I keep not writing about something. Lots of somethings. I want people to like me. I want to be normal. I don't want to be the weird lady who writes scary things and freaks you all out.
But I am scary. Not normal.
A little over a year and half ago Julius was born. And it was not a good delivery. It was horrifying and terrifying and there is not one good memory I have of it. Nothing clear anyway.
My husband broke down crying and told me something about that delivery a while ago. The docs and nurses were there checking my IV and my epidural drugs, because I was screaming and it wasn't normal contractions, but there was no blood, nothing out of the ordinary. No one knew what was happening.
He said that I was screaming and begging to die. Then my head fell back silent.
And then I did.
Die.
No heart rate, no BP, no nothing, on me, and the baby too. Zip.
I thought I passed out, but when I looked on the hospital records, turns out, I was dead.
He says people starting pumping on my chest, and I have a vague sense of noise and chaos. I also remember feeling the cold scalpel across my skin. I thought I said, "May I have some painkiller?" Then nothing but blackness. It was probably a dream. The records say I was unresponsive, so I guess that means not talking.
I felt myself being moved, shaken, talked too. I know they got me breathing and said I had a placental abruption. I lost huge amounts of blood, almost all the blood in my body. They had no clue I had abrupted until they did the crash section.
The baby was born dead. They suctioned him and gave him oxygen and he was alive. Just like that. Dead. Alive. Like throwing a switch.
The OR looked like a crime scene afterwards, the senior resident looked like he had been punched, and my OB actually cried and begged me never to get pregnant again.
The placental pathology report? I stopped the heparin at 34 weeks, and delivered at 38. In that 4 weeks, my formerly "beautiful" placenta became half dead, shrunken, calcified, covered in clots and barely attached to my uterus. The pathologist said it was likely to have abrupted at any time. Or just stopped working completely. Maybe throwing a clot and killing me and Julius.
There is no white light by the way. In case you were wondering. It's not like in the movies. Since I've been dead and all I get to say that.
He's fine now. I'm fine. We're just fine.
But I'm really not. And I have no idea where to go from here.
Not a fucking clue.
Showing posts with label Grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grief. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Monday, April 27, 2009
For Red Canuck
Red Tory seems to have beaten me to it, but so what, this needs to be repeated many many times, so please link to this, and tweet and retweet it and do whatever needs to be done to spread the word.
Our friend, and member of Liblogs, Red Canuck, is dying of terminal cancer. He had fought it before and beat it, but it has come back and he has posted a farewell. One of the things he asked his readers to do in his goodbye post, is to register as a bone marrow donor with Canadian Blood Services.
You can go here to One Match and register if you are Canadian, or here to register if you are American. This is where you can find some international registries.
Red Canuck, for those of you who didn't read him, is from Vancouver. He's kind and witty and by the way a Doctor as well. He managed to skewer his opponents and make us all laugh along the way, so I this is kind of fitting.
For those of you who medically don't qualify for donations....give money. Did you know that the Canadian Health Care System does not cover all the costs of testing and recruiting donors? Transplants are free and donors and recipients pay nothing, but other costs incurred in maintaining the list and running Canadian Blood Services must be covered by private donations. Something I think should change. A publicly funded cord blood bank with stem cells for use by everyone young and old wouldn't be too shabby either. (Yes, this paragraph is intended to be a big ol' hint to political types reading it, could you guess? Not everyone has a spare $1200 bucks to freeze and store cord blood.)
Canadian Blood Services by the way is the national organization that provided the blood that saved my life after my crash c-section and Julius' birth. I've been waiting until after I finish breastfeeding to repay them a few pints. I figure I owe them, right?
So after I register as a marrow donor, I'm going to start figuring when I can go and split open a vein. In the meantime, if any of you would like to give a pint or two, or register as a bone marrow donor, it would really warm the cockles of my heart, and the heart of a very nice guy and his family.
Thanks! ;)
Our friend, and member of Liblogs, Red Canuck, is dying of terminal cancer. He had fought it before and beat it, but it has come back and he has posted a farewell. One of the things he asked his readers to do in his goodbye post, is to register as a bone marrow donor with Canadian Blood Services.
You can go here to One Match and register if you are Canadian, or here to register if you are American. This is where you can find some international registries.
Red Canuck, for those of you who didn't read him, is from Vancouver. He's kind and witty and by the way a Doctor as well. He managed to skewer his opponents and make us all laugh along the way, so I this is kind of fitting.
For those of you who medically don't qualify for donations....give money. Did you know that the Canadian Health Care System does not cover all the costs of testing and recruiting donors? Transplants are free and donors and recipients pay nothing, but other costs incurred in maintaining the list and running Canadian Blood Services must be covered by private donations. Something I think should change. A publicly funded cord blood bank with stem cells for use by everyone young and old wouldn't be too shabby either. (Yes, this paragraph is intended to be a big ol' hint to political types reading it, could you guess? Not everyone has a spare $1200 bucks to freeze and store cord blood.)
Canadian Blood Services by the way is the national organization that provided the blood that saved my life after my crash c-section and Julius' birth. I've been waiting until after I finish breastfeeding to repay them a few pints. I figure I owe them, right?
So after I register as a marrow donor, I'm going to start figuring when I can go and split open a vein. In the meantime, if any of you would like to give a pint or two, or register as a bone marrow donor, it would really warm the cockles of my heart, and the heart of a very nice guy and his family.
Thanks! ;)
Monday, January 19, 2009
I'm on twitter, although I am still not one of the cool kids, but I'm getting there.
This is me, here. I've left it open for now, so if you want to follow me, go for it, but I can't promise anything profound. More likely lame. I have to say that the nicest feature of Twitter is that you can see exactly who is following you, unlike with blogs where anyone can subscribe or click and secretly lurk.
Which reminds me, it's De-Lurking week, so come on out people!!!
(Okay, that was last week or the week before, but so what, I'm a day late and a dollar short all the time...you expected fast on this?)
I have likely gained back a few pounds. My darling evil husband decided that if I had one beer, he should buy me a bottle of wine, and tempted me with many many sugary treats. So I cheated, and now I am getting back on the wagon sugar wise. A little is fine, but not this much.
I was very disturbed to read this story. I thought that things were getting better, but I guess not. This happens too often people, for women going through stillbirths and miscarriages. I remember telling some politicians and staff about this issue and they didn't believe me. They figured it was just more raving from the crazy dead baby lady. Not quite. At the end it talks about the laundry staff having to be treated for shock. Yeah, I'll bet. PTSD, nightmares, depression, flashbacks.
The trauma is overwhelming.
Trust me, I know.
This is me, here. I've left it open for now, so if you want to follow me, go for it, but I can't promise anything profound. More likely lame. I have to say that the nicest feature of Twitter is that you can see exactly who is following you, unlike with blogs where anyone can subscribe or click and secretly lurk.
Which reminds me, it's De-Lurking week, so come on out people!!!
(Okay, that was last week or the week before, but so what, I'm a day late and a dollar short all the time...you expected fast on this?)
I have likely gained back a few pounds. My darling evil husband decided that if I had one beer, he should buy me a bottle of wine, and tempted me with many many sugary treats. So I cheated, and now I am getting back on the wagon sugar wise. A little is fine, but not this much.
I was very disturbed to read this story. I thought that things were getting better, but I guess not. This happens too often people, for women going through stillbirths and miscarriages. I remember telling some politicians and staff about this issue and they didn't believe me. They figured it was just more raving from the crazy dead baby lady. Not quite. At the end it talks about the laundry staff having to be treated for shock. Yeah, I'll bet. PTSD, nightmares, depression, flashbacks.
The trauma is overwhelming.
Trust me, I know.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
The reason I won't answer my doorbell today
This happens regularly to women who lose a pregnancy under 20 weeks gestation in Canada, at least according to my support group. It doesn't happen to women in Massachusetts or California or any of the other pro-choice states that have managed to write a law determining what should happen to fetal remains, literally thus: all women undergoing a D&C or a natural miscarriage or whatever, sign documents stating what they would like the pathology department to do after they do their mandatory examination of the contents of the uterus: either dispose of the remains as hospital waste, bury the remains as part of a compassionate hospital program, or help the woman to make arrangements of her own with a funeral home.
Those states respect all choices, even ones they don't understand.
No one respected my choice.
No one has the right to traumatize a patient and violate their rights. Ever.
I think I'll just leave the house and not be home today.
Those states respect all choices, even ones they don't understand.
No one respected my choice.
No one has the right to traumatize a patient and violate their rights. Ever.
I think I'll just leave the house and not be home today.
Monday, November 10, 2008
This could be hilarious, or not
I have had an anxiety ridden week, and today didn't help. I spent the morning trying to get the final reports for the kid's schools. (For that much freakin' money, you'd think typos would be verboten, no? Guess not.) My nanny called in sick at the last minute and Julius is teething and cranky and tired. Plus, I was still recovering from my overindulgence Saturday night at a friends' cocktail party, which is a hell of a story actually.
I had only had a glass or twoish to drink and was gossiping and laughing and enjoying myself until I made the mistake of talking politics with two young obnoxious Liberal types. After that conversation I HAD to get hammered.
Don't get me wrong, I was once a young Liberal, and I certainly had my moments, but honestly, these two were beyond reason.
First they were startled to hear that I knew their former political boss, since they figured I was some nobody mommy, and was good friends with a staffer they worked with, then----they actually had the fucking nerve to start putting down my friends job, acting like she was beneath them! Meanwhile, the friend in question is a hell of a lot more senior than them, and still employed there. Best part---when they lectured me on the job titles and responsibilities as if I was some moron who'd never stepped inside Queen's Park.
Such class. Amazing she's unemployed, eh?
It got better. I won't say which exact Leadership campaign they were with, but they were with either the Micheal Ignatieff campaign or the Bob Rae campaign. You guess. It will be difficult, you see both sides are once again pursuing a scorched earth policy in their desperation to win. The top guys themselves profess to be friends and are willing to vote for each other if the other falls off, but who's kidding who. Based on what I'm witnessing---these guys forgot to inform their devoted followers.
"Oh you can't vote for so and so, he's a [ insert hack hack hack, vicious dig, nasty rumour, shitty comment, mean-spirited name-calling ]."
As I told those two incredulous teenage louts, if you want my vote, you have to give me a reason to vote for your candidate. I will burn my ballot before I vote for someone who only hacks the other guy. We set up an entire leadership process based on everyone having to get along, because you want the other candidates second ballot support. Being nasty about your opponents is the surest way to lose with this process, which by the way, is why they lost last time.
