some for you, some for me

yesterday we saw "transamerica" - the best movie i have seen in i can't remember when. really. felicity huffman is divine anyway, but she is just off-the-map incredible in this film as a pre-op transsexual. it's a road trip movie, a buddy movie, a coming of age story, a fish out of water story. it's got insight on identity, sex, and family dynamics of every dysfunctional kind. i wanted to stand up and cheer for moviemaking at the end.

do yourself a favor and when it comes to the one art house theatre in your town, go see it. if you don't get it in a theatre near you, sign up for it NOW on netflix or to rent it from you local store. you will thank me over and over and want to shower me with gifts for pointing you in this film's direction. e-mail me for my address so you know where to send my thank you present.

*****

that tip was for you; now please do me the favor of telling me what you know about corpus luteum cysts and whether mine should be smarting about now (11w6d). my peri identified that i had a perfectly normal one at my last ultrasound (at 9w3d), but for the last day or so it's been a little twitchy - much like what i feel when i ovulate on that side. i know it should be on the decline about now; should i feel intermittent twinges as it recedes? what i feel is not sharp or continuous or even an inconvenience. i'm just a bit hyper-sensitive and the teensiest bit paranoid that it might be the sign of a problem.

i talked to my ob this morning about traveling to tokyo (he gave the thumbs up as long as i stroll the aisles every hour or so of the flight and avoid eating too many unfamiliar things), but i didn't think to mention it to him. i see the peri first thing in the morning on the day after tomorrow, so unless i had some horrible pain or started bleeding i don't see much point in calling my ob back tomorrow. plus, when we talked on the phone, he clearly had a horrible cold, and i'm just finally getting over mine, so i don't need to hang out in his office to get a fresh round of germs. especially just before i get to tokyo, where apparently you can sniffle and slurp all you want in public but blowing your nose is the highest form of vulgarity.

if you can offer any help on the corpus luteum question, i will gladly share one of the lovely gifts i receive (from grateful readers who saw "transamerica") with you.

gung hay fat choy to you! also, tune in, tokyo! the pan-asian edition

i've decided that when i said this year would be better than last, i meant this year on the chinese calendar. the first month of the roman calendar has been challenging at best, but the tide is turning (at least mental health-wise) for me, so i'm celebrating the chinese new year as the start of new and better things.

but i'm not eating any moon cakes. those things are disgusting.

*****

in the ever-changing plans for our two-pronged escape during hans's birthday, the lastest development is that we're going to tokyo, and then to new york. we had been almost certainly going to puerto rico for the first segment and then london for the shorter second segment. then justin realized it would be ideal timing for seeing the northern lights, so we jettisoned london and added iceland to the itinerary. then we started reconsidering puerto rico, because we were going to see justin's cousin and his partner while we were there (and justin's grandmother might be visiting them while we would be there) and it's getting pretty obvious that i'm pregnant, but justin doesn't want to tell his family about z until after hans's birthday. next came the news that our friend randy was spur of the moment leaving for nagoya for four months for work, and he invited us to come to see him, and to come to tokyo for the weekend to meet us, so that we could sponge off his company-provided hotel for at least a couple of nights. the catch was that the schedule we'd need to meet up with him for the weekend meant missing an extra class (i was already going to miss one for the second segment); if i went to the class i was originally going to miss, the only flight i could make after class was to new york, and it matters, because we want to be wherever we're going to be that weekend by that night, so that we're not traveling the next day, which is hans's birthday. then yesterday we learned that justin's cousin and his partner just broke up, so we're off the hook there. the last hurdle to clear - i have to call my ob in the morning to make sure he's okay with a couple of 13 hour flights; if he's okay with it, then all systems are go.

justin is working on arrangements for a water baby ceremony at a temple in tokyo. that alone would make tokyo an ideal location, but i think it will also be good for both of us to be in a totally foreign place, one neither of us have been in before. my job is to work on tickets for a show in new york. i've got to get busy.

notice to justin: you may not, even once, play "tune in, tokyo!", not before, during, or after we are there. to do so will be to forfeit any chance for hotel love the one night we are alone in tokyo. consider yourself warned.

(if you don't know "tune in, tokyo!", it's a juvenile game, for lack of a better word, in which an immature male turns a woman's breasts like they are radio dials, and says as though he were radioing military messages in ww2, "tune in, tokyo!" really classy and full of humor.)

*****

justin and i had our third heated exchange in as many days on friday afternoon. it's getting a little old. but the end result is that i am telling people i want to tell about z, and he is not. happily, we have not had any more of these exchanges this weekend. i hope we're done with these things. they're tiring.

z's little red gift; also, back by popular demand, more bodily substances!

you will not believe the souvenir i already have of z. no, really. are you sitting down? i have a tiny, new, red stretchmark. is that absurd? at 11.5 weeks? yes, yes, of course, it is. but i'm sure that's what it is. i've been watching this thing all week, and i'm certain of it now more than ever.

i am prone to these marks, anyway, but it seems a little advanced, even for me, even for my overachieving fetus (hey, z's a fetus now! woohoo!).

i think it's because this pregnancy is different than the others. i was rounded on the low end of my torso with hans and to a certain extent with the tadpole. but this one is pushing up, up, up instead of out, causing my organs to go upward and my mid-torso to round out - hence the dinosaur egg profile. i thought the old wives' tale was that boys are carried high and girls low, but hans was definitely more low and this one appears to be going high. unless you take into account my hope for hans that he be a boy who likes girls' clothes, in which case he may have gone the girly route.

i may need to be more heavily medicated.

