ChezPerky

I thought the saying was "…and baby makes 3". Not, you know, four, or um, five even. Or in the case of my dream last night, six. Last night I had this ridiculous nightmare. I literally woke up in what can only be described as a cold sweat. I had this dream that I went in for my ultrasound this morning and Margaret (sonographer extraordinaire) said, "hey! You're not having a miscarriage, you must have been having more implantation bleeding, there are THREE now!" Once I calmed myself down I fell back to a fitful sleep, but cramping kept me awake most of the rest of the night. Thank God it was just a dream.

This morning I woke up and had only very light spotting. I considered not going in for my ultrasound appointment. I always feel ridiculous crying wolf. But what could the harm be? S is in Florida on business today, but he gave me a wakeup call this morning at 6 and I told him I might not go to the appointment because the problem seems to have abated. He wisely said, "that's all fine and good, but you'll regret it tomorrow when you're right back to bleeding and wanting to go in." So I got J ready to leave for school, dropped him off, and went to Shady Hell. I arrived at 8:05 for my 8:30 appointment which I really ought to know better than to do by now. I was called back at 8:50 (my 9am meeting at the office be-damned). I was called into Room 2, which is rare for me, but I like Room 2 just fine. It's got a lovely mobile on the ceiling, though I admit I didn't really notice it today.

Margaret said good morning. Dr. C. (whom I like a lot) greeted me and asked what had been going on. I explained that I'd been bleeding pretty heavily over the weekend, but now I really wasn't. "I feel really stupid being here now that it seems to have stopped." Dr. C. didn't hesitate for one second before responding, "Don't be ridiculous, this is exactly where you should be." Margaret couldn't believe I'd stayed away for so long. "Well, you know, either something's wrong or it isn't, right?" And on to this morning's wanding.

"Look at those! They're growing!"
"No they're not. There's only one. Remember? I put in my order for ONE. Not two!"
"Actually…"
"See? I told you there's only one. You must have been looking at it twice from two different angles."
"There's three."
"Stop it! That's not funny!"
"No really."
"No seriously, it's NOT FUNNY."
"Look… one, two… three!"

I swear I almost decked her.

I thought the saying was "…and baby makes 3". Not, you know, four, or um, five even. Or in the case of my dream last night, six. Last night I had this ridiculous nightmare. I literally woke up in what can only be described as a cold sweat. I had this dream that I went in for my ultrasound this morning and Margaret (sonographer extraordinaire) said, "hey! You're not having a miscarriage, you must have been having more implantation bleeding, there are THREE now!" Once I calmed myself down I fell back to a fitful sleep, but cramping kept me awake most of the rest of the night. Thank God it was just a dream.

This morning I woke up and had only very light spotting. I considered not going in for my ultrasound appointment. I always feel ridiculous crying wolf. But what could the harm be? S is in Florida on business today, but he gave me a wakeup call this morning at 6 and I told him I might not go to the appointment because the problem seems to have abated. He wisely said, "that's all fine and good, but you'll regret it tomorrow when you're right back to bleeding and wanting to go in." So I got J ready to leave for school, dropped him off, and went to Shady Hell. I arrived at 8:05 for my 8:30 appointment which I really ought to know better than to do by now. I was called back at 8:50 (my 9am meeting at the office be-damned). I was called into Room 2, which is rare for me, but I like Room 2 just fine. It's got a lovely mobile on the ceiling, though I admit I didn't really notice it today.

Margaret said good morning. Dr. C. (whom I like a lot) greeted me and asked what had been going on. I explained that I'd been bleeding pretty heavily over the weekend, but now I really wasn't. "I feel really stupid being here now that it seems to have stopped." Dr. C. didn't hesitate for one second before responding, "Don't be ridiculous, this is exactly where you should be." Margaret couldn't believe I'd stayed away for so long. "Well, you know, either something's wrong or it isn't, right?" And on to this morning's wanding.

"Look at those! They're growing!"
"No they're not. There's only one. Remember? I put in my order for ONE. Not two!"
"Actually…"
"See? I told you there's only one. You must have been looking at it twice from two different angles."
"There's three."
"Stop it! That's not funny!"
"No really."
"No seriously, it's NOT FUNNY."
"Look… one, two… three!"