So once again, Iggy and Bob are going to screw themselves. Sigh---I am so sick of hearing about how they each deserve to win just because:
a. they have highbrow parents and grandparents and brothers and pedigrees (this one drives me round the bend. I just have this visceral reaction, and I start yelling, "You aren't better than me you fuckers") Not a logical reaction, but the one I can't get rid of. It likely stems from the whole bastard unmarried parents raised in poverty thing, but it could just be that I'm not an imperalist.)
b. they were supposed to win last time. (WTF? I missed the secret voting koolaid, sorry.)
c. if they had won leadership last time, then we would have won the election. (HAH, double HAH, the Tories had $30 million dollars to blow on ads and to hire the most vicious Republican campaign consultants money can buy, and honey, for $30 mill, those guys can make you think your own grandmother is a serial killer. It will happen to everyone who runs. Except Jesus. By-the-by, did I tell you the rumour that Mary wasn't really a virgin? New ad: Alleged Terrorist and insurrectionist Jesus Hussein Christ seen pallin' around with slutty teen. There are Youtube videos! P0rn!)
d. They "look like" Prime Ministers. (Umm, I think Obama may be rewriting that rule dudes.)
Anyway, I can actually forget all this and move on, if any of the leadership candidates, Bob or Iggy, or whomever runs, can tell me why I should vote for them in the future. Like, screw the past, what have you done for me lately?
Like are any of them willing to pull an Obama and put forth a bill on Stillbirth Research and data gathering? Considering we have some of the poorest statistics gathering on maternal-fetal health in the world it might be reasonable to say--count them. We count cancer tumours and bacteria through public health. We track them like mad. But pregnancy loss? Oh no, must keep head in sand. Barack Obama, in the middle of running for President, sponsored that bill in the Senate. He isn't afraid of deadbaby mamas.
So maybe this time, when I pitch each and every one of the candidates on infertility and pregnancy care and maternal infant fetal health, they could stop and think and respond a little. Instead of running away freaking out, "Ahhhhh, dead baby lady, ahhhhhhhh" I mean, it's not infectious.
Anyway, this should be an interesting ride. Convention is in May, in Vancouver. At minimum, I'm going to get to meet some of my fave bloggers. I'll keep you all updated about the reactions I get to my pitches.
I can see it now, "Hi, I'm Aurelia, and if you want my vote, we have to talk about vaginas, and I'm sorry to say, not in the fun way." Yep, they'll be lining up to see me, hehe.
I had only had a glass or twoish to drink and was gossiping and laughing and enjoying myself until I made the mistake of talking politics with two young obnoxious Liberal types. After that conversation I HAD to get hammered.
Don't get me wrong, I was once a young Liberal, and I certainly had my moments, but honestly, these two were beyond reason.
First they were startled to hear that I knew their former political boss, since they figured I was some nobody mommy, and was good friends with a staffer they worked with, then----they actually had the fucking nerve to start putting down my friends job, acting like she was beneath them! Meanwhile, the friend in question is a hell of a lot more senior than them, and still employed there. Best part---when they lectured me on the job titles and responsibilities as if I was some moron who'd never stepped inside Queen's Park.
Such class. Amazing she's unemployed, eh?
It got better. I won't say which exact Leadership campaign they were with, but they were with either the Micheal Ignatieff campaign or the Bob Rae campaign. You guess. It will be difficult, you see both sides are once again pursuing a scorched earth policy in their desperation to win. The top guys themselves profess to be friends and are willing to vote for each other if the other falls off, but who's kidding who. Based on what I'm witnessing---these guys forgot to inform their devoted followers.
"Oh you can't vote for so and so, he's a [ insert hack hack hack, vicious dig, nasty rumour, shitty comment, mean-spirited name-calling ]."
As I told those two incredulous teenage louts, if you want my vote, you have to give me a reason to vote for your candidate. I will burn my ballot before I vote for someone who only hacks the other guy. We set up an entire leadership process based on everyone having to get along, because you want the other candidates second ballot support. Being nasty about your opponents is the surest way to lose with this process, which by the way, is why they lost last time.
So once again, Iggy and Bob are going to screw themselves. Sigh---I am so sick of hearing about how they each deserve to win just because:
a. they have highbrow parents and grandparents and brothers and pedigrees (this one drives me round the bend. I just have this visceral reaction, and I start yelling, "You aren't better than me you fuckers") Not a logical reaction, but the one I can't get rid of. It likely stems from the whole bastard unmarried parents raised in poverty thing, but it could just be that I'm not an imperalist.)
b. they were supposed to win last time. (WTF? I missed the secret voting koolaid, sorry.)
c. if they had won leadership last time, then we would have won the election. (HAH, double HAH, the Tories had $30 million dollars to blow on ads and to hire the most vicious Republican campaign consultants money can buy, and honey, for $30 mill, those guys can make you think your own grandmother is a serial killer. It will happen to everyone who runs. Except Jesus. By-the-by, did I tell you the rumour that Mary wasn't really a virgin? New ad: Alleged Terrorist and insurrectionist Jesus Hussein Christ seen pallin' around with slutty teen. There are Youtube videos! P0rn!)
d. They "look like" Prime Ministers. (Umm, I think Obama may be rewriting that rule dudes.)
Anyway, I can actually forget all this and move on, if any of the leadership candidates, Bob or Iggy, or whomever runs, can tell me why I should vote for them in the future. Like, screw the past, what have you done for me lately?
Like are any of them willing to pull an Obama and put forth a bill on Stillbirth Research and data gathering? Considering we have some of the poorest statistics gathering on maternal-fetal health in the world it might be reasonable to say--count them. We count cancer tumours and bacteria through public health. We track them like mad. But pregnancy loss? Oh no, must keep head in sand. Barack Obama, in the middle of running for President, sponsored that bill in the Senate. He isn't afraid of deadbaby mamas.
So maybe this time, when I pitch each and every one of the candidates on infertility and pregnancy care and maternal infant fetal health, they could stop and think and respond a little. Instead of running away freaking out, "Ahhhhh, dead baby lady, ahhhhhhhh" I mean, it's not infectious.
Anyway, this should be an interesting ride. Convention is in May, in Vancouver. At minimum, I'm going to get to meet some of my fave bloggers. I'll keep you all updated about the reactions I get to my pitches.
I can see it now, "Hi, I'm Aurelia, and if you want my vote, we have to talk about vaginas, and I'm sorry to say, not in the fun way." Yep, they'll be lining up to see me, hehe.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
October 15th
Before I go to sleep I just wanted to say that yes I have been thinking of my own lost babies and all of yours today. For more information go see www.october15th.com or check out Antigone's blog for more about Pregnancy and Infant loss Awareness Day.
Go Obama Go! I finally have politician who cares about stillbirth so maybe we can all get him elected and working for women's health.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
heh
Now this is funny. I'm getting good at it though. High Scores!
*For my American friends, a Conservative cabinet minister made a black humour crack about the listeriosis scandal in Canada, saying that it was like the death of a thousand cuts, a thousand cold cuts. He thought it was private. Not so much. Anyway, I'm betting he regrets that conversation now. Especially when the grieving relatives slam him.
updated: holy crap....the tories really don't have much respect for grieving families like the family of the guy on the bus do they? Firing the crazy candidate is a bit late people....
So my question is, at some point if enough Tory candidates resign, will there be enough MPs left to form a government if they won? Seriously, the buggers are dropping like flies at this point.
*For my American friends, a Conservative cabinet minister made a black humour crack about the listeriosis scandal in Canada, saying that it was like the death of a thousand cuts, a thousand cold cuts. He thought it was private. Not so much. Anyway, I'm betting he regrets that conversation now. Especially when the grieving relatives slam him.
updated: holy crap....the tories really don't have much respect for grieving families like the family of the guy on the bus do they? Firing the crazy candidate is a bit late people....
So my question is, at some point if enough Tory candidates resign, will there be enough MPs left to form a government if they won? Seriously, the buggers are dropping like flies at this point.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
For all of you
Thank you thank you thank you for each of your comments and lovely kindnesses. A special thank you goes out to Lisa B for coming with me to Matthew's gravesite, tidying up the grass that had grown over it, and helping me remove the dirt that had fallen into the letters on his headstone.
I want it to look nice---I can't do much for him, but I can do that.
Toronto Life has a feature on bereavement blogs and newer traditions around mourning this month. You can see the cover here, but unfortunately it won't be online for awhile. Go buy it if you can, it's a really really good article.
That's all for now folks, I have to go look over some preliminary plans for my new house. So far, I'm not sure the architect understood what we wanted, but then again, I haven't emailed the man in two weeks, so he probably thought we fell off the earth!
Time to get the pencils out....
I want it to look nice---I can't do much for him, but I can do that.
Toronto Life has a feature on bereavement blogs and newer traditions around mourning this month. You can see the cover here, but unfortunately it won't be online for awhile. Go buy it if you can, it's a really really good article.
That's all for now folks, I have to go look over some preliminary plans for my new house. So far, I'm not sure the architect understood what we wanted, but then again, I haven't emailed the man in two weeks, so he probably thought we fell off the earth!
Time to get the pencils out....
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Ten years ago today
Ten years ago today, my son died.
You can read about it here and here and here.
I'd like to say that I'm able to dedicate my entire day to thinking about him and looking at his pictures, but I can't do much because the living kids are demanding my attention.
Mac's first day of school is today, and Kaz left for some sort of male bonding thing with school, (all the grade 7's go away for a few days to get to know each other and start off the school year.) And Julius wants to be fed and cuddled and hugged and play with me.
I am going to go visit his grave now, and tidy it up, and leave some flowers.
Sometimes it feels like yesterday and sometimes it feels like a million years ago. Mostly, it just feels like it happened to someone else.
I never thought I would terminate a pregnancy. No one ever does I guess.
You can read about it here and here and here.
I'd like to say that I'm able to dedicate my entire day to thinking about him and looking at his pictures, but I can't do much because the living kids are demanding my attention.
Mac's first day of school is today, and Kaz left for some sort of male bonding thing with school, (all the grade 7's go away for a few days to get to know each other and start off the school year.) And Julius wants to be fed and cuddled and hugged and play with me.
I am going to go visit his grave now, and tidy it up, and leave some flowers.
Sometimes it feels like yesterday and sometimes it feels like a million years ago. Mostly, it just feels like it happened to someone else.
