason she had been hesitant to contact me was that she was pregnant, too - 20 weeks now. and then the talk flowed, like always. we talked pregnancies and miscarriages and scares and autopsies and midwives and umbilical cords and breastfeeding and allergies and being so emotional that we cry at the drop of the hat - or at the sound of a friend's voice on the telephone. it was so, so good. i finally felt the relief that everyone else has been feeling at the news of the tadpole, i suppose.

and then i told her about what had been going on with me, god-wise, and how justin reminded me she was the person i should call. we talked about her spiritual journey, and her study of open theism (which i don't entirely get but am working on), and she asked me to read a book with her, "letters from a skeptic", by gregory boyd. he is a christian minister and an open theist, and his father was an atheist, which caused a lifelong rift between them; but shortly before his father died, the author felt the need to try to have a conversation with him, and wrote him a letter and asked him to write back about what bothered him about christianity. the resulting correspondence between them makes up the book, and i'm going to get it and we're going to read it a chapter at a time and then discuss it. i admitted to jene that i'm skeptical that this book will provide me with any answers that will satisfy me, but i was willing to do it because it was something to do about my turmoil, an actual objective i could pursue, something that, if it didn't help, would at least prove my current state correct. progress.

after an hour and 20 minutes (really, just a quickie for us), i had to go pick up justin, and i've promised him to not talk on the phone while i drive (in return for him wearing his seatbelt), but we swore our love and made plans to talk again soon, and i told her i was glad i took the risk and called her. it was totally worth it.

justin and i had veggie burritos and lemonade at chipotle, and then when we got home, i had an e-mail from wonderful, sweet anna, and i think we're going to be okay. there won't be any girl-fights out in the parking lot after school, i'm happy to report. we actually have more in common than i knew.

so i go to bed tonight with a full, full stomach, but a significantly lighter heart. not a settled heart yet, but one that is definitely lighter.

sweet dreams.

doh!

i woke up wanting to blog about the nightmares in which i cursed and screamed at my dad, and maybe a little bit about the joy of wendy's broccoli 'n' cheese potatoes and before i started writing, i whirled through the usual blogs to see what was up in bloglandia and now i am sick to my stomach and not in the usual pregnancy-related way. i am afraid i have driven anna underground with my ravings about god. i didn't comment or link to her blog for a long time, even though i read it, because she seemed so lovely and full of faith and i didn't want to poison her with my cynicism, but gradually i caved a little because i wanted her to know i was pulling for her and her pregnancy. and now i think i've gone too far. i thought my comment was at least somewhat respectful, seeing as how i explained what i thought and what made sense (or not) to me. i didn't attack her or her faith, honest - i even told her i respected and envied her faith and what it gave her, or something like that - i don't remember exactly, and she's deleted it. i feel like a roman emperor who's just driven the christians further underground - not my intent at all. i feel horrible. i can't even remember what i was so anxious to blog about this morning.

of course, it's monday.

my family says good-bye (warning: disarmingly cute baby pictures in this post)

after we ate pancakes together, we took my family to the airport and sent them back to florida. i feel bad that their vacation was dampened by our scare on thursday. my mom and sister waited at home with my nephew, nervously anticipating the news. on friday and saturday, i was still so tired, we didn't do much. but we did have the time together, and what matters i suppose is that we were together.

my sister and i had exactly three minutes alone together yesterday afternoon, and she tried to explain how badly she felt that she had never actually said "i'm sorry" about hans. i don't know if that's true, frankly - i don't remember specifically what she said or didn't say, but i wasn't aware of it before yesterday. she also struggled with guilt for a while, that her son lived and mine didn't. she did eventually accept that she didn't do anything wrong for having a healthy son, but she has been carrying the weight of not having specifically said anything about hans for the last seven months.