I swear I almost decked her.

On Thursday I felt a little sheepish about coming in for a scan a bit early, since the bleeding that had been the whole reason for having such an early scan had largely subsided. On Friday I remembered why it is that God and I aren’t on very good speaking terms these days. I’m not spotting anymore, I’m right back to all-out bleeding, which I discovered while in the middle of an off-site, 4 hour meeting when I couldn’t slip out for extra “provisions” to take care of this problem.

I am trying to remind myself that this is exactly what happened in my last pregnancy and the bleeding in the last pregnancy never pointed to a problem. I’m trying to remind myself that my miscarriage happened at 12 weeks, so early bleeding was of no consequence. I’m trying to remind myself that 20-30% of pregnant women have first trimester bleeding and that 50% of those women carry to term, but when I think about it that way, the statistics actually don’t sound all that promising. I’m trying to remind myself that being alarmist and frantic about this won’t change a thing. Either everything is fine or it isn’t. If it isn’t, there isn’t anything anyone can do about it. I’m trying to remember that.

It’s hard to remember all of that when you are awakened in the middle of the night in sheer agony with cramping that won’t stop. It’s hard to remember all of that when this is all going on. It’s hard to remember all of that when yes, I do have a bladder infection, but my doctor suspects it’s because I might have another kidney stone. Yes, I said “another” kidney stone. I lost count after my twelfth kidney stone. I get them all the time. Oh and hey! There’s nothing I can do about it so long as the evidence points to the possibility that I’m pregnant. Even though, you know, I’m having a really hard time remembering that it’s not over yet.

The worst thing is that if this doesn’t all go South soon, I’m going to look back at this post and think that I’m a complete and total whiner and that I really needed to get a life and quit complaining. Because I have no good reason to believe that things aren’t absolutely fine. Except, you know, that I’m about to buy stock in whatever company manufactures Always pads. But that’s no reason to worry, right? Because apparently, this is what I do when I’m pregnant.

P.S. … is it possible that pregnancy is making my allergy medicine stop working? Could it be? Because it has stopped working entirely. Seems like a really stupid pregnancy symptom.

On Thursday I felt a little sheepish about coming in for a scan a bit early, since the bleeding that had been the whole reason for having such an early scan had largely subsided. On Friday I remembered why it is that God and I aren't on very good speaking terms these days. I'm not spotting anymore, I'm right back to all-out bleeding, which I discovered while in the middle of an off-site, 4 hour meeting when I couldn't slip out for extra "provisions" to take care of this problem.

I am trying to remind myself that this is exactly what happened in my last pregnancy and the bleeding in the last pregnancy never pointed to a problem. I'm trying to remind myself that my miscarriage happened at 12 weeks, so early bleeding was of no consequence. I'm trying to remind myself that 20-30% of pregnant women have first trimester bleeding and that 50% of those women carry to term, but when I think about it that way, the statistics actually don't sound all that promising. I'm trying to remind myself that being alarmist and frantic about this won't change a thing. Either everything is fine or it isn't. If it isn't, there isn't anything anyone can do about it. I'm trying to remember that.

It's hard to remember all of that when you are awakened in the middle of the night in sheer agony with cramping that won't stop. It's hard to remember all of that when this is all going on. It's hard to remember all of that when yes, I do have a bladder infection, but my doctor suspects it's because I might have another kidney stone. Yes, I said "another" kidney stone. I lost count after my twelfth kidney stone. I get them all the time. Oh and hey! There's nothing I can do about it so long as the evidence points to the possibility that I'm pregnant. Even though, you know, I'm having a really hard time remembering that it's not over yet.

The worst thing is that if this doesn't all go South soon, I'm going to look back at this post and think that I'm a complete and total whiner and that I really needed to get a life and quit complaining. Because I have no good reason to believe that things aren't absolutely fine. Except, you know, that I'm about to buy stock in whatever company manufactures Always pads. But that's no reason to worry, right? Because apparently, this is what I do when I'm pregnant.

P.S. … is it possible that pregnancy is making my allergy medicine stop working? Could it be? Because it has stopped working entirely. Seems like a really stupid pregnancy symptom.

