Doc sings the “nom nom” song when it’s time for Jamie to eat. “Nom nom nom, lookin’ for Mom!” Super cute.

Where's my mom?

It is sometimes tiring being the only one who’s able to provide our son with nourishment, but we both feel it’s very important to breastfeed for as long as possible before introducing a bottle. Just to make sure it’s well established… and it’s definitely getting there. It won’t be long before I start pumping and storing breastmilk so that Doc can do a feeding now and again, and then during the days when I go back to work next spring.

The past several days have all kind of started to run together in my head. I can no longer remember how many times I got up in the night to feed Jamie, what times those were, how long it took him to get back to sleep, etc. What time did I wake up in the morning? Did I nap during the day? What did I do all day? No idea sometimes.

We’re beginning to develop patterns. Doc is often awake before me in the mornings, and makes me breakfast when I get up. Tea, bacon or sausage, fruit, and a bagel. I nurse Jamie (nom nom!), hope he goes to sleep, then eat. 

I’m still not quite sure what to do with him when he’s not nursing or sleeping. When he’s crying, it’s time to troubleshoot and figure out what he might need (hungry? diaper change? burp? cold?). When he’s awake and not crying, I guess this is the time when I’m supposed to play with him. But he doesn’t really play yet. He’s not at an age yet where he can be very interactive. So sometimes we just look at each other for a while. I’m sure I’ll start to feel more comfortable with him as he gets older. I already am, in fact.

Last night Doc brought Jamie to me at 1:30 for a feeding, and after he was done, Mom took him for most of the rest of the night. I was able to get a decent amount of sleep inbetween feedings. And this morning, he (and I) slept from about 5 a.m. to 8:30. Three and a half hours in a row! I don’t think he was asleep that entire time, but I was. Mom’s still up now. I’m sure she’s exhausted but we can’t get her to go back to bed.

Doc’s getting maybe 4 hours of sleep every night, which is apparently all he needs. This is really truly actually about the amount he requires; it’s just the way he’s built. But still, I can’t help feeling like the lazy ass in this family. I know, rationally, that we’re both working equally hard now, with breastfeeding (me) and diapering (mostly Doc) and soothing (both of us, I guess, but more Doc from my perspective), but I feel guilty being away from Jamie when he’s awake and I’m off sleeping. Like I should be sharing in the hard work of soothing his crying, instead of abandoning my responsibility to my husband and son.

I guess I still have some inner drive to be Supermom. I know that I can’t though, and it’s not fair to me or Jamie or Doc to try. So the guilt is there, but I go upstairs and take a nap anyway. I know I’ll eventually achieve some sort of balance; it will just take time and practice to get there.

When we took Jamie to the ear nose and throat doctor a week and a half ago (wow, has it really only been that long?), we had to fill out a bunch of paperwork. At the bottom of the page was a line for “signature of parent.” I thought, why does my mom have to sign this form?… Ohhhhhhh…. Wait, that means ME. I am a parent now. It was an interesting feeling.

Thursday we went to the mall for a little while to do some quick Christmas shopping. It was a nice day outside and Doc and Jamieson stayed in a little outdoor courtyard area while I did a bit of shopping. We experienced our first “blowout” dirty diaper. All over me, all over Doc, all over Jamie’s legs and then of course he got his hands in it before I could stop him… all over his outfit, and all over the baby carrier. And in a public place, too. What fun! I think we were a bit overambitious and stayed out too long. Jamie’s normally very calm in the car but he cried the whole way home. I think he just got too tired. So did Doc and I, for that matter.

We watched a video last night about “The 5 S’s”… swaddling, side/stomach position, shushing, swinging, and sucking. This method of soothing actually does seem to have some merit; Jamie does calm down most of the time when we use the 5 S’s. We’ll see if it pans out in the long run.

Status of Mr. Baby: Not yet. Sigh.

Doc and I went for a long walk today at NorthPark Mall. We didn’t do any shopping (are you kidding? It’s the day after Black Friday… just the mall walkways were crowded enough) but it was a good place for a nice long walk and some rich-people-watching. Walking and sex are two things that are supposed to help labor begin, so we are doing our part(s) to get this show on the road!

We had a full-size mattress set delivered today so my poor mom has something to sleep on besides a crappy air mattress. Later, when Aquaman (IF HE EVER ARRIVES) is old enough, we’ll convert his crib frame into a full-size bed, and we’ll already have the mattress for it.

I’m bored and getting pretty antsy about labor… when oh when will it begin? I imagine every full term pregnant woman asks herself that question repeatedly. Mom is cooking up a storm and cleaning our house cleaner than it’s ever been, which is freaking AWESOME but also is making me feel guilty. I hope she’s not too bored here.

I haven’t really felt the nesting instinct that pregnant women often feel shortly before labor begins and gone crazy with the cleaning and organizing, although Doc may disagree with me on that. I tell you, though, HE has been the one who has been super busy lately getting shitloads of things done around the house. It’s so sweet how excited he is about the baby, and how much he’s preparing for it. Comparatively speaking, I’ve just been sitting on my ass.

Mr. Baby is still on the inside. But I have a feeling he’ll be here in the next couple of days. I’m not sure why. Just a feeling. I really want to stick close to home and I feel kinda weird both mentally and physically. Contractions are still irregular and not very strong. I don’t notice most of them; the ones I do notice make me feel a little queasy and are accompanied by a mild menstrual-cramp-like feeling. They don’t last for more than a minute or so, maybe ten times a day that I notice.

None of that makes it seem like labor is imminent. I guess it’ll happen when it happens. I’m finding myself not so freaked out by the idea that it could happen any minute, like I was 3 or 4 days ago, and now I wish that my body would just get on with it. Doc and I went for a walk this morning because I felt like I had abundant energy and walking is supposedly good for helping Mr. Baby descend into position, but almost as soon as we left the house I felt exhausted and my back began to hurt kinda badly.

This afternoon I am sitting in the Comfy Chair in the living room with my laptop, a quilt, and a stripey cat on my lap. I had a piece of homemade (by mom!) lemon pie and a Coke just now, and I’m watching Star Wars on DVD. Later I thought that I might go down to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters, if Uncle Owen will let me.

We are missing a yummy Thanksgiving dinner at Kathryn’s house today, and I’m sad about that. But again, I am having that weird feeling of wanting to stay at home and I think that I ought to listen to it.

Happy Anniversary to Doc!! 9 years today. It hasn’t seemed like nearly that long, and at the same time it feels like we’ve been together all our lives. I’m really really lucky; I realize this more and more every day.

So, in the spirit of the day, some things I am thankful for: Doc. My cats. My baby. My parents and brothers. Wonderful, funny, creative friends. Lemon meringue pie. Star Wars. Lovely autumn weather. Great co-workers. iPhones. The president-elect. Turkey-shaped calzones. Bacon. Caramel. Books. Art. Yoga. Being happy and content with my life.

It’s awfully warm for November. I don’t completely mind it, since we’ve had mostly very hot or very chilly weather lately. Today is a nice inbetween kind of day. It’s about 78 and I’m sitting on the patio being all wireless and cool and shit.

