Make It Pink! Make It Blue!

My favorite movie growing up was Sleeping Beauty. Okay, fine - one of my favorite films even as an adult is Sleeping Beauty. It's so fifties-tastic in style and has a happy ending and I really identified with Merriweather, one of the three good fairies. In fact, I identified with her so much that I always rooted for Princess Aurora's dress to be blue rather than pink. Remember that? Merriweather keeps magically changing the gown to blue, then Flora zaps it with her wand and it goes back to pink, and so on and so forth, until this is the result?

(Full disclosure: as a child of the '80s, I actually thought 

this splattered look was the best one of all.)

This is not to say that I dislike pink. I am always faintly embarrassed to look at my closet and realize how many of my clothes are varying shades of pink. But blue is the color of the sky and the sea and it's always been my favorite. And now, it is the color that will inevitably be most associated with... our son. Yes, you read that right:

We're having a boy!

A boy who has ten fingers, ten toes, a normally shaped palate and feet, and who was so active during the ultrasound that we had no problem taking a peek between his tiny legs. I was actually the one to identify his, um, personal region - the ultrasound tech and I both started laughing since it was so obvious. So there you have it. The tiny creature who keeps kicking me (he was especially active during this week's Game of Thrones episode and appears to support Stannis more than the Lannisters, whatever that might indicate) will someday, we hope and pray, be a man. How weird, and how wonderful.

The Quickening (Not a Horror Movie, I Swear)

A few weeks ago, lying in bed drifting off to sleep with my hand on my belly hoping against hope for some sign that the baby was still alive in there, the thought occurred to me that once the kid starts kicking, he or she (hopefully) won't stop. Drowsily, I wondered if that would be annoying. But it'll probably be balanced out by how cute it is, right?

Well, I am here to tell you that our baby has started kicking me. It is indeed highly reassuring and adorable. It is also at times distracting and, yes, just a wee bit annoying. (Sorry, unborn child! I really do love you a whole lot, I promise. It would just be easier to concentrate on work if we could coordinate a bit when you decide to dance a jig. For instance, while I'm sitting at my desk responding to emails - fine. In the middle of giving a PowerPoint presentation - less helpful.) Yes, I know that it's way more distracting to have a screaming baby on my hip than feel a few wriggles in my belly, but I don't intend to give many work presentations while holding our child once he/she emerges into the world... at least, that's the plan! I'm getting visions of Diane Keaton at the beginning of Baby Boom when she brings her daughter to the office and hilarity ensues.

What does it feel like? Good question. I would say it's one of those things that you'll just know when it happens to you, but that's totally a lie. The first time I felt something weird in my belly that was remotely distinguishable from gas bubbles or other general digestive activity was early in the morning at 18w3d. It was before I had eaten anything and there was nothing else going on besides - tap. Tap tap. Hmm, I thought. Nothing happened at 18w4d, but at 18w5d in the middle of the afternoon I felt the same sort of tapping. It happened briefly and then disappeared. 18w6d I made a strategic mistake and ate a buffalo chicken sandwich for lunch; any tapping the rest of the day was rather obscured by the heartburn and general gastrointestinal protest that followed. But 19w0d was full of activity. Tap tap tap. Pause. Tap tap. Pause. Wriggle. Pause. Tap wriggle tap tap.

The other thing that made me think it was the baby moving was the location. At this point, my uterus is a pretty darn obvious structure within my belly, especially when I lie down. And this is the only part of my story that does come close to suggesting a horror movie (since I think we can all agree that "The Quickening" would make a great title) - the taps and wriggles were coming from inside the uterus! And then they turned on the radio and heard about an escaped serial killer and they found a hook on the door handle! But no, seriously, it's hard to ignore this giant thing in my body that's making me resign myself to wearing only maternity clothes from here on out. And when that thing starts moving a bit, it's hard to miss.

So there you have it! Now, instead of wondering appointment to appointment if the baby has died, I get to wonder every few hours "Hmm, is it still alive in there? When was the last time I felt anything?" But I'm still really glad that we've passed this milestone, right around the time I would have expected it. Strong work, baby! Keep it up!

Learning to be a Better Patient

So if you read my last post about moving, and the one before that about my big work event, you might have gathered that I've been pretty busy lately. And I have, but not busy enough that I couldn't fit in two OB appointments.