I never thought I would terminate a pregnancy. No one ever does I guess.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Why I keep blogging about this
So, my newest bet is that in actuality, Sarah Palin is trying to be the new Michelle Duggar.
Frankly, I think that she has confused the Vice-Presidency of the United States with the Jerry Springer Show, or maybe she thinks it's some sort of new reality series?
So now that we know that Bristol is the one who is pregnant right now, I'm left with a couple of conclusions to choose from.
Either:
1) Irish Twins: Bristol is the mother of both, and got pregnant very very quickly after having Trig. So what about the 5 months pregnant? We all know that the 2ww means that she is really 4.5 months along, and the way teenagers ovulate she could have conceived no problem right away. A week leeway here and there---and who knows what the truth is. Maybe the family started the fake pregnancy because Bristol and her boyfriend have no health insurance and so the baby would have no health insurance if she was the mom. And the last thing on earth anyone wants is for a kid with Down's Syndrome to have no health insurance in the United States.
So the possibility exists that a current Governor of the US and possibly the next Vice President of the United States has committed insurance fraud and faked a birth certificate.
Or:
2) Bristol is pregnant now, but is not the mother of Trig, meaning that abstinence education really is a terrible idea. And her mother is an ass for accepting the Veep nomination under these circumstances and exposing her to this hell. If Sarah is the mother of Trig, then I go back to my original post on this subject, and she took extremely dangerous risks with her baby when she travelled 22 hours back to Alaska while in preterm labour with broken water.
And that leads to the conclusion that either Sarah Palins is an utterly incompetent mother who didn't take care of her pregnancy, or that even after four pregnancies she is too stupid to know that broken water and preterm labour mean that she should immediately go to a hospital. If her Doctor told her it was okay to fly, then he/she should be sued for malpractice, since so far, I can't find one perinatologist who thinks that is anything but insane. (And fwiw, I asked my own Doc, who laughed and wondered aloud if Palin was trying to take the roundabout way out and end the baby's life without getting an official abortion, because really, what she did---is that medically ludicrous.)
So the US is left with a VP candidate who is either a crook or an idiot. Lovely.
Obama's response was not only to be expected, but in my opinion, totally appropriate. Not because his mom was 18 when she had him, but because he has daughters himself, and they may be small now, but they are about to grow up and be teens in the middle of his White House term. You just know that since TV reporters began noticing the kids of Presidents the single biggest nightmare of every political strategist is a First Daughter getting into trouble, whether that means drugs, or pregnancy, or bad boyfriends, or God only knows what.
Patti Davis gave Reagan's advisors ulcers, and Chelsea scared the crap out of everyone, not to mention the Bush twins. So yeah, Obama is right to worry. The Secret Service has their jobs cut out for them.
So why do I keep going on about Palin?
Because this woman and her pro-life buddies think that women like Cecily and I should be dead, and have told me so, in comments and by email. I respect Sarah Palin's choice to not have an abortion, but she sure doesn't respect my choice to have one.
She thinks live women should just have died. So fuck her, the gloves are off.
Tomorrow is the ten year anniversary of Matthew's death, and this week is very difficult for me. Next week on the 7th, it is the fourth anniversary of Georgia's death. I admit it, I'm sensitive. I just can't help but contrast the care I took with my pregnancy with him, even when we didn't know if we were going to terminate, with her casual disregard for her baby's welfare. I was told to never be further away than 15 minutes from a hospital that could handle a high-risk pregnancy and had a level 3 NICU. And I did that, even when it meant cancelling work obligations and being unable to take care of my older son.
We in the infertililty/baby loss community have sacrificed so so much to have our families and she, a woman who condemns me and trumpets her pro-life beliefs, can't do the same? And I'm supposed to hold my tongue and not jump on the scandal?
No way.
Frankly, I think that she has confused the Vice-Presidency of the United States with the Jerry Springer Show, or maybe she thinks it's some sort of new reality series?
So now that we know that Bristol is the one who is pregnant right now, I'm left with a couple of conclusions to choose from.
Either:
1) Irish Twins: Bristol is the mother of both, and got pregnant very very quickly after having Trig. So what about the 5 months pregnant? We all know that the 2ww means that she is really 4.5 months along, and the way teenagers ovulate she could have conceived no problem right away. A week leeway here and there---and who knows what the truth is. Maybe the family started the fake pregnancy because Bristol and her boyfriend have no health insurance and so the baby would have no health insurance if she was the mom. And the last thing on earth anyone wants is for a kid with Down's Syndrome to have no health insurance in the United States.
So the possibility exists that a current Governor of the US and possibly the next Vice President of the United States has committed insurance fraud and faked a birth certificate.
Or:
2) Bristol is pregnant now, but is not the mother of Trig, meaning that abstinence education really is a terrible idea. And her mother is an ass for accepting the Veep nomination under these circumstances and exposing her to this hell. If Sarah is the mother of Trig, then I go back to my original post on this subject, and she took extremely dangerous risks with her baby when she travelled 22 hours back to Alaska while in preterm labour with broken water.
And that leads to the conclusion that either Sarah Palins is an utterly incompetent mother who didn't take care of her pregnancy, or that even after four pregnancies she is too stupid to know that broken water and preterm labour mean that she should immediately go to a hospital. If her Doctor told her it was okay to fly, then he/she should be sued for malpractice, since so far, I can't find one perinatologist who thinks that is anything but insane. (And fwiw, I asked my own Doc, who laughed and wondered aloud if Palin was trying to take the roundabout way out and end the baby's life without getting an official abortion, because really, what she did---is that medically ludicrous.)
So the US is left with a VP candidate who is either a crook or an idiot. Lovely.
Obama's response was not only to be expected, but in my opinion, totally appropriate. Not because his mom was 18 when she had him, but because he has daughters himself, and they may be small now, but they are about to grow up and be teens in the middle of his White House term. You just know that since TV reporters began noticing the kids of Presidents the single biggest nightmare of every political strategist is a First Daughter getting into trouble, whether that means drugs, or pregnancy, or bad boyfriends, or God only knows what.
Patti Davis gave Reagan's advisors ulcers, and Chelsea scared the crap out of everyone, not to mention the Bush twins. So yeah, Obama is right to worry. The Secret Service has their jobs cut out for them.
So why do I keep going on about Palin?
Because this woman and her pro-life buddies think that women like Cecily and I should be dead, and have told me so, in comments and by email. I respect Sarah Palin's choice to not have an abortion, but she sure doesn't respect my choice to have one.
She thinks live women should just have died. So fuck her, the gloves are off.
Tomorrow is the ten year anniversary of Matthew's death, and this week is very difficult for me. Next week on the 7th, it is the fourth anniversary of Georgia's death. I admit it, I'm sensitive. I just can't help but contrast the care I took with my pregnancy with him, even when we didn't know if we were going to terminate, with her casual disregard for her baby's welfare. I was told to never be further away than 15 minutes from a hospital that could handle a high-risk pregnancy and had a level 3 NICU. And I did that, even when it meant cancelling work obligations and being unable to take care of my older son.
We in the infertililty/baby loss community have sacrificed so so much to have our families and she, a woman who condemns me and trumpets her pro-life beliefs, can't do the same? And I'm supposed to hold my tongue and not jump on the scandal?
No way.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
My room of requirement
The paint turned out okay, and the guys had to fix it....4 coats later to cover the messy edges, I think they learned their lesson...I made my kids clean up some of the dust and junk they left behind. I'll post some pictures tomorrow or maybe the next day. The master bedroom ended up grey, with white trim, specifically a trendy new shade from Benjamin Moore called Escarpment, with Cloud White trim and ceilings.
The baby room has ended up a bright sunny yellow called Golden Crust from Para. (No longer made, had to be custom mixed.) The trim, door, and chair rail is a bright blue, a blue very similar to Thomas the Tank's engine. I got it from a movie poster of a movie called Thomas and the Magic Railroad. (First one pictured at the top of the link) The movie was filmed here in TO and I knew some of the people who worked on it. We had the movie poster mounted on a wooden backing, and it was always meant to go either in the playroom, or in the room of the new baby.
You know, the room that never got to be---until now.
We bought this house in 2003 when I was pregnant with Miranda. It had 4 bedrooms, perfect for us, including a lovely little room that was perfect for a baby. We knew we would have to renovate the house at some point, but for now, it was just what we needed. We got into a bidding war, paid over asking price, and won the right to mortgage ourselves to the hilt.
All for that room. Our boys could've kept sharing their one bedroom at the old house, and we could've stayed there for a few more years. But the fact that I stayed pregnant past 6 weeks, then made it to 12 weeks, all meant that we could no longer put it off. The spring market was the best way to sell our house, and find another one.
By the time we moved in, the baby was dead, and every time I looked at that room, I felt sick. It was covered in an animal print border, but I did not have the mental energy to rip it off. We put our computer there, and our files and papers and junk. Mostly, I just closed the door, and tried not to think about what should be there instead.
I muddled through that year, and in 2004, we were going to use it for the next baby we were expecting, but as you know, that ended at 16 weeks....I'd finally got the energy to start ripping off the wall border, since I wanted to decorate differently, but I never got any further, and I closed the door and walked away again.
When my husband started his new business, he needed a home office, and we couldn't ignore the room, but I could not do it alone either, and my husband and I could only argue over the room. We'd be getting along just fine---and we walked in that room and tensed up. It was like a poison place to us. So I hired my organizer and she and I, over two days, rearranged the room, purged the papers, put up shelves and a desk, and made it into a workspace for him. Nothing like an impersonal third party to help carry you through the painful parts of life when you can't walk that walk.....
Since then, he worked in the room, but I couldn't. I just closed the door and walked away.
This is why the last week has been so stressful for me. The room that has never properly fit in our house, will finally have it's purpose fulfilled, I hope. Just seeing it empty and painted and starting to be furnished is......
I can't finish that sentence.
I want to write "healing", but every step is so painful, how can this be it? I want this sore spot to be gone. If I can't change the memories, then I know we'll either have to sell the house, or tear it down with a wrecking ball. I can't just sit here, year after year, with it left hanging like this.
My friend Warren Kinsella has a post about the kind of time that grief takes. He normally writes political or punk rock posts, but every once in a while, he writes about his family and his grief over the loss of his father, and then, he writes such breathtakingly beautiful things, I wonder why he ever writes about any other subject. To quote him,"I cannot tell this friend that the world ever seems the same, afterwards. It doesn't. If you are fortunate, however, it starts to feel less sad. It takes a long time."
