Nesting/procrastination

Suddenly, it has occurred to me how much I need to get done in the coming weeks (including minor tasks like, oh, picking a name for our tot). Is this nesting? I think nesting may just be the same thing as getting down to the wire once you've procrastinated for as long as possible. I'm realizing that I really should have everything ready to go by 38 weeks, since our baby will probably show up early, given his parentage. That's five weeks. Shit!

We had a successful visit last weekend to see our friends and stimulate the economy at Tra.der Joe's and IKE.A. We got some good hand-me-downs from the friends (including newborn diapers, a My Bres.t Friend pillow, and two types of baby bottles and accessories: Av.ent and Dr. Br0wn's), and we were also deeply impressed by the fact that they stayed out until 3am on Saturday night. Meanwhile, we were in bed by 10pm, as was their six-month-old. At IK.EA, we got some dressers, storage-related items, and a window shade for the nursery. They were out of a couple of things we needed, but the dressers were the main thing. Our nursery will be mod but frugal - ie, the very definition of IK.EA. (Pictured at right is my 32+ week belly at brunch on Sunday in Chicago.)

Oh! The best thing was that we went to the landfill before our trip to drop off three detergent bottles full of IVF medical waste, as well as many old gallons of paint. It felt good to unload all of that crap onto someone else. Why is that sort of errand so deeply satisfying?

I've been in a logistical, money-hemorrhaging frenzy. I arranged for window washers to come tomorrow. I'm investigating IRAs so that our offspring do not have to care for us in retirement. I'm getting estimates for a new roof. I went to Tar.get yesterday to return a couple of things and ended up also stocking up on necessities like toilet paper, paper towels, saline solution, etc. so that I won't have to drag my ratty-haired, engorged-boobed self to the grocery store in those early post-partum days - or for six months afterwards. I am taking some clothes to the consignment shop this afternoon. I have completed all the tax stuff I needed to do and dropped it off with the accountant. I need to get estimates from gardeners, since I am physically incapable of bending over to weed at this point. On Saturday, we go to our all-day childbirth-education seminar. We will definitely be covertly mocking the other participants in the class. This will help pass the time, and also we are bad people.

The baby is wiggling and head-butting regularly. His hard little skull is usually right around my sternum or pressed up into my right ribs. I expect this will become even more profoundly uncomfortable as time passes. At this point, I am indifferent between a regular birth and a c-section because both seem profoundly unpleasant to me. I should probably just stop thinking about birth altogether - denial has its advantages.

(Pictured at right is the nursery that desperately needs to be organized....)

Boring, laundry-list update #2 (Or: That's Our Boy!)

The ultrasound went well. I feel confident that there was no mix-up in the embryology lab, for our little boy appears to be exhibiting characteristics consistent with each of us. To wit:

1. He already has a full head of hair. (I was born with TONS of hair). The ultrasound tech marveled at it.
2. His head is big. (I have a large hat size myself.)
3. He is still breech. (My husband is stubborn.)
4. He had his hand on his testicles. (Also characteristic of my husband.)

He also has huuuuuuuuuuuge, cute cheeks. He may also have a slight clubfoot after all, but whatever - it's correctable, and I can no longer be bothered by such trifles.

If I had a scanner, I'd scan in the ultrasound shot of his fat little face. He's over 4 lbs. now, allegedly, and is in the 57th percentile for size.

Boring, laundry-list update #1

I saw the OB this morning; the ultrasound will be in the afternoon. (Fortunately, I work very close to my hospital.) The results: blood pressure 114 over 62; urine fine; fundal height measuring at 30 weeks; weight up 1 or 1.5 lbs; heartbeat 140ish.

My OB has decided no longer to care about my weight gain - whereas she used to be very by-the-book and harp on me if I hadn't gained precisely 2 lbs. since the last appointment, she now thinks that because I am consistent in my weight gain and because I am exercising and not on a donut-only diet (though that sounds appealing), everything is all right. I think I'll be up 30 lbs. by the end, which sounds just right to me. She is not concerned that my fundal height is two weeks behind my dates since it also has grown consistently.