*****

i am sick of being controlled by bodily substances. between the vomit and the globular grossness still, still streaming from my lungs and sinuses, i have all i can handle. oh, no, says mother nature - let's heap a little more on.

anyone remember last fall's spectacular fecal incontinence fiasco? since then, when things have gotten a little, um, loose and juicy, the juice has tended to get a bit loose a bit before anything else, and before i can get to the little pregnant women's room. with this two-week cold crap i've had, i've had a tendency toward the loose-and-juicies, and i'm getting grossed out by my underwear. justin (aka the world's greatest husband) does a fabulous job with the laundry, so they all come back to me sparkling and crapless, but how sad is my life that i obsessively check my underwear to see if they've become poo-stained?

very sad indeed.

the not-so-diverse diversity group; also, another day of prenatal zen

we met our randomly-drawn groupmates tonight in my race and gender class. these people are the ones with whom i will work the entire semester. out of the 60 people in my class, roughly half are black, a third are white, and the remainder are latino. we are practically evenly divided between males and females.

my group: the five whitest people in the class. i drew four. white. men. okay, one of them identified himself as mexican-american, but he was born much further north than i was, and is at least as pale as i am. we're gonna have us some good and hot diversity discussion. mmm-hmmm. barrels of diversilicious goodness.

tonight was our third session. at the first session, we were given an assignment for tonight - write a one page paper about how we identified racially, our formative racial experiences, what ethnic traditions we hope to continue. this paper was also to serve as our introduction to our small group. two of the four rocket scientists with which i am grouped didn't write the paper. neither of those two have gotten their textbook yet. of the other two who wrote their papers, one of them wrote it by hand - he's a computer technician, so don't tell me he doesn't have access to a computer, and yes, everything is required to be typed.

the best part: all four of them said something like, "i don't think race matters." they all think personality and effort are what count. four white men all made that statement with a straight face. in the spirit of discussion (!) i asked if anyone had done the reading for tonight (answer: no), which was about how the dominant power group self-preserves by training its members to be oblivious to its unearned privilege. that group can be taught to recognize the disadvantage of others, but it cannot recognize its own advantage. i summarized the paper and asked if anyone thought that it was easier for them to think that "race doesn't matter" because it didn't affect them because they were white (nevermind male). i got four blank stares.

it's going to be a long semester.

*****

justin and i had another spirited discussion, this time via e-mail. things were said. but on the other side of our exchange, we came out on at least roughly the same page. and that was the worst of today. i had no pregnancy freakouts, maybe because, boy, did i feel pregnant today. my grapefruit-plus uterus (hey, even my ute is pretty plus these days!) is pushing everything else up, which is giving me quite the dinosaur egg belly profile. honestly, if it turns out my body is making a fool of me again - well, no one could blame me for thinking i was still pregnant, with a ballooning belly like this one. i'm sure every female i've encountered at work this week (and some of the males) think i'm pregnant, if the eyeballs i'm getting are any indication.

when i get the eyeball, i give them a startled look, like, "what? are you looking at my fat???" you wouldn't believe how much snarky satisfaction i get out of it.

and on that thought of peace and love, i'm going to go do my yoga now.

visualize whirled peas

my state today could best be described as numb doom. i don't recommend it.

on the one hand, i feel like six days of sunshine are something of which i can be proud, and really, it's eleven continuous days of confidence if you count back from the last ultrasound. on the other hand, i feel like a mental health failure for doubting now. i understand that the horror of having carried the tadpole around for three weeks after it was dead (and the embarrassment of not knowing it) (never mind all the bullshit from hans's death) is contributing to something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder, not to mention a lack of trust in anything that feels like pregnancy.

and all the time i spend trying to read those pregnant feelings anyway is useless. it's like trying to read tea leaves, and about as scientific. for example:

• the sharp cramp from the night before last could be gas, or it could be a contraction, or it could be an intense growth spurt causing ligaments to have to expand so suddenly they protested.
• the expansion of my belly could be due to z's growth or due to the accumulation of deadly gases caused by the rotting cell clump in my uterus.
• my fun bags are retreating because this pregnancy is over, or they're not - they're just made to look more proportionate by my expanding belly.
• my gagging and perpetually intermittant nausea are caused by pregnancy hormones, or they're caused by all the phlegm still being manufactured by my lungs.
• i broke two nails today because the growth hormones that have been making them grow so strong and so quickly have run out, or i broke them because of pregnancy-induced clumsiness.

see? nothing means anything.

justin and i had a, um, spirited discussion this afternoon about my anxiety. we both have anxiety, but we are experiencing this pregnancy and the accompanying anxiety very differently. i envy justin his optimism.

but optimism is not happening for me, so i'm working on being zen tonight instead. to help it along, i got sushi (no, nothing raw - just an inari pocket and krab-with-a-k roll - and yes, justin, there's an inari pocket and a veggie roll waiting for you). if nothing else, the wasabi and ginger should help my sinuses. that would at least be something.

six days

that's how long the coast-effect of hearing z's heartbeat at the dr's office lasted. all things considered, six days is pretty respectable, right? right?

i'm so tired of this roller coaster.

i woke up yesterday morning thinking it might be over. i had a single sharp cramp during the previous night, which i tried to convince myself was gas, but i didn't feel the need to, ahem, evacuate, until the morning, which makes the gas explanation seem unlikely. i haven't bled, but i just cannot trust that z is perking away.

yesterday i got the eyeball several times, at work and at school -you know, the stomach survey followed by the wrinkled brow. how ironic would it be that this pregnancy is over just as i start to look pregnant?

it might be ironic, but it wouldn't be rare. it's exactly what happened with the tadpole.

i have seven more days until the nuchal fold translucency ultrasound - you know, the one at which i found out the tadpole had pooped out. may i please just stay in bed with the covers pulled over my head until then? please?

le souci du jour*

let's take a break from names, eh?

here's my worry today - once we go public, i am afraid of being the recipient of thoughtless pregnancy advice from dumb people who think the fact that hans died erases my full-term pregnancy experience.

of course, here, in blogland, i trust that my astute fellow parents-in-loss will know better. but on the outside...i'm wary of what i will get. in my short pregnancy with the tadpole, i got spectacularly thoughtless direction on what pregnancy would be like from one friend whose baby was born three months after hans, indicating that somehow my pregnancy didn't count to her because my son was not on my hip. i received comments in varying degrees of dumbness and thoughtlessness from co-workers, too, which i tried to ignore as the clueless attempts of pathetic people to be nice.

i have no tolerance for such unsolicited crap this time. it will help that i will be nearly four months by the time we get back from hans's birthday trip - that much less time for people to be craptastically oblivious. but if and when people say such idiotic things to me this time, i will not hold my tongue. i plan to make them feel like crap. i will smile sweetly and say, "yes, hans was more active after i ate something sugary, too," or, "i know what you're talking about; i barfed for nine months the first time." i don't care if it makes people feel bad. they need to pull their heads out of their asses. and god help them if they do it repeatedly; i will tell them off and have no guilt for doing so. i do not have post-stillbirth amnesia. hans was with us for 40 weeks. i know more about pregnancy than their low-risk selves will ever know - or want to know. so zip it.