My dad was in town today and we went out for pizza for lunch, and now Doc and I are making a list of things to do over the next few weeks, as well as baby things that we still need to get prior to kiddo’s arrival in the world. We have a pretty extensive list, but truthfully if we were to get none of it done before the baby arrived, it’d be just fine. I’m trying to be all zen and calm about everything now.

We have our bags mostly packed for the hospital; mostly we are bringing toiletries, jammies, clothes for ourselves and the baby, and snacks. It’s early still but I like to be prepared, so we can just grab our bags and go when it’s time, rather than worrying about whether we have everything together or not. One thing I’m not sure about bringing is valuables; things like my purse, wallet, wedding ring, phone. I suspect that especially during labor I’ll be in and out of my room a lot and so will Doc and Kathryn, and I sure wouldn’t want to leave my valuables unattended. Maybe I’ll ask my doctor’s advice on that.

I have my 36-week doctor’s appointment tomorrow. I expect it’ll be a slightly more comprehensive exam than the past five or six. I don’t really have any major complaints or worries; just the usual tiredness, back pain, and pelvic soreness (it feels like a giant severe bruise across the entire groin area). My doctor is so funny; every time I’m in he asks me if I’m having leg cramps. I say no. He asks me if I’m taking calcium supplements. I tell him yes, I take the little chocolate chewy kind. He says good, take them three times a day, it’ll help with leg cramps. I tell him I don’t really have leg cramps. He says that the calcium will help with them. I give up and say OK. Next appointment: same conversation. Ha! But actually lately, when I stretch out my legs late at night I can sense the beginnings of leg cramps. I have to be careful and quit mid-stretch lest they develop full-on.

I feel like I’m rapidly running out of room in my gut. I haven’t had much of an appetite for the past two weeks, and I’ve had more heartburn than I’ve ever had in my life. I can’t eat much at one sitting, and it’s really hard to take a deep breath. When I sit, I have to maintain good posture because slouching hurts. Sleeping is uncomfortable as well; I have to be on my side and have a pillow behind my back and a body pillow that I can hug from the front. If I need to roll over in the night (and apparently I often do), I actually have to wake up to do that, because it’s really hard to roll over without it hurting.

Doc has been helping me a lot with getting into and out of the car, standing up from a sitting position or from being on the floor, getting out of bed; things like that. My balance is off, my strength is down, and the pelvic soreness makes it painful to move in pretty much all ways. Every step I take, every move I make, my pelvic region protests. His extra strength and assistance is really helpful, but I am looking forward to a time when I can move normally on my own again.

Some of the pregnancy clothes that I was wearing even just a few weeks ago are too tight now. I might be wearing largely the same few things for the next few weeks!

I can’t believe I only have one month to go. Wow!

I’ve been seeing Kathryn every week for massage. She’s helping with the lower back pain a lot. A couple of days ago Doc came along to the session and the three of us talked about how we an all work together during labor. Doc and I learned positioning and breathing techniques in our childbirth class, and several of them, especially the super-comfy ones using the birthing ball, can provide Kathryn with good access to my lower back. I think that massage will be a good pain control technique for me. Plus, I’m grateful for the additional physical, emotional and moral support she’ll provide to both Doc and I while I’m going through labor. I hope things aren’t too gross or icky or overwhelming for her, but I would totally understand if they were. It really takes a true friend to go through labor and childbirth with you, I think. She’s pretty awesome for even agreeing to my crazy plan in the first place!!

I’m trying to prepare myself to stay calm and not panic at the lack of control I’ll have over what goes on while I’m in labor; I just hope I can keep my wits about me enough to not get angry or irritated or snap at anyone. More zen: learning to roll with the punches, ride the pain waves, accept and not tense up. My biggest fear is that something so intense (though normal) will happen that I’ll be convinced that something is going horribly wrong and that will bring on a panic attack.

Maybe not, though. I was pretty sure I was dying while I was having the miscarriage, and I think I managed to stay calm throughout that. I wonder how much of that was my inner willpower, and how much of it was Doc’s presence… probably 30/70.

I’m having more noticeable Braxton-Hicks contractions (practice contractions) lately. They’re usually not painful, but sometimes they are accompanied by what feels like mild menstrual cramps. It goes away within a minute or two, usually. Again, totally normal. My body’s just practicing its baby-squeezin’ techniques.

I feel like this pregnancy is all I talk and think about lately. I guess that’s to be expected; my life is changing — and about to change even more — in pretty much every way possible. Change can be strange and scary and exciting, and I guess thinking and talking and writing about it a lot is helping me process it. I promise that I am still the same Katy; I just now have this extra layer of things to think about on top of everything else! I suspect that in a few months, once we get into sort of a routine with the baby, I’ll be able to go back to participating in more of the sorts of things that I normally do.

And I will try my hardest to talk about things other than the baby in this blog. I just haven’t had the energy to regularly update lately; if I did I am sure that there would be a lot more talk about everyday, normal, mundane things here. As it is, though, I feel like I have to write long catch-up posts and of course, that’s taken up mostly by pregnancy issues.

So, non-baby related things:

1. We early-voted last week, doing our part to help turn Texas blue! The lines were unbelievably long. Doc had a really interesting conversation with someone in line. I can’t wait for Tuesday night to watch the returns come in.
2. I thought I had sold my G5 to a friend in Georgia, but it turns out that she wanted to upgrade it to an Intel processor and you can’t do that. So, no sale. I’m kinda bummed ’cause I thought it was all easy-breezy-taken-care-of, but I can probably sell it on eBay instead. Unless you want it? I’m prepared to make you a seriously good deal! E-mail me!
3. Doc changed out the two broken motion-sensor light fixtures on the back porch. They were probably 25 years old, hard-wired to the wall, and the wiring and openings looked pretty much MacGyvered together in the first place,  so it wasn’t exactly an easy switch-out. I helped by holding the flashlight and being available to call 911 should it have turned out that the master switch in our breaker box did not, in fact, cut the power to the fixtures.
4. Doc is trying to switch the cats to using corn-based litter instead of clay. Clay is so dusty and sweetly perfumed; that stuff gets everywhere. So far they still prefer the clay box to the corn litter box, but he’s got a gradual switchover plan in mind.
5. We moved the catboxes and food out of the upstairs guest bathroom in time for the Halloween party last weekend, and we think that we’ll probably just leave that bathroom cat-free. It’s nice and clean now and since that’s going to be the kiddo’s bathroom, we’d have to eventually vacate the kitty stuff anyway. Why not start now? So, food and water goes in our master bathroom; litterboxes in our studio workroom. I really really wish we had just two more rooms in this house; a dedicated laundry room and a small bedroom or den area. Or, a basement.  But we don’t. So we’ll make it work.
6. I had a meeting at the Richards Group yesterday, and while I was there I stopped by Joel’s office. He actually has one of my paintings hanging in his office! That’s just seriously cool. He’s got a really nice office, too, with low incandescent lighting and wooden furniture.
7. Ohmygosh, did I even write about the baby shower?? I don’t think I did. BAD KATY!! Kathryn threw us a fantastic non-traditional baby shower; it was at her house and we invited both men and women. Brett made some awesome barbecue (the shower invites said “Meat the Fetus”). We laughed, talked, stuffed ourselves silly, ate cupcakes, and opened gifts. Everyone was soooo generous!! We were pretty overwhelmed and hopefully were able to communicate our thanks well enough. I was really tired afterwards because it’s hard for me to be the center of attention for that long (although luckily Doc was there to help take some of that off me). We had a blast and we’re really glad that we did not have to play any horrifying baby-shower games, like “guess what type of candy bar has been melted in this diaper” and “guess which kind of baby food puree this is” and “let’s all guess how big around Katy is and then measure her.”
8. Ack. I guess that last entry IS baby-related. Oh well, I tried!