I left with a prescription for Pep.cid because I've had a few episodes of waking up to find that (TMI alert) my most recent meal has traveled back up my esophagus and into my throat and nasal passage. It's Reflux Deluxe! I had tried to avoid this by changing my eating patterns such that I have my biggest and most complex meal at lunchtime - e.g., yesterday I had an XL salmon nicoise salad at lunch, then just had cereal and a banana for dinner at the judiciously early hour of 6:30pm, but I still got to meet that light meal again at about 11pm. I am forced to pull out a word from my youth (approximately middle-school-era) to describe this experience: GRODY.

Finally, I got a list of pediatrician recommendations from her. Most of them are men. My instinct had been that I'd want a woman pediatrician, maybe someone who'd had kids and breast-fed, etc. What are your thoughts on this? I've always strongly preferred having a woman OB/GYN, although it didn't bother me at all that several of my REs were men.

Insufficient update

I have been waiting to post because I wanted to upload some photos, but I haven't done that yet. Maybe I'll come back and add some to this post, since it's not much of an update otherwise.

Tomorrow, I have both an OB appt. and an ultrasound, though, so I can tell you more then. My trips to see my parents and to see friends in SF were both great, and the showers were successful and resulted in many gift cards, which are useful and easy to store. I nearly choked to death at the first shower - really, this was the scariest time I have ever choked on something (in this case, baked brie), but fortunately I could get in tiny gasps of air and ultimately managed to expel the offending morsel. This experience prompted me to consult Dr. Google later to find out how to adjust the Heimlich during pregnancy. The search results made me glad I didn't need to be Heimliched - sounds a bit dicey.

My little guy has been moving up a STORM. I hope this doesn't mean he's a total psycho. Also, after telling someone I was sure I hadn't felt hiccups yet, I realized later that I have in fact been feeling what are probably hiccups for some time now. I think he's still breech, but we'll find out for sure tomorrow. He put on quite a hyperactive display of wiggling, kicking, swatting, etc. last night for my husband.

This weekend, we head to IKEA (3+ hours away) to get some cheap dressers, bookshelves, and storage items. We're also going to visit some friends to borrow some baby items. And then I think we'll just be here for the next eight weeks. I can't believe it's that close - it's a bit frightening all of a sudden.

Your advice needed.

Next week, my mom's friends are throwing me a shower, as are some of my friends in SF. In each case, there are seven hostesses. The first group is all women around 60 years old, and the second group is all professional women (some moms, some not) in their mid-30s. Any ideas for nice/clever/cute thank-you gifts I could give them that won't (in aggregate) break the bank?

I forgot to mention the most exciting thing of all!

I am off the Z0fran! Which means I am off the C0lace! Which means my digestive system is back in working order - and how! Apparently, some people see a resurgence of nausea around 36 weeks, so I will keep the drugs on hand and enjoy the next six weeks.

I just had my OB appointment. Somehow, I was only up 1.5 lbs., so I am supposed to gain more weight - this is surprising to me, given how much I've been eating. My uterus measured at 28 weeks (not 30, which I am today or tomorrow, depending upon how you count), but the OB said that this didn't concern her. I suppose my next ultrasound will check that growth is okay.

The baby is still breech - apparently, he finds the pike position quite comfortable. Heartbeat was 154. Results from last time: I passed my one-hour glucola test with a score of 79, and my hematocrit level was 40%, which apparently is fine (to my dismay, given my diet and my lack of iron supplementation). My blood pressure today was 104 over 74. So everything looks good - I felt blissfully normal.

I saw someone from my prenatal aquatics class in the reception area. She'd failed her one-hour glucola test by a mere one point and was sitting there enduring her three-hour test. That would stink.

Next OB appt. and next ultrasound are both in two weeks.

Embryo Motel: Swimsuit Edition

Warning: shot of bare, heat-rashed belly appears later in this post.