* my french is pitiable, so that's probably not the right way to say "the worry of the day", but i thought it might sound more elegant and less whiny and repetitive than "yet another thing about which i'm insane and bitter", which is getting kind of old, no?

i like zinan

zinan - the japanese name for second son. it has a certain ring to it, it's beautiful, and it somehow honors our first son, BUT, i'm concerned that it might be placing a heavier weight on our living son's shoulders. mainly, in that he isn't his brother.

what do you think? i'm sure that the child will have to at some point explain his name and at some point, he may have to explain that he has a dead brother, perhaps in concert with the name explaination.... is that too much for a little guy?

the name game

thanks to everyone who contributed such wonderful names. or at least, mostly wonderful names; zagnut and zamfir were not exactly welcome suggestions, except maybe as comic relief (with my apologies, of course, to anyone out there with either of those names - i'm sure you're lovely people). we also had to rule out any latiny boys' names, as they sound bizarre with justin's very mittel-european, very ethnic last name, much as we love them, too.

we are not big on trendy, uber-popular names, which rules out the very nice alexander and zachary, as well as zoe. but don't worry (this means you, eve), we're not creative spellers, either. we've narrowed the boys down to four, i think - two that start with a z, and two that have z's in them. we need to do some research on meanings and maybe get a look at his little pecker on ultrasound (if he's a him) before we decide.

the girl's name has been settled for a while. it actually would have been the tadpole's girl name; we like it so much that we still like it. no z's actually in it, but the nickname that goes with it, based on the middle name, will fulfill the z requirement. if we weren't so sure about that name, or really wanted to start with a z, i love the name zara, which is pretty much unheard of in this country (although i know you subjects of the crown are far more familiar with it), but i'm not wild about it with my last name (which z will have if she's a her).

it feels so good to have some hope for this pregnancy, enough hope to devote my energies to the consideration of names. in fact, i feel so good i even thought this morning about getting out the old prenatal books to see what's going on with z. i never got to the point that it felt safe to do that kind of checking with the tadpole, so the books have been packed away for a while. i think it's time to find them.

in which i whine, and also provide an update on the funbags

it's one of those tired-of-myself nights. what am i, 15??? it's pathetic.

i'm tired of coughing up and blowing out phlegm-globs. i'm tired of news stories about beaten and burned toddlers. i'm tired of this crazy, can't make up its mind, record high weather. i'm tired of people at work talking about how their kids just wear them out. i'm tired of the lack of original thoughts in my brain of late (pregnancy hormones or buspar?). i'm tired of ignorance.

maybe i just need sleep.

*****

and now, for your comic relief, i present: my nephew, the juvenile delinquent.

apparently he got his eleven-month-old self written up at daycare for pushing the new kid in his class, who dared to get in his way. really.

ten years from now, this would soooo not be funny, but at eleven months, violence is damn funny. is something wrong with me?

*****

my god. my boobs are humongous. well, for me.

*****

while i sleep, feel free to pepper me with boys' names with the letter "z" in them (the girl's name is settled, so save your breath). they can start with z, have a z in them, or have a logical nickname in which there is a z. work with me, people, work with me!

the most beautiful sound in the world

i woke up this morning from my own persistent coughing, and i said to justin, "why is it light outside?" i jumped out of bed, ran to the bathroom, and the clock said 7:40. my appointment was at 8:00. i had set the alarm clock last night for 6:30 pm instead of am. doh!

i brushed my teeth, ran a wet washcloth over my hoo-ha, and decided to pretend like my bedhead was intentionally punk. we threw on clothes, scraped the snow off the car, and were on our way by 7:50.

we pulled into the parking garage at 8:00 and ran upstairs...only to wait half an hour, of course. but then we saw my ob, who was thrilled about the ultrasound results from last week, and who okayed my upcoming travel plans and nixed any hope of medicinal relief from the cold i have, which is now in my chest, my head, and apparently my feet, my elbows, my pancreas, etc. i am a walking phlegm factory.

then we had the obligatory talk about how unlikely it was that we could hear the heartbeat today by doppler, but as soon as i laid back on the table and he pressed the wand to my abdomen, there it was, speeding away. my favorite sound in the world, at 165 beats per minute. i feel like i'm floating. :)

we talked about home dopplering, too - he had sort of a mixed reaction to it, but as long as we were using an actual doppler and a good one, and not a glorified stethoscope from boobies-r-us, and in light of my intention to use it so as to not call him freaking out every single day, he thought it was a good idea. our lovely, kind, generous friend the coalminer is loaning us hers - she deserves the friend-of-the-year award! - and the ob talked to us a little bit about how to use it to get the best results. i'm not concerned about using it immediately; i'm really interested in having it in the third trimester, about which i am already a wreck. please let us get to the third trimester to be freaked out enough to use the doppler every day. please, please, please.

next stop - the nuchal fold translucency ultrasound in two weeks, followed by the quad screen a couple of weeks later.

in other good news, no vaginal exam today. good news for all of us, but especially the ob, who did not have to face my unwashed cooter.

i've got to jump in the shower now to get to work, but work will be easier to tolerate knowing there's a buck sixty-five of z's heartbeats galloping away in there. hallelujah.

new baby. new deduction. new parent discount.

that was the headline the pigfuckers at aitch and arrrr blockheads plastered all over the mailer that arrived in the mail today addressed to me. it was adorned by a black and white photo of a laughing toddler in the tub with pointy shampoo hair. which of my 2005 children do you think inspired this mailing: my decomposing, stillborn son or my aborted, gender-non-specific embryo?

what is wrong with these people??? and do you think i can take deductions for either of my kids? 'cause i could use the deductions, dammit.