then we got interrupted, so i never got to respond. as they entered the security line at the airport, i whispered to her that i will e-mail her later, and she understood. here's what i will tell her:

what i remember is that as soon as i could tolerate holding a phone to my ear, she listened while i told her what had happened. and even though she had a two-week old infant, she got in a car with her husband and our dad and her son and drove 15 hours to get here for the memorial service - and a little over 24 hours later went through the whole trip in reverse. that she was here meant the world to me.

as soon as i saw my nephew the first time, i understood that he was not hans, and that it was not my nephew's fault that hans had died. his life did not take anything away from hans. it does make me sad sometimes that my nephew will not know his cousin-twin. but my nephew brings me nothing but joy, and now he will have a cousin just a little over a year younger, and i hope they will be close.

when i've been around my nephew before this week (when they were here for the memorial service, and when he was about 3 months old and i went down to florida to visit), i haven't thought of hans or how he would compare. i think it's because i've always thought of hans as a toddler when i think of him as a living child. when i was pregnant with him and dreamed or daydreamed of him, he was 18 or 24 or 30 months, playing in the tupperware drawer while we cooked dinner or carrying a towel to "help" us carry the laundry up from the basement, his small legs working doubletime to keep up with us coming up the stairs. when i've seen other children since i lost him, the ones that have bothered me have been the toddler boys because they remind me of my image of him; newborns were never a problem.

this time, i spent the most time with my nephew by far, so far, and as the week wore on, i did find myself finally starting to think, oh, i wonder if hans would be playing the i-drop-it-you-pick-it-up game yet? would he be cooing and squealing and laughing at me? would he be sitting up on his own and trying to pull up on things? would he be holding his own bottle? it was a mixed blessing. i saw what i was missing. but i also got to see what i was missing. tears are running down my face now as i regret what i won't know with hans. but it was also sweet to get a little vision of what hans would have been like - maybe call it a virtual memory, something to add to my mental scrapbook. my god - it brings a fresh, raw wave of grief over me. i haven't cried like this over hans in weeks. but it's mixed in with the joy of getting a glimpse of him. such a strange, strange brew.

i still want hans back. i will always want him back. but i do have a lovely, beautiful nephew - who, by the way, it the most sweetly-tempered baby i've ever known and STILL is a whole heck of a lot of work. and somehow i manage to have the tadpole still cooking along.

not to mention that i have justin - still The Greatest Thing That Ever Happened To Me. after we dropped my family off and before he had to go to work, we sat in the park and listened to this american life, and periodically he rested his hand on my ever-more-pooching belly. it doesn't get much better than that.

key to pics:

• my sister and my nephew, on her birthday
• shocked to be getting a bath in the kitchen sink of our carriage house
• he recognizes the bottle format but is dismayed to not find a way to get any milk out
• practicing taking steps with a little help from his nonna and his favorite aunt
• playing "airplane" with uncle justin
  
  

bleh

i'm in one of the dips of the roller coaster, and the ride has gotten stuck here. i took a three-hour nap this afternoon - and i already got nine hours last night and a half-hour snooze this morning. i just feel so numb. i fear that numbness is all i can handle right now. it sucks.

what i did when i couldn't sleep

i updated my links list. it was way overdue. i feel a sense of accomplishment now. i just wish the proportion of baby/loss links to non-baby/loss links was different. i feel like my life revolves solely around hans and the tadpole and my outside interests are waning. but it's my reality, i guess. i should learn to live with it. right?

the day after

of course, i couldn't sleep late, but i did manage to sleep a good nine hours, so yea for that.

we had a pretty relaxed day, in which i managed to take the reglan early enough to keep from puking and i had time for a nap. meanwhile, yesterday just seems surreal, like something that must have happened last time around.

i feel a little like i did a few days after hans died - i just wander around the house, trying to hold to some kind of fake routine as a way of feeling some kind of groundedness. maybe it will be a little while before i can fully process yesterday. i couldn't even really talk to the tadpole today. i feel like i need some space. the tadpole is definitely in my personal space.