I didn't post about them immediately because, well, they were really boring. Neither appointment involved an ultrasound and although it's very reassuring to hear the baby's heartbeat (which was strong, sounded normal, and was ridiculously easy to find) the two things that I'm worrying about most can't be checked without a visual image. So I have no idea how the sub-chorionic hemorrhage is doing, or how the placenta previa is doing, and we're just going to assume for now that no news is good news. My belly continues to grow, slowly but perceptibly, and all of the things I'm feeling - round ligament pain, occasional breathlessness, the remnants of morning sickness - are apparently normal. Normal is just fine with me.

However, at my appointment last week, I was the last patient of the day and I had so much to do that evening that I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. My OB is a very kind person and has spent lots of time with me in the past going over my concerns, talking with me about the infertility/pregnancy research I've done, etc. I was expecting to have the same kind of thorough conversation at this visit, but it seems that she took her lead from me and instead we moved through my bullet-point list of questions in an extremely efficient manner. Lovenox levels slightly off? Check them again in a month. Cervical length? They'll take a look at the next ultrasound. Labor and delivery plan? Will not discuss at this point. On the one hand, I will admit to being faintly annoyed that we didn't spend more time going over this hugely important thing that's happening to me - OMG I'm pregnant but I'm also infertile and I have so many feelings! - but I was also really relieved when I looked at my watch on the way out the door and noticed I was leaving a full 15 minutes earlier than planned. And that is when I realized something that I had, embarrassingly, never actually thought about before:

This is my doctor's job.

I don't mean that in the sense that physicians should be doing something they aren't (the usual context in which "this is your job!" is used), but that my doctor probably looks at the patients on her schedule for the day the same way I look at the tasks on my daily plan at work. What can I get off my desk quickly? What needs input from other coworkers? Is this proposal ready to go out yet, or do we need to hold onto it for a while longer? How can I get the information I need to complete this project? And - how much longer is it going to take to wrap all of this up, so I can go home and start making dinner?

Obviously, patients aren't the same as 30-page documents that still need editing even though I've sent them back to the authors with the same questions like three times now. (Sorry, a bit frustrated, does it show?) Actual human beings are wayyyyyy more complex and dynamic; they can have nuanced and interlocking problems and are able to actually interact with their physicians in a way that I never get at my day job. But everyone has to come up with strategies to get through their workday. Sometimes, you just want to get the information you need in bullet points, put a big check mark next to that item on your to-do list, and move on. And as a patient, at least on this one occasion I felt the exact same way.

In the future, I'll try to do a better job keeping this in mind (although I must point out that I always come to appointments on time, with lists of questions and current medications, and I've never done the super-annoying-patient thing of printing out a stack of articles and wanting to go through them with the doctor. I'm not that high-maintenance, I promise.) But I will make more of an effort to separate "what needs to get done today?" from "what am I talking about just because it happens to be on my mind?" My OB is not going to escape a conversation with me about how pissed off I still am about my experience with IVF, and how I'll be damned if I'm going to feel equally marginalized during my labor and delivery experience. And if G-d forbid something else goes wrong, I will expect to be bumped up on her list of priorities accordingly. But not today. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. Today, I'm fine just having a check mark next to my name.

Madame la Propriétaire

A quick update because I'm at work - I've had no Internet the past few days. Why? Because we bought a house! It's lovely and a little intimidating and now I have an answer to people who ask if we've gotten anything for the baby yet: why yes! We got the baby an entire house! Honestly, I think the members of the family who will benefit the most from this new development are the cat and dog, but Harry and I are pretty happy too. Or we will be once we get some curtains up in our bedroom. I never would have made it as a pioneer, waking up with the sun, argh. If I could just remember where I packed that sleep mask...