*****

on a happier note: today was my first day of school, and it went pretty well, once i found a parking spot in the rain six blocks from my building (because i refuse to pay $141 for a parking pass). i'm taking "race, class and gender," and the instructor is a vegetarian, and my lovely husband took me for a fabulous dinner after class to celebrate my return to the academic world. here i go, changing my life. watch out.

*****

today, i am ten weeks. today is also hans's 11 month birthday. i stopped tracking the months after five, but i find myself thinking more about specific days as his first birthday approaches. we're going to go away for his birthday, but we haven't decided where. i'm currently pulling for london, but justin always likes to keep his options open until the last possible minute. i am a planner with a capital p. justin is not so much. it keeps our marriage interesting.

tomorrow morning is my prenatal checkup. i'm nervous because, after being spectacularly vomitous all weekend, i didn't so much as gag on the toothbrush this morning. i would really, really like to hear z's heartbeat tomorrow. i could last for a while on that sound. like, for days and days. two or three, at least. honest.

weekend whirl

a whirlwind trip to florida to see my mom and sister. i was in florida for about 18 hours, sleep and airport commute included, but i utilized the waking hours well. i got to play with my nephew all day and feed him but managed to evade more than a single diaper assist. and i told my mom and sister and brother-in-law (on his best behavior, btw) about little z. they were thrilled and tried to contribute "z" names (because we've decided z's real name will include a z), but everything they came up with included the word "zit" - was that a commentary on my breakouts?

other highlights: i puked on all four flight segments in two days, the most spectacular being all over the lavatory and including a sink clog which i had to clean out, after i mopped up the floor with the little alcohol wipes they store in the feminine hygiene compartment. fabulous. also, i woke up saturday with a chest cold - completely out of the blue. so i'm hacking up great yellow-green globs hourly, which of course triggers the gag reflex...it's a vicious cycle.

but i'm still happy. :)

so damn happy

i can't stop smiling. i cannot think when i was last this happy. maybe the day we finished hans's room and realized we were going to be his parents all at once. wow - that was more than a year ago.

so yesterday, i picked justin up from the dentist, whom he informed that i was his wife, not his mother (they called the day before to tell him that his mother's insurance was no longer in effect for him - idiots), and we headed to the hospital. i got hassled a while by the secretary about my new insurance, which at least made the waiting time seem shorter than usual. also, there weren't the usual 20 teenagers there with their mothers my age, although two cops did bring in a pregnant woman in prison scrubs and handcuffs. ah, the joys of urban living.

when the tech called me back to the room (yes, "the" room, the one where we learned hans died), she wasn't smiling like usual at me. she's probably sick to death of being stuck with me and my problem children. she wasn't the one who did hans's scan-o-death, but she did many of the others, where he was lagging behind and his kidneys were backing up, and she was the one who did the scan where the tadpole was deflating, and she did the scan two weeks ago that scared the bejeesus out of me and in which i tried to argue with her. i'm sure at this point she dreads coming to work when she sees my name on her schedule for the next day.

when i got up on the table, i thought she went awfully fast, although she did take the time to turn up the tuner so we could hear a few beats of the heart, which sounded very slushy to me. (in retrospect, i think i might have been listening to my own heartbeat, but i'm not sure.) i saw on the screen that she measured z at 8w5d - not what i was hoping for, but within a week of my 9w3d by lmp. then she made her notes in the computer and shut it off and we were left to wait.

i asked justin if he could see what she wrote, and he said, "103." my heart sank. that was it. at this point, 103 bpm means certain demise - it's just a matter of time. 103 meant that z was already in the process of dying. we sat there, me on the table and justin next to me in the chair, holding on to each other. i was thinking about starting school tuesday night, and wondering if the d&c could either be wednesday morning or friday morning, so i wouldn't miss any class. justin told me later he was wondering if he should take his four grieving days immediately or starting with the day of the d&c. i thought again about the beauty of getting high.

finally, the peri came in to do her own scan, and she got 9w2d. i perked up a little. she looked at the tech's measurements and gave a little "hmmm" and measured again from another angle - 9w0d. then a third time, from the other side - 9w2d. hmmm, indeed.

but what about the heartbeat, i asked. she zeroed in on z and the tiny flutter and frowned. "that doesn't look like 103," she said. and so she measured. 180 bpm. i started to cry and shake. she looked at the tech's measurement and showed us that she had been looking at the wrong line. when i stopped shaking enough, she took the heartrate again. 180 again. may i just say, hallelujah?

she went over my ovaries, and she showed us how the sac was starting to balloon nicely and causing my uterus to expand perfectly (hence that pressure i had begun to feel), and said everything was "cool," a couple of times. "cool" is my new favorite word.

we found out she and her husband spent a decade with doctors without borders and are fellow travel freaks, so we discussed vague foreign viruses and worms and bacteria and compared notes on which thing you get from which continent, and then yes, she did assure us that z would like indian food. how lovely. :) and she'll see us in about 2 1/2 weeks for the nuchal fold translucency scan. for the first time in a while, i'm actually looking forward to an ultrasound.

we went to talkies for a late breakfast and to unwind before i went to work, because i had been so tightly wound and didn't even realize it until we got back in the car. i had a giant hot chocolate and an onion bagel and looked at the photographs of crumbling, mid-century ads painted on the sides of various brick buildings around town, on display in the back room, and was pleased to see several i recgonized directly from my neighborhood. then i dropped justin at home, made plans to get indian food for dinner and headed to work.