A few thoughts now that I’ve got a few minutes…

When I called my husband to tell him I’ve potentially got two monsters growing… he responded, characteristically, with “Hooray!” “Hooray??” I demanded, incredulously. “What do you mean hooray?” Somehow it irritated me that my first reaction was “oh sh-t” and his first reaction was “hooray.” Just goes to show how much cooler he is than me. But when I expressed a little bit of concern about the potential for twins, he said, “well, then, I guess you’ve got a present for Dr. Amazing.”

So, right. Twins are cool, right? Sure. And you know, it’s super early and no one actually knows what’s going to happen. I shouldn’t count my fetbryos before they’re hatched or anything. This could turn into one or none. So what’s my problem? It’s so ridiculous it’s embarrassing. I had a lovely email exchange with Mel about it, which summed it up quite nicely, I think:

It’s not that I don’t think twins are great. I love twins. Are you ready for my
sheer stupidity? I am utterly terrified of having a c-section. Twins, of course,
would increase my risk of a c-section. Now, I’m no newbie to surgery, so it’s
not the c-section itself that bothers me. Are you ready for the completely
stupid part of all of this? The thing that’s making it hard for me to breath
just thinking about it? Are you sitting down?, because this is phenomenally
stupid. I am seriously and violently petrified of having a needle in my back.
Spinal, epidural, whatever, I DON’T WANT IT! I’m not even needle-phobic. That’s
the dumbest part. I have no problem with a needle anywhere else.

See? Proof that I’m completely insane. I’m like three seconds pregnant with
maybe-twins and I’m freaking out about an epidural that may never have to happen
(and could happen with a singleton anyway). I am a total nutjob.

And there you have it. I’m a freak. Totally. I should add that my husband, a pharmacist, has never understood my aversion to epidurals. His thoughts are pretty much in line with “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” He feels like if his wife is in pain and there are drugs that can make the pain stop, then his wife should take drugs. I disagree. This is something we argue disagree about regularly, as I have a tendency to forget that pain medicine can make my chronic pain go away, or at least be slightly less debilitating.

Some more random stuff…

I think I have a UTI. I cannot begin to tell you how much this irritates me (I almost wrote “how much this pisses me off” but realized that was a poor choice of words). I mean, it’s not enough that I have the thirst of a thousand dehydrated maidens? It’s not enough that the consequence of this thirst is that I have to pee all the time? Now it has to be painful when I pee too?? Please to be esplainin’ because I’m really not getting God’s sense of humour on this one. Anywhozit, I talked to my nurse at Shady Hell and asked whether I should call my primary doctor or my OB and she said either one works. Okay then. I have an appointment with my primary doctor tomorrow. Yippee.

Speaking of my nurse, she called me this afternoon to schedule my next scan. Dr. Amazing had said to come back in a week, so I’d scheduled it for the 15th. Once I got to work I looked at my meeting agenda and realized that the 15th is NO GOOD AT ALL. My nurse rocks, though, and she rescheduled it for Friday the 16th. She said if I wanted to wait until the 20th, I could have Dr. Amazing. And I really want Dr. Amazing, but I don’t know that I love the idea of waiting that long! The other option was to schedule it for Wednesday the 14th, but I don’t want that for two reasons: 1. Dr. Evil will be covering monitoring that day. Remember him? Yeah. Apparently my nurse doesn’t love him either, though she’s quick to say that from a medical standpoint, he’s great. 2. I want there to be an extra couple of days for growth so that maybe there’s something more useful to see.

Did I mention that I love my nurse? She has IVF twins (teenagers now) and has a real sense of humour about them. So when she called she said, “How’s it going, mom?” And I responded with, “remember how you told me my first beta was 228 and I said ‘there better not be more than one in there…’? and you swore that 228 was a respectable singleton beta? thanks a lot!” So she says, she can’t think of a better person for this to happen to and said that one really has to have a good sense of humour to raise twins without strangling them. I will take that as a compliment. I think. I also told her my epidural fears and she said she was the exact same way. And apparently I’m not the only nutjob out there, because lots of women feel as I do. Or so she says.

And, hey! Let’s not forget that I needn’t worry about any of this yet…. since this could all go south tomorrow! Let the fun begin!