He's right. It has taken a long time, too long. Five years is enough. I don't want to keep closing doors and walking away. It's time to feel less sad now.
The baby room has ended up a bright sunny yellow called Golden Crust from Para. (No longer made, had to be custom mixed.) The trim, door, and chair rail is a bright blue, a blue very similar to Thomas the Tank's engine. I got it from a movie poster of a movie called Thomas and the Magic Railroad. (First one pictured at the top of the link) The movie was filmed here in TO and I knew some of the people who worked on it. We had the movie poster mounted on a wooden backing, and it was always meant to go either in the playroom, or in the room of the new baby.
You know, the room that never got to be---until now.
We bought this house in 2003 when I was pregnant with Miranda. It had 4 bedrooms, perfect for us, including a lovely little room that was perfect for a baby. We knew we would have to renovate the house at some point, but for now, it was just what we needed. We got into a bidding war, paid over asking price, and won the right to mortgage ourselves to the hilt.
All for that room. Our boys could've kept sharing their one bedroom at the old house, and we could've stayed there for a few more years. But the fact that I stayed pregnant past 6 weeks, then made it to 12 weeks, all meant that we could no longer put it off. The spring market was the best way to sell our house, and find another one.
By the time we moved in, the baby was dead, and every time I looked at that room, I felt sick. It was covered in an animal print border, but I did not have the mental energy to rip it off. We put our computer there, and our files and papers and junk. Mostly, I just closed the door, and tried not to think about what should be there instead.
I muddled through that year, and in 2004, we were going to use it for the next baby we were expecting, but as you know, that ended at 16 weeks....I'd finally got the energy to start ripping off the wall border, since I wanted to decorate differently, but I never got any further, and I closed the door and walked away again.
When my husband started his new business, he needed a home office, and we couldn't ignore the room, but I could not do it alone either, and my husband and I could only argue over the room. We'd be getting along just fine---and we walked in that room and tensed up. It was like a poison place to us. So I hired my organizer and she and I, over two days, rearranged the room, purged the papers, put up shelves and a desk, and made it into a workspace for him. Nothing like an impersonal third party to help carry you through the painful parts of life when you can't walk that walk.....
Since then, he worked in the room, but I couldn't. I just closed the door and walked away.
This is why the last week has been so stressful for me. The room that has never properly fit in our house, will finally have it's purpose fulfilled, I hope. Just seeing it empty and painted and starting to be furnished is......
I can't finish that sentence.
I want to write "healing", but every step is so painful, how can this be it? I want this sore spot to be gone. If I can't change the memories, then I know we'll either have to sell the house, or tear it down with a wrecking ball. I can't just sit here, year after year, with it left hanging like this.
My friend Warren Kinsella has a post about the kind of time that grief takes. He normally writes political or punk rock posts, but every once in a while, he writes about his family and his grief over the loss of his father, and then, he writes such breathtakingly beautiful things, I wonder why he ever writes about any other subject. To quote him,"I cannot tell this friend that the world ever seems the same, afterwards. It doesn't. If you are fortunate, however, it starts to feel less sad. It takes a long time."
He's right. It has taken a long time, too long. Five years is enough. I don't want to keep closing doors and walking away. It's time to feel less sad now.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Dr. Suess, my hero
The name of my blog, No Matter How Small, came from a saying that you are about to see in the media a lot right now, "A person's a person, no matter how small" from the new movie "Horton Hears a Who", recently released as a full length feature.
Well nowhere on that official movie site will you read the real truth about Dr.Suess and his very very political background. The movie studios like to sanitize everything, to make it all shiny and perfect and boring. But that's not a good idea for a guy like this, or an issue as complex as the ones he devoted his life too. You see Theodore Geisel, or Ted, as he came to be known, was a true believer in human rights, a strong advocate for the little guy and the best all around subversive the world has ever known. Subversive because he spread his message through children and mothers and nursery rhymes. He was the master of subtlety.
All his books are political, because they sprang from his first creation, the political cartoons he wrote. There is a PBS special here all about it. Just check out the gallery, or this site. He started as an advocate for African-Americans who were being treated horrendously in the US under Jim Crow laws and Jews who were being exterminated by Hitler. His position was that he wanted to get the US to declare war on Nazi Germany and the Axis, since it was the only way to save the Jewish people and all the other minorities who were being victimized. Conventional war, not nuclear war, by the way. He didn't like war, but knew that unless someone stood up to Hitler, the atrocities would never end.
Interestingly enough he had a bias against the Japanese people in his early career and his cartoons about them and the Empire are not merely antagonistic, but outright racist. The caricatures he drew were outrageous by today's standards. But that all changed after he went to Japan and met the people who lived there, the people who really were persons, after all.
When Dr.Suess wrote "A person's a person, no matter how small" in Horton Hears a Who he was referring to the unending American occupation of Japan after WWII, during which the Japanese people were treated like dirt, lost all their human rights, and disrespected as potential warmongers and terrorists in the eyes of the occupying forces. (Can anyone think of a modern day example, oh yeah...that Iraq thing.....couldn't be that lovely lefty Hollywood influence coming out?) It also refers to the atrocity of the nuclear bombs that were dropped on the people of Japan at the end of WWII, and the horrendous damage they did.
The dramatic change in his attitude is because he went to Japan and learned about the Japanese people through the friendship of a man named Mitsugi Nakamura, to whom the book is dedicated. He learned he was wrong, and he told the world. Horton Hears a Who is his mea culpa, the ultimate story of why we should never vilify an entire group of people, because after all, they just might be----just like us.
Not many people can publicly admit to making such a horrendous mistake, but he did. Having feet of clay myself, I never cease to admire my fellow life travellers who stumble and fall and have to pick themselves up.
To quote "The Political Dr.Suess" - "Yertle the Turtle, for example, is a cautionary tale against dictators. (Yertle is Adolph Hitler.) The Lorax contains a strong environmental message. The Sneetches is a plea for racial tolerance. (Some sneetches wear yellow stars, others do not.) Horton Hears a Who is a parable about the American Occupation of Japan. And The Butter Battle Book pillories the Cold War and nuclear deterrence. Even the Cat in the Hat's famous red-and-white-striped hat has a political predecessor in the top hat Uncle Sam wears in Dr. Seuss's wartime cartoons."
I have to say that I have always found it curious that the pro-life movement could have mistaken so totally his intentions, and assumed that no matter how small could refer to their movement. Fools---his wife set them straight, she has always guarded his legacy, and used her lawyers and considering my history, yes, I am very very glad of that.
I do wonder why he never had any children. His wife has discussed this slightly, but I've always wondered if they were infertile as well? Perhaps there was history of pregnancy loss with his first wife? Unfortunately, not an answer we'll ever know, but such a curiosity of mine.
Interestingly, even though the movie site has been thoroughly blanded by the movie executives in charge, Suessville has not. It is a very good retelling of his history as an ad executive, his history with PM magazine, Life, & Vanity Fair, his creation of cartoon training films for the troops (Private Snafu was the main character), and his history of authorship. One of the best stories of all time is about the creation of Green Eggs and Ham. Children's literature, and especially primers for children learning to read were very boring at the time, thus Cat in the Hat was created. Bennett Cerf decided that they needed more books this interesting, and wagered a bet that Ted could not write a children's book that rhymed with less than 50 words. The result---Green Eggs and Ham with it's repetitive phrases, and fabulous illustrations. To this day, if I want my kids to try a new food, I know which book to read!
My other favourite story from the site---Art Buchwald in his ignorance, chided Ted for never having written a political book, and Ted promptly picked up a copy of Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!, crossed out Marvin K. Mooney, added Richard M. Nixon, and presented it to his friend. Buchwald put it all in his column the next day, and the day after that, Nixon resigned!
Who knew a children's author could be so powerful?
As for this blog, I have always believed that every person counts equally, whether it be the starving citizen of the Third World, or the wealthy and powerful. We cannot simply exclude others existence, simply because of our North American standard of worth. This was brought home to me when I attempted to get one of our national newspapers to accept as a submission an obituary for one of my lost babies. They had taken the entry for the paid obituary, but told me that any submission for an column obituary had to be of a living person, and one who have lived a life at that. Since he had never done anything with his life, never achieved anything, to them he didn't count. The overwhelming impact on my life---irrelevant. The fact that funerals and obits and grief are for the living---irrelevant to the horrid woman on the other end of the line.
This crushed me beyond words. I vowed right then and there that I would prove that my son did matter, that his life and death, however brief had changed me and the entire world. I would do things in his memory, I would make laws and change hearts and minds, all to let the world know that he had mattered and so did I. I still live by this, and every time I talk to a politician, every time I email a journalist, every time I write a post, I make that vow again.
I am a person, I count. Mothers are persons. We matter, the women and men who remember our babies. The world may think that we are nothing, just a few scattered individuals to be ignored or used but I know the truth.
Someday my very own version of Horton will come along, and instead of being treated like specks of dust, the world will know that grieving parents deserve better. The world will hear our voices ring out loud and clear.
And they will know that grieving mothers are persons too, no matter how small.
Well nowhere on that official movie site will you read the real truth about Dr.Suess and his very very political background. The movie studios like to sanitize everything, to make it all shiny and perfect and boring. But that's not a good idea for a guy like this, or an issue as complex as the ones he devoted his life too. You see Theodore Geisel, or Ted, as he came to be known, was a true believer in human rights, a strong advocate for the little guy and the best all around subversive the world has ever known. Subversive because he spread his message through children and mothers and nursery rhymes. He was the master of subtlety.
All his books are political, because they sprang from his first creation, the political cartoons he wrote. There is a PBS special here all about it. Just check out the gallery, or this site. He started as an advocate for African-Americans who were being treated horrendously in the US under Jim Crow laws and Jews who were being exterminated by Hitler. His position was that he wanted to get the US to declare war on Nazi Germany and the Axis, since it was the only way to save the Jewish people and all the other minorities who were being victimized. Conventional war, not nuclear war, by the way. He didn't like war, but knew that unless someone stood up to Hitler, the atrocities would never end.
Interestingly enough he had a bias against the Japanese people in his early career and his cartoons about them and the Empire are not merely antagonistic, but outright racist. The caricatures he drew were outrageous by today's standards. But that all changed after he went to Japan and met the people who lived there, the people who really were persons, after all.