it's been so hard to be at work lately. i haven't been able to concentrate, or to give a damn about brokers or balance sheets or contract changes. yesterday was no better, but at least it was for happy reasons for once. the second i had put in 40 hours for the week, i was in the parking lot, headed home in the rain to pick up justin.

in the afternoon, i had developed a deep yearning for beef. i don't indulge in it often. maybe i'm a little iron deficient, or maybe it's some crazy hormonal thing going, but i didn't want anything else. of course, an indian restaurant means no beef - lamb, sure, and plenty of chicken, but i was sol on beef. so i negotiated a compromise with justin - thai! thai means he can still have curry - and i can have beef. so we went to lemongrass and i ate an entire tray of pineapple beef. i was stuffed to the gills, but i couldn't leave beef on the plate and let that cow have died in vain, and i didn't want to bring leftovers in the house and make justin puke to find them in the fridge.

then we walked down the street to the cedar lee and saw "good night, and good luck" (great message, pretty good movie). as the closing credits rolled, i rested my hand on justin's knee and said, "you know i'm hungry again, right?" to his credit, justin didn't sigh or roll his eyes; he just nodded, yes, yes, of course. as we walked hand-in-hand through the rain to the car, justin said, "180, huh? no wonder you're so hungry all the time!" what a beautiful explanation: i'm constantly starving because part of me is burning calories at 180 bpm! i love this man so much.

we drove down the street to the peking gourmet and shared the dark chocolate tofu cheesecake and the raspberry pecan tart and a pot of tea and grinned at each other. from the placemats i determined that z will be a dog, according to chinese astrology. i just hope he's not one of those kids that barks.

when the server showed the next table the dessert tray, i noticed that what she called "death by chocolate" had been called "chocolate bomb" by our server. justin noted that bombs do cause death. yes, i said, but not always; sometimes they just maim you. but "maiming by chocolate" just isn't that sexy a name. other alternate names that are also not sexy:

• crippled by chocolate
• disabled by chocolate
• handicapped by chocolate
• disfigured by chocolate
• scarred by chocolate
• amputated by chocolate
• blinded by chocolate
• paralyzed by chocolate
• lessened quality of life by chocolate

maybe they should just stick to chocolate bomb.

a buck eighty!

i trust that laura will provide you with a dramatic recreation later on, but for me, now, the entire episode sounded a bit like a peanuts skit - "wawawaaa waaa waaa waaa waaaa waaa wa wa - 180 bpm, cool that's good - waaa waaa waaaa waaa waaaa".

180 bpm - yes, that's right! and yes, the doctor really did say "cool". she's also assured me that while she can't determine too much more, beyond a heart beat and steady growth, that z will indeed like indian food.

cool.

how high

i dreamed this morning, just before the alarm went off, that i was high. i was at school, had an exam, and i was late for my brother-in-law's wedding, and i was high. my academic archnemesis said to me incredulously, as i picked up my exam, "you're high!" and i said, "whatever. you must be high," and wondered off to find a seat to finish my exam, but i could never find one, so i dropped my exam and my books and my coat on a table in the cafeteria and went to the restroom, and as i sat down, i splattered a little blood - not too much, but then as i peed, the urine that leaked from the toilet picked up the splatters and pooled them into a bloody mess at my feet, and i knew that it was over, so i figured i better get to the wedding. i wrote justin a note that he needed to hurry, because it was already 10:65, and then i realized i was high, because i called it 10:65 instead of 11:05, and i ran toward the church.

i have never been high. drunk, yes, more times than was healthy in my 20s - not that it's ever healthy, i suppose, but still, with alarming frequency. but i have never used weed or pills or powders or shot up or anything. i never wanted to give up the control i thought it necessitated. i stopped dating two different guys after i learned they were regular weed smokers. i thought it pathetic that someone in their 30s (when i was in my 20s) needed to rely on something so adolescent.

and then suddenly, at age 36, getting high seems entirely reasonable.

high seems like a fabulous idea. i suppose i do sort of get high, a little, twice a day for about ten minutes, when the buspar first kicks in and i float on waves of orgasmic bliss. but it only lasts for 20, 30 minutes tops, per day. i'd like to be high all the time right now. i'd like to be high through my visit to my sister, who is not handling the ms diagnosis well, this weekend. i'd like to be high through my next visit to my dying bastard of a father. i'd like to be high through the work day all the fucking time. i'd like to be high through the ultrasound in an hour and 10 minutes from now, if the news is bad. and if the news is good, i'd like to just be high for the rest of the pregnancy.

if only.

out

everything hinges on 10:00 tomorrow. i can't even imagine what comes after that hour. i've gone numb, because i just can't deal any more. after feeling truly pregnant this morning for the first time, i spent the afternoon feeling like my abdomen was being pinched from the inside out. how do i possibly deal with this data? there's no way. i can't concentrate on anything remotely work-related, and reading other blogs is just inconceivable right now. i've taken my buspar, and i've turned on the tv to the cbs crime show of the hour, and i'm tuning out.

but then again, no

the wait continues. my ob gave the order for the ultrasound, and the directive to overbook me in, but the lab supervisor won't return my ob's secretary's calls to give her an appointment time. so here i sit, with a decidedly upset stomach (and all the unpleasantness that goes with it), which i attribute to nerves. not so very zen.

it's so difficult to have any confidence in pregnancy signs when i know from my experience with the tadpole that they can continue for weeks after the pregnancy stops progressing, but the funny thing is, i'm starting to really feel pregnant in the last 24 hours or so. my fun bags are decidedly more, well, fun, and my stomach is starting to feel pushed, if that makes any sense, from within. when i lay down or turn over or stretch, i feel awkward, as if all the regular muscles alongside and below my abdomen have come unhinged.

please let it remain a funny thing, and not get downgraded to an ironic thing. and let them call me back with the damn appointment time. some time in the next five minutes would be nice.

Brothers and sisters, can you spare $3, and your opinion

I'll make this brief. Mainly because I've got to get hustling: If I can find 12 airport smartcarts in the next hour, I'll have enough sp'ange to catch a day transit pass - thus, Laura can stay home, in bed, instead of picking me up at work.

