Ready? For What?

July 16, 2008 at 10:32 pm (Miscarriage and Infertility, Thoughts and Musings, pregnancy)
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Every good teacher knows that if one student asks a question, most of the time they are not the only one thinking it.  Therefore, when Sherri asked on my theory post if I was trying to convey a hidden message, I concluded that others may have had the same impression.  While I was certainly not hinting at anything in the post in question, it did get me thinking about my circumstances, and how they may differ from other mothers of almost toddlers.

At some point in a first child’s life, the parents begin asking the question “Are we ready to have another one?”  By that, they mean “are we prepared to subject ourselves to more sleeplessness in exchange for the joy of having another beautiful and adorable child in our lives.”  Generally they decide that yes they are, and after a few months get to tell their toddler, or almost toddler, that he/she will be a big brother/sister.  The toddler is generally unfazed by this until their comfortable life as the center of the universe undergoes the dramatic seismic shift of their sibling’s arrival.

But when a couple has fertility issues, the question isn’t “are we ready for another one?”  Instead it’s “are we ready to try again?”  By that they mean, “are we willing to subject ourselves to the drugs and the probes and the hopes and the let downs, again?”  While most couples are asking “are we physically and emotionally ready to be pregnant?” the fertility challenged couple asks “are we physically and emotionally ready to go through the months of failing to get pregnant - or failing to *stay* pregnant?”

Additionally, while most couples get to make this decision within their own marriages, the couple with fertility issues must seek out the medical professional who holds the prescription pad of permission.

When Jonathan and I married, I wanted four children - three boys and a girl.  Now that it has taken twelve years to arrive at one girl, I wonder if trying for another may not be presuming on God.

We’re certainly ready for another - more than one, if you’re just talking readiness.  But are we ready for another miscarriage - or more than one?  Are we ready to try and never see another result?  Those are bigger questions, and ones for which we have no answers at the moment.

However, I assure you all of this:  if we do go, hat in hand, to seek out the prescription pad of permission, I will blog about it directly, and not write veiled posts about “other women getting pregnant.”  Until then, we’re still asking.

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I Have a Theory

July 12, 2008 at 11:49 am (Thoughts and Musings, pregnancy)
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Periodically, I look back through my blog archives as a way of remembering where I’ve been and how far I’ve come.  This time last year I posted about our (then unnamed) baby making a big stretch (which was actually one of my first Braxton Hicks contractions, but I didn’t know it) while in Wal Mart.

I clearly remember that day.  I remember standing with one hand on my back and one on my belly, gently rubbing my belly absentmindedly while I looked at something or other.  While I was doing so, a total stranger asked me if I was okay - with the tone of quiet panic that indicated his fear of catching a baby.  The funny thing is, that a week later, the same sort of thing happened to me again at Sam’s Club.

I remember the events clearly, but I’m having a hard time remembering the feeling of being pregnant.

And that brings me to my theory.  I think by the time a woman has a nine or ten month old baby, she begins forgetting what it felt like to be swollen like a Macy’s Parade Float, while weighing in at the equivalent of a Jumbo Jet.  She forgets, and begins to think “It wasn’t really THAT bad!” so she does it again.

At least, that’s what I think.

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APPROVED (and still pregnant)

August 3, 2007 at 6:00 pm (pregnancy, renovation)

Well, we started the day thinking we’d have to go to plan B. The plumbing inspector didn’t approve our hot water heater. He told Jonathan how to fix it and said he’d be back Monday.

But Praise the Lord for the electrical inspector! When he arrived, and looked at me he asked to see what work Jonathan had completed on the hot water heater. He saw it mostly finished (Jonathan was picking up the last piece to finish it) he called the plumbing inspector and had it approved over the phone! YAY! I guess Jonathan’s plan to use the pregnant woman as emotional manipulation worked.

So as far as the city is concerned, we’re finished. We can move in! And we are, tomorrow! It’s all on, and ready to begin at 9 am Saturday (tomorrow).

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Inducing

July 31, 2007 at 5:39 pm (pregnancy)
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Well, the baby has dropped like I thought, but I’m neither dilated nor effaced. Also, my blood pressure was a few points higher than last week, and the baby’s heart rate was a few beats slower than it has been. Because of this, the nurse practitioner was worried about stress on me and the baby. She consulted with my doctor and moved the day of inducing.