So, unsurprisingly, Hawaii was great! We went to the Big Island, which is lovely. Our typical schedule: (1) wake up weirdly early, (2) work out in amazing open-air gym, (3) eat many, many things at the breakfast buffet, generally including fresh fruit, scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, dried mangoes, waffles, and more, (4) establish position in desirable cabana next to desirable pool, (5) read books in cabana, (6) eat lunch in cabana, (7) work out again, perhaps at a class at the fitness center pool, (8) take a walk along ocean, (9) nap, (10) take outdoor shower (a feature of our room), (11) eat dinner with in-laws, (12) read more, (13) go to sleep weirdly early.

I did get a heat rash all over my body on about day 2. You can kind of see it in this 29-week belly shot. Now that we're back in the winter climes of our home state, it seems to be subsiding. I think my belly has really popped out in the past week - it's either from a growing baby or the breakfast buffet. Or maybe from the rootbeer float I had for lunch one day - it included two generous scoops of Haa*gen-Dazs, which means like 93 grams of fat.

While there, we met this Brazilian model who was 3.5 months pregnant with twins. She was still incredibly thin (as well as 6' tall). AND she'd just found out that she was pregnant. For those out there who find themselves wanting to ask someone if their twins are "natural," I think the way you can actually more subtly find out (if you must, you nosy boob) is to listen to when the woman found out she was having twins - if she found out at 11+ weeks, then she probably wasn't doing IUI or IVF. I hope that this tip spares many twin moms the exasperation of having to answer whether twins run in the family or whether they "meant" to have twins. Gah! Anyway, this Brazilian chick made me feel very portly.

Thanks to local friends TLB and Brando for clearing our walks and watching our house during a hideous week of weather here. They are saints!

This week: another OB appointment, another therapist appointment, then off to visit the parents and some friends for a week. After that, my air travel is done!

Discuss amongst yourselves

Here's a question for the lucky ladies out there who have had success with fertility treatments after having had some failures. What do you think made the difference in the cycle that worked? Was it the treatment? Tweaking the treatment? Just landing on the right side of the odds? I've been meaning to ask this for a while.

For us, my best guess at what made IVF#3 (FET#1) work was that we had good-quality blastocysts. Cycle 1 had been unlucky, probably because of too few days of stimming. Cycle 2 was a bust because we put back day-3 embryos, whose quality doesn't have as much correlation to ongoing quality as day-5 quality does. But we got some good embryos there, and they finally got to bloom at day 5 during the FET. My back-up theory would be that the FET was just gentler. My back-up, back-up theory would be that I had a piss-poor attitude, which shows that positivity means jack-shit.

So, for you: what made the difference? I am leaving town today (I hope - bad weather is movin' in), but I will eagerly check back in on the responses.

OBGYNpalooza, day 2 (or: My Baby is Average)

Today's ultrasound revealed that my baby is breech, as usual. He is in a pike position with his feet up by his head. This explains why my bladder gets really whacked - he kicks it with his heels, I think. He is apparently 2.9 lbs, which puts him into the 55th percentile. The MFM doctor assured me that average is exactly where I want to be.

I had the MFM doctor look at my cervix on ultrasound, and I also had my OB inspect it in person. They concurred that it was high, tight, long, and closed. It had better be. It was so hard to get into that damned thing that at least I should enjoy the benefit of having it be hard for anything to get out. Anyway, I feel better about my long flights and my being far, far away from my team of experts.

The glucose tolerance test was, well, tolerable. They'll call today or tomorrow if I failed. I hope I didn't - the drink itself was palatable to me (as I have a sweet tooth), but it didn't feel great sitting there in my gullet afterwards.

Other stats: uterus is measuring a bit over 27 weeks, blood pressure was 113 over 62 (so somewhat higher than last time, but apparently not worrisome), and I was up a couple of lbs. I've decided to count my weight gain from my normal weight, so I am up 20 lbs now. That seems good, right, and just to me. They are checking my hematocrit level today as well - I hope that's all right, although I sort of doubt it, given my lack of iron consumption. I don't even take a prenatal vitamin, just a normal multi, since the idea of being even MORE constipated was a nonstarter for me.