I've been thinking a lot about the meeting I attended yesterday (see below), and I'm ultimately questioning the appropriateness of the comparison between fostering our children, and coaching our coworkers and employees.

We're talking apples and oranges here - and it's not a valid comparison for everyone, if anyone. I'm thinking of the childless, but I'm also thinking of all of the lousy parents out there that are less than lovingly involved in their childrens upbringing.

And then, well, there's us: parents of dead children.

Let us remember, I work in the airline industry, an industry that has a larger than average percentage of potentially childless families; ie. Gay and Lesbian singles & families - now, I understand that Gay and Lesbian families have children, but until very recently it wasn't necessarily such a common thing, especially when comparing Gay and Straight families (us breeders).

So here we are - a larger than average pool of potentially childless people ... And yet, this is the only way for us to convey a message of fostering a positive work culture - by suggesting that we treat our employees and colleagues in the same respect that we treat our children?

Maybe I should say something - or maybe it's just mountains and molehills.

a couple of pacific gripes about effective parenting

i spent a good part of yesterday afternoon in a small group seminar entitled "effective coaching". it's the sort of corporate ra-ra that anyone who has a middle management job comes to despise: they're long, dull, patronizing, and they generally involve some lame form of role playing.

this seminar most certainly delivered as expected.

the facilitator started out the seminar by asking if any of us have children. two of us did. two of us didn't. well, that's not true. three of us did, but my kid lives in a box on our mantle, so i left that unsaid. the woman next to me sort of froze up, looked at me, then looked away. she knows what was on my mind.

i would have been perfectly content for this topic to not have come up again, but it was a common theme throughout -- "how we foster our children is how we should coach our coworkers and employees la te da ta da da te de de da" -- you know what was on my mind.

so, yeah, i've got my mind elsewhere -- i've become a less than ideal participant. not an easy thing to be, or to have in your group, especially considering that there were only four of us. i spent a good bit of the time off in lala land, not that i'm convinced that anyone really noticed. i am the mayor of lalaland, afterall, so i must have looked normal to the outside observer.

a couple of things that kept me tuned in (for lack of a better word). role playing: jumping jeebus i hate doing this. i was given a piece of paper with a scenario on it -- i was to coach an employee who was being a bit disagreeable. if the spirits had been willing, i could have been given the cantankerous card. we all know, i play it well. i might have even won an academy award.

an oscar would keep hans company, at the least, i can just imagine how laura and i would look at liza's at the oscar night after party.

and, one more thing: specific. the facilitator doesn't say 'specific', she says 'pacific' - wtf is going on with that?

take my life, please.

enough is enough

i spent three hours awake in the middle of the night, thinking about when a d&c could be scheduled, among other sunshiney topics. i'm calling my ob.

flashback mornings and firewall afternoons

a bad, bad morning of reliving hans's delivery, only this time, i'm standing out in the hall with the family, listening to my god-awful screaming. how pitiful - listen to the mother of the dead baby trying so hard for nothing. shameful. shit.

yesterday afternoon, i got a warning from our information protection services at work that my personal internet use had reached abusive levels and was in violation of company policies. i cannot afford for it to go to the next level, which would involve my boss being made to do something about it, which would draw his attention to the websites i most visit - namely, this one. i have to have some private place, so from now on i can only go to this place at night. shit. the afternoons are going to be long.

how did i come to be in this place? is this some big cosmic punishment for - who knows what? is there some malevolent puppet master up there running mind fuck experiments on me like i'm a member of an ant farm? because it needs to stop, dammit.

the depths of my patheticity

welcome to day 1,356,532 of my boring blah-blah-blah about ultrasounds, or not. there is nothing unreasonable about an ultrasound for a two-time loser after a borderline first look. it makes sense. perfect sense. even if i wasn't a complete freakshow.

maybe i'll call my ob tomorrow.

yesterday, i got down and dirty, face to face, with my inner wack job. here's what that freak clued me in on: i feel like an ass. like a smelly, clammy, bulbous ass, with zits and a tendency toward hemorroids.

because i walked around for 37 weeks after i found out i was pregnant the first time acting like i was going to have a baby.

i felt like a walking fraud, like i just ate like a cow and wore the same pants five days in a row not because i was pregnant and they were the only maternity pants i ever liked but because i was totally pathetic and desperate for attention. what a big faker. i felt so humiliated, so busted.

the second time, i was nervous but hopeful. i wanted to take the pressure off people who were nervous around me, so i told people almost immediately. i felt so foolish when the tadpole pooped out. what a sucker.

which makes me think maybe i wasn't so eager to tell people to make them feel better but to prove i wasn't a total failure. and which makes me think i'm resisting any shred of hope about this pregnancy because i've already been suckered twice and i'm not going to let them get me this time, uh-uh, no way, no how. i will not let another clump-o-cells make an ass of me again.

ouch. that inner freak is a rude bitch.

move on dot me

i feel so adolescent. i am so bored with myself, tired of exactly the same drama every day. i haven't had anything original (or even new for me) to say in days. i feel like i need a breakthrough, something very specific to happen to cause change, to usher in a new phase or a new set of life things to process. i know, i should be careful for what i wish - it's not like i'd like to miscarry to cure my weariness with the sameness of things. but i'm so tired of life as it stands.

i haven't decided whether to push for a peace-of-mind ultrasound. if i'm going to do it, i should make the call tomorrow. but what will it prove? if the u/s shows z has moved from borderline to excellent, how much does that fact really count? it could change the next day, as i learned from the tadpole: the first ultrasound was sluggish, the second a little better, the third outstanding - and then, apparently, two days later the tadpole conked out, even though we didn't know it until three weeks later.

so let's say i get an ultrasound this week, and little z is looking fine. but the next day, the worry starts all over. where will i be then? calling to ask for an increase in my dosage, probably. i can't get an ultrasound daily, and even if i did it's not going to save little z's life if it gets in trouble. there is nothing i can do, so why expend the energy for nothing?