I’m checking in at 4:30 pm on August 7th. They’ll give me oral prostaglandins every four hours and begin a pitocin drip at 6:00 am on August 8th. Unless, of course, something happens sooner.

In other news: we’ll be moving Saturday - drop by if you’re in the area :-)

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The Wrong Way

July 30, 2007 at 5:20 pm (pregnancy)
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One of the best movie lines in the history of cinema is from Planes, Trains and Automobiles. John Candy is driving, Steve Martin is sleeping and somehow John Candy ends up going the wrong direction up the Interstate. A couple (going the same direction, but in the proper lane) roll down their window and begin hollering over the median “You’re going the wrong way!” Steve Martin wakes up, and says to John Candy “They say we’re going the wrong way.” John Candy responds “They must be drunk. How do they know where we’re going?”

Well yesterday, I kept feeling this pushing up on the top of my tummy. I could feel her little behind, and sometimes a leg just pushing up. I felt like yelling at her “You’re going the wrong way!”

But this morning I woke up, and she is noticeably lower. So I think I may have been feeling my uterus pushing down, rather than her pushing up. In which case, she must have been muttering “She must be drunk. How does she know where I’m going?”

I’m not experiencing any Braxton Hicks even now, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. After my doctor’s appointment tomorrow (with the Nurse Practitioner) I’ll let you all know if there’s been any change in the “baby forecast.”

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How Things Change

April 24, 2007 at 3:38 pm (pregnancy)
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Before I got pregnant the three books that could always be found beside my couch were: Sudoku, Logic Puzzles, and whatever novel I was reading at the time.The three books beside my couch right now: What to Expect When You’re Expecting, The Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers and 60,000 Baby Names. I’m still reading novels, but the current novel has been relegated to the back of the toilet because a warm bath goes a long way every night to soothe sore back and stomach muscles.My how things change.

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Little Bit of “Encouragement” I Could Do Without

February 9, 2007 at 1:59 pm (pregnancy)
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I was searching out ways to deal effectively with this head cold and I found this little nugget of “helpful information” on Web MD.

Fact: Viral illness like the flu and colds usually last three times longer in pregnant women.

With good news like that, who needs cold germs?

On a lighter note I did happen to find “How to be a Successful Overlord” which has 100 tips for success if your long term life goals happen to be “taking over the WORLD” (narf). Which made me laugh.

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Cases, Colds and Cuticles

February 8, 2007 at 8:35 am (pregnancy)
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To begin: I have been sitting at my computer, staring with fascination as I tap my fingernails across the base of my keyboard. Why? Because it’s the first time in my life I have had fingernails long and strong enough to produce an actual tapping sound. It is an odd, but welcome pregnancy symptom. I don’t even recognize my own hands. No torn cuticles, no ragged, edges catching on my clothing. I even bought some emery boards, and actually rounded the tips.

I am dealing with a pregnancy dilemma. I seem to have caught a head cold. I suspect this because my nose is pouring like a faucet, my voice sounds a little bit like an out of tune tuba, and my ears feel like they are stuffed with warm mud. Normally the way I would deal with this would be to go home, take a maximum dose of NyQuil and sleep it off. I would normal follow this by mega dosing on Echinacea tea for three to four days.

So I obviously I know that I can’t do the NyQuil thing. I do have some Vitamin C Defense Strips, which are just Vitamin C and Zinc, like Zicam, or Airborne. They’re designed to help your body fight off the cold, but don’t carry the controversy during pregnancy that Echinacea does. So I’ve been taking them. The first night, when I just could not sleep, I took one dose of Tylenol Cold, because it’s on my list from my doctor of things I can take, but I just don’t want to take it too often, so unless I have another “can’t breath, can’t swallow, can’t sleep” night, I think I’ll just ride this one out with my Vitamin C. Of course, now that I blog about it, I realize I left them at home, sitting on the couch.

But, despite my cold, I managed, for the first time since beginning the class, to finish my Greek homework a full day before class. I got it all finished yesterday, meaning that I can have a nap before class without feeling guilty about those “last few questions” that still need to be done. Of course, I also learned that I can’t work on Greek, put it down and go to bed. I dreamed about noun declensions and cases all night. You know how you can’t read in dreams because the letters just don’t work? I kept seeing a weird mix of the Greek alphabet with our alphabet and I’d wake up in a panic because I didn’t know what it said. I guess there’s a little OCD hiding somewhere in my personality. I wish it showed up in my kitchen.