OBGYNpalooza, day 1

Today, I had my appointment in the OB-GYN clinic with the psychiatrist who is an infertility/PPD specialist. I really liked her. She's probably younger than I am, like my OB, but I respect young people who have pursued one line of work and are thus quite qualified at this age to perform it (instead of being partially qualified to half-assedly pursue numerous lines of work, like me). We are going to have appointments every two weeks or so for a while, then we will ramp them up as my due date approaches. She's mostly focused on medication management, but I demanded therapy from her first.

Tomorrow, I have an ultrasound, the glucose-tolerance test, and my regular OB appointment. I have developed a fear/neurosis that I will go into preterm labor in Hawaii (or at 35,000 feet en route to or from), so I plan to have my cervix inspected for signs of misbehavior. I've had a few painful sensations while out walking the past couple of days, so my neurosis isn't as completely unfounded as it usually would be.

We leave in two days on our trip. Yay! Although it's finally warmed up here (from the snot-freezing cold we were experiencing just two weeks ago), I will be glad to experience some 85-degree days. I will also be glad to attack the breakfast buffet daily.

I'll be 28 weeks tomorrow. I will try to get another belly shot in before we go.

In other news, there have been a few BFPs out there in IF land lately, but I don't want to jinx anyone by naming names. So congrats to those who've received them, and lots of commiseration to those who haven't. And here's sending lots of easy labor vibes to Beth, who's suffered severe HG up until the bitter end but who will be induced tomorrow morning. May your labor be a breeze and may the nausea disappear as soon as LC debuts!

Nursery, Phase 1

As an exercise in resolving marital disputes, my husband and I assembled the crib this weekend. We are generally not good at assembling things together, as (a) we are both quite moronic when it comes to putting things together and (b) we have historically engaged in - ahem - snippy behavior when reacting to the stress that comes with being faced with one's own idiocy while in the presence of another. I am pleased to say that we assembled the crib, even though the instructions were far, FAR from illuminating. We only majorly fucked up one thing, and we managed to fix it.

Anyway, here it is - the nursery's first few items: the crib and mattress (only Tar.get's finest, naturally) and vaguely colonial-feeling rug (Over.stock.com). I had hankered after a friend's lovely modern nursery set from this company, but when I found that each piece was more than 1000 clams at a local retailer, I decided that frugality is best taught starting at birth. Will our son's first word be "IKEA"? It seems likely.

Ah, 2006.

Last weekend, we were collecting our tax forms. In this process, I separated out all of our 2006 medical bills, since it is possible that we'll hit the threshold to deduct our expenses. Here's a shot of the file of just the bills - not instructions, waivers, clinic materials, photos of doomed embryos, etc., which make up a folder about twice this size.

One thing seems likely, though - 2007 will (knock on wood) be cheaper in terms of medical bills for one key reason: Z0fran's patent expired, and it is now available as a generic, and generics are free under my insurance. Wahooooooo! I shared this news with the barista at our local (non-Starbucks) coffee joint, since she'd had eight months of hyperemesis with her son, who is now two. She practically wept with joy and said she'd now consider a second child. She'd had no insurance with the first, so she would save up $600 at a time to buy 10 full-priced Z0fran.

And this is the way I see it, Michele Johnson of Wamego, KS

You know how Starbucks cups have these little quotes from people on the sides? It's a series called "The Way I See It"? Yeah, I don't usually read them, either, but my cup today happened to catch my eye. Here's what #208 by Michele Johnson, a Starbucks customer from Wamego, Kansas, has to say. Allow me to apologize in advance for my reaction to it.

"I wish couples who desperately take every means to conceive a child would realize that adoption is a wonderful alternative. A child who becomes your child through adoption completes a family. Just as when you commit to your spouse or partner there are no biological ties, yet a family was formed. This child enters a family the same way! It is not blood and flesh that form a family, but the heart."

Thank you for your helpful insights, Michele, even though I would have put a comma after "partner." I don't even know where to start. First, who wants to bet that Michele has at least one biological child? Second, what's with the condescension? Does she think infertile couples don't realize adoption exists? Does she think that infertile couples think adoption is inherently odious? Does she think that people who do adopt have done so without trying anything else?

