Tag Archives: Pregnancy

Womb preparation, roofing, bi/trilingualism & luvin hockey

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here we have snippets from the past 3 weeks:

  • My mama is home. Yippee! After three months gone taking care of my ill Pepe in Florida we are very happy to have her home. I missed missed missed her.
  • We are getting ready physically, mentally and spiritually for a little babe. Or, as I told my baby brother…”I am getting my womb ready”. He subsequently freaked and said “please don’t say that word…it’s way to close to the ovaries”.
  • I experienced a few days of euphoric relief when we learned Adam’s cousin (he was our best man) is having twin boys. You see, Adam’s Dad often prophesies and many years ago said I would have twin boys and I thought briefly that maybe he just saw the wrong person…Adam’s mom says no, though..it was me with the twin boys. That frightens the living daylights out of me and I would be lying if I did not admit that it hasn’t played a teensy role in us not multiplying as of yet.
  • I met with our accountant today and left smiling brightly. We will be getting a refund big enough to roof half of our home! What about the other half, you may ask? We haven’t figured that part out yet…taking any and all suggestions…
  • Our niece Rebecca is a senior this year and is still shooting to go IVY. She has had a phone interview by Columbia and a personal interview with both Harvard and Princeton!!!! Holy Crapola~we are so proud of her and hope she gets in.
  • I’ve decided I need to learn to knit. I’m not sure why~maybe it has something to do with getting the womb ready. Adam was with me at one of my medical conferences last week and my “teach yourself to knit” book and needles and yarn were there and wouldn’t ya know it….he taught himself while I was at the conference and now he is teaching me. He is such a manly man. A studly man.
  • I am learning Haitian Creole via a ten lesson system on cds. I’m a mess. Between the french that is shockingly still back there in the brain still from high school and the spanish I use in my practice now I can’t figure out what I’m saying half the time. Today I mastered how to say “I understand a little Haitian Creole” and “I am American”.
  • For the first real time I have been seriously devastated that we do not have tv. I would love to be watching the Olympics. While we were actually in a hotel WITH tv at my conference the only thing on EVERY freakin’ channel was crud about Tiger Woods….spare me and everyone else! We were able to illegally watch the US vs. Canada Hockey game last Sunday and it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Having grown up on the ice, I have a special spot in my heart for hockey but that game was great and I can’t wait to see who we will play in the finals!
  • One final thing….I did see some bobsledding while at my mom’s for supper this week and have decided that my family is made for bobsledding. IE: physically. We have the same calves and thighs those guys do so I’ve put a call out to my siblings but so far no one has stepped up and volunteered to start traininng with me. Bummer.

Open mouth…put foot in

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So…on Saturday night we went out to supper after State Volleyball with my family. This included Grandpa Jake. He isn’t really a grandpa but he IS a part of our family. He has ALWAYS been there for ALL of us. He attends every important event in all of our lives. A wonderful and reliable man. He has three kids of his own and 7, soon to be 8 grandchildren. His oldest, the one that is currently pregnant is my age.

We are sitting at the restaurant and visiting about his kids and grandchildren and about how Kendra (his eldest daughter) will be having her fourth child. He then says, well you know…she is getting kind of up there to be having a baby. The entire table got quiet. I AM NOT KIDDING YOU. Even my nieces and nephews. My mother, sister, husband…all of them turned and looked at me. He just kept on’a eatin’. Poor guy didn’t realize what he said.

Then, it kicked in….and the back peddlin’ started….rapidly might I say. But, I still feel old. My eggs and uterus feels old.

The elderly mother, part deux

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I guess the decision HAS been made that we DO want a baby in our life (this should make our mothers glad). I get to deliver babies in my job. I get to play a huge role in the mama’s labor. I act kind of like a doula and after each delivery I go home and tell Adam how awesome it was and how gorgeous the baby was. If it is in the middle of the night when he feels me come back to bed it has become habit for him to roll over and say…”what’d they have?”.

I long to feel the wiggly movements in my belly and to see Adam look into the eyes of our baby. But….there is always a but, isn’t there? Well, you see…there are a few things.

First off, we (I especially) continue to be frightened at how this will change our lives. It will definitely be monumental I am sure. Adam’s father (who some think of as a prophet) had a dream once that we had twin boys. Aacckk!! Not a conversation occurs where we don’t talk about the, “what if we have twin boys” because lets face it, folks…he could very well be right on! Can you see us with twin boys?! Yeah, right.