i've made my decision, haven't i? it feels like a cynical one, which i don't like, so i'm going to think of it as the zen decision. i'm going to fucking zen my way through whatever remains of this pregnancy. which is not to say i'm not going to do the doppler thing if and when we get a heartbeat at the ob's office. because i can doppler every day, and probably will, dammit. not so zen, but much less draining then pushing for ultrasounds.

when did i become so boring and tedious?

a friend of a friend

just lost her baby. she was due 11 January. my friend hasn't seen her friend yet, but hopes to visit her within the next day or two and was hoping that i might be able to give her some ideas on how she could best help: words of advice, books, support groups ... anything that i can think of.

my advice, for today, is to just be with her friend when her friend is ready to be with her and to talk to her about her child, as much as her friend is comfortable talking. that's one thing that i think is really important.

beyond that, i'd mentioned that i would take inventory on which books would be best to read, and when. do you have any suggestions? i really haven't read any of the "grief" books and note that many of you each have your own suggestions on your blogs, so I would have a hard time narrowing it down. i appreciate any insight.

i'm also going to recommend, probably not immediately, that they listen to davids "i hate this". i've just put my finger on why i've so enjoyed the play: these are experiances which i fealt - where i fealt as though i was completely alone - the play, as poignant as it was to watch/listen, ultimately helped me realize that i am not alone. stillbirth is so fucking lonely.

forget the meds - i want to marry google

we have been burning up the phone wires between my sister, my mom and me, working on information about multiple sclerosis and about adoptees getting access to their birth records in their state. between my mom and me, my sister is armed and dangerous! my sister had a 99% positive diagnosis of ms today, with more tests to follow in the next week. this afternoon, she sounded the best she's sounded in weeks; she's just so relieved to have something pinpointed, something that can actually be treated. for me, the silver lining of this situation is that it's given me to something about which to obsess other than little z. and unlike little z, i can do something to help my sister. i've given her peace of mind about the prognosis (50 year life expectancy from the onset!), and helped her understand what to expect in the testing, and i've located the attorney that arranged her adoption 29 1/2 years ago and then shortly thereafter moved from the southeast to the west - but no one could remember where. i fucking love google.

*****

i haven't decided whether to push for an ultrasound before my next check-up. if my symptoms-o-pregnancy are any indicator, z is positively ripe (you should smell me, how incredibly fecund i smell. i am the walking olfactory definition of the word "fecund".)

on the one hand, it would give me great peace of mind to know it if z is doing better than last week. also, if he's not, it would be better to have a d&c sooner, when we'd be more likely to get an answer from the biopsy, rather than later, by which time there may be too much deterioration to find any answers.

on the other hand, it would feel fantastic to be all zen about it, to accept that what is, is, to not expend any energy pushing for something that will not affect z's chances at all - to have the kind of faith that much of the rest of the planet seems to have. and as nervouskitty pointed out, a pre-u/s checkup may not be a waste, if the heartbeat can be detected.

maybe i'll call my ob monday.

the daily inventory

1. poochy? check
2. deeply crave a nap? check
3. perpetually hungry? check, check, check
4. armpits that smell like rubberband balls that have been hanging out in the grubby pockets of 7 year old boys? check
5. morning toothbrush gagfest? check

that's my daily checklist to try to assure myself that z is still perking. i'm so much calmer on the buspar, and my physical manifestations of anxiety have been relieved on it, but i'm still logically trying to figure out how i can go to my next check-up on the 18th and rationally discuss the pregnancy when no one will have any idea if i am still actively progressing. i never realized how much faith there was in the world, but when i think of all the pregnant women, putting off prenatal care or at least calmly assuming between four week appointments in the first half that all is well, i'm blown away by the volume of faith.

i will be 10w3d at that appointment, so at the very least i assume we'll schedule an ultrasound for the nuchal fold translucency test for the following week. i have a difficult time assuming that all is well until then. i just remembered that it was at the nuchal fold u/s that we found out about the missed abortion of the tadpole. shit.

it is not reasonable to not check in on z for three more whole weeks. it's just not.

i'm going to go home and watch the cavs kick some bucks' ass while doing yoga stretches.

waves of orgasmic bliss

oh. my. god. buspar is my new favorite drug in the whole wide world. about an hour after i popped the first pill, these waves were washing over me, like i had just benefited from wild donkey sex. it scared me some to be at work, i felt so good. the waves have subsided, but the release from the anxiety-triggered, anvil-heavy, physical pressure continues - which of course makes me wonder if i should have been engaged in a sexual marathon this weekend and could have avoided the drugs altogether - except that with so much anxiety compressing me from all sides, i have had zero desire for nookie for days. which may be changing. hmmmmm.

i couldn't have started the meds at a better time. my sister called this afternoon with the results of an mri her dr ordered last week. she has had episodic vertigo for years, but she's had it for weeks this time, and worse than ever - she can't work, she can't drive, she can't do much but lay on the bed and try to figure out which combination of eyes closed and shut makes her head hurt the least. so today she learned as a result of the mri that both the radiologist and her primary think she has multiple sclerosis. because, you know, neither she nor the rest of us has had enough piled on in the last twelve months.

and i care, but, look ma - no panic!

if it weren't for justin, i would try to marry buspar. which is no more ridiculous than the woman who married a dolphin today, when you really think about it.

the insanity update

my ob, bless his heart, called me back within minutes of me leaving the message with his secretary. while he acknowledged that little z's heartrate was at the very bottom of the range, he felt like the fact that i wasn't bleeding combined with the improvement of this scan over the scans of the tadpole were both encouraging. he had already talked this morning with the peri i saw on friday, and he was satisfied that she had seen all that could be seen at this point and that a vaginal scan wouldn't have provided any additional information; he also feels strongly that she is one of the two top scanners there, and i should be confident of her appraisal. so given those things, plus their inability to really do anything if a problem does develop at this point, he didn't think anything could be gained by another ultrasound this week.