Chillin' with Pregnant Women... When You Are a Pregnant Woman

I spent the early part of this week at a work conference, and of the 150+ people there, at least three others were ladies sporting the same "spring casual/swallowed a basketball" look that I have also lately adopted. Their bumps were varying sizes and hard to mistake for anything else, but I'm totally paranoid about asking a woman if she's pregnant unless I see an actual baby emerging from her, so I managed to say... nothing. I talked with them all at various times, I was polite and friendly, we discussed business, and not once did I ever mention that we might both have a fetus or two growing in our respective bellies. But, then, neither did they. Which leads me to a few observations:

- I'm still kind of shy about all this pregnancy stuff.
- I think it's not related to the infertility/IVF, actually. I mean, best case scenario, I would have been approaching them to join as members of the "we recently had unprotected sex!" club. Ummm....
- I feel like my belly is huge, but it's clearly not so big that I appear unequivocally pregnant (yet).
- Other pregnant women are also reluctant to ask someone else if she's expecting, perhaps because they're equally sensitive to the issue.
- What are we really going to say to each other? "Hey, you look like you're knocked up. Are your boobs covered in grotesque blue veins?" "Yes! How did you know? I'm also constipated, let's talk about that!" I ended up talking about the pregnancy most with women who had young children, who were offering advice on daycare and breastfeeding and very well-intentioned childcare stuff that I was able to nod and smile and take with several grains of salt. It seemed easier that way.
- Or, maybe I'm just a wimp and should have said something.

In other milestones, I had a very distant acquaintance actually break into a conversation I was having with a friend and say "Congratulations! Was it planned?" I was too shocked to do anything other than answer her with a firm "Yes." And then, classically, I came up with about 50 assertive-verging-on-nasty responses to her question right as she was walking away. Oh well. Other opportunities will come up in the future, I have no doubt.

Uh, You Have Something on your Face

The other day I had this conversation with Harry.

Me: (looking in bathroom mirror) Dammit.
Harry: What's up?
Me: Well, first I have endometriosis, then I have all these pregnancy complications, and now I have some sort of dermatological problem.
Harry: What do you mean?
Me: (pointing to the brown spots that are showing up on my forehead and cheeks) Look.
Harry: Are you sure those aren't related to pregnancy?
Me: Ummmm...

So, thanks to a quick consult with Dr. Google, I have diagnosed myself with melasma. Melasmas? I don't know, but basically I have these dark spots on my face that aren't opaque enough to be moles but aren't light enough to fit in with my freckles. Behold, an example courtesy of Wikipedia:

Awesome. I'm told that these will likely go away after delivery (though probably some time after delivery, like months; I am probably not going to check out of the hospital with magically clear skin) but now you don't even have to look down at my belly to tell that I'm knocked up. Hooray!

A Serious Question About Lovenox and Bees

I am terrified of bees. Fuzzy little bumblebees, graceful shiny wasps - I totally panic when any one of them flies into my airspace. I do this elaborate bee-evasion dance and seek shelter as quickly and awkwardly as I can. No, I'm not allergic, I just have a few too many traumatic childhood bee stings tucked away in my memory bank. If and when the kid I'm carrying around in my belly emerges into the world, I will have to strike a delicate balance between "Every creature has a purpose in life, this is how flowers are pollinated, we wouldn't have strawberries if we didn't have bees" and "Run for your life!"

Oh sure, it looks all helpful and pretty NOW.

As the seasons change I've been seeing more bees around, which is why it occurred to me the other day as I was injecting my Lovenox (yes, I'm back on it now that the immediate sub-chorionic hemorrhage danger seems to have passed) that I was now basically "stinging" myself voluntarily. Think about it - I jam the needle into my skin, inject a whole bunch of painful liquid, and the injection site hurts afterward for about 20-30 minutes. It's not entirely dissimilar to a bee sting, although it avoids some of the things about bees that make my skin crawl the most: one sting somehow alerting all of the other nearby bees to come sting you too, stepping on an underground nest and being surrounded with no warning, the tracker jacker scene in The Hunger Games... shudder.

This brings me to my question. It has been, what, 15 years since I was last stung by a bee? Longer? So, no, I don't really remember what it was like. It might be way more painful than a syringe full of enoxaparin, or I might be psyching myself out over nothing. Has anyone out there experienced both a bee sting and a Lovenox injection lately? Are they remotely similar experiences? Important stuff, this.