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Future Hope

February 6, 2007 at 9:36 am (babywearing, pregnancy)
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I have found a great deal of encouragement from other bloggers as I walk this weird path of “later in life” pregnancy. The longer I face this, the more I realize that while Jonathan and I would have never said it out loud, we had come to a place where we didn’t expect to get pregnant. Isn’t that how God works? He waits until he’s the only possible answer, and then he shows up, just so no one can blame it on someone else. But we humans always find a way to do it anyway.

Anyway, I have really enjoyed reading Coastal’s candid struggles through months of unsuccessful attempts at nursing. And her latest two posts that are so filled with maternal love, despite the infant fussing that is the subject of the posts. I am reminded that she is almost exactly a year ahead of me on this journey, and I am seeing hope for myself, as I read her hope while in the midst of this stage of child rearing.

Then I read this fantastic post by Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer. She is several years ahead of Coastal and me, and she includes this paragraph of hope for people like us:

It gets easier, I’d whisper to my bleary-eyed self. They sleep and they reason and they take charge of their own bodily fluids. They make you laugh and they feed the dog and they remember where you put the car keys. They become functioning, delightful little people who can read the notes you leave them. It gets easier. It really does.

And after offering her readers that hope, she includes this post and this post about her sons, that emphasize her point. It makes me think that with God’s grace I can do this thing called parenting. It gives me hope that all of the joys I expect from parenting are really waiting, even when I can’t see them through the veil of sore gum induced tears.

So the reason I blog this today, is that Shannon just posted that she’s always got the blahs in February, and even though I have this puny little blog with my 30 visitors a day, I wanted her to know that the Lord has used her to chase away my own hormone induced “fears for the future” blahs. Another reminder that God is at work in your life, for the building up of the Body of Christ, even when you feel like the toilet in the temple of God.

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Landmarks and Milestones

February 5, 2007 at 11:12 am (Family and Friends, pregnancy)
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Well, I have had several landmark events recently, and all of them are blog worthy.

First Landmark Event:
I received an e-mail from my mother today. It wasn’t just an e-mail, it was formatted so that the font was pretty and colorful. This is a remarkable because until very recently my mother was a self proclaimed technological Neanderthal - well, I don’t think she used that exact term, but you get the idea. She and technology have not been close companions. In fact, I think there was a fear that existed between the two.

I have a very clear memory of our first “real computer” (the first computer we owned was a Commodore Vic 20 which doesn’t count. Although it did provide me with hours of entertainment, spent programming it to proclaim over and over in large letters across our T.V. screen that my sister was a geek, or dork, or she loved some looser boy.) - a Radio Shack Tandy. This was in the days when every computer had its own unique software, and our Tandy had a word processor called Wordsoft or something like that. My dad and I could type on it for ages with no problems (except the fact that saving anything took 25 minutes, and a proper alignment of the planets) but my mother would sit at the computer and inevitably she would receive this error message: “You have found an error in Wordsoft.” No one else in our family could replicate the error. She gave up trying to make friends with computers.

So you can see why receiving an e-mail that was really from my Mom, not one from my Dad that began “Your mom wants to know . . .” was a landmark event in my life.

Second Landmark event:
I was having a discussion with a friend about vehicles, and I actually uttered these words: “Sure they look nice, but could you get a stroller in an out of the back of that vehicle? I don’t think so.” Strollers, car seats and the ability to reach from the steering wheel to the back seat to replace a pacifier have become my primary qualifications for a vehicle. When did this happen? We passed a Mini Cooper yesterday on the way to church, and I said to Jonathan “Bet you couldn’t pack a stroller in that car.”

Third Landmark event:
Friday night, the baby got his/her first present. We had supper with some good friends, and their youngest daughter had painted wooden animal magnets for Jonathan and I. As we were admiring them, and thanking her, she reached back into her little bag, and pulled out a felt and pom-pom butterfly. Handing it to me she said “And this is for your baby.” I just about melted. It is the first item in my baby memory book.

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