And then there's the word desperately. Yes, many infertile couples feel desperate - but the way it's used here is much more damning, much more patronizing, like You boob, can't you see how idiotic you look? And how about that lecture about what makes a family? Strong finish, Michele. Thank you for your helpful explanation. I'm sure Starbucks-drinking IVF patients everywhere will cast off their Folli.stim shackles, now that they've seen the light!

Discuss. Or respond.

OB report

My visit to the OB was uneventful. I had only gained one pound since last month, even though I am much larger. I think this is because last month's stats had included a robust weight gain, and also I'd eaten an XXL breakfast right beforehand, which wasn't true today. My total weight gain is hard to measure. If you go by my post-IVF weight, I am up 13 lbs. If you go by my normal weight, I am up 18 lbs. If you go by my hyperemesis low point, I am up 28 lbs. So many choices!

My blood pressure was good - 108 over 62. The little fellow's heartbeat was in the 140-152 range, and he kicked the ultrasound probe (I do think it had it coming). My uterus measured perfectly on target for 25 weeks. The nurse thinks my rib pain is just expanding ribs, and the cramping I get during exercise isn't a big deal as long as it goes away within 30 minutes (which it does). I get the glucose tolerance test in three weeks, as well as another ultrasound. Yippee! Actually the real "yippee!" is that the day after that appointment, we go to Hawaii for a week! Hooray!

Navel Gazing

WARNING: belly shots appear later in this post.

Well, I had lots of ideas for posts, but I wanted to wait to include them with a belly shot, and now of course I've forgotten what they were about.

I have now been to two prenatal aquatics classes - very enjoyable, if also very effective at producing scalding heartburn - and one prenatal yoga class. My prenatal yoga teacher is also a labor doula, which is good to know in case I decide I need one. As predicted, I was among the least flexible people in the class, but at least pregnancy is a good equalizer of flexibility - it narrows the distribution of talent, so while I was still in the bottom 20%, there wasn't the usual gaping abyss between the top 20% and the bottom 20%.

What's that you say? Yoga isn't supposed to be competitive? Yes, I realize that. I don't begrudge anyone else their flexibility, strength, balance, etc., but I do hate to be the worst person there.

Anyhoo, I have my monthly OB appointment tomorrow. Topics to discuss include a strange pain I have in my ribs (expanding uterus? bra too tight? cirrhosis?) and some occasional light cramping during my spins on the elliptical machine.

After eating my way across Omaha last weekend, my belly is now OUT. But my belly button remains deeply in. I swear, it may even be getting deeper, although What to Expect assures me that everyone's navel pops out. We'll see.

24 wks, 6 days. Enjoy!

PROFILE & FULL FRONTAL BELLY

Among the Fertiles

Last night, I went to my first prenatal aquatics class. It was rather enjoyable, but the two other people there (the instructor and a woman who's a regular at the class) were blithe fertiles with multiple other children already. I did not reveal myself to be as neurotic as I am, although they may have sensed it when they asked whether I would be doing a natural childbirth with the midwives (which they are), and I replied something to the effect of Ahem, I don't do anything reproductive without a team of expensively educated experts. (Speaking of experts, when we have to talk about the birds and the bees someday with our son, that story will begin: "First there was Mommy and Daddy - and a team of experts....") In any case, the class was fun, and it was enjoyable to be weightless and bouncing about in the pool to hyperkinetic remixes of "It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want to" and other classics. I start prenatal yoga later this week, which should be hilarious, given that I am less flexible than most men. Most ninety-three-year-old men.

In other news, I was solipsistically mulling over my symptoms so far, and I've determined that there are benefits to being someone who normally is absent-minded, pees frequently, sleeps poorly, has bizarre dreams, etc. - it means you don't even really notice severe effects of pregnancy! But there is an exception: clumsiness. Oh, I am definitely graceless normally, but I really have been dropping a lot of shit (not actual shit, mind you, which is still not dropped often enough, if you know what I mean). I don't know why it's so hard to hang onto things. Yesterday, I knocked a venti hot tea (fresh from the hot-water dispenser) all over my thigh, which resulted in five (5 ) blisters. Nice. And then I almost did the same damned thing today. I need a handler.