Telling People You're Pregnant: Lessons from Tina Fey

In addition to being With Child this past week, I have also been With Rhinovirus. (Translation = I had a cold.) And while usually I would approach a week of sniffling and sneezing with a whole arsenal of drugs to dull the pain, make me lightheaded, and knock me out so I can sleep through the night, this time I went au naturel. It was pretty miserable. From now on, whenever I am reading my historical fiction (translation = romance novels) and daydreaming about living in a simpler time, I need someone to remind me: all of the people wearing those lovely flouncy dresses had no access to NyQuil. Forget modern dentistry, anesthesia, deodorant, etc. When you are up all night sneezing, you will do unspeakable things for some NyQuil. Well, I considered some, anyway.

But last week was not only defined by my prodigious tissue consumption. It was also the week in which I told people I'm pregnant - not only the close friends and family who were notified of the whole ongoing  infertility saga by email or on the phone, but the world at large. I told my work colleagues, I told several acquaintances, I went to a party in a maternity dress and made passing references to "my due date," and by and large it went really well. It feels good to have things out in the open, but I was amused at the range of responses I got. There was my favorite:

:::sounds of hyperventilation through the phone line::: "Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh! I can't believe it! Oh my gosh! This is such big news!"

And my least favorite:

"Oh, I knew you were pregnant. I saw that you were starting to get a little belly a month ago."

I would characterize the first response as pure joy, which was wonderful and very much appreciated. But the second example was really ridiculous, because first of all, no you didn't. I didn't have a little belly a month ago. A month ago, I was still eating the equivalent of one string cheese per day and desperately supplementing my diet with ginger or peppermint tea. All of my clothes still fit and the scale was telling me I'd actually lost a few pounds. And secondly, WTF? You can't muster up a "congratulations" at the beginning of that bodysnarking sentence?

Initially I rolled my eyes, but when I thought about it a bit more, the person behind response #2 actually let on more than I suspect she wanted to with her comments. First of all, she has a young daughter and went on and on about how easy it was to conceive at the time of her pregnancy, but despite dropping giant hints about wanting to have a sibling last year, nothing's happened on that front for some months now. And she's always had some serious issues with her weight, too, which might explain her supposed scrutiny of my own body. In Bossypants, Tina Fey talks about the various things people have said to her over the years about her facial scar and how they often reveal more about the question-asker than anything else: for instance, the person who wondered aloud if her attacker had "marked" her as a child so he'd be able to find her later in life. (Creepy suggestion, dude!) I think the same thing is happening here. To Snarky McBellyscrutinizer, I'm guessing that my pregnancy was a way for her to address her own body insecurity and, yes, feel a bit better about her own possible fertility issues. And who among us hasn't been in the same position? Hell, I'm wearing maternity jeans right now and I still wince when I hear someone talking about being pregnant. But I'm polite when I hear those announcements. And I always was. I can't control what people say to me, but I can control my response, which I hope reads simply as "I'm so happy for you!" And then: move on. Change it up. Find another topic.

Speaking of which, how 'bout those Dolphins?!?

I Wrote a Poem About Maternity Clothes

Recently, I was forced to confront an undeniable fact:

My pants did not close. Not on their own, not with a hair tie, not in a muffin-toppy kind of way, not with the assistance of a pair of pliers while lying flat on the floor, not at all. So, skipping and whistling like characters in a Disney movie, off we went to the maternity store. Which is conveniently located next door to a restaurant that serves, among other things, excellent - and huge - burgers. I can't imagine a dining establishment more appropriate for elastic-waist pants.

When we got home from our shopping trip, I had to make room in the closet for my roomy new purchases. It was bittersweet to put away clothing that I love wearing but know I won't be able to fit into for some time to come, and I started to think about Goodnight Moon (a book we're obviously going to have to purchase for the little one if we can't find our own vintage copies!) So I wrote this:

Goodnight jeans and goodnight tank tops,
Goodnight shorts and too-tight flip flops.

Goodnight stilettos and boots with heels,
Goodnight dresses that made me squeal.

Goodnight button-down shirts and blazers,
Goodnight pants made perfect by tailors.

Goodnight skirts with nipped-in waists,
Goodnight business suits never my taste.

Goodnight Spanx and B-cup bras,
Goodnight shirts that gave my mother pause.

Goodnight trousers that close with a button,
Goodnight anything not produced in cotton.

Goodnight things I love to wear,
Goodnight clothing everywhere.