Monday, November 14, 2011

You Know The Drill

Unfortunately this post is going to be very random and all over the place due to extreme fatigue and sinus-head. I came down with a headcold the last day of the conference and since I'm still pregnant I can't/won't take anything for it, so here I am, stuffy and mouth breathing and lightheaded. But here are the highlights of my life the last few days!

-my client is still pregnant, so her birth will count towards my certification! Yay! I am a little bummed that she's agreed to induction on Thursday if labor doesn't start on its own, but she has a lot of extenuating circumstances going on that make me very understanding of how much she wants to get this birth over with. She'll be thirty nine weeks on Wednesday, so she's close to being due, and the baby is thought to be over eight pounds already, plus she's already dilated/effaced a bit, so hopefully if there is an induction her body will be ready enough to go into labor that it won't be too rough of an experience. Either way, I'm super excited, and very intent on getting myself well before she has the baby so I can do a good job and not be blowing my nose and hacking while she's trying to get through contractions.

-the conference was AMAZING, seriously, so much better than I'd even hoped. I am so so happy I found this place and got to meet all these wonderful women and learn so much. There was such a wide variety of experiences, reasons for taking the workshops, birthing backgrounds and history, age, etc. but everyone really clicked and I felt like I made some great connections personally and professionally. And you guys were right, while I was going through some further concern about the pregnancy (I'll get to that later) there could not have been a kinder and more supportive group of strangers with which to go through it.

-I loved staying with my aunt. She is so awesome and fun, and treated me like a queen. I got delicious homemade meals, a spotless condo in which to relax, and someone to hang out with in the evenings. It beat staying in a hotel by a loooong shot. Thank you, Aunt Nancy!

-She also went over and above good hostess requirements by driving all over trying to help me find a charger that would work with my phone when I realized that I had forgotten to pack mine. Unfortunately none of the ones we bought would work, despite saying that they were compatible with my phone's make and model, and we even bought a battery in case that was the problem, but alas nothing worked and I ended up spending the last two days I was gone without a phone. It felt strange! But when I got home my own charger worked just fine. ??? MYSTERY. Also, craptastic phone.

-Related to the theme of electronic devices, I pulled over at a Meijer just outside of Ann Arbor and bought myself a GPS on my way home last night, after having managed to get myself turned around and confused for the third time that weekend. I had all my little maps and people had given me directions for getting back to the interstate, so I should have been FINE. I was trying to reverse my printed Mapquest directions that I used to drive TO Ann Arbor, but I just couldn't figure it out! I seem to have a) some kind of handicap re: following directions b)the world's worst sense of direction/spacial awareness in the world and c) once I make one wrong turn I just kind of freeze up and get confused. I seem unable to reason my way through the process of, say, getting back to where I started or of logic-ing out where I am in relation to other streets. So. I made a command decision to stop pretending I am a grown up woman who can find her way around and decided it was time to get myself a GPS and cease the wandering around in panicky circles once and for all.

-Lastly, I got a call from my doctor's office at eight thirty Friday morning on my way to the conference to let me know that my progesterone had dropped from the not-great-but-not-yet-terrible thirteen point five to a genuinely dismal ten. They wanted me to find a compounding pharmacy in Ann Arbor to which they could call in two different hormone supplements as soon as possible. So... I did (and my, what an adventure that was, trying to locate this random pharmacy in a city I've never driven in before, during my lunch break at the workshop!) I never took anything with Jameson's pregnancy and he hung in there, but his progesterone never went below a fifteen, so it was much better to begin with. I've actually never had my progesterone drop like this; it always stayed where it was or maybe went up just a titch. So while now I'm trying to resign myself to the fact that this is probably in the process of failing, I also felt within my heart that if I didn't throw everything medical at it that I could, I'd feel doubly awful if/when I did miscarry, especially considering I hadn't actually wanted to be pregnant in the first place. Guilt and all that, you know.

So I'm taking progesterone three times a day, in various forms (!), but I've also got a call in with the doctor to inform them that if I cooperate and do all the drugs, I'm going to require a weekly scan to assure me that it is in fact working and the baby's still growing and/or to let me know as soon as possible if it does stop growing. They didn't have me coming in for a scan until a month from now, but I am NOT going to walk around for a month hoping against hope that maybe the pills are working some magic when in fact the heartbeat stopped weeks earlier, you know? So maybe I'm being demanding, but this is what I need to stay sane. By this point in my reproductive game, I am an INFORMED CONSUMER who knows what she wants, dang it.

14 comments:

d e v a n said...