Today, I bought my very first nursery item: this rug from Overst0ck.com. I dislike blue stuff in the house (although I do frequently wear various shades of blue myself), so we're going with a cheerful yellow look and animal theme, I think - no going overboard on blue or, like, trucks until I'm sure that my kid digs that stuff, which isn't at all assured since I am probably secreting hormones to make him gay so that he will be especially devoted to his mommy. We'll also buy some IK.EA furniture, which will necessitate a trip into the Chicago suburbs, which I find harrowing in their indistinguishability (at least from a navigational standpoint). I was sure that my engaging in Internet commerce had doomed me when I felt a bit of a warm gush from my own personal South America, but nothing seems to have happened, and the little feller just keeps kicking me in the bladder.

Naming and Necessity

That's the title of a philosophy book that I can never hope to understand. Since I can't understand it, I am instead using the catchiness of the title to refer to the naming of offspring. (How banal!)

Some of you know me in real life, and you know that I have a very, very boring name. All three of my names are common. To provide some context, at nearly every place I have ever been educated or worked, there is someone else with my name - first and last names, and even sometimes first, middle, and last names. My name is the equivalent of, say, Emily Ann Smith.

At my first job, when I was a young professional, I once found that suddenly I was receiving no emails at all. What soon came to light was that a secretary in the London office had recently gotten married, and she had changed her name such that she was also now Emily Smith. The IT department had simply changed her email without checking to see whether anyone else already had emily.smith@thiscompany. I distinctly remember being on a business trip and calling the Help(less) Desk from a pay phone (this was before the days of widespread cell phone usage; I am old), trying to get them to change her email to something else, and they kept trying to tell me that I had to change my email now to emily.a.smith@thiscompany, which resulted in my blurting out, venomously, "But she's a secretary!" Yes, I sold out the sisterhood. I am not proud of this. But I got my email address back and she had to be emily.a.smith. Ha!

I didn't change my name when I got married. I wasn't inclined to do so to begin with, since even though my name is dull, I was rather used to it. Also, I often sign my emails with my initials, and I identify with those initials - some people even just call me by my initials. Moreover, my husband's last name, while less common, isn't really any more exciting. It's no Spinoza or Slater or Del Toro, no Hamburger or von Trapp or Boutros Ghali. His whole name isn't much more thrilling than mine - and he's a Junior. His mother tried to lobby us to name our little fellow the same name, and I didn't even pretend for a moment to consider it. I may have even said, Pish-tosh! or Poppycock!

What I'm getting at is that I feel a burden to name our son something interesting. But then I am afraid of naming him something too interesting, since that isn't my style, either. We've bounced around a few candidates, all of which will remain secret until he debuts (knock on wood). There were a couple of names that looked particularly promising - slightly left of center, just like us.

Well, in the past three weeks, friends of ours have stolen our names! (Okay, "stolen" isn't the right word, since we uncharacteristically hadn't breathed a word of our ideas to anyone, but you know what I mean.) First, my husband's ex-almost-stepsister named her son one of "our" names. Of the two names in question, this one struck me as much more likely to become fashionable, so I rolled with it. But then today I learned that our across-the-street neighbors (and fellow IVFers) named their son the second name, which I thought no one would ever come up with. All this goes to show that we are all breathing in the same influences, I suppose, and that resistance is futile. We will just have to pick a name we like, even if that means "taking" a name someone else has already used. (But, for the record, note that I would never steal someone's, like, family name or really unique name or anything like that.)

What are your thoughts on names (your own, your existing or prospective children's, or other people's)?

22 Weeks, 5 Days

Warning: belly shot appears later in this post.

I may have mentioned this before, but I am too lazy to check. I once saw a post on a "Pregnant After Infertility" message board that was to the effect of, "Does anyone wish they could hide their pregnancy until the end?", to which several people replied in the affirmative. At the time, I was kind of like, you've got to be kidding me, but now I am totally with that woman, whoever she was.