So we got off the train, drove to Mom’s house in Sequim, Washington, and got a good night’s sleep after a long day of travelling. We spent the next week hanging out with Mom and Dad, seeing Bob for a few days, working (Doc has a huge job right now and worked all day every day and half the nights too… when you own your own business, the work is unpredictable), taking the dog for long walks in the forest, snoozing on the patio in the 65 degree sunshine, picking strawberries (44 pounds, from Cameron Berry Farm!), going in to town, going to the beach with the dog, buying fireworks from the Indian reservation down the road and shooting them off on the driveway on the 4th of July, eating lots and lots of Mom’s delicious cooking and Dad’s smoked brisket, seeing aunts and uncles and cousins and old family friends, shopping (thanks, Mom, for the new maternity clothes!), playing endless fetch with the dog, watching Jonny Quest with Doc and Bob, sitting wrapped in a blanket in front of the fireplace (yes, in July!), enjoying the smell of fresh fir trees and sweet grasses, and generally having a wonderful, relaxing time.

The weather was absolutely fabulous. We had a few days of rain and/or mist but the rest of the time was sunshine almost all day long. The temperature stayed around 60 or so on the rainy days, and might have reached 70 on the sunny days. Cool enough to need long sleeves in the shade!

I have been on VACATION!

Yay, vacation!!

Doc and I flew to San Jose, where we stayed with Arushi and Shyamal for a few days at their place in Mountain View. The fires in Big Sur were still burning and there was a lot of smoke in the air. It hung like a pink-brown cloud over everything, and made our eyes sting. We visited the redwood forest in Big Basin State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains, went into San Francisco one afternoon, swam in her pool, did a little shopping, and went out to Napa County and ate at a fantastic place called Greystone Restaurant, run by the Culinary Institute of America, where i had the best piece of fish I have ever eaten in my entire life. It was halibut, pan-fried in olive oil with just a bit of salt and pepper, and probably caught mere hours prior. It was the most amazingly perfect texture all the way through, and served on a bed of morel mushrooms and tiny baby squash, sauteed in butter.

The weather in northern California is fantastic in the summer. I’m afraid that I underpacked for this trip, bringing along mostly tank tops and capri pants, when what I apparently really needed was long pants and sweatshirts!

We hopped aboard an Amtrak train, the “Coast Starlight,” to head up north to Seattle. Train travel is quite enjoyable. It takes longer to get to your destination, but is cheaper and much more scenic, relaxed, roomy, and social than flying. Doc and I rented a small sleeper cabin instead of coach seats, and it was a huge improvement over our last train trip ten years ago, when Doc had a severe case of the flu in coach. The room was tiny, barely wider than the width of a seat, but we could shut the doors and fold down two beds and the privacy was worth every penny. Plus, all meals are included in the price of the room, and although the food was not awful (certainly better than you might expect on a train), the a la carte meal prices were quite inflated. We would have easily spent more than the cost of the room upgrade on meals alone, had we traveled in coach!

The route along the coast is very scenic and beautiful, especially through Oregon. The train huffs and puffs its way along the side of mountains through all this gorgeous countryside. You really can’t beat morning sunlight sparkling down on a glittering mountain stream hundreds of yards below, and rocky rapids surrounded by tall fir trees.

The train was three hours late getting into the station in Seattle (11:30 at night!) because, sadly, someone had a heart attack on board the night before and the train had to stop in the middle of nowhere in California to wait for the Careflight helicopters to arrive. We also had numerous electrical problems onboard that resulted in the lights going out every now and again — this is especially inconvenient when you are using the tiny airplane-style bathroom, which has no windows.

A late train wouldn’t normally be that big of a problem, except that my mom and dad had arranged to pick us up at the station and drive us back to their house… two and a half hours away. By the time we got to their place it was nearly 2 a.m. I was so tired from having barely slept on the train the night before, I just fell right into bed and don’t even remember my head hitting the pillow.

I’m really tired now, in fact… I’m going to post some photos and then write more about the vacation later!

Last night I dreamed I was dead.

I started out alive, which was the unsettling part. I was watching some guys dressed in green military garb in a helicopter on the ground. The whole side of the helicopter lifted up to open and reveal five men inside. They all had large guns, and they were definitely bad guys. They were talking to a Native American man sitting in a chair next to the helicopter with his friends, and he was also a very bad guy.

The military group wanted him to build them a lot more parts for some weapons they were producing, but I knew that each group of men actually had plans to kill the other group. The Native American man “agreed” and said he needed to get some paperwork out of his file cabinet, which was mysteriously now located in the helicopter. So he climbed in and opened the bottom drawer to get his gun, but when he turned around the military men opened fire and shot him hundreds of times. I was curious as to how they got their bullets to only hit their enemy, who was sitting at point blank range right in the middle of them all, but somehow none of them were hurt.

Then the dream shifted and I found myself inside a hotel room. There was no furniture or decorations in the room at all. I had invented in my head some sort of device or system that would quickly and nearly painlessly kill anyone inside a room: the walls would grow and thicken to 1-foot-thick super-strong metal, and a bomb in the center of the room would explode and vaporize the person in the room. I had thought of it, which was enough to make it become reality, and now I found myself inside one of these rooms. I knew what was about to happen, and I also knew that there was no way out. I was going to die. And I was oddly resigned to this fact, and at peace with it. Doc and I had some sort of psychic mental connection, and I was very connected to him at that moment. I could feel his love and energy, and he had no idea what was about to happen to me.

There were three objects in the room: the bomb, which was the size and shape of a small alarm clock, a bottle of oxygen, and a note. The note said to breathe in a lot of oxygen before the bomb exploded; it would be easier and less painful that way. So I took the bottle, lifted the cap off, crawled into a corner and laid down with the bottle near my nose, breathing in pure oxygen. I started to feel euphoric; my limbs and face were tingling pleasantly and I had this growing sensation of euphoria creeping down my body. Then the bomb went off. I didn’t hear, see, or feel a thing.