and because last night wasn't enough, today had to blow even more (more tales not for the squeamish)

i woke up this morning pretty depleted but managed to get down a dry piece of whole wheat toast with a little cinnamon and some apple juice before heading to work. i went to the restroom at 11:30, and, of course, because i'm pregnant, i obsessively look at the toilet paper - and the paper came back with a handful of blood. the bright kind, mixed with a little good ol' cervical mucus. panic set in immediately. my boss had gone to lunch, so i told the nearest co-worker - you know, the insensitive twat one - that i was bleeding and i was leaving. i was so jittery i couldn't even shut down my computer and just said to her, "please do this" and left.

on my way to the car i called my ob's secretary and she said to go to the emergency room and she would let my ob know. then i had to call home about a million times before i finally got my sister to pick up - everyone was out working in the yard and didn't hear their cell phones or our home phone. justin jumped in the shower while i flew home - i figured if a cop stopped me, i'd look at him with the tears already running down my face and say, "look, i'm having a miscarriage," and no one in his right mind would stop me and right me a ticket. i pulled up front, where my mom and sister were waiting, and told them what was going on, and ran inside to check the status of things: no new bleeding. so i called my ob's office again, and she said to still come in. so justin came running down and off we flew to the hospital.

the valet was taking a million years, so i jumped out of the car and ran in and got checked in and they took me into triage immediately, which i thought was pretty impressive. justin came in as we finished up, and i went to registration and got everything taken care of - and then we sat in the waiting area for two hours. at the one hour point, justin went and asked the clerk how we were doing, and she said i was next up. after another hour, i went up, and she said i should be next, because i was the only one still waiting. i ran my hands through my hair, and said, "yeah, i know! i can see i'm the only person waiting!" and then i started to cry again, which got justin up and assertive. he tried to explain to the clerk that we've already lost one baby at this hospital, and she hit the police radio button on her shoulder and said, "i need backup." the next thing i know this officer is running toward justin, which just made me howl even more. it was like a scene from jerry springer, which coincidentally was playing in the waiting area at the time.

after justin convinced the cop he wasn't a threat (to a woman behind BULLETPROOF GLASS), he went outside and called my ob's secretary and said, look we need help. we need someone to advocate for us. then - of course - they took me back to a room, and i got out of my underwear for only the first time of the day, but they didn't know when someone would see me. justin managed to talk his way back to me, and we held each other on the exam table, and then like an angel, my ob's secretary appeared. she had tracked down my ob and he had gotten radiology to take me for an ultrasound as a favor (because the fetal ultrasound clinic was overbooked), and she told me to get dressed and get out of the emergency room. i usually complain about her, because her tone on the phone is kind of crappy, but i really loved her today.

i got dressed and we went to radiology and i chugged water along the way. they took me almost immediately, but they wouldn't let justin in the room with me, because the technician was uncomfortable with anyone looking over her shoulder or asking questions while she was working. we are the veterans of many ultrasounds, and we're pretty sophisticated customers at this point, so our ultrasounds are pretty interactive; but in radiology they're used to people who never get ultrasounds getting their gall bladder looked at, and i guess that's a whole other ball of wax than what we're used to. the tech didn't turn the screen to where i could see it, but after she zoomed in, i could see that there was something in my uterus. she took her pictures for about 15 minutes and then said she was going to go show the pics to the dr. i got re-dressed for the second time this afternoon, and justin was allowed to come in, and he held my hand, and i started to feel like maybe things were going to be okay.

the tech came back and said, "okay, you can go on up to see dr f (my ob) now." that was it. no report to carry. no information offered. and i know she's a tech and not a doctor and there are limits to what she can say, but i tried my luck and asked her if she could tell me anything. she smiled and looked me in the eye (always good signs) and said, "yep, it's in there." i asked her if there was a heartbeat, and she said yes. huge, huge relief. i almost cried all over again.