When Dr.Suess wrote "A person's a person, no matter how small" in Horton Hears a Who he was referring to the unending American occupation of Japan after WWII, during which the Japanese people were treated like dirt, lost all their human rights, and disrespected as potential warmongers and terrorists in the eyes of the occupying forces. (Can anyone think of a modern day example, oh yeah...that Iraq thing.....couldn't be that lovely lefty Hollywood influence coming out?) It also refers to the atrocity of the nuclear bombs that were dropped on the people of Japan at the end of WWII, and the horrendous damage they did.
The dramatic change in his attitude is because he went to Japan and learned about the Japanese people through the friendship of a man named Mitsugi Nakamura, to whom the book is dedicated. He learned he was wrong, and he told the world. Horton Hears a Who is his mea culpa, the ultimate story of why we should never vilify an entire group of people, because after all, they just might be----just like us.
Not many people can publicly admit to making such a horrendous mistake, but he did. Having feet of clay myself, I never cease to admire my fellow life travellers who stumble and fall and have to pick themselves up.
To quote "The Political Dr.Suess" - "Yertle the Turtle, for example, is a cautionary tale against dictators. (Yertle is Adolph Hitler.) The Lorax contains a strong environmental message. The Sneetches is a plea for racial tolerance. (Some sneetches wear yellow stars, others do not.) Horton Hears a Who is a parable about the American Occupation of Japan. And The Butter Battle Book pillories the Cold War and nuclear deterrence. Even the Cat in the Hat's famous red-and-white-striped hat has a political predecessor in the top hat Uncle Sam wears in Dr. Seuss's wartime cartoons."
I have to say that I have always found it curious that the pro-life movement could have mistaken so totally his intentions, and assumed that no matter how small could refer to their movement. Fools---his wife set them straight, she has always guarded his legacy, and used her lawyers and considering my history, yes, I am very very glad of that.
I do wonder why he never had any children. His wife has discussed this slightly, but I've always wondered if they were infertile as well? Perhaps there was history of pregnancy loss with his first wife? Unfortunately, not an answer we'll ever know, but such a curiosity of mine.
Interestingly, even though the movie site has been thoroughly blanded by the movie executives in charge, Suessville has not. It is a very good retelling of his history as an ad executive, his history with PM magazine, Life, & Vanity Fair, his creation of cartoon training films for the troops (Private Snafu was the main character), and his history of authorship. One of the best stories of all time is about the creation of Green Eggs and Ham. Children's literature, and especially primers for children learning to read were very boring at the time, thus Cat in the Hat was created. Bennett Cerf decided that they needed more books this interesting, and wagered a bet that Ted could not write a children's book that rhymed with less than 50 words. The result---Green Eggs and Ham with it's repetitive phrases, and fabulous illustrations. To this day, if I want my kids to try a new food, I know which book to read!
My other favourite story from the site---Art Buchwald in his ignorance, chided Ted for never having written a political book, and Ted promptly picked up a copy of Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!, crossed out Marvin K. Mooney, added Richard M. Nixon, and presented it to his friend. Buchwald put it all in his column the next day, and the day after that, Nixon resigned!
Who knew a children's author could be so powerful?
As for this blog, I have always believed that every person counts equally, whether it be the starving citizen of the Third World, or the wealthy and powerful. We cannot simply exclude others existence, simply because of our North American standard of worth. This was brought home to me when I attempted to get one of our national newspapers to accept as a submission an obituary for one of my lost babies. They had taken the entry for the paid obituary, but told me that any submission for an column obituary had to be of a living person, and one who have lived a life at that. Since he had never done anything with his life, never achieved anything, to them he didn't count. The overwhelming impact on my life---irrelevant. The fact that funerals and obits and grief are for the living---irrelevant to the horrid woman on the other end of the line.
This crushed me beyond words. I vowed right then and there that I would prove that my son did matter, that his life and death, however brief had changed me and the entire world. I would do things in his memory, I would make laws and change hearts and minds, all to let the world know that he had mattered and so did I. I still live by this, and every time I talk to a politician, every time I email a journalist, every time I write a post, I make that vow again.
I am a person, I count. Mothers are persons. We matter, the women and men who remember our babies. The world may think that we are nothing, just a few scattered individuals to be ignored or used but I know the truth.
Someday my very own version of Horton will come along, and instead of being treated like specks of dust, the world will know that grieving parents deserve better. The world will hear our voices ring out loud and clear.
And they will know that grieving mothers are persons too, no matter how small.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
A little more news
I'm not sure if it's good or bad news but we know a little more now. My husband arrived at the hospital and saw his brother in the ICU early this morning.
He is still in a coma which they say is a good thing for now. They hope to finish cleaning his blood by tomorrow using dialysis and then try to wake him. The prognosis is fair to good, though we have no idea what the permanent damage might be, if any. His heart and bp are stable for now.
Trouble is, that if they are able to remove all the poison from his body, but they leave him brain damaged for life, a walking shell---this is frankly, not the ideal situation IMO. My husband thinks that the doctors there are doing a really great heroic job and are doing their best to save him. I guess I'm just feeling nervous because I'm wondering what that hospital's version of "saved" is....I've seen many severely brain damaged adults who end up as vegetables in nursing homes, or on the other side, adults who simply can't function properly. They look fine to the outside world, but are afflicted with serious personality changes and serious cognitive dysfunction. Can't work, can't be around their families, rages, anger, other issues. My husband logically knows all this, and he would hate to see this happen as well, but some Doctors just won't tell the family the truth, they lie, they omit, they are afraid to break the bed news, and the result is the family thinks the patient will be fine. But they really really aren't.
We'll know more tomorrow, for now, we wait. Not my strong suit. My husband will be away at least until Sunday, and of course, we have yet another major snowstorm rolling in....and my house is in disarray, and my kids have lots of activities and appointments scheduled. And just now, my oldest gave up on his homework and is in tears. Apparently, definitions of spelling words are just overwhelming at the moment. I can hardly blame him.
On the bright side, I saw Dr.Placenta and since I'm doing so well, so incredibly amazingly well, he told me to just see my regular OB from now on in. If anything looks funny on my US's I can come back, but for now, the baby and my placenta look healthy.
Such a bizarre thing for me to hear, and such a bizarre place for me to be in. The baby is fine, and my brother in law is dying. I feel like Alice in Wonderland...up is down, and down is up.
Our take away message for the day folks----the next time you wonder if suicide is the answer, remember that you may not succeed. In fact, you may wish to god you had succeeded, because there ARE worse things than death, and much worse things than taking a pill and talking to a Doctor.
So don't do it. Just don't.
He is still in a coma which they say is a good thing for now. They hope to finish cleaning his blood by tomorrow using dialysis and then try to wake him. The prognosis is fair to good, though we have no idea what the permanent damage might be, if any. His heart and bp are stable for now.
Trouble is, that if they are able to remove all the poison from his body, but they leave him brain damaged for life, a walking shell---this is frankly, not the ideal situation IMO. My husband thinks that the doctors there are doing a really great heroic job and are doing their best to save him. I guess I'm just feeling nervous because I'm wondering what that hospital's version of "saved" is....I've seen many severely brain damaged adults who end up as vegetables in nursing homes, or on the other side, adults who simply can't function properly. They look fine to the outside world, but are afflicted with serious personality changes and serious cognitive dysfunction. Can't work, can't be around their families, rages, anger, other issues. My husband logically knows all this, and he would hate to see this happen as well, but some Doctors just won't tell the family the truth, they lie, they omit, they are afraid to break the bed news, and the result is the family thinks the patient will be fine. But they really really aren't.
We'll know more tomorrow, for now, we wait. Not my strong suit. My husband will be away at least until Sunday, and of course, we have yet another major snowstorm rolling in....and my house is in disarray, and my kids have lots of activities and appointments scheduled. And just now, my oldest gave up on his homework and is in tears. Apparently, definitions of spelling words are just overwhelming at the moment. I can hardly blame him.
On the bright side, I saw Dr.Placenta and since I'm doing so well, so incredibly amazingly well, he told me to just see my regular OB from now on in. If anything looks funny on my US's I can come back, but for now, the baby and my placenta look healthy.
Such a bizarre thing for me to hear, and such a bizarre place for me to be in. The baby is fine, and my brother in law is dying. I feel like Alice in Wonderland...up is down, and down is up.
Our take away message for the day folks----the next time you wonder if suicide is the answer, remember that you may not succeed. In fact, you may wish to god you had succeeded, because there ARE worse things than death, and much worse things than taking a pill and talking to a Doctor.
So don't do it. Just don't.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Everything can change so fast
*Baby and I are fine---just saw the Doc today, everyone breathe out, it's the rest of the family this time.*
My husband has just gotten into an airport limo and is flying to Belgium to do his duty for his brother. There are 7 kids in his family, or as they always put it, his mom had 8 children, 7 are living.
And by tomorrow morning, there will very likely be only six living.
You might remember my BIL P? After last March's hospitalization, he was put into rehab in the UK, got his meds readjusted, and started back trying to live his life again. He had a place to live in London and was working out and taking care of himself and his AD's and/or whatever other drugs they had him on were working. Some members of the family had reconnected with him on Facebook and he had sent us several touching, perfectly coherent emails. My husband had spoken with him on the phone several times. Various people had visited. Although he had never quite gotten a job at the same financial level as he had before, he was supporting himself decently.
So what changed in the last few days? I think his inability to see his children regularly finally sent him round the bend. Truly, they were the only things he had left to live for. And when he couldn't see them more than once or twice a month, he viewed it as a serious loss, the kind that he simply could not recover from, after losing custody of his first child, my nephew. He had done everything required of him, by the almost ex-wife and by the courts and still he would not be able to live with them, to coach the teams, to see them after school, to see their joys, and their sorrows.
For a devoted Dad, that's agony.
As a grieving mother, I do understand his sadness, but I wish he had found another solution----other than the one to try to take his own life.
We got a suicide email at 5:00 am our time and since he has a pretty sophisticated understanding of science & medicine, we knew he would know how to do it. He drank a large amount of antifreeze, and took a lot of pills. And then drove to his ex-wife's house in his delirium. We got the phone call from the police later that morning telling us he was in the hospital on a ventilator in a coma.
Because it is a conflict of interest for his almost ex to make any end of life decisions, my husband, and a few of his sisters and brothers are now converging on the hospital, wondering what will happen, praying they don't have to do it themselves. I have very little faith he will survive the night. If he can't make it back to health and a decent quality of life, I really hope that he dies quickly and painlessly, because I can't imagine any person, much less one I care about remaining in a vegetative state for months and years.