I was dead… but somehow I was also still there. Now I was standing in the room, but I seemed to be invisible. I guess I was just my soul at that point, and my soul still thought it was inside a human-shaped body, so that’s how I felt. When I had exploded, I’d vaporized into tiny yellow particles that were almost like feathers or foam, and they were still floating down all over the room. Three people were inside the room now — a woman and two men — and they were all laughing maniacally in the way that stereotypical movie crazy bad guys do.

I decided that I didn’t want to hang around while these nuts were laughing their heads off and bits of me were floating around the room, so I thought I’d see if I could leave. And I was able to open the door and walk out, just as if I was a person, although living people didn’t perceive the door as having opened at all. I felt GREAT. I was tingling all over, especially in my hands and the back of my jaw, and that sense of euphoria from the oxygen was still with me. I felt light as a feather, thin and wispy and gloriously naked, and I began to run down the hallway of this hotel. I knew that I could run forever and never get tired or lose this amazing feeling. I ran for a long time, all around the hotel, and then went down into the lobby and out one of the doors.

It was night, it was Seattle, and it was raining. I found myself on an enormous concrete patio surrounded by trees and shrubbery. A few people were out, standing at the edge, smoking and getting rained on, and a few more were coming and going between the hotel and the wet cobblestone streets and out to the waterfront. I watched people for a while, knowing that they couldn’t see me.

And then it hit me: while I was running around, enjoying my euphoria and trying to get used to the idea that I was deceased, I’d lost my mental connection to Doc. He was nowhere. There was no way I would ever be able to contact him or see him again. I knew that he had no idea where I was, just that his connection to me had abruptly ended, and he was probably freaking out.

I began to panic.

Then I woke up.

Last night when I got home from work, I was feeling pretty down about the huge hospital bill that we received in the mail (why is it so much more than the 20% that I am supposed to pay as per my insurance plan? Now I have to – ugh – CALL Blue Cross and try to get a comprehensible answer out of them). So Doc and I went for a nice long run/walk to try to improve my spirits. After we got back I was really tired but had already planned to cook dinner so I somehow managed to muster up the energy.

I cooked salmon fillets, sauteéd corn with red bell pepper and lemon butter, and Chinese long beans. I really like the salmon recipe (it’s from my book) because it’s so easy. Basically you put the fillets skin-side down in a skillet with a bit of oil in the bottom, and cook on the stove for about 5 minutes. Then put the whole pan in the oven for about 15 minutes to finish cooking, and voila, delicious fish is ready. I usually put a splatter screen on top of the pan to prevent the oil from splattering all over my oven.

Now, every single time I cook salmon like this, I burn my hands on the 450-degree metal skillet handle. Apparently my brain goes on autopilot and I reach out and grab it barehanded without thinking. But last night, I thought: I am NOT going to burn myself today. I’m going to use a oven mitt EVERY TIME I reach for that pan. 

And I did use that oven mitt on that pan, every time. Job well done!

Except that, after the fish was out of the oven, I reached out and grabbed the metal splatter screen instead. D’oh!

So now I have two painful blisters on two of my fingers, and a big red burned spot on my palm.

But I count myself lucky; at least I didn’t cut off half of my thumb on a table saw like my dad did a couple of days ago. Poor dad, he’s all drugged up on Percocet until he can get in to see the orthopaedic surgeon. Unfortunately they didn’t find the missing piece in time; they had to get to the hospital post haste and couldn’t stop to look for it. 

Speaking of PAIN, Doc got us an extremely comical new game for the Playstation yesterday. It is called “Pain.” Essentially, you launch yourself off a giant slingshot into a city, aiming yourself for various landmarks and hitting things for fun. Extra points if you land in strange ways or rack yourself. Wash, rinse, repeat! I like the giant donut on top of one of the buildings. If you aim right you can sail right through the middle! 

I found myself laughing uncontrollably and feeling terrible about laughing at the terrible predicaments we put our little avatar in.

(Whirring mixer sounds coming from the kitchen)

I had the D&C surgery this morning (or, as I like to call it, my appointment with Mr. Hoover). Ha!

Hey, just trying to find humor in all this. It helps me deal with it. I think it might make people uncomfortable that I’m trying to joke about this terrible situation, so soon after it happened. But as my friend Kim said, “Sometimes other people’s expectations of how you’re supposed to feel are as hard to deal with as how you actually feel.” I couldn’t have put it any better myself (and am flying high on Vicodin right now so I don’t think I could come up with better words no matter how much I tried).

So anyway, I was supposed to be at the hospital at 10:30 a.m. to check in and get prepared for surgery. The phone rang at 7:15 this morning and the nurse asked me if I could come in at 9 instead because my doctor wanted to move it up if possible. I guess it worked better with his schedule that way, and as far as I was concerned, the sooner it was over, the better.

I couldn’t have any food or water after midnight, and I sure wish I’d had a big glass of water before bed because I felt soooo thirsty when I woke up. Almost as thirsty as I’d felt in the emergency room last week, but I wasn’t supposed to have anything to drink, even water. I started to feel sick to my stomach though, so in order to stave off fainting, I took about two tablespoons of water and figured I’d just deal with the consequences at the hospital.

I was really nervous and feeling nauseated, but did my best to keep it under control as I signed lots and lots of forms at the check-in desk, filled out medical histories, wrote a $1400 check (sigh… damned deductible), got my hospital bracelets, and then they took us back to the pre-op prep room.

I answered more questions about my allergies and told about ten different people that yes, my name and birthday were correct on my bracelet, then went to the bathroom and got into a lovely lovely hospital gown. They also made me wear some really tight white full-leg stockings, apparently to help avoid blood clots, and a pair of those cute blue anti-skid socks like the ones they gave me in the E.R. last week.

A very nice nurse took my blood pressure and pulse, and put in my I.V. This time she gave me a lidocaine injection in the back of my hand so the I.V. wouldn’t hurt. They don’t take those kinds of measures at the emergency room! The World’s Nicest Anaesthesiologist came in to talk to us, to let us know exactly what they were going to do to me and what I could expect during recovery. He asked how I was feeling, and when I told him that I was prone to fainting and motion sickness (on my medical history form) and was currently feeling nauseous, he came back with something to put in my I.V. line that he said would help me feel better.

A few minutes later Dr. Burt came in and greeted us, and talked to Doc for a little bit about how long the surgery would take, where he should wait, and that he’d come out to talk to him as soon as it was over. I was really glad that they were including Doc in everything and treating him so well. I think that they could tell he was concerned and could see how much he loved me and was protecting and taking care of me. I think it makes their job easier when their patients have a good caretaker.

The anaesthesiologist gave me a sedative, I kissed my sweet Doc goodbye, and they wheeled me down the hall. I feel like I went in and out of consciousness during that ride, since I don’t remember much of it. We ended up in a large brightly lit room with a lot of random stuff piled all over the place, and a giant flexible light hanging from the ceiling (kind of like the light on a dentist’s chair) that they stopped me under. Definitely NOT like an operating theatre like you see on TV. The anaesthesiologist lightly placed an oxygen mask on my face and told me to breathe deeply. I remember taking about six nice breaths, and I guess then they put the general anaesthetic in my IV because the next thing I remember, someone spooned a few ice chips into my mouth and told me to chew. Things went fuzzy for a while after that.