and then i went to the restroom and found some fresh pink discharge. doh!

we went up to the ob's office, and were reminded of why it's good that i schedule all my appts for first thing in the morning. the fact that he is so good about taking all the time a patient needs means he gets more and more backed up as the day goes on, which was certainly true at the end of this afternoon. but after an hour we got to see him, and told him what had happened, and he called down to radiology and got the good news: age-appropriate growth, good heartbeat, no placental bleeding. of course, the bad news is that i had to shed my underwear for the third time in as many hours so he could do a pelvic exam. but even more good news is that my cervix was completely closed. so no one knows why i bled, but i should be happy because they don't find anything wrong to cause it. not a thrilling answer, but it could be worse. and if it happens again, my ob said to just call him and he'll find a way to see me and to not worry about going back to the emergency room, so yea for that.

after he left, i asked justin for a tissue to wipe up (and might i add that when justin leaves a mess there, he is courteous enough to bring me tissues, which is more than my ob does for me when he leaves a mess), and when i wiped up, there was a small, gooey speck, and all of the sudden i said aloud the first thing that occurred to me: "ew! i hope that's not the tadpole's eyeball!"

look, i already warned you above that we are not very classy.

one really nice thing that happened today is that the aide who took my vitals asked if this was my first baby, and i told her it was my second pregnancy but my first child was stillborn. she looked me in the eye (again! twice in one day!) and said, "oh, honey! i'm so sorry!" what a beautiful, perfect response. no freeze-up. no avoiding eye contact. just sincere acknowledgement before moving on to do her job. if everyone followed that model, the world would be a better place.

we came home and told all of our stories to my family, and then my mom took us out for dinner, for which i was MORE than ready. we went to a little family-owned italian restaurant in an old house in our neighborhood, a place we only recently discovered when driving by, and it was perfect. i ate garlic bread and salad and spaghetti with mushrooms in blush sauce, and i am a better person for it.

so the tadpole keeps ticking, but we are exhausted. we're about to turn off the lights, and we're not turning on any alarm clocks, and when we get good and ready, we will get up tomorrow, and make waffles, and maybe go to the zoo, and if we do, we will look for the frogs, and tell them the tadpole says hi.

mark your calendars (not for the squeamish)

this is the day i officially start complaining about being pregnant. all it took was 7w4d. just pathetic.

but i have good reason. honest.

i just blew the biggest chunks of my life.

the vomit propelled itself up and out with such force it hit the toilet water and bounced back out on my face, my feet, and everything in between.

my egg sandwich, orange juice, ginger ale, chocolate soy milk, cream of broccoli soup, berry applesauce, peanut butter crackers, an m&m cookie, salmon, rice, seaweed, crab-stuffed inari, the half of a mocha mousse cup my mother got me as part of my sister's birthday yummies from my favorite bakery, the half of an apple fritter from the batch she got from the market today for our breakfast tomorrow that i "borrowed" for a bedtime snack - all gone. in pretty much the exact reverse order.

i'm already so tired of the nausea. i thought it wasn't supposed to be as bad the second time around. i have the drugs, but it takes a while for them to kick in, and i'm wary of taking pills all the time. i try to only take it when i absolutely must. but i can't always determine the must moments quickly enough.

on the bright side: i'm now all freshly-showered and brushed for bed. i noticed while brushing my teeth that my boobs have suddenly gotten bigger. and my puke-fest is a sign that i am still, indisputably pregnant. the tadpole lives.

but could nature give me a break? enough already with the nausea, okay? i mean it.

Roctoberfest! aka say happy b-day to Laura

Hey, we haven't thrown a party in awhile. We miss having folks over; old and new friends coming together, breaking bread, the clinking of wine glasses, sophisticated banter, polka music ... ok, I can promise polka music, or not, should you prefer not.