I am now officially outing myself at work, but I can't rid myself of the feeling that I am going to jinx everything by making it more real. I haven't ordered a single piece of baby gear yet, even though I recently learned that some things, like cribs, take a while to arrive. So I need to get on that. But, damn, I'm superstitious. I was emailing yesterday with a friend of mine who had a miscarriage not too long ago, and she was complaining about a mutual friend who had just announced her (effortless) pregnancy - inexplicably, this woman had had CVS done, but was telling everyone before the results came back. What's the point? Anyway, my friend who had the miscarriage said she wouldn't announce any future pregnancies until twenty weeks. You can get away with that on the first pregnancy, so I say go for it.

Anyway, what a difference a month makes - I now have a gut! See photo below. I was wearing a loose sweater on top, so I probably could have gotten away with just looking tubby, but I started telling work people today. I'm pregnant. It's still so odd to say.

Welcome advice

When I was on my recent travels, I solicited advice on parenting and how to survive it. I thought I would share what I had learned; if you have anything to dispute or add, please do.

- Sleep when the baby sleeps. (This one came from multiple sources.)
- Steal as much shit as you can at the hospital, such as infant-sized caps and swaddling blankets.
- If you're having a boy, you will learn a lot about insects and dinosaurs.
- When someone comes over to see the baby, let them help - don't try to host them.

There may have been more pieces of advice, but those are what I remember.

I realize I have been over-blogging lately, but never fear - I am about to leave town again for a few days in NYC for work, so things should calm down, unless some extra-late amnio result comes back or something.

Regular OB visits are very unsatisfying, since you don't even get to take off your pants.

First, let me say that my third wedding anniversary was yesterday. One thing that's bad about a January 3 anniversary is that it's right after the holidays and you're too wiped out to celebrate or exchange gifts, but of course that's also what's good about it. We were in bed reading by 8:20 - it was awesome. We did reminisce briefly about how friggin' drunk everyone was at our wedding, which we often cite as a point of pride. There were also at least five hookups, which is impressive for people in their thirties, don't you think? One of those couples is now engaged and planning a New Year's Eve 2007/08 wedding, extending the chain of love (we met at a NYE 2000/01 wedding).

In other news, I had another level II ultrasound today. I go to a huge teaching hospital, so there are always like 90 people in the room whenever I have anything done, and I seem to have established a rapport with one of the maternal-fetal medicine fellows. I feel that I am doing the various medical students, residents, and fellows a service by demonstrating how an overeducated, neurotic, infertile patient behaves. These doctors-in-training will be well equipped to take positions at clinics in affluent urban areas and college towns all over America.

The ultrasound itself was good. The technician was very verbal and helpful, showing me my baby's ass, brain, bladder, stomach, legs, perfect feet, hands, and nose, as well as my placenta, which is apparently very attractive. The baby was breech and I expect that he will choose that position again later on, since that's the way things go around here. The MFM doctor was not my regular doctor, but thankfully the stalwart fellow was there to provide continuity. They thought things looked fine, but they also grilled me for info as to what the UCSF people had said, which doesn't exactly inspire confidence. They agreed to schedule me for more ultrasounds to check the baby's growth - I'll get another in late February and then another at 34 weeks. Yay for me!

I then went to my regular OB appointment, which was - how shall I put this? - both quick and boring. Not much happens at regular OB appointments, you know? You pee into a cup; they check your blood pressure (111/67 today); they make you get on a scale (I'm now 10 lbs up); they measure your uterus (21 somethings - cms?); and they listen to the heartbeat (ranged from 150-163). It all takes about five minutes, and you don't even have to take off your shoes, much less your maternity jeans. I did manage to extend my visit for an extra two minutes since I needed to find out whether my OB had strong-armed my way into an appointment with the infertility/PPD specialist, and she did! I go in in late February. I wish I could have seen this woman during the throes of IVF, but I'll take what I can get.