I was definitely having a hard time waking up, as is to be expected. By the time I was lucid enough to realize that I was in the recovery room and that Doc was there with me, he said he’d been with me for 15 minutes already and that I’d been talking to him and the nurses and drinking water. It is very disconcerting to me that I have no idea what happened during that time. He had already called my mom to tell her that I’d come out of surgery just fine, and I asked him to call Kathryn and let her know too. He talked to her for a few minutes and then put the phone up to my ear. I know I talked to her but now I have absolutely no idea what I said. Like I said, I was having a tough time getting my clarity back. He also called Brittney to let her know, but I don’t think I talked to her.

Doc told me that Dr. Burt said it was a really good thing that they did the surgery because there was a lot of tissue still in my uterus and it very likely would not have passed on its own. So I guess that made it worth it, right there. He also said that everything went very well and that I would probably feel some bad cramping for a day, and it would die off in less than a week. I am supposed to keep taking my antibiotic and my Vicodin as needed for pain, and take it easy for the rest of the week. I’m not sure if I’ll try to go in to work at all; I might just see how I feel on Thursday or Friday but I really don’t want to push it. I think they can manage without me if needed.

The anaesthesiologist had told me before surgery that when I woke up I might feel like I needed to pee, but I really wouldn’t and the urge would just be the residual effects from the catheter. A catheter?! One more reason to be grateful for general anaesthesia. Of course I DID feel like I needed to pee, and tried to ignore it, but after a few minutes pushed my nurse’s call button and asked if I could go try anyway. She walked me to the bathroom, and by god, I urinated. Take THAT, catheter!

I was feeling pretty good by this point, other than the fuzziness in my head, so they told me that I could get dressed if I felt like going home, or I could wait for a while in bed. Doc helped me to slowly get dressed and gather my things, and the nurse wheeled me out front while Doc brought the car around.

He drove me home and helped me change into my pajamas and get set up on the futon bed downstairs. Then he made me some tasty tasty chicken broth, complete with fresh grated carrots and tiny shredded chicken bits, and some crackers that the hospital had sent home with me. He also went across the street to 7-11 and bought me some Coke Zero, since I have decided for the time being that I am going to have as much diet soda as I want while I’m feeling crappy.

So that’s pretty much it. I’ve been taking my painkillers, lying on the futon all day, doing some freelance work, talking to a few people by e-mail and IM, talking to Doc, crying a little bit here and there, laughing some too, and somehow now it’s after midnight and I guess I’d probably ought to get to bed.

I’m glad the physical difficulties are (knock on wood) over and that I’m on the path to recovery. Having a concrete end to that part of it is helping me deal with the emotional side of it too. It’s been tough at times over the past few days, and I know it’s going to continue to be tough on both Doc and myself for a long while, but we have each other to lean on and laugh with and cry with, and I can’t think of anything more comforting than to know that he’s right here with me through all of this, protecting me and loving me. He’s truly an amazing man in so many ways.

One more thing before I go. I read something yesterday that really hit me hard. And it was something that I KNEW already but just hadn’t thought about so concretely. I read that the body miscarries because the fetus has just died. And I knew that of course…. but when I applied it to myself, to my own womb, lifting my shirt and looking down at my abdomen and thinking about my own little fetus right there a few inches under my skin, MY baby’s little heartbeat stopping and my body going into action to deal with it… Just, wow. I busted out into tears for a long time over that. It stopped being ethereal and got very tangible then.

Sigh.

This is a really long post, so grab a cup of coffee and sit back.

You still with me? Cool.

I haven’t been writing a lot of personal stuff on my blog in the past few months, and there is a reason for that. I wasn’t quite ready to announce to the world the news that I was pregnant!

It’s been pretty hard to keep from writing about it, since it’s such huge news and it’s hard to think about much of anything else when your whole world, including your own body, is transforming. Although we told our families and close friends, we didn’t want the world to know in case something went wrong in that delicate first trimester, when you’re beginning to get really excited but still not too attached yet since you can’t really FEEL a baby inside you yet…

…But something did go wrong, and I had a miscarriage last night.

Nobody ever talks about miscarriage, other than to say that it happens frequently and it’s usually not your fault. But never anywhere did I read what it was actually like to experience one. Knowing in advance what I might expect would have been very helpful. As it happened, the chain of events seemed so incredibly severe and unexpected that I truly thought I was dying. It was one of the most painful and frightening experiences of my life, tempered only by the fact that my amazing wonderful loving husband was by my side the whole time, stroking my hair and whispering love notes and reassurances that everything would be OK, although I think he was very frightened as well and having to keep it together for the both of us. I don’t mention him in every single paragraph below, but he was right there the entire time, this force of warmth, calmness, and love that was keeping me from losing my mind.

Just a warning to the squeamish, I am about to go into DETAIL about my experience, and I really mean detail about my private bits and blood and all kinds of stuff. This may be Too Much Information and if you don’t want to read about it I won’t be insulted. You can skip ahead to near the end where you see the asterisks ***, then it’s safe to keep reading. On the other hand, maybe this can help someone out there going through a similar experience.

If you want the short nondetailed version, here it is: I began to bleed badly, went to the ER, passed out a couple of times, spent about nine hours there being tested and observed and, frankly, miscarrying; eventually I went home and then to my regular ob/gyn, who has now scheduled me for surgery on Monday. I feel like crap, but am on drugs, and the emotional impact hasn’t hit me yet.

But if you want the long version…. this is what my miscarriage felt like.

Some background: As of this past Monday, January 21, I was 11 weeks pregnant and due August 11. I’ve been having a lot of the classic pregnancy symptoms, including larger, tender breasts (larger! woot!), mood swings such as crying for no reason every few days, forgetfulness and an inability to focus, extreme exhauastion most of the time, and the need to pee a LOT. Thankfully my morning sickness was very mild, and usually quite easy for me to handle.

On Wednesday afternoon, I started feeling little twinges of what felt like menstrual cramps. I’ve had little twinges before that simply indicate a growing uterus, and so I didn’t put too much thought into it. On Thursday morning the twinges were still with me, and a little more frequent. When I used the bathroom at work I discovered that I was spotting blood a little bit. I freaked out at this and called my doctor, who told me not to worry, that cramping and spotting were fairly normal, but to go home early and rest if I could. I had an appointment the next morning for my 12 week ultrasound, so I tried not to stress out… but I was anyway. I called Doc; I think he was frightened about what might be going on, but he offered to meet me for lunch and seeing him helped me to calm down a lot. I left work at 3 p.m. to go home and lie down.

The cramping began to intensify a bit during the afternoon, and I noticed a little more blood. Around 9 p.m. the cramps were getting quite painful, not letting up even for a few minutes’ reprieve, and there was even more blood. Doc and I tried to watch a movie on DVD and I was curled up around my heating pad with Doc rubbing my back and stroking my hair, trying to calm down and ignore the cramps, but I couldn’t concentrate and kept getting up to pee and see if the bleeding had subsided yet.