I'll be starting a beer batch a week from Saturday, the hops are picked and drying out, it promises to be a spectacular batch. Due for consumption on 22 October, so what better reason to celebrate? Oh yes, Laura's birthday!

Anyhow, I asked Laura a few nights ago who she'd like to have at our party, family, friends or family and friends? Her response was simply, "everyone that we care about!"

So why not extend the invite to our blog friends? It might be a crazy idea, but it could be great fun! Should you find yourself anywhere near Cleveland - or - within reach (we have a carriage house, which could accomodate 3, 4, 5 of you - depending on your sleeping arrangement. Two bedrooms, two beds and a futon in the living room).

We'll do our best to show you our Cleveland, should you be able to stick around a day or two.

Interested? Email me, justinianclevo@gmail.com - let me know what your nickname and blog are in the email, so I'm not inviting strange and random internet people into our home.

in which justin flirts with my sister

the ethiopian dinner was a big success. my mother and sister really enjoyed the experience and even liked the food; i never thought i'd see my sister - she of the no sauce/no gravy/no condiments/no flavor fame - scarfing down collard greens. after dinner, we trekked through the 'hood to get to the gelato shop; i had chocolate lemon on one side of the cup and amaretto on the other - each delicious on its own but together a surprisingly good combination, too. i had a quart of chocolate lemon/donatella (hazelnut and cookies and cream)/cheesecake packed up for justin's grandma, and it's a good thing, too, because she wouldn't take any money for babysitting my nephew. this child is not even related to her, and it was a huge favor to us, and a great treat for my sister, but nothing we could say would persuade her. it's one thing for her to refuse payment for a quasi-family member for a one-time event, but it's quite another thing when we plan to use her regularly for babysitting in the very near future. she cannot keep the tapole for 30 hours a week and not take payment. it makes it very difficult. if we sit down with her before we turn the tadpole over and say, here's what we'd like to offer you, and she refuses, what can we do? not use her? (sigh) on a happier note, she demonstrated that our new couch recovers easily from baby spit-up. good to know.

but i've gotten off track. dinner last night. when i recounted my memory of when my sister was born, my mom corrected me. it was a monday, not a saturday, when we got the call that she was born - but i was home from school, because it was labor day. and we picked her up from the hospital two, not three, days later. otherwise, i got the story straight.

eating ethiopian requires sort of hunching over the communal bowl, and i realized when we sat down that i wore an inappropriate shirt - something i picked out of my transitional wardrobe - a crossover v-neck that i haven't quite filled out yet, so you can see all the way to france when i lean over. my sister also had a loose v-neck on, so justin said maybe she and i should switch seats (they were across from each other). then, on second thought, he said, maybe we should just scoot our chairs closer together. later, when my mom took a picture of us in front of the restaurant, he may or may not have grabbed my sister's butt at the same time he was definitely grabbing mine. this is what happens when one's very shy and introverted husband drinks ethiopian honey wine all night. consider yourself warned.

yesterday i learned that human resources mishandled my maternity leave, causing me to have to use two vacation days for sick days since i came back. on the upside, i now have four more sick days (where i thought i had none) and one more vacation day, so i will take off friday to spend the day with my family, and i will use at least two of my sick days for fridays this fall when i have a dr's appt first thing in the morning, and then i will spend the rest of the day, and the weekend, with justin. i figure since i had to waste two vacation days because of their incompetence, i'm entitled.

i've been engaged all day in a conversation with justin's oldest girl friend about the victims of hurricane katrina. i think i may consolidate my responses to the nonsense she sent me that started our conversation and post it here later. i'm pretty happy that i could have an actual non-hateful dialogue with someone so conservative. there may be hope for this country yet.

two weird hans-related things; also, a sentimental ode to my sister

i have known i am pregnant for a month today. what a month. i don't think i've ever been the recipient of so much good will in so short a time.