he was incredibly sympathetic to my anxiety, though; he totally got that i couldn't not be anxious. he walked me through some of the extra steps we would be taking, including the peri starting an anatomical survey at 14 weeks, which apparently is extra early as well as a much more in depth measure than would normally be taken. we talked about the extent to which anxiety is interfering with my ability to function [nevermind the strain on our marriage], and my frustration with finding therapeutic help. he was horrified that his departmental social worker had blown me off, and will look into it, as well as talk to some of his colleagues about who they could recommend. he also agreed to prescribe buspar, which is a pregnancy category b drug and non-addictive, for the anxiety, and at this point, i can more than live with a cat. b drug. the other thing he wants is for me to exercise more, and vigorously, to blow off some of the pressure. i know i should, but since the tadpole's d&c, i have pretty much done nothing, other than parking at the outer limits of the parking lot, which counts for practically nothing, either. so justin is looking into treadmills and exercise bikes today, and i will dust off the old prenatal yoga dvd tonight - not that yoga counts as vigorous exercise, but it's something, and it did for a while help me be calmer.

in the midst of all this talking, we had to deal with a flat tire we got last night, courtesy of a couple of outrageous potholes in my neighborhood, and which is still not resolved because the rim got bent and no one could fix it and one has to be ordered in to the store. so until tomorrow (at least), i am driving 30 mph on a spare; i was very, very popular on the interstate on the way to work. but it didn't bother me much. there's no question the first pill i popped is already taking effect, which is pretty freaking amazing. i hope not to be on it much longer than it takes to bring z kicking and screaming into this world, but for now, i'm incredibly grateful to have it.

wishin' and hopin'

'cause wishin' and hopin' is all i can do. no, really, that's it. the last few dishes we didn't clean up from the party - still sitting out. kitchen chairs - still strewn across the living room. empty bottles - still stacked next to the trash. the only things i've done that did not involve my ass being in bed - going to pick up breakfast and listening to the rebroadcast of "i hate this" and taking justin to work.

some positives: i still *feel* pregnant. i'm hungry and tired and poochy. and on some level, i've reached a kind of acceptance today. if z is still percolating, i'm on it's side. if it's not, i'll know soon and we can deal with it.

but if it's not, i don't know what comes next after dealing with it. after we lost hans, part of me wanted to move. after we lost the tadpole, justin understood, at least a little; he said then that if we had another loss, he could see us packing up and going somewhere completely new. but we've made plans. i'm starting school next week. we're working on our carriage house. although, ugh, so many of our plans have already - in just a few weeks - come to include the z-ster. if z is done, i have no idea what happens next. i desperately hope i don't have to figure it out.

happy new year from your friendly neighborhood freak show

i am still flipping out about the heart rate, but on the plus side, the abdominal stuff has calmed down considerably (although not stopped completely) and i haven't had even a hint of bleeding. i keep going over in my head all the scenarios in which little z might be perfectly fine, but none of them seem plausible.

i decided last evening over our new year's eve dinner (barbecue [veggie] ribs, mashed potatoes, creme brulee, sparkling grape juice, and no vegetables because i didn't feel like it, dammit, plus i ate the biggest dark green salad you have ever seen in your entire life for lunch and didn't think i could handle one more veg) that 2005 was our year of loss and that little z had until midnight to clear out or else he was committed, because we are not losing any of our children in 2006. when i went to bed a little after midnight, i told him, that's it. you are going to make it.

this will be the first test of how obedient and compliant a child he is.

at any rate, i don't know what to do, other than hope, and to try to will this child into good health with all of my might. we'll see how it works out.

in the mean time, we are following our new year's traditions. we met in march, 2000, just after all the big millennial celebrations. i had spent that new year's eve in formal wear and a tiara, with my girlfriend, on the riverfront in my then-home city, kissing teen age boys (it was that or old people) and generally being a gigantic spaz. now that standards had been set, i wanted our first new year's together to be memorable, but justin is not a holiday person. our first new year's eve together was nice but disappointingly quiet. the next year was a disaster that ended in tears. i gave up trying to get justin to go out. the next year, we rented a movie, cooked a really nice dinner together and stayed in, and had a few people over for hangover recovery the next night, which worked out well for us. our tradition was born.

the next year the new year's day party became formalized, our "get lucky!" potluck, in which we ask people to bring whatever they traditionally consume on new year's day for luck to share with the rest of us, so we can all accumulate as much luck for the new year as possible. tonight will be our fourth "get lucky!" party on new year's day. we almost didn't have it this year, what with our general feeling of shittiness right now plus the fact that justin was supposed to work tonight. but people started asking when they were going to get their invites and letting us know they had cleared their calendars to be here (like anyone has commitments on new year's day night???), so justin got his co-worker to switch schedules with him, and the party is on.

i'm glad we're still doing it. it's nice to have something worth making into a tradition. we usually throw a party every quarter, but new year's day is always the nicest, i'm sure in part because i don't do as much cooking since people will be bringing food in, but i think mostly because it's a way to get the holidays right. there are such high expectations for thanksgiving and especially christmas, to get the food just right and to find all the right presents and to have a perfect time with your family, that the whole thing inevitably falls short. when you have to cook a gigantic meal, something always burns or doesn't cook and someone is always disappointed because their own tradition wasn't perfectly followed. for all the money spent on presents, someone's doesn't fit, or the one you worked so long on isn't appreciated, or the kids ignore the toys and play with the boxes. and family - don't get me started. family is such a complicated thing. to expect some currier and ives scene in any family is wildly idiotic, and yet we all do anyway, and we're always disappointed.

no one has any expectations of new year's day, other than maybe to watch a little football, if that. at our house, no one has to deal with their parents, no one has to cook (or buy) more than one thing, there are no presents to figure out. it's just a relaxing night, the one you wish christmas would be like. that's why it's my favorite party of the year.

i expect the crowd will be a little small tonight. some of our more peripheral friends will probably stay away, out of fear of us or our sadness. i can't help that. but whoever will be here will be people we love, and that's damn lucky, even if the food they bring doesn't hold any magic.