At 11:00 as I was using the toilet, it was like somebody turned on a faucet inside me and the blood began flowing out nonstop — fresh red blood. By this point the cramping was almost too much to handle. Holding my panic in check by sheer force of will, I called Doc into the bathroom and we decided that I needed to go to the emergency room immediately. The amount of blood was scary. We didn’t have any pads (since I started using the Diva Cup I don’t buy them anymore) so he grabbed me a towel. I got up, shoved the towel between my legs and went to my closet for sneakers. Every time I moved it felt like a warm gush came out of me. Doc ran around locking doors and gathering his phone and coat and my purse, and helped me downstairs and out into the car (the Saturn; I didn’t want to bleed all over the brand new Prius!!). I was wearing old paint-covered sweatpants and sneakers (breaking two of my personal cardinal rules: sneakers are only for exercising and sweatpants do not leave the house) and my hair was a mess and I forgot my phone and my coat but I didn’t care.

I was in such pain on the car ride over but trying to be calm and hold my panic in check. Doc was driving and I did not want to give him any acute reasons to worry; I needed him to get me safely and quickly to the ER. My legs started shaking uncontrollably in the car, but I kept smiling and saying that I was OK, not to worry, just keep driving. The truth was, I WAS worried, but not that much. I figured that once I got to the ER, it would be like on the TV show “Scrubs”: A cute intern would whisk me away on a stretcher and take a look up the old VaJayJay (or was it “bajingo”?), do a little procedure or something, and send me on my merry way home.

Not so.

Doc pulled into the emergency room driveway, hopped out and ran inside to get someone to come get me out of the car since I was sure if I stood up that a river would pour out down my legs. A nurse came out with a wheelchair, and she and Doc helped me out of the car and wheeled me inside. I think that the valet guy took Doc’s car key and drove our car off to the parking lot. Don’t ask me why the ER only has valet parking, maybe because of all the nutty construction going on at the hospital, but it came in handy for us.

I filled out a small form at the checkin desk giving my name, SS#, vital statistics, and reason why I was there. There were a LOT of people in the ER waiting room and they told me that it might be a little while before anyone could see me. I thought, ok, I am BLEEDING profusely out my VAGINA, should someone not see me NOW before I die from blood loss in the waiting room?? Nobody but the two of us seemed concerned though, so I sat tight in my wheelchair hoping that they would hurry the fuck up because I was in severe pain. I asked Doc to get me some water; I suddenly felt extremely thirsty, but the paramedics said that I couldn’t have anything before they measured my vital signs. Which apparently might have been hours away, from how things were going so far.

They probably should have let me have some water because a few minutes later I began to see spots. I felt like the whole world was floating away from me, and I remember saying to Doc “I am going to pass out now.” From a distance, I felt myself slump off to the side towards him and everything went dark. The next thing I knew, it felt like I was waking up from a long, wonderful dream, until the reality slowly hit me that I was indeed in a wheelchair in the ER, that THAT was not part of my dream. I was being wheeled along a corridor and someone had ahold of my shoulders to keep me from falling forward. People were saying my name. I was having a hard time responding. I don’t know if I was actually saying anything out loud or making any sense if I was. Doc said that I had passed out in the waiting room and began convulsing. He yelled for help and THAT prompted the ER people into action. I guess I was only out for about 15-20 seconds but it was enough to push me up to the top of the list.

They got me into an exam room and onto the table, and people in scrubs were buzzing all around me, putting IV lines in and taking blood samples, hooking me up to a heart monitor (interesting tidbit: the little sticky pads they apply to your chest are made by 3M, the post-it-note people!), blood pressure cuff, and a little clamp on my finger to keep track of my pulse. I felt like I was in a complete fog, not sure what was going on but in serious serious pain, and people I didn’t know were doing strange things to me and I couldn’t see Doc. They’d sent him out of the room for a few minutes while they got me all hooked up to the monitors, but I asked 3 or 4 times where he was, that I needed him, and so a few minutes later they brought him back in. It was such a relief to see him; immediately I felt calmer and more grounded.

I’m already starting to forget the sequence of events that occurred over the next couple of hours, probably because I was in that weird foggy haze. Doc was by my side through all of it, whispering that he loved me, holding my hand, calming me down. I was very worried that I was dying, bleeding internally and they wouldn’t be able to stop it.

I found it awfully strange that no one wanted to get a peek at the area in question; the nurses initially pulled my sweatshirt off and got me into a hospital gown, but left my blood-soaked sweatpants on. I remember my abdomen just convulsing in pain nonstop, and my entire body shaking uncontrollably again. I think that someone threw some blankets over me, hot out of the blanket heater (did you know hospitals keep blankets heated? I didn’t! I remember telling a nurse that now I knew why my cats liked to hop in a basket of laundry freshly pulled from the dryer), but despite the warmth I could not stop the shaking. I remember at one point raising my head up and actually looking at my body, and the movements were so violent that it must have looked like I was having convulsions again. I tried to calm myself down and stop shaking but I simply couldn’t.

I remember whispering crazy nonsensical things over and over, like “stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it” and “calm down calm down calm down” — which actually aren’t too crazy, but the repetition must have seemed a little crazy. I know I was saying other things too, that made a whole lot less sense. And the nutty part of all this was, I was completely conscious of the fact that I wasn’t making any sense, that I was probably acting like an insane person, and yet I had no ability to control it.

After what seemed like hours of being completely out of my head and waiting, shivering, shaking, whispering, cramping, making “ouch goddamit motherfuck that hurts” faces, a doctor finally came in to see me. The nurses got my pants off, put some fresh absorbent pads under me (actually this was probably the third or fourth time they’d replaced them), and the doctor took a look at my business. His conclusion? “Oh yes, she’s definitely bleeding.” Wow, Sherlock, ya think?! He was in the room for probably a total of 90 seconds before he ordered a sonogram and left.

The crazy shaking continued but began to abate somewhat, and maybe 15 minutes later a nurse came in with an injection of some wonderful wonderful medication into my IV line. A minute or two later I stopped shivering and began to feel wonderfully light and floaty but at the same time very very heavy, like all my limbs weighed a ton.

They turned out most of the lights in the room and left us alone for a while before the sonogram was ready. A woman came in with a clipboard and had Doc fill out some paperwork for insurance. He asked me questions about various things on the forms and I remember trying to speak very clearly out of my pain medication floaty haze. Things seemed really funny for some reason and I think I was talking veeery slowly.

We were both exhausted — he hadn’t slept much the night before either — but nobody left us alone long enough to drift off to sleep for a bit. Nurses came in every few minutes to check my vitals or change my padding, which was getting thoroughly soaked by warm trickles of blood every few minutes. I remember at one point telling the main nurse, I think her name was Jennifer, that she was SO nice and I really appreciated everything and she was making me feel so much better. I think I was kind of high from the pain meds but the sentiment was heartfelt.