just before i found out, i was in a hans-related valley, made deeper by the belief that i was now going to be unable to ovulate like an average person again. (what a relief that i could still conceive, even if i've become an irregular egg-emitter.) there's no question that the advent of the tadpole makes the loss of hans easier to bear, which seems a little odd to me, because it's not as though the tadpole will ever replace hans. i fully understand that they are two separate people. and yet it does make the load lighter. weird.

we've been diligently working our way through season six of the simpsons, and it seems that in every episode that season there is an appearance by hans. hans moleman is a tiny, infirm, toothless, shrivelled man with coke-bottle glasses who (it was revealed in season two, i believe) is actually 35. as much as we love the simpsons, i never thought about hans the simpsons character in any relation to my son until he was gone. now, i get a little warm feeling every time hans moleman appears on screen - immediately followed by an "awwww!" of sympathy because the hans character always has some great misfortune befall him, and where it used to be funny, now i feel sweetly bad for him. also weird.

in a little bit i will fly the coop and pick up justin's grandmother and take her home to babysit my nephew while my mother and sister and justin and i go to dinner for my sister's birthday. she will be 29 tomorrow (which is very, very weird to me, as i still remember bringing her home from the hospital). we are going to empress taytu, an ethiopian restaurant; we will sit under the fake thatched hut inside the restaurant on low, woven stools around a small stand that will hold our communal food bowl. we will eat without utensils, instead using a torn piece of the spongy bread supplied to pick up each bite. neither my sister nor mother have ever had ethiopian food, or eaten in the traditional style, so we thought it would be a special experience. i love to go there with groups of people because it's a good example of how breaking bread together (in this case, literally) binds people together. i hope they enjoy it. and if they don't enjoy it, i hope they at least get some mileage out of the story they'll have to tell about it.

my parents' grand plan was to have two children, 2-5 years apart. a year and a half after they married, i arrived, and they were half way to perfection. but the second child never materialized (i found out only after my parents divorced a few years ago that my dad had slow swimmers, which makes me feel a little bit miraculous that i'm around*), so they began to pursue adoption with the state. they survived the home visits and my interview with a social worker (i was six and slightly smarty-pantsy, so they must have been a little nervous), but the wait for a baby took forever. then one day their attorney called them and said he knew of a situation and might be able to arrange a private adoption if they were interested. my sister was born a month later, on a saturday morning (at least the way i remember it - i do distinctly remember a tingly feeling when my mom answered that phone that morning). three days later, we got dressed up (i had a new yellow, knit top and skirt with an appliqued house scene on the top in reds and blues - hey, it was 1976 - give me a break) and rode in the attorney's motor home to the hospital. we had to wait outside in the motor home while he went inside, and then the next thing we knew he was climbing in with my sister in his arms. four months later, on my dad's birthday, we all went to the county courthouse, and the judge met with us in his chambers and made her adoption final.

her birthday is part of why i'm remembering how she came into the world, but it's also been on my mind because of her son, who looks so much like her, especially his twinkly, crinkly blue eyes. it's impossible to look at him and not remember my sister eating snow off the doormat or washing out her socks in the toilet. today she gets in fewer scrapes, but she is the sweetest, kindest person i know. i'm so lucky she's my sister.

*although maybe not that miraculous because six years after my sister was born, and thirteen years after me, my brother came along. my poor mother was 39 and certain that she must be pre-menopausal - was she in for a shock when she went to the doctor. my dad got snipped shortly thereafter.

the good aunt

so hanging out with my nephew is okay. he has such a charming disposition, it's impossible to resist him. and while i have thought a few times while holding him about hans and what he would be like now, it hasn't been crushing. i think it's because i think of hans as a toddler. in my dreams about him before he was born, he was always a toddler, and when i have had a hard time seeing other children, it's been three year olds, not babies, that have gotten to me. maybe it will be harder in a few years, when my nephew is the age at which i think of hans, but maybe the tadpole will keep me so preoccupied i won't have time to wonder. i wish i could see the future.

