A Day Away

Tim and I left Sunday to visit old college friends and to stay in good ol' Santo, Texas, a town that makes me feel as if I've "gotten away from it all." At the end of the street where we are staying is a Santo Market, a mercantile that sells a pound of sugar for $5 a pop, and across the street is First Baptist Santo, where I'm sure a good percentage of the town attends church each week. Here, I am reminded to slow down, to stop in the doorway and enjoy the cool, fall breeze, and to appreciate the life-long friends who invite us to stay with them. We've been here several times pre-baby, and the feel of the place is always the same. Only this time, baby Bird came along for the ride (and it feels like a looooooong ride now), and as I watch my friend's eleven month old toddle around, I think of what the day will be like when our baby is doing the same. It seems so far away, but the consistency of Santo mocks the fast pace of our lives. Eleven months old will be here before I know it.

A Gymnast?

The above file is a short video from our ultrasound this morning. Baby Bird is upside down kicking and moving around. My most beautiful keepsake so far!!!

The below video is from a couple of weeks ago.

NYTimes is Funny

The site www.alittlepregnant.com alerted me to recently published articles in The New York Times.
Click below to see a short commentary that ran in today's paper:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/opinion/l14babies.html?_r=1&sq=IVF&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1255550628-05NgEdo1S+4Zr8yvvm2NAg

This was my favorite part of the first comment:
"Your front-page article is a good place to start increasing the awareness of the very real risks parents face in the choices made around assisted reproduction. Insurers, too, could play a key role by offering full coverage for single-embryo transfer, with marked reduction or even elimination of coverage for multi-egg implantation."


HA! Those who have done IVF--or any type of fertility treatment--will find the humor in that statement.  Insurers pay???  Money???  To help with infertility???  Certainly it's not their responsibility to cover a medical condition that affects 10-20% of the population!  (Insert sarcasm here).  I realize that some states (15, I believe) do cover (or partially cover) infertility treatments, but that means 35 DO NOT.  In fact, I just did a search on Texas, and technically, it's considered a "covered state."  However, the exact statement under "Coverage" says "No coverage required.  Insurers are only required to offer IVF."  It's like dangling a piece of chocolate in front of this pregnant woman and snatching it away as soon as I reach out my hand.  


I would be happy with any type of infertility insurance coverage--single-embryo transfer, double, triple, fifty-zillion, whatever.  I'm sure most infertiles would appreciate the same.

Acrobatics

This morning I woke up at 5am, fairly startled out of bed by radiating pain throughout my torso.  My chest and back were on fire with what I'm assuming was the worst indigestion known to mankind while my upper stomach ached and rumbled.  A couple hours later--after losing some of last night's dinner, taking eight Tums (I almost lost count), and resting on the couch--I felt a bit better, though not well enough to drive to my doctor's appointment this morning.

That's where mom steps in to save the day.  After working a 12-hour shift, she turned around from heading toward home, came and picked me up, and took me to the doctor.  I had decided to just skip it in order to stay on the couch with my knees pulled up around my abdomen--why does that always seem to help with tummy issues?

However, after arriving at the doctor's office and speaking with the doctor, who said this could either be a stomach bug or just pregnancy-related (joy!), mom and I were both a bit relieved.  We felt even better when they inserted the probe to check on baby and found it facing us and moving around to get away from the pressure of the probe.  It's acrobatics did more for me than those 8 Tums ever could have.  I knew in my head that babies move around in the womb, but I admit that I didn't really believe that it happened this early until I saw it's arm and leg buds kicking and punching.  Although this statement might seem somewhat narcissistic, I was also amazed to see that it does all of this moving and heart-beating and squirming without me controlling anything at all.  This little life is sustained without me watching it every moment.  It's heartbeat still beats whether or not I'm taking notice of it.  For me, this picture acted as a good reminder that letting go, not attempting to control everything, can offer great blessings in the end.

EatonWeb Blog Directory

Juggling

At the risk of being "facebook-y" and listing the details of my day (a characteristic of the online program that one of my bffs HATES), I offer concrete evidence of my (and all other infertility-related pregnancies) unique pregnancy juggling act:

6:45 am: Wake up (I know it's much later than some of you early-risers)
7:30 am: NHS E-recylcling meeting (don't ask)
8 am: Prep for class
8:45 am: Teach second period
9:45 am: Go home and shoot up (not near as fun as it sounds) and pick up Tim for the adventure to No-Man's Land
10:20 am and on and on and on 'til forever: Wait at doctor's office to meet new Ob; love her; give samples; be poked and prodded; hear the heartbeat--amazing!!!; lose the parking ticket and pay an entire day's cost (it felt like we were there the entire day anyway, so why not?)
1:15 pm: Missed 5A class and my lunch break; Back at school with my Jamba Juice liquid-lunch (threw in an oatmeal cookie too--baby will be as sweet as sugar); monitor library during 5B
1:40 pm: Give notes on "Canterbury Tales" and attempt to make Chaucer fascinating
2:30 pm: Discuss American Romanticism and mold young minds into loving 1850s literature as much as I do (at least I tried)
3:15 pm: Begin tutorial and have a student turn in a paper--5 weeks late.  Oh well.
4 pm: Go to Gugliani's, a little Italian place near our house that Tim thinks my pregnant belly is obsessed with.  I suppose he's right.

This week, I only have 39 pills, one patch, one tv ultrasound (so fun!), and one more doctor's appointment.  Infertility definitely makes for a unique baby-experience even once the baby is made.  I guess I hadn't realized how much work would come after the hysteroscopies, egg retrieval, and embryo transfer.  I guess I'm in for a shock when baby arrives, although I'm sure Baby Bird will sleep through the night and overall be the perfect child ;) --unless he/she is like I was.   Oops.  Should have thought of that before asking the lab--and God--to make a mini-me.

Regardless of the unique infertility pregnancy experience, I do know this: the meds, the unbalanced schedule, the jabs at my underworld, all of it becomes worth it as soon as that baby's microscopic heart appears on the screen.  I am grateful for ALL my pregnancy-weirdness.  No complaints here.

Time to Rest

I said to my mom today, "If I could just know that I will be okay after the baby is born, I think I would have a peaceful pregnancy." Reading over this comment now points out how silly such a statement is. Why worry now about something I have no power to change in the future and which will not be near as troubling as the scenarios I create in my mind, based on extreme stories I hear? Unfortunately, that's the problem with anxiety--it's illogical and deceptive.

I had coffee with a friend recently who admitted her fears--which mirror mine. She looked at me and said, "I'm afraid to have a baby because I'm afraid of postpardum afterward." Another friend who is struggling to conceive tried to convince me (and herself, I believe) that "Maybe I'm just not meant to have kids . . . and that's okay." (But from experience, I know it's not really okay.) I know exactly how these women feel. I think that anyone who yearns for a child and then watches the stick tell them "Nope, not even close" each month struggles with some of the same kinds of fears. I admit that I even believed for a year or so that perhaps God wouldn't give me a child because I would be a bad mother after it was born. Lies, lies, lies. All lies.

As we all know, however, lies come in a variety of shapes and sizes and appear in a multitude of different circumstances. Ladies, let's find the truth, speak it to one another, and learn to live and walk and breathe it daily.

Baby Bird's Heartbeat

The little flutter in the middle of the whiteness (best seen in the last 3 seconds or so) is our baby's heartbeat. 153 beats per minute. Whoo-hoo!