I asked Doc to go get her before the sonogram was ready, because I had to pee. There was a little pink bedpan waiting in one corner so I figured that was probably my fate (thank god my fate didn’t lie with a catheter; another nurse had poked her head into our room a while earlier asking if I was the one who needed the catheter! I said “Good god, I hope not,” and she laughed and left).

Nurse Jennifer asked if I wanted to use the bedpan or the bathroom. I had a choice!! Hallelujah! I asked to be wheeled out to the bathroom in the hallway, although I think that Doc would rather I have kept to my bed and just used the bedpan instead. But I’d been stripped and poked and prodded, my bloody bits seen by god only knows how many people already, and I wanted to preserve this one little modicum of modesty. I remember laughing at one point as I was lying on my side, as I said to Nurse Jennifer “I cannot believe I am lying here mostly naked, door open to the hallway, with a nurse washing my butt with a towel. All sense of modesty is gone!”

Nurse Jennifer handed me the world’s largest maxipad (really and truly, it was ENORMOUS), a pair of blue socks with nonskid soles, and a pair of stretchy mesh disposable undies to pull on over the giant diaper. She wheeled me into the bathroom and thankfully did not insist on staying with me as I went. As I was going, eight or ten large chunks of tissue and blood came out of me too. I guess this was all the uterine material that I was finally expelling. It was kind of gross but also fascinating at the same time. And I instantly felt better; the cramping that the pain meds hadn’t taken care of began to die off.

Another nurse wheeled me back to my room, and as I passsed the nurses’ station I told Nurse Jennifer that I thought I’d expelled it all. She asked me if I flushed, which I thought was a very weird question — of course I’d flushed, I’d just gone to the bathroom! It didn’t occur to me until later that they might have wanted to collect the expelled material for testing. A gross thought, actually.

A few minutes later they came and got me for the sonogram. This time they didn’t put me in the wheelchair; they just rolled my bed down the hallways to the radiology lab. Just like in “Scrubs!” I finally got wheeled down a hallway on a bed! The sonogram went quickly; the nurse was young and businesslike and very very fast. She did both the jelly-on-the-belly kind (the first I’ve had like that) and the internal kind, then wheeled me back to the room. By this time it was 3:30 in the morning and we realized that we probably wouldn’t get much sleep before we had to go to Dr. Burt’s office at 9:30.

The doctor came in about 2o minutes later with the sonogram results (a nice suprise for two reasons; one, they told us it might be up to an hour before the results were ready, and two, this was a different doctor, a woman who was very very nice and seemed like she actually cared about what was going on with me, unlike businesslike Dr. Butterfield from before.) Dr. Way said that the sonogram showed that it was an incomplete miscarriage, meaning that there was still some material in the uterus to be expelled. I would need to watch for that and follow up with my own doctor within the next 48 hours. She went out to write a prescription for some pain medications for me and collect up my discharge information.

I asked Nurse Jennifer if I could go pee again, and this time she gave me a pair of gigantic cotton underpants (really, they were size 14, and I wear size 8!) and a pair of gray sweatpants so I wouldn’t have to wear my old ones home. I expelled a little more of the uterine material again, and again felt a lot better afterwards. I wasn’t bleeding profusely now.

I got back to the room and they brought in the discharge paperwork, took out my IV line and taped me up, got me into the wheelchair, and Doc put my old pants and towel, shoes, and purse on my lap. They wheeled us out to the payment area, and I sat right outside the door while Doc sat right inside the door talking to the nurse and paying the co-pay. I started feeling absolutely awful — nauseated, lightheaded, and the severe cramps came back. I began to see spots again. I tapped on the door frame and said “Doc, I’m passing out again. Here I go.” I slumped forward to try to get some blood to my head, but to no avail. I felt my arms go limp and then nothing.

I woke up — again, as if from a very long, wonderful dream — to hear Doc saying my name trying to wake me up as they wheeled me back down the corridor towards a room. I couldn’t say anything, I felt sick to my stomach and dry heaved most of the way to the room. He looked so scared; I don’t think I have ever seen him look that frightened in his life. He was so pale. I didn’t want to get out of the wheelchair because I was bent over and it felt like if I straightened up I would faint again.

The nurse was about to put an IV line into the back of my hand, when I realized I really would rather by lying down. She and Doc got me up onto the table, got me hooked into the IV (it hurts a lot more in the hand than it does in the elbow), and hooked back up to the heart monitor and everything else. They took some more blood to check my counts. I was really cold and starting to shake again so they brought me some blankets. Dr. Way came back again to see me and said “Didn’t quite make it out the door, did you?” and told me she had a call in to the OB/GYN on call for advice.

She came back a while later and said that the OB/GYN wasn’t being as helpful as she hoped, and they wanted to keep me for a few more hours for observation. If I passed out again then they were going to admit me to the hospital. She turned out the lights and left us alone for a while (well, nurses were coming in every so often to check up on me), but Doc and I were able to get maybe 30 minutes of uninterupted sleep before yet another doctor came to wake me up, and told me that he wanted to see if I could get up and walk around.

A nurse came in and unhooked me and slowly I got up and walked the corridor. It was tough but I tried really hard to ignore my nausea and stave off the lightheadedness. I was desperate to get out of the hospital and home. I really did feel a lot better than the last time they tried to discharge me. Yet another doctor came by to remove my IV port from my hand and he brought me and Doc back to the discharge area. I did not pass out this time. We did not have to pay another co-pay; Doc’s theory is that it’s because they didn’t want it to seem like they discharged me before they should have. Which is fine with me!

He went and got the car from the valet and helped me into it, and we headed home. He got me settled in bed and went out to the drugstore to get me some giant absorbent pads, Motrin, and some apple juice. When Dr. Burt’s office opened at 8:30, I called to see what they wanted me to do, and they said that I definitely needed to come in as scheduled. With Doc’s help I took a shower and got dressed (in my fancy Presbyterian sweatpants again!) and we headed up to Presby Plano.

I began crying for the first time since this started when I asked the doctor if he knew what might have caused it. He said that almost all first trimester miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities; the fetus is simply not viable. I asked if it was anything I might have done, and began to cry. He said absolutely not, nothing like caffeine or exercise could have caused it, and that all women struggle with the guilt of this question even when rationally they know the truth.

Doc described my fainting episodes to him, and he said that it was due to the abdominal contractions. When the belly cramps up like that, it signals the heart to slow way down and blood pressure plummets, triggering fainting. I’m not sure quite why this happens, it sure doesn’t seem like an evolutionary advantage.

We told him that we’d been told it was an incomplete miscarriage but that I’d passed some tissue after that diagnosis. He sent me in for a sonogram, which showed that there was still some tissue left (RPOC, or “retained products of conception”). He took a look inside me with the speculum and was able to pull out what he thought was that remaining tissue (NOT a pleasant procedure; it’s like that little *cramp* you get during a pap smear when the tester touches your cervix, but a lot worse and a lot longer in duration), then sent me back for a second sonogram. Unfortunately it showed that he didn’t get that tissue.