breaktime's over! back to work!

i'm suffering from BADD - blog attention deficit order (with apologies to brothers against drunk driving or whatever entity owns the acronym).

the wedding was relaxed and lovely. my new sister-in-law was practically giggling her way down the aisle. i've never seen a more relaxed, happy, in-the-moment bride. everyone at the wedding had either just heard we're having another baby in the last week or at the wedding, so there was tons of good will going around - more of that relief thing, too, but always combined with sincere joy, so i'll take it.

my nephew is as charming and happy as ever, although he's off of his schedule, which is making him fight napping and going to bed at night. also, my sister has had him in daycare for the last three weeks while she's been interviewing for jobs, and she's out of the routine of caring for him 24 hours a day, so she's pretty wiped out already. but this afternoon i got him to take a sometimes fitful but mostly peaceful nap laying against my chest, and it was pretty sweet. after he woke up, we went to Taste of Cleveland and sampled ribs and sesame noodles and mango sorbet (because, as you know, those things are all native to Cleveland - ???) and then went labor-day sale-shopping and then old-house-on-the-lake-looking and have finally collapsed at home. it's been a good visit with my family so far.

what's on my mind tonight is semantics. when i break the tadpole news, i always say, "i'm/we're having another baby." i never leave out "another". i never say i'm pregnant or expecting a baby. it's always "having another baby." i didn't consciously decide to say it that way; it's just happened that way, and consistently. but it's become a conscious decision, because it's emphatic and hopeful and it acknowledges hans all at the same time. it works for me.

katrina is killing me

i can't read the stories without breaking down.

in between, i get so angry with all of the macho, law-and-order, "zero tolerance" posture many people (not just W, but also regular citizens who should know better, like some of the people with whom i work) are taking on looting, as if they would not do exactly the same thing if it were them in those circumstances.

on 9/11, i had turned on the "today" show between the first and second plane hits on the wtc, while i innocently made peanut butter pancakes for a still-sleeping justin. when the second plane hit, i sat down on the couch and barely moved for three days. i would not allow anyone to turn off the tv. i did not sleep. i learned a lesson about how much i could handle without jeopardizing my mental health from that experience, and that knowledge along with the need to sustain the tadpole has kept me moving this time. but i can't help but click over to cnn.com every half hour or so, to see how much worse things have become. every new heartbreak breaks a little more of my heart, too.

justin made a contribution to the relief effort the other day through the american friends service committee, but i feel like i should do more. i wish i could put up some people in our back house - there's just the little problem of getting them from the gulf coast to the north coast.

i feel so helpless.

*****

in a few hours i will head over to my brother-in-law's wedding rehearsal. after the dinner, i will leave the house to justin, his brother and his dad for some pre-wedding male bonding while i spend the night with justin's grandmother. tomorrow, she and i will paint each other's toenails and i will chauffer her to the wedding, after which the reception promises to go late into the night. on sunday, i'll run justin to the airport and pick up my incoming family, and at some point i'll need to wash all the sheets and get all the beds re-made for them, and it's going to be a non-stop weekend, so i probably won't have a chance to post until next week, and i definitely will not get to read my favorite blogs until then, which is a little disconcerting because i'm already a few days behind on many of them. i will miss my bloggy friends but i will catch up with all of you next week. until then, everyone be happy.

we might as well pack it in now

clearly, we are not fit to raise a child.

we do not have a single clean towel in our bathroom.

after an extensive, emotionally-charged manhunt, we came up with a lone clean pair of underwear for me. (before we found it, justin offered to let me wear a pair of his, because he knew i'd do the same for him, which makes me wonder...is that where all my underwear has gone?)

the last time our upstairs was vaccummed? the last time my mother was here (immediately after we lost hans).

this is not an appropriate environment for a child. if the tadpole lives, social services will take it away because we cannot take proper care of it. i don't know why we even try to have a child. it's hopeless.