I feel so helpless. This didn't have to happen. It's just so fucking wrong.
My husband has just gotten into an airport limo and is flying to Belgium to do his duty for his brother. There are 7 kids in his family, or as they always put it, his mom had 8 children, 7 are living.
And by tomorrow morning, there will very likely be only six living.
You might remember my BIL P? After last March's hospitalization, he was put into rehab in the UK, got his meds readjusted, and started back trying to live his life again. He had a place to live in London and was working out and taking care of himself and his AD's and/or whatever other drugs they had him on were working. Some members of the family had reconnected with him on Facebook and he had sent us several touching, perfectly coherent emails. My husband had spoken with him on the phone several times. Various people had visited. Although he had never quite gotten a job at the same financial level as he had before, he was supporting himself decently.
So what changed in the last few days? I think his inability to see his children regularly finally sent him round the bend. Truly, they were the only things he had left to live for. And when he couldn't see them more than once or twice a month, he viewed it as a serious loss, the kind that he simply could not recover from, after losing custody of his first child, my nephew. He had done everything required of him, by the almost ex-wife and by the courts and still he would not be able to live with them, to coach the teams, to see them after school, to see their joys, and their sorrows.
For a devoted Dad, that's agony.
As a grieving mother, I do understand his sadness, but I wish he had found another solution----other than the one to try to take his own life.
We got a suicide email at 5:00 am our time and since he has a pretty sophisticated understanding of science & medicine, we knew he would know how to do it. He drank a large amount of antifreeze, and took a lot of pills. And then drove to his ex-wife's house in his delirium. We got the phone call from the police later that morning telling us he was in the hospital on a ventilator in a coma.
Because it is a conflict of interest for his almost ex to make any end of life decisions, my husband, and a few of his sisters and brothers are now converging on the hospital, wondering what will happen, praying they don't have to do it themselves. I have very little faith he will survive the night. If he can't make it back to health and a decent quality of life, I really hope that he dies quickly and painlessly, because I can't imagine any person, much less one I care about remaining in a vegetative state for months and years.
I feel so helpless. This didn't have to happen. It's just so fucking wrong.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Take what you will from this
You know how I was going to write about Juno? Well, Cecily did it better, and so did Kateri and I'm sure a dozen others. I wrote in both their comments, feel free to read. I once again spent all my time writing 1000's of words there instead of writing it my own blog.
I wanted to see Juno first, but I already have PTSD and I'm in the middle of a high-risk pregnancy, so after much internal debate---I'm not seeing until long after this pregnancy is over and even then only with a handful of ADs and some beta blockers, just in case. I just can't risk flooding my uterus with adrenaline. Commenting on Cecily's and Kateri's blog took enough shit out of me today. I'm basing my opinion on the dozens of reviews and online synopsis I've read about it.
FWIW, Adoption is not well represented in this movie, and now that it's nominated for Best Picture the world is going to think that it is an accurate picture of how adoption works. This movie has a lot of stereotypes, which wouldn't matter if TV and movies ever showed more complex adoption storylines. Trouble is, this is the sole representation of adoption in the media--desperate nice prospective adoptive parents, self-sacrificing first mother who skips off into the sunset, and of course, the adoptee, who grows up utterly grateful and no one ever wonders if the baby is okay with it. (Yeah, the bio father in the movie was scarcely consulted. sigh....)
Stereotypes make for universally shitty writing, bad TV and bad movies, and I always hold that opinion regardless of the subject. So yes, a little complexity would help. How about an adoptee point-of-view in an open adoption? How about an adoptive mother who helps her daughter adoptee find their first mom information years later and is totally supportive? How about a movie about adoptive parents who return the kid they adopted because they don't like them? (You know like 20% of all adoptions?) How about a movie about a mom who is falsely convicted of murdering her baby, forced to give her older child up for adoption, and after it is discovered that the evidence was faked by an incompetent pathologist and she is innocent and the conviction is reversed, it turns out that she can never ever get her child back because adoption cannot ever be undone unless the adoptive parents return the kid. The result is that her son will never ever know directly from her that his mom isn't a murderer. Even if by some chance they can be reunited, they can never be legally related again. The bell can never be unrung.
Nahhhhhh, that would be complex and interesting and true to life without a Hollywood happy ending, and we can't have that now can we?
This video is a real life relinquishment. A first mom saying good-bye. The reason I find it so heartwrenching is because it reminds me of the terrible grief I felt when the nurse took Matthew away to the morgue. The difference? I knew he was going to be buried in a cemetary and I didn't have to spend the rest of my life wondering where he was, if he was safe. If he was loved. First parents who relinquish can never know for sure, even if they get extensive checks done on the PAPs, even in an open adoption, even in the movie version.
After watching this, what more is there to write?
I wanted to see Juno first, but I already have PTSD and I'm in the middle of a high-risk pregnancy, so after much internal debate---I'm not seeing until long after this pregnancy is over and even then only with a handful of ADs and some beta blockers, just in case. I just can't risk flooding my uterus with adrenaline. Commenting on Cecily's and Kateri's blog took enough shit out of me today. I'm basing my opinion on the dozens of reviews and online synopsis I've read about it.
FWIW, Adoption is not well represented in this movie, and now that it's nominated for Best Picture the world is going to think that it is an accurate picture of how adoption works. This movie has a lot of stereotypes, which wouldn't matter if TV and movies ever showed more complex adoption storylines. Trouble is, this is the sole representation of adoption in the media--desperate nice prospective adoptive parents, self-sacrificing first mother who skips off into the sunset, and of course, the adoptee, who grows up utterly grateful and no one ever wonders if the baby is okay with it. (Yeah, the bio father in the movie was scarcely consulted. sigh....)
Stereotypes make for universally shitty writing, bad TV and bad movies, and I always hold that opinion regardless of the subject. So yes, a little complexity would help. How about an adoptee point-of-view in an open adoption? How about an adoptive mother who helps her daughter adoptee find their first mom information years later and is totally supportive? How about a movie about adoptive parents who return the kid they adopted because they don't like them? (You know like 20% of all adoptions?) How about a movie about a mom who is falsely convicted of murdering her baby, forced to give her older child up for adoption, and after it is discovered that the evidence was faked by an incompetent pathologist and she is innocent and the conviction is reversed, it turns out that she can never ever get her child back because adoption cannot ever be undone unless the adoptive parents return the kid. The result is that her son will never ever know directly from her that his mom isn't a murderer. Even if by some chance they can be reunited, they can never be legally related again. The bell can never be unrung.
Nahhhhhh, that would be complex and interesting and true to life without a Hollywood happy ending, and we can't have that now can we?
This video is a real life relinquishment. A first mom saying good-bye. The reason I find it so heartwrenching is because it reminds me of the terrible grief I felt when the nurse took Matthew away to the morgue. The difference? I knew he was going to be buried in a cemetary and I didn't have to spend the rest of my life wondering where he was, if he was safe. If he was loved. First parents who relinquish can never know for sure, even if they get extensive checks done on the PAPs, even in an open adoption, even in the movie version.
After watching this, what more is there to write?
Sunday, January 06, 2008
screw it all
Well Desperate Housewives wasn't much of problem, in case any of you are scared to watch. In fact, it was a quick finish in the drama area. All of Lynette's kids are safe and sound and completely okay. So is her husband, Tom. I was freaked out about it a while back because the tornado episode was a real shocker at the end. I thought the acting and writing really was off. Quite odd, usually the actress playing Lynnette kicks ass and I find the show itself to be good for a laugh. But the lack of reality in how a real woman would act upon discovering that her kids might be dead? Gahhhh. I sure as fuck wouldn't have been sitting there standing behind the yellow tape sipping tea. It would've taken 14 firefighters to hold me back from digging them out by hand. I mean, WTF?
For example, I've met a few people who show up to report on fires, and they tell me that whenever a fire happens, if the mother is rescued first and any other kids are still in there, she will rush back in to get them if there is even one breath left in her body, no question.
They actually assign cops and firefighters to hold her back because they know the adrenaline will rush through her body and regardless of size, she will become ten times stronger than she normally is. Becoming completely paralyzed due to shock is perfectly normal as well, it's just very very stark, and looks nothing like standing around.
It's human instinct. If it doesn't happen, it's unusual and you have to ask yourself, are they in physical shock, are they on drugs, are there mental health issues? Seriously, it's that odd. Which is why Lynette, IMO, did not look like a mother. She just looked like any other actress. Sort of ummm, standing there? ?
I thought for sure they would string this show out, emotional p0rn for sale, one commercial at a time. TV shows do this regularly, whether it's on soaps or on nightime, and most especially movies. They use the grief of bereaved parents and the terror we live with to pop their ratings, but never ever actually help the real grieving parents with our pain. We're just the used leftover crap they shun in real life.
But, no they ended it in moments. Like a big fat nothing. All those commercial promos, all those endless reverberating screams, (I'm convinced they juiced the audio on Lynette's scream after I complained about how fake it was.) and then, yayyy they're alive, and they disappear. Pffft. Over.
Now the other movie I watched this weekend, We Are Marshall, is incredible, unbelievable, a really good portrayal of how death and tragedy and grief are handled in real life and how it should be handled. It was in theatres in 2006, but being a football movie, I think it wasn't something on my radar. I could go on and on, but it is the kind of thing that you have to see for yourself. Sadness, anger, frozen denial, rage at innocent bystanders, a willingness to walk through fire to get to your loved ones, an unwillingness to move on with life, a desire to avoid the things you associated with the loved ones, people wondering how others can smile and move on when they are still so so sad, messy awful difficult human emotions in all their glory. All things I've witnessed in the nine odd years I've been dealing with this.
Reality is that people who have been through tragedy and grief aren't going to act as sweetly and as nicely as the public would like. We don't fit the mold that others want to see. We're supposed to crumple gently at their feet, looking like fallen angels, all sad and weeping. If we dare to speak up, we're shrill bitches, if we dare to demand justice, we're "not able to let go", if we keep asking WHY, we're told that we're suffering from an "adjustment disorder."
And hot damn, if we dare to raise our living kids as normally as possible, and refuse to treat them like delicate spoiled flowers, if we dare to bitch about the normal travails of life for even one second, one moment, one tiny slice of time, some of our readers might even unsubscribe from our blog feed, or stop talking to us in real life. I guess they'd prefer Lynette. Well, screw 'em if they'd prefer her current saccharine brand of bullshit mothering.