He said at this point we had three options. We could wait for it to pass naturally, although it may not actually expel itself, in which case I’d be at high risk for a very serious infection; we could get me in for a D&C surgery right away, which involves putting me under anaesthesia and manually cleaning out the uterus; or the middle ground, which would be to wait a few days and see if it passes on its own, and if not, schedule me for surgery. We decided on option #3. So I’m scheduled for surgery Monday at 11:45 a.m., unless something happens in the meantime. I really hope it does because I do not want to have that surgery done.

*** OKAY, the yucky part is over. If you’ve skipped ahead, you can start reading againg! ***

Dr. Burt didn’t charge me a co-pay for today’s visit, which I think was really very nice of them. Maybe it’s a matter of policy not to burden people who have just had a miscarriage with a bunch of paperwork. Fantastic policy! It was a relief just to get to go home. I called my boss on the way home and told him what had happened and that I wouldn’t be in for a few days at least. I broke down on the phone with him and I was trying so desperately not to. The one person I wanted to be calm on the phone with, I just couldn’t.

We went to Target to fill my prescription for Vicodin for pain, and for Doc to pick up some quick-fix groceries for the next few days, and FINALLY we got home. My wonderful wonderful husband, who has had maybe 3 hours of sleep in the past 48, then went back out AGAIN and got me a grilled cheese sandwich and Dr. Pepper from Sonic. I didn’t feel like eating but can’t take Vicodin on an empty stomach, so I sucked it up and ate what I could.

We’ve each managed to sleep for a couple of hours this afternoon, and we’ve told a few people what’s happened. I don’t think I can talk to anyone in person about it right now, it’s just too hard and I know I’ll break down. Maybe in a few days.

Right now we’re resting in bed and watching Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. I’m eating a few leftover roasted potatoes from last night with my evening Vicodin, and Doc is having a chicken salad sandwich.

I guess that I can have a glass of wine this week if I want! Ha. One good thing about all this.

We don’t know what exactly we’re going to do once this is all over. We need to think about whether we want to try again. I know it’s not even a question for some couples, but it’s more of a complex issue with us. There’s a lot of things we’re going to need to talk about. I’m so glad our marriage is rock solid. I feel like this situation has pulled us even closer together. I still feel numb emotionally, although I’ve cried a few times today. I think that the full impact just hasn’t hit me yet. I’m sure once I see tangible things like the maternity clothes I’ve started to collect or the tiny socks that Mom Kerry got us for Christmas or the little stuffed animals from Brittney, it’s going to feel a lot more real. There were so many things that we had begun to think about and do in preparation that I think are going to startle me when I come across them and realize that maybe we just don’t need to do them anymore.

As Doc said earlier today, this sucks donkey ovaries. But we’ll get through it.

December has been an eventful month but I haven’t been posting much. I extend my apologies to my two readers (who perhaps didn’t even notice that I’ve been MIA, or perhaps were waiting with baited breath for my next genius missive).

In early December Doc and I went to Boston so I could go to the Web Design World conference (which turned out to be about 70% fantastic, which is a great ratio for a conference) and spend a couple of days with my brother Bob. We had a great time, in part because it was so cold and snowy. The city was decked out in twinkly colored Christmas lights that looked so pretty with the snowy scenery.

The first day that we spent with Bob, we’d planned to go to the science museum and aquarium but they both closed early because it was snowing. I thought that northerners could still function in the snow, but apparently not! We spent a long afternoon riding the subway around to our various destinations only to find out that they’d already closed down. Then when we got back to the car at the train stop a mile from Bob’s apartment in Somerville, it took us about 90 minutes to get home due to incredible non-moving traffic. We ate pizza for dinner and Bob and Doc played Rock Band for a while.

Luckily Boston has a great snowplow system, so by the next morning the streets were clear enough that we were able to get ourselves down to the aquarium.

I wish we’d had more time to spend with Bob, but we had to leave the next morning. It was a lot of fun, though.

Over Christmas, we visited Doc’s mom and grandmother and great-aunt and brother and sisters and their families in Derby (near Wichita), Kansas. That was a heck of a lot more people than I’m used to being around, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. Doc’s grandma Rose and great-aunt Pat are in their late 80s but sharp as tacks and very up-to-date on what’s going on in the world. It was great seeing them again, and we plan to come visit more often now that they’re closer to us than they were in Idaho for all those years. All our nieces and nephews (most of whom are in their teens, and there’s about ten or so of them) got into a snowball fight on Christmas day with some of the moms and dads in the backyard. Doc got some great photography of people in mid-throw or mid-being-hit. He avoided getting into the fight until the very end by claiming “hey, don’t hit the guy with the camera, please”… but then threw a snowball at his sister on the way in. Sigh… brothers!

It snowed throughout the midwest the night before we drove to Kansas so by the time we reached the Kansas border everything was pretty well blanketed with snow. The residential streets in Derby hadn’t been cleared and so the driving was a bit iffy. On the way home on the 26th it had started snowing again but we didn’t have any trouble driving this time. We stopped at a restaurant in Arcadia, Oklahoma, called Pops 66. It has really interesting future-modern architecture and 500+ different types of bottled soda. Neato.

For Christmas Doc and I went a little lighter than normal with the gifts, by choice. He gave me some really nice things though, including some balsamic vinegar, bamboo cooking spoons, and this gorgeous Le Creuset cast-iron skillet. I adore it. I can barely lift it, it’s so heavy!! And the enamel is droolworthy bright beautiful red.

I’ve had the whole week of Christmas off, and I don’t go back to work until January 3. This week I’m taking it easy, trying to get a little exercise in, watching movies, hanging out with Doc. Saturday we went to Six Flags with Brittney and Chris. I could only go on two rollercoasters this year; I just didn’t feel up to going on some of the bigger rides. It was really crowded at the park, much moreso than in previous years. Wait times in line for the rides seemed about as long as they are in the summer. We had a nasty dinner experience too: we waited in line at a little kiosk with the “Papa John’s Pizza” label on it, but I can tell you definitively that the pizza was NOT Papa John’s quality. It was some of the nastiest pizza I have had in recent memory. For $7 per slice I would at least expect the cheese to be completely melted, but it wasn’t. I could only eat half of it. I complained at the guest services desk that they were misleading people by putting a brand name label on disgusting sub-par crappy foodservice pizza.

But, that icky food experience got made up for a little while later. We ran across a kiosk run by some grandmotherly type ladies with crockpots who sold baked potatoes, sweet potatoes, roasted corn, cocoa, hot cider, and OMIGOD cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven with frosting ladled on out of a crockpot. I loves me a grandma with a crockpot of warm icing!!

Tonight is New Year’s Eve and I am perfectly content that we are staying in tonight and maybe watching some movies and ordering pizza. I’m not sure that any of our friends are having parties this year, and we’re not either. We’ve hosted NYE parties in the past, but after hosting Halloween and Thanksgiving and then being out of town so much in December, we just didn’t feel up to it this year.

Happy 2008 to everyone! It’s going to be an exciting year!