I Love My Friends

I've put myself on bedrest for the last few days; my body has given notice that I need to STOP for a bit, so I'm doing my best. Trouble is... bedrest is nigh impossible with a 16 month old. So, I've ended up leaning on some wonderful people to help wrangle the Infanta so that I don't have to be up and down chasing her all day. Sunday Josh managed her, despite his lingering nasty cold. Yesterday I called my friend Amber, whose daughter is about a month older than the Infanta; they came and spent a mellow afternoon. It helps that the girls play well together (as much as babies their age are capable of it). Today my friend Katie came over, bringing her boys. Katie rocked my world. She came over with the intent of not only keeping me company and distracting the Infanta, but also of cleaning the house. And clean she did! The instant she walked in, she started picking up toys (which the kids naturally promptly started taking out again). She moved from there to clearing the dining room table, and thence to starting a load of dishes. She paused a bit there to watch part of a movie and knit a bit, but then she hopped up again, picked the toys up, and vacuumed. Then she did another load of dishes, following that up with cleaning assorted counter clutter. Then, as she left, she remarked that she was lazy today! Because, you see, she'd intended to do laundry as well, and didn't get to it!

Tomorrow Josh will be home again, taking care of his cold, and incidentally wrangling Herself. I'm hoping that I won't need the help much past this week, that this rest will be enough to ease my troubles; I have seen signs that I may be healing as I hoped, but I certainly don't want to jeopardize that healing by taking too much on again too soon.

Not the workout I was looking for.

Tomorrow it will be a week that I'd had this ruddy cold. It began with a cough and a sore throat in the night, and those two symptoms haven't budged. Today I've been coughing so much that this evening, coughing leaves me in real pain from my poor, abused abs. I mean, I know I'm not in great shape, but really! And the coughing hasn't eased a bit. Today's addition to the whole mess is a nose that runs worse than a toddler's; it's so sore at this point that I'm beginning to expect to see blood whenever I apply tissue (which is frequently). I'm sick enough that I even cancelled The Infanta's birthday party this weekend! Fear not, it has merely been rescheduled, and I will be handing Josh the camera, for plenty of good pictures of the event.

The Infanta is also afflicted with it, at least to some degree. She coughs a little, her nose is runny (although less so than mine), and her voice is a bit hoarse. Otherwise, she's fine so far. This is probably a good thing, as she has her one year checkup tomorrow. I expect the doctor to offer sage advice about infant cold care, the which I will likely nod and smile at. But maybe there will be something in what she says that will be useful, so I won't ignore it completely. This visit, as far as I'm concerned, is almost purely about finding out those important statistics of height and weight. I do hope that my cough calms down overnight; I hate it when I'm in with a healthy baby and the nurses all offer me help!

Sick and Tired

So over the weekend, that cough and sore throat turned into a cough and laryngitis. I had a lovely time knitting with the ladies on Sunday anyway... all the chatting did not help my voice, though, and yesterday I was left nearly speechless. I was also a bit feverish towards evening; not fun. Today my voice is a bit better, but I have a lot of phlegm, and am still coughing and feverish. Not much fun, but at least half doses of cold medicine are helping me sleep better at night!

I got out this morning and worked in my new garden beds. Many thanks to my friends KC and Heather who trucked their rototiller up from an hour away just to till a section of my front lawn! This morning I mounded earth to form beds, and then worked some old horse manure into them. I planted one bed - pumpkins and two kinds of beans - but realized that I have too many ideas and not enough definite decisions about the other beds to plant them yet. I have starts for tomatoes and two kinds of peppers, and also want to plant more of both kinds of beans, leeks, and zucchini.

The Infanta is becoming more and more difficult to get to sleep. I think what's happening is that she's becoming less flexible about bedtime, and what she thinks is the routine (and it is what usually happens) runs about two hours later than what we actually want to be happening. This means that she doesn't want to sleep until about eleven at night, and then doesn't want to wake up until eleven in the morning. Needless to say, this doesn't work in the real world. So I get her up earlier in the morning - nine-ish, maybe - and then she's cranky all day. In the evening, I've been trying to get her to bed by her sleepy cues, but she doesn't want to be in bed then, she wants to nurse and play more. If I stay in bed after she goes to sleep, she will stay asleep, but if I get up to attempt a little me time (for example, to write a blog post), she will wake up crying fairly quickly. She woke in the middle of writing this paragraph! I think the key will be being consistent with a bedtime, and probably establishing a more elaborate bedtime routine than we've had before now. I'm just not ready to give up my evening activities like knitting! Time for more Mama sacrifices. Can you believe I want more babies?!

I'm pretty sure the physical end of the miscarriage is complete. The last several days (TMI warning!) I had discharge similar to the very end of lochia - which it was, really - but saw none today, so I think my body may have cleared everything out finally, and may be ready to begin cycling afresh. That would be nice.

Things I Need Today

- For the Infanta to sleep somewhere other than on me or my boob. I don't mind nursing to sleep, but every 45 minutes gets me no sleep at all. See the time I'm posting.

- Sleep! See above.