Even if I pay $100,000 for IVF to have my kids, or pay $100,000 from an unethical illegal adoption mill*, or even bury 14 kids before I get to raise them, my living kids still get to be little assholes who raise mayhem, and I still get to rip my hair out over it, because they owe me SHIT, no gratitude, no debt, no obligation, just normal kid lives. Sometimes the children we have after infertility and grief and loss are going to be less than perfect, sometimes they will be evil little hell-raisers, sometimes they will have learning disabilities, and speech disabilities, and emotional breakdowns, and maybe they will even be ugly and unattractive. (Gasp, horror, ack!)
I owe them the most normal parenting experience possible. Which includes all the bad sides of mothering, not just the sweet and pretty and cute ones that form the perfect Hollywood ending. They deserve to be parented, not treasured like little glass ornaments, and they deserve to know if they screw up, and not just to be lied to. If I tell them they are perfect and adorable all day, it will turn them into characterless little disney clones. And that would be wrong. If I tell them that their mother is perfect and always always right then that would be wrong.
And if I tell it like anything less than what it is, warts and all, then I will be lying to you my dear readers. I'm not going to pretend I live in a diaper commercial. Even if my pregnancies do involve Depends every time I cough, this is not the ideal life after infertility story you've been yearning for.
You need to watch TV for that.
*The point of the comment was to show extremes that we would go to in attaining parenting, and yes, although they are rare, unethical adoption mills do exist, and good potential adoptive parents are revolted by them and try to avoid them.
If any of you want more examples of this, read some birth mother and adoptee blogs, and you will see them discussed.
But really that isn't the point of this post. I actually know people in real life who have paid that much money for IVF, people who have lost that many children, and people who have adopted in less than ideal circumstances who have had to pay huge amounts to complete the adoption. And some of these people, not all, hold it over the kids heads, like "you owe me" for freaking forever.
It makes me sick when I see it, and as an adoptee, it reminds me of all the times I was told how "lucky" I was to have been saved from a supposed terrible fate of being raised by a single mother, etc. by my adoptive parents. Meanwhile, they were lousy parents themselves.
I am not trying to slam adoptive parents, the phrase was meant to show extremes in all parenting, and I certainly didn't single out adoptive parents only.
For example, I've met a few people who show up to report on fires, and they tell me that whenever a fire happens, if the mother is rescued first and any other kids are still in there, she will rush back in to get them if there is even one breath left in her body, no question.
They actually assign cops and firefighters to hold her back because they know the adrenaline will rush through her body and regardless of size, she will become ten times stronger than she normally is. Becoming completely paralyzed due to shock is perfectly normal as well, it's just very very stark, and looks nothing like standing around.
It's human instinct. If it doesn't happen, it's unusual and you have to ask yourself, are they in physical shock, are they on drugs, are there mental health issues? Seriously, it's that odd. Which is why Lynette, IMO, did not look like a mother. She just looked like any other actress. Sort of ummm, standing there? ?
I thought for sure they would string this show out, emotional p0rn for sale, one commercial at a time. TV shows do this regularly, whether it's on soaps or on nightime, and most especially movies. They use the grief of bereaved parents and the terror we live with to pop their ratings, but never ever actually help the real grieving parents with our pain. We're just the used leftover crap they shun in real life.
But, no they ended it in moments. Like a big fat nothing. All those commercial promos, all those endless reverberating screams, (I'm convinced they juiced the audio on Lynette's scream after I complained about how fake it was.) and then, yayyy they're alive, and they disappear. Pffft. Over.
Now the other movie I watched this weekend, We Are Marshall, is incredible, unbelievable, a really good portrayal of how death and tragedy and grief are handled in real life and how it should be handled. It was in theatres in 2006, but being a football movie, I think it wasn't something on my radar. I could go on and on, but it is the kind of thing that you have to see for yourself. Sadness, anger, frozen denial, rage at innocent bystanders, a willingness to walk through fire to get to your loved ones, an unwillingness to move on with life, a desire to avoid the things you associated with the loved ones, people wondering how others can smile and move on when they are still so so sad, messy awful difficult human emotions in all their glory. All things I've witnessed in the nine odd years I've been dealing with this.
Reality is that people who have been through tragedy and grief aren't going to act as sweetly and as nicely as the public would like. We don't fit the mold that others want to see. We're supposed to crumple gently at their feet, looking like fallen angels, all sad and weeping. If we dare to speak up, we're shrill bitches, if we dare to demand justice, we're "not able to let go", if we keep asking WHY, we're told that we're suffering from an "adjustment disorder."
And hot damn, if we dare to raise our living kids as normally as possible, and refuse to treat them like delicate spoiled flowers, if we dare to bitch about the normal travails of life for even one second, one moment, one tiny slice of time, some of our readers might even unsubscribe from our blog feed, or stop talking to us in real life. I guess they'd prefer Lynette. Well, screw 'em if they'd prefer her current saccharine brand of bullshit mothering.
Even if I pay $100,000 for IVF to have my kids, or pay $100,000 from an unethical illegal adoption mill*, or even bury 14 kids before I get to raise them, my living kids still get to be little assholes who raise mayhem, and I still get to rip my hair out over it, because they owe me SHIT, no gratitude, no debt, no obligation, just normal kid lives. Sometimes the children we have after infertility and grief and loss are going to be less than perfect, sometimes they will be evil little hell-raisers, sometimes they will have learning disabilities, and speech disabilities, and emotional breakdowns, and maybe they will even be ugly and unattractive. (Gasp, horror, ack!)
I owe them the most normal parenting experience possible. Which includes all the bad sides of mothering, not just the sweet and pretty and cute ones that form the perfect Hollywood ending. They deserve to be parented, not treasured like little glass ornaments, and they deserve to know if they screw up, and not just to be lied to. If I tell them they are perfect and adorable all day, it will turn them into characterless little disney clones. And that would be wrong. If I tell them that their mother is perfect and always always right then that would be wrong.
And if I tell it like anything less than what it is, warts and all, then I will be lying to you my dear readers. I'm not going to pretend I live in a diaper commercial. Even if my pregnancies do involve Depends every time I cough, this is not the ideal life after infertility story you've been yearning for.
You need to watch TV for that.
*The point of the comment was to show extremes that we would go to in attaining parenting, and yes, although they are rare, unethical adoption mills do exist, and good potential adoptive parents are revolted by them and try to avoid them.
If any of you want more examples of this, read some birth mother and adoptee blogs, and you will see them discussed.
But really that isn't the point of this post. I actually know people in real life who have paid that much money for IVF, people who have lost that many children, and people who have adopted in less than ideal circumstances who have had to pay huge amounts to complete the adoption. And some of these people, not all, hold it over the kids heads, like "you owe me" for freaking forever.
It makes me sick when I see it, and as an adoptee, it reminds me of all the times I was told how "lucky" I was to have been saved from a supposed terrible fate of being raised by a single mother, etc. by my adoptive parents. Meanwhile, they were lousy parents themselves.
I am not trying to slam adoptive parents, the phrase was meant to show extremes in all parenting, and I certainly didn't single out adoptive parents only.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Some of you may have noticed I've been distracted
Which is good---and bad.
I wish I was distracted by a surprise trip around the world, but that's not quite going to happen, so nevermind. Instead I got distracted by Mac's illness, which is practically cured! Mind-blowing how he can be bedridden one day and attempting to jump off the swingset a few days later. Resilient little guys, eh?
But I did kind of forget about what happened 3 years ago right around this time. I knew it was coming up, and got very very stressed about it, and then, everything shifted and I barely remembered my name.
But just so you all know...I know I still have more work to do to make sure that this never ever happens to another person, ever. I just have to figure out the legalities around it---not hard for my little obsessed brain, I hope. Apparently, Massachusetts and California have laws that prevent this from happening, and if they can do it, then Canada can right?
I saw a new shrink the other day, and we spoke briefly about this and some other experiences, and it occurred to me that for the last year or so, I'm starting to internalize that a lot of this crap has been done to me, and that it was not caused by me; two different things. Now I said starting, so don't get me wrong, I know that deep down I still blame myself for terrible things that have happened to me, and it's completely illogical to blame myself, blah blah blah, but that kind of CBT type of therapy never stuck to my brain. I needed to feel this deep down. I keep wondering if it was the EMDR therapy I did, or maybe the courses of propranolol? Or maybe just the passage of time.
Don't know....but tonight, I'm not feeling quite so crappy about it. And that has to be a good thing.
I wish I was distracted by a surprise trip around the world, but that's not quite going to happen, so nevermind. Instead I got distracted by Mac's illness, which is practically cured! Mind-blowing how he can be bedridden one day and attempting to jump off the swingset a few days later. Resilient little guys, eh?
But I did kind of forget about what happened 3 years ago right around this time. I knew it was coming up, and got very very stressed about it, and then, everything shifted and I barely remembered my name.
But just so you all know...I know I still have more work to do to make sure that this never ever happens to another person, ever. I just have to figure out the legalities around it---not hard for my little obsessed brain, I hope. Apparently, Massachusetts and California have laws that prevent this from happening, and if they can do it, then Canada can right?
I saw a new shrink the other day, and we spoke briefly about this and some other experiences, and it occurred to me that for the last year or so, I'm starting to internalize that a lot of this crap has been done to me, and that it was not caused by me; two different things. Now I said starting, so don't get me wrong, I know that deep down I still blame myself for terrible things that have happened to me, and it's completely illogical to blame myself, blah blah blah, but that kind of CBT type of therapy never stuck to my brain. I needed to feel this deep down. I keep wondering if it was the EMDR therapy I did, or maybe the courses of propranolol? Or maybe just the passage of time.
Don't know....but tonight, I'm not feeling quite so crappy about it. And that has to be a good thing.
Monday, December 17, 2007
My strained psyche
I cannot think through anything anymore. I am a ball of nerves, emotions, and a single minded mission to keep this baby alive.
In the last 24 hours, I have written approx. 6000 words on the subject of Bea's question, and all of what I wrote is unpublishable rambling inanity. I'm either totally manic, or the world's worst writer, bar none.
What it comes down to is that I don't like the question. It's too neat and too perfect, too full of absolutes. It puts me in a box, and doesn't allow me to be as nuanced as I like. Life is messy, at least my life is. I have already faced one kind of Genie when we ended Matthew's pregnancy and it was a hellish decision. And lots of women don't get that definitive diagnosis. They get the maybe choice, the mushy middle, the "we don't know" answer. Or they get told nothing and are left with a highly disabled child, lots of years off their life, and no choice in the matter. There are no guarantees, and yet, we are asked to make the risk of our lives, every time we chance a pregnancy. Some of us take years off of our lives, risking dollars and emotions, marriages, and our very psyche and never get a live baby at all.