Next is the reality that we HAVE been married for 13 years and while we haven’t been actively trying we have never conceived as of yet. Hmmmm, could it be a problem? Have you ever noticed how people who really shouldn’t have kids seem to pop them out left and right and the ones that would be fabulous parents seem to struggle a lot of the time? Frustrating. I mean, come on people…we have to have a license to drive a car but anyone that wants can have a kid?!

And, darnit…when it comes right down to it…I REALLY don’t want to be an elderly mother. So, essentially this means that in order for me to deliver by my 35th birthday (assuming the provider would let me go to 42 weeks before induction if necessary~I know, I know…details, details)…we need to make a baby by September 4, 2010. You see, this way I won’t have to check that little “advanced maternal age” box. Not that it really matters…

Me? An elderly mother…

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It is common knowledge that Adam and I have struggled over the years about whether we should have children and if so, when, etc… We always said we wanted to have them probably but wanted to early enough in our lives that they’d be out of the house by the time we are 50 (don’t ask where that number came from). Therefore, we’d need to start a family by the time we were 32…at the latest!

Well, lets just put it this way…err, we are past 32 now. Looking back I know that Adam would have loved 16 kids within the first year of our marriage. The man is a kid-magnet. He LOVES them. I, on the other hand have always worried about my abilities to mother and also wanted to get my career going (the age-old career first, family second..yada yada yada). He is a very patient man, to say the least as we have now been married for 13 years, and yet…still no babies.

Over the years, though he has also changed. We have blissfully traveled whenever we like, gone where we like and whenever we like, etc. We veg out on weekends, eat crap for supper (often) and just basically have learned to take care of just ourselves. More than once Adam has said he doesn’t know if he can imagine having children now, that he likes being able to just pick up and go, etc. So over the years he started having doubts. Throw his doubts in with my doubts and there you have it…13 years of marriage, two dogs and three cats.

We have been doing some SERIOUS talking though lately. First off every time I have a tummy ache I tell him ah, it’s just my uterus aging. Now, he knows that menopause can run early in my family (and I mean like late 30’s early) and so this bothers him.

Secondly I am concerned about my age and complications that may arise because of it. For any of you women out there that have had a baby you had to likely answer a gazillion questions at your first obstetric visit. Heck, I ask the same ones to my patients all the time. Well, you know the little box that says: will you be age 35 or older at the time of delivery? Yeah, ahhh…that is the very box that is bothering me.

They used to call you an elderly mother if you were 35 or older at the time of delivery. Thank goodness they have changed the terminology! Now, you are simply called one of “advanced maternal age”. Yes it sounds much less ominous but it does come with challenges. Genetic abnormalities definitely increase with each year of the mother’s age and because of this they want to do an amniocentesis. Just this week I learned off the increase in the rate of still birth in mom’s of advanced maternal age when they go past 39 weeks of pregnancy. Geesh!

I’ve more to write but have to get going now so check back later for the rest of my thoughts!

Lost in the delivery room

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As you probably know I have a passion for obstetrics. This is most probably the highlight of my practice. I am blessed to be able to not only provide prenatal care to these women but when they go into labor I “get” to labor by their side with their support person. There is nothing more beautiful than watching a woman find her own rhythm to get through labor and to deliver an amazing baby.

I am also blessed to happen to have a partner that will allow me to deliver the child with his hands near of course! Maybe I was meant to be a nurse midwife. I’ve been looking into this even more as of recent and could possibly see this in the future (wayyyyy future!).

I have to, however question my ability after a recent dream. You see, I dreampt that I lost the laboring mother in the delivery room. I couldn’t find her. She was about to deliver and I was freaking to put it mildly. Well, one may ask…how can you lose a person in the delivery room?

That’s just it…she wasn’t an ordinary patient. The patient was a caterpillar. Yep! You read right. So, I bolted up from a dead sleep freaked out and could never fall back asleep. I mean..what the heck?! How could I not psychoanalyze myself a little (back to the ole’ freudian days). Later that morning when we were rounding and seeing patients at the hospital I told my partners about it. We happened to have a medical student and he was listening intently. After I told my story I looked at him and said, Danny-what do you think it means? His response was classic and fast…”maybe some of your patients are bugging you”.

End of story…Danny figured it out. Thanks, Danny.