- Time alone with my husband, with no baby in the house, preferably for several hours, so I can stop being on duty long enough for a solid cry and nap. See above. The Infanta napping solidly while away from me would be frosting.

- To not be sick. I don't know where this combination of heartburn, nasty sore throat, and cough came from, but it needs to go back. Haven't I had enough crap this month?

Frankly, I need item 3 the most. All else would be much more tolerable after few hours' uninterrupted sleep and that cry I keep having to put off.

What a relief!

Apparently, Mercury is in retrograde. So this whole recent horrible chain of events isn't our fault!!

My miscarriage, Josh's chronic infected/ingrown toenail that he had operated on today, even the Infanta turning up with pinkeye today: all completely out of our control!

Well. Not entirely true. Probably. But it's nice to lay blame somewhere, if only for a few seconds.

Life goes on... soon.

And now I get to start integrating our loss into living life.

After a morning spent wrangling with advice nurses (I swear one was trying to convince me that nothing was wrong), I got an appointment for this afternoon with an OB. He read my charts, listened to my story, took a look, and yup, no question about what, was going on. He was wonderful, actually. Listening to my story, he asked questions at the right points and showed supportive reactions to others. He was also very compassionate and very sympathetic, using lots of eye contact and making sure I understood what was going on and what we need to do from here.

Which is some more waiting. I fed the vampires* so they could check my hCG count again; if that's clearly going down, then we can pretty much just sit back. If not, then we get to talk D&C. I'm rooting for option A, myself.

But I think I'm just about done lingering, except for that last bit of waiting. It's done, anything more will be cleanup. I'm not trying to push my grief away, the more because I'm not good at mourning, but I'm trying to learn how to integrate it with my joy in and love for the Infanta. Mama and Daddy are having a rough time (his is a whole nother story), but she's also having her own stuff, with learning to walk and an apparent growth spurt... and a birthday just around the corner! Also, I have four good friends expecting babies this summer and fall, one of whom I'm going to be doula for again; I've been joyful for them until now, and I want neither to stop being happy for them, nor to let my grief and envy sour our friendships.

I believe every pregnancy happens for a reason. I wish this one had not ended this way, but it did. I also believe that, although the soul that was attached to this baby couldn't stay, she or he will find the parents he or she is meant to be with. If that's with us, fantastic. If not... some other soul will come to bless us, and I hope it's sooner rather than later!

eta - this doesn't mean I won't gratefully accept hugs!!!


* old family term for getting blood drawn for testing, invented when I was a kid and had six months of strep throat - I had so many blood tests done then that I practically had track marks!

Sunny Sunday?

I took these pictures a few days ago; they seem very representative of the Infanta right now. Asleep, or in denial about waking up, she's all in a (very cute) heap; awake, she's on the verge of running off somewhere, and waiting with bare patience for me to finish whatever puttering in order to accompany her.

Today's a very beautiful day; sunny and warm with a breeze that's cool enough still to keep the heat tolerable. I'm happy that it's so gorgeous out, because it balances how cruddy I'm feeling physically. I'm probably going to call the clinic tomorrow morning about a D&C, because I've been bleeding again since last night, with lots of cramping and feeling sick - not nausea, just ucky in that raging-hormones way. Plus, the longer it hangs on, the more likely it is to cause complications, the which I really don't want. I'm sleepy all the time right now, and I'm convinced it's because of this whole thing, and that it's probably a sign that things aren't going well. I just want this miscarriage over and done with, so I can heal and move on.

Plus, you know, I want to be able to chase the puppy when it comes home to us.

It's a zoo out there!

And now for the promised zoo post. But first: thank you all so very, very much for all your expressions of sympathy. It's been a rough week, and you guys have helped immensely!

Zoo trip May 2009

Above is the entire set of pictures I took on the trip. I heartily recommend clicking on the link, and then viewing them as a slideshow (button in the upper left corner when you get there). I think I've used up my wittiness in the captions; I hope you enjoy! We had an amazing day, and were very glad that we braved the threatening rain - which to be honest did materialize at points, but never more than lightly or briefly.

And Baby Makes... Three. (TMI warning)

We spent the day at the Portland Zoo, which was much fun, and I have pictures to post, but I'll probably do that tomorrow. Tonight I need to write about something else.

Last month we got our "babydancing" timing right. I had two glorious weeks of pregnancy symptoms: heartburn, nausea (but not too bad), full breasts, the whole nine yards - even my pelvis went "sproing"! And then I had a period - or what I thought might have been a period. At the time it started, I was hoping it might be implantation bleeding... The flow was very rich, and had a bunch of little clots, and even something that might had been a teeny lump of tissue. Sad, but early miscarriages or "chemical pregnancies" happen all the time; supposedly most women who have them don't even notice anything other than maybe a heavy period. I knew what was happening, and it made me sad not only because I want another baby, but also because I knew what I was going to be missing. But it was done, nothing to do but start trying again.