I am more than a baby-making machine, but even having to say that assumes that it's a zero sum game for all women, and it isn't. Most women get to have a baby and be a parent and have a career without having to worry about whether they are defined as more than a broken uterus. I should get to do that too. Without having to cut any deals with Genies, with Gods, with government and insurance actuaries.
If someone tried to force me to choose? Really force me---I would die to save this pregnancy. Without hesitating. But it's a stupid thing for me to say, because if I die, the baby dies.
And this is where the rest of the post goes off the rails into Teh Crazee. So I'll save you 6000 words of blather. Have a beer instead.
Why am I going off the rails? Right now, I'm just not positive that Dinkypie is alive in there anymore. I think I just may have to buy that g#%^$%m home ultrasound machine. I thought about a doppler, but if I can't find the heartbeat, I'll go insane and run right over to the hospital and become hysterical on them until they can find it. Not such a great idea....so I don't own one. Instead I've decided to become hysterical all on my own without spending any cash up front.
I can only assume that I am flashing back to my last pregnancy. I'm 15 weeks 1 day today, and Georgia died at 15 weeks or so, but it wasn't discovered until 16 weeks. So naturally, I'm a little brain fucked.
Of course, I may just be feeling a little snowed in.
In the last 24 hours, I have written approx. 6000 words on the subject of Bea's question, and all of what I wrote is unpublishable rambling inanity. I'm either totally manic, or the world's worst writer, bar none.
What it comes down to is that I don't like the question. It's too neat and too perfect, too full of absolutes. It puts me in a box, and doesn't allow me to be as nuanced as I like. Life is messy, at least my life is. I have already faced one kind of Genie when we ended Matthew's pregnancy and it was a hellish decision. And lots of women don't get that definitive diagnosis. They get the maybe choice, the mushy middle, the "we don't know" answer. Or they get told nothing and are left with a highly disabled child, lots of years off their life, and no choice in the matter. There are no guarantees, and yet, we are asked to make the risk of our lives, every time we chance a pregnancy. Some of us take years off of our lives, risking dollars and emotions, marriages, and our very psyche and never get a live baby at all.
I am more than a baby-making machine, but even having to say that assumes that it's a zero sum game for all women, and it isn't. Most women get to have a baby and be a parent and have a career without having to worry about whether they are defined as more than a broken uterus. I should get to do that too. Without having to cut any deals with Genies, with Gods, with government and insurance actuaries.
If someone tried to force me to choose? Really force me---I would die to save this pregnancy. Without hesitating. But it's a stupid thing for me to say, because if I die, the baby dies.
And this is where the rest of the post goes off the rails into Teh Crazee. So I'll save you 6000 words of blather. Have a beer instead.
Why am I going off the rails? Right now, I'm just not positive that Dinkypie is alive in there anymore. I think I just may have to buy that g#%^$%m home ultrasound machine. I thought about a doppler, but if I can't find the heartbeat, I'll go insane and run right over to the hospital and become hysterical on them until they can find it. Not such a great idea....so I don't own one. Instead I've decided to become hysterical all on my own without spending any cash up front.
I can only assume that I am flashing back to my last pregnancy. I'm 15 weeks 1 day today, and Georgia died at 15 weeks or so, but it wasn't discovered until 16 weeks. So naturally, I'm a little brain fucked.
Of course, I may just be feeling a little snowed in.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Balancing the good and the bad
Seven days since my last ultrasound, and I'm getting squidgey again. Last night I was consumed with DBTs (dead baby thoughts) and simply could not deal with the baby not moving on my command. I suddenly decided that I didn't feel pregnant anymore, and so I tried laying down and drinking loads of juice. Which didn't really work, because I kept getting up again and again and trying to figure out why the baby wasn't moving like it had last week one night.
Well, maybe because I'm only 14 weeks, and I kept getting up and moving, and I need to realize that it's pretty small and won't do everything I want it to?
Yaaaa, try telling yourself that at 1:00 am when you've woken up in a cold sweat convinced that it's all over.
Anyway, Dinkypie finally decided to get off his/her butt and move a little while I was driving the boys to school this morning. A distinct, non-gas-related, non-intestinal fluttering kicking. Very very reassuring. I know some first and second timers would never be able to tell the difference, but after this many pregnancies, I can. I would've called for an ultrasound this morning and they would've fit me in no problem, but Mr. Cotta is away on a business trip and could not be there until Wednesday, and I can't bear to make the phone call to him with bad news and then spend the next few days alone with the boys.
Last night my mind kept leaping ahead to scenarios like How do we tell everyone? (answer: by email) What happens at Christmas? If the baby dies just before Christmas do we still host Christmas dinner? How? I guess Santa still comes, but it would make it a really horrible Christmas for the kids if something bad happened right now. And as Taff pointed out in the comments, mothering the living kids I have already has to be a priority. I've always practiced this by the way, to the point that I refused to get a D&C after Georgia died for 2 days, until the day after Mac's first day of junior kindergarten. I knew it was the most important day of his little life and I wasn't going to miss it for a baby that was already dead. To save a baby that had a chance, he would've had to be happy with only Dad there, but I wasn't going to do that for one that had passed on, so I shut up and smiled like a Stepford wife and did what had to be done.
(Yes, more scattered uneven writing, deal with it people, I'm trying here)
I'm going to have to miss the boys Christmas---oooops Winter Seasonal---concert and the play this year because I'll be on bedrest after the amniocentesis, and I'm feeling very sad. The amnio can only be done that day due to holiday scheduling issues, and meanwhile this will be the very first concert I've ever ever missed. Oh well, this is why camcorders were invented, right?
Sooooo new camcorders are good news, and I know the baby moved which is good news! And my curtains look great, and our house looks amazing, which is good news! (Trying to avoid thinking anything negative...) Our Christmas lights look nice, and I've put out some decorations which look great.
I'm feeling very hungry, which is a good sign of pregnancy, right? More good news?
Well, maybe because I'm only 14 weeks, and I kept getting up and moving, and I need to realize that it's pretty small and won't do everything I want it to?
Yaaaa, try telling yourself that at 1:00 am when you've woken up in a cold sweat convinced that it's all over.
Anyway, Dinkypie finally decided to get off his/her butt and move a little while I was driving the boys to school this morning. A distinct, non-gas-related, non-intestinal fluttering kicking. Very very reassuring. I know some first and second timers would never be able to tell the difference, but after this many pregnancies, I can. I would've called for an ultrasound this morning and they would've fit me in no problem, but Mr. Cotta is away on a business trip and could not be there until Wednesday, and I can't bear to make the phone call to him with bad news and then spend the next few days alone with the boys.
Last night my mind kept leaping ahead to scenarios like How do we tell everyone? (answer: by email) What happens at Christmas? If the baby dies just before Christmas do we still host Christmas dinner? How? I guess Santa still comes, but it would make it a really horrible Christmas for the kids if something bad happened right now. And as Taff pointed out in the comments, mothering the living kids I have already has to be a priority. I've always practiced this by the way, to the point that I refused to get a D&C after Georgia died for 2 days, until the day after Mac's first day of junior kindergarten. I knew it was the most important day of his little life and I wasn't going to miss it for a baby that was already dead. To save a baby that had a chance, he would've had to be happy with only Dad there, but I wasn't going to do that for one that had passed on, so I shut up and smiled like a Stepford wife and did what had to be done.
(Yes, more scattered uneven writing, deal with it people, I'm trying here)
I'm going to have to miss the boys Christmas---oooops Winter Seasonal---concert and the play this year because I'll be on bedrest after the amniocentesis, and I'm feeling very sad. The amnio can only be done that day due to holiday scheduling issues, and meanwhile this will be the very first concert I've ever ever missed. Oh well, this is why camcorders were invented, right?
Sooooo new camcorders are good news, and I know the baby moved which is good news! And my curtains look great, and our house looks amazing, which is good news! (Trying to avoid thinking anything negative...) Our Christmas lights look nice, and I've put out some decorations which look great.
I'm feeling very hungry, which is a good sign of pregnancy, right? More good news?
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Desperate for the damn writers strike to be over
So it looks like I'll have to go find some friends who still work in the film industry. I can't stand not knowing what happens to Lynette's family on Desperate Housewives, and until the writers strike is over and Marc Cherry releases the next episode, we're in suspense. At the end of the tornado episode last Sunday, we saw that Wisteria Lane was a wreck, & the entire McCluskey house was destroyed, and Tom her husband, and all of her kids, along with Ida, had been in the basement, leading to the conclusion that they were all killed.
But, supposedly only one husband and one friend were killed, at least according to the spoiler website cache I found. Gabby's new husband, the mayor, who got impaled on a fence post, and Ida, who gets crushed.
The thing is, I don't think that they could kill 5 kids and another husband without any warning, and frankly it ends the entire Lynette story, since she obviously is all out of storyline. (She's already been a drug addict, had mother issues, lost two careers, had cancer, almost had 2 affairs, and caused multiple deaths of strangers, there isn't much else....) My husband calls any and all dead or at risk children emotional p0rn and refuses to watch TV shows like this, and quite often I skip them too. But I have to admit, I wasn't prepared for it, I hadn't seen the promos. Still, it bothered me less than usual and do you know why? Because as Lynette ran to the destroyed house yelling for her family, it just didn't ring true.
When you realize your children are dead, and you scream, it sounds different than that.
I wish I didn't know what I know.
But, supposedly only one husband and one friend were killed, at least according to the spoiler website cache I found. Gabby's new husband, the mayor, who got impaled on a fence post, and Ida, who gets crushed.
The thing is, I don't think that they could kill 5 kids and another husband without any warning, and frankly it ends the entire Lynette story, since she obviously is all out of storyline. (She's already been a drug addict, had mother issues, lost two careers, had cancer, almost had 2 affairs, and caused multiple deaths of strangers, there isn't much else....) My husband calls any and all dead or at risk children emotional p0rn and refuses to watch TV shows like this, and quite often I skip them too. But I have to admit, I wasn't prepared for it, I hadn't seen the promos. Still, it bothered me less than usual and do you know why? Because as Lynette ran to the destroyed house yelling for her family, it just didn't ring true.
When you realize your children are dead, and you scream, it sounds different than that.
I wish I didn't know what I know.
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