Good for you for being an informed consumer!
I am your directionally challenged sister. For real. I can get lost even WITH the GPS but it certainly helps!

Swistle said...

There are a lot of New Devices that I eventually get and then think "Meh, I could live without this. I guess it's nice, but if I don't see, like, a huge life improvement."

Not so with the GPS. I love it. I LOVE IT. It has improved my life CONSIDERABLY. It has reduced fear and stress CONSIDERABLY.

The other day I had to be to the school to pick up a kid for a dentist appointment, and there was a huge roadblock and we sat in the car unmoving for ten minutes. I turned to the GPS and said, "Can you take it from here?," hit "Go home," hit "detour," and it took me through these CRAZY WINDING UNLABELED backroads---and landed me right where I needed to be, in plenty of time. I felt like building a little shrine, maybe installing an incense burner with a cigarette-lighter adapter.

Sarah said...

Swistle: That is exactly how I felt after activating the GPS and setting off towards home, confident at last that I was going the right way. Every time the calm, reasonable little voice reminded me of an upcoming turn, I just felt this warm relief and wanted to blow kisses at the device on my windshield. I think I even said OUT LOUD at one point, "I love you, GPS!"

Taryn said...

I love my gps, best thing ever.

Sorry for your pregnanacy concerns, my thoughts are with you, hoping it all works out for the best.

Anonymous said...

GOOD FOR YOU re: the insisting on the scans. Totally reasonable.

Tracy said...

okay, first things first= I'm glad you're demanding u/s. Really, it would be just terrible to wait a whole month.

Also, you were in A squared? That is so fun! That's where Eric and I lived/went to school/grew up-ish. I so wish I could've been around to meet up with you! (of course, that would require being IN michigan and not in Alabama. lol.) Where was the work shop at?

Tracy said...

And, what Devan says is true. I love her like family, but she is directionally challenged. lol.

Kelsey said...

I'm got lost three minutes from my parents house once, and almost ended up in Milwaukee, about 20 minutes away.

Please note this is not the house/town I grew up in, that would have been really embarrassing! My brother's wife (then girlfriend) was with me at the time and I just kept apologizing. We totally missed the movie we'd been trying to get to, but we laugh about it now.

Nik-Nak said...

Yeah I suck at life when it comes to maps and directions. I'm really not sure how anyone has or does live without a GPS. I named mine "Tequila Sheila" and we have a great time when it's just her and I in the car. She always gets me where I need to go with little to no stress involved.
I'm glad for the "still pregnant" sentence. I hoping, praying, and wishing with everything I have for you.

Saly said...

I don't blame you for demanding the ultrasound. Not one bit.

I am the same way with my GPS. I get horrible anxiety when driving to unfamiliar places and my GPS helps so much!!

Anonymous said...

I wish you the best with your pregnancy. I have lurked on your blog on and off over the years, and I'm sure you realize what a miracle and blessing each one of your children is. I hope you will enjoy the 3 delights that you currently have instead of ruminating over every tiny bit of minutiae that accompanies this pregnancy. You are beyond blessed.

Anonymous said...

I realized that comment sounded meaner and more flippant than I intended. What I was trying to say is that I have often felt like you are always looking ahead to your next pregnancy even in the midst of being pregnant and stressing about your future family and getting your x number of kids, instead of being present oriented and enjoying what you have. Of course I hope that you have a healthy and safe pregnancy, and I don't blame you for requesting a scan.

Marie Green said...

Well, I had a few comments all ready to be typed out, but they flew out of my head upon reading the two anon's above. FTR, I've been reading and commenting on your blog for years as well, and I disagree with anon's assessment of how you handle your pregnancies. Actually, I feel like you're consistently very grateful for your children as well as honest and eloquent about the losses you've had.

I also totally agree with you that having a weekly scan is a reasonable request. Your mental and emotional well-being are just as important, and if it were me there is NO WAY I could walk around for a month not knowing.

Anonymous said...

Honest and eloquent about the losses, yes. And certainly what a difficult and painful experience each time. However, I can recall several posts during the last pregnancy with J. where she was already looking ahead to her next pregnancy, which I found especially interesting in light of the struggles she went through to get pregnant. As a reader, I guess it just rubbed me the wrong way a bit. Overall, the blog has been extremely focused on struggling to get pregnant and then all of the nuances of each pregnancy, and maybe that's her intent. At any rate, it's her blog, so obviously it's her forum to say whatever she wants. Since it's a public blog for anyone to access, I am just expressing my opinion as a reader that sometimes she sounds a little over the top to me.