Fast forward to last Friday. Late morning I was in pretty significant pain which felt like it was probably a UTI (and it was, see my posts the last few days...). Making things more complicated was that I was having bloody discharge - not bloody urine - which confused the heck out of me and the nurse who initially saw me. The nurse decided that my case was beyond her, and referred me to a clinician. Almost the first thing the clinician did was apply a pregnancy test to my urine sample - which came up positive! Yay! But. There was still the issue of my bleeding. So, she decided to run blood tests for a 48-hour comparison of hCG levels. The first draw was Friday, the second Sunday, hence my reason to leave the Mother's Day celebration a bit early. And then I had to wait.

The bleeding resolved by Sunday evening, which I thought was a hopeful sign. Monday the clinician wasn't on duty; she said her partner might call with the results. I was tempted to call the clinic, or simply show up in person... but I didn't. I received no call from them, either, and I chose to interpret that as not negative news, and cautiously told a few friends last night.

And then the clinician called this morning at about three minutes past 9, while I was sitting on my porch waiting for our ride to the zoo, with the news. My hCG levels had dropped markedly between the two samples; I am not successfully pregnant this cycle.

I'm sad. I already mourned this possible pregnancy, then had my hopes raised, and now dashed again. I'm by no means inconsolable - I pretty much forgot the whole thing during the day today! But once again, not only did I want this very much, but I know exactly what I'm missing, that I'll have to wait a while longer to have again. There's not really any way to know at what point I conceived, whether it was in April or since that weird bleed, but I choose to believe that that is the pregnancy I'm not keeping now, and I will probably always now meet that possible due date with a little touch of melancholy.

Now it's time to cry a few tears, mourn this baby-not-to-be, and get myself as healthy as I can manage so that next time this will work.

Happy Mother's Day!

Gotta love a holiday based on motherly war protest.

We spent a good chunk of the day with Josh's family; his folks gathered the clan for a lovely luncheon. The Infanta was too distracted by everyone (especially her cousins who wanted to play with her!) to nap at all, so I was rather grateful to have an excuse to leave. I had to go get a blood test relating to my UTI... and it had to be today, which meant we had to get to the clinic before it closed.. but I think we might have left about the time we did anyway, just because the little girl needed to sleep so badly that she was passed out before we were three streets away! But it was nice seeing everyone.

Because it's beautiful and true:


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Woe is me.

So yesterday was great, right?

Today made up for it. Late morning, and I all of a sudden HURT! All across my abdomen and up my back to my kidney... I knew I should NOT let this go over the weekend, so I called the clinic and got a nurse appointment to check for a UTI. Meanwhile, I'd invited Snarfy (one of my local knit hotties) over because she was in need of a day out of the house with her boys... this was not what either of us had hoped for. I was (and am!) grateful that she cheerfully volunteered to give us a ride down to the clinic and to chase L while I was doing medical things... not quite what we had in mind.

It was even more miserable because after an hour waiting around for this and that, the nurse I saw decided that what all was going on was beyond her, and that I needed to come back in a bit to see the clinician...

Long story short, after wading through assorted chaff and distractions (and a really nice chat with the clinician and her intern), I do in fact have a UTI.

Ugh.

Owie!!!

This is not the Infanta's first bruise, but it will probably be her biggest so far. She was toppling off my lap - completely self-propelled - and slammed her cheekbone into the corner of the lappy. Oh, the howling! She tolerated an ice pack on the bruise for a couple of minutes, but then, once she was past the initial insult, started munching on it. I dabbed a little Burt's Bees Res-Q ointment on it (the shiny you see in the picture), but it's sure to develop into a real shiner.

Mama's back on meds

As many of you know, I take an antidepressant. Because of trying to conceive, I decided to at least try weaning off it. Well, after two weeks at a half dose, I went without for two whole days... and had a huge anxiety attack today, complete with yelling at my dear, darling (fussy, clingy) daughter. This was not ok, so I'm going back on a half dose until further notice.

I wish my brain chemistry didn't need help this way, but it does. *sigh*

Very cool vid

We're having a few folks over to play board games today, so I can't post much. Still, I saw this very cool video that I thought y'all would appreciate.

Don't talk to me about...

Feeling much better today; I think sleeping in, while Daddy took the Infanta this morning (as he usually does on the weekends) helped tons.

Still sick.

Head pounding, sinuses aching... ugh. This cold is kicking my ass.

But I had lots of fun this afternoon chasing Tavy!

The cure for my migraines is...

glasses! Bet you didn't know I had them. :)

They're reading glasses with a very mild prescription, and I don't need them most of the time, but apparently I do right now. Since they're about 5 years old now, it's probably past time for a new pair; fortunately we have medical insurance that will cover that nicely.

Now I have the fun of adjusting to them all over again... but at least I've had the pleasure of the Infanta being thoroughly confused by them. *evil laugh*

13. the Blogverse provides

I'm almost two weeks into this daily post thing, and I'm finding that just when I'm stumped for a post, the blogverse hands me something.

Take today: going through my morning blogroll, I found a post from hedra about a study on human dirt-eating. Go read it, it'll make you feel better about your baby chewing on the soles of shoes. Or whatever. :)