Bouncing Baby......

Why the color change?

I had my nuchal translucency ultrasound last Thursday. I do not have the results of the test yet, but it appears that the kid is a BOY! It is an early guess, but it was a pretty good money shot. We are thrilled. The information has saved us hours on debating names as we were no where close to reaching a decision on a girl's name but has added much time on to my bedding search, as I have not found any boy's bedding a am thrilled with. I am open to all suggestions.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe

We have been on a self imposed don't tell policy with the pregnancy. Our immediate families knew, our closest friends, and our doctors. No need to tell the whole world, other than the Internet of course. We decided that we would start to tell people after my nuchal translucency ultrasound which was scheduled for last Thursday.

On Wednesday, I get a group email sent from one of my friends from college announcing her pregnancy with her second child. Her due date is after mine. So, I think what the hell and I respond to the email saying that I am pregnant as well. I also include a small blurb about our infertility treatments and loss of a twin, mainly because it is part of our story and I feel an important one. One of my friends responds to my email with congratulations and says that she is glad "all that" is behind us now. I started to tear up at my desk as I read the words. Now I know that she did not mean anything by the statement and it was likely just a poor choice of words, but there is no way in hell that this is or will ever be behind us. Frank responded with, "it is behind us until we want a second child then it is all in front of us again". I am sure the sting of infertility may lesson a bit over time, but we will never be the same and not all in bad ways. I realize that if I want to tell our whole story, I need to realize that stupid comments will abound but if we are able to educate just a few people then I guess it was worth it.

Walk on

This past Saturday was our local March of Dimes Walk for Babies walk to raise money. Frank and I had the honor of Walking with Team Mighty Matt, a team in memory of our good friends nephew who passed away at about 2 weeks of age after being born premature and with congenital heart defects. We had a great time although next year perhaps I should train a little for the hilly terrain of the 5 mile walk. Its sad that I used to run every day and now a measly 5 mile walk made me tired, but I digress.

March of Dimes does great work in raising money for research to help promote healthy babies, be it in reducing prematurity and birth defects, or to find new therapies for preterm infants. When I was in medical school 50% of infants born at 25 weeks would not survive and 50% of those that did wold have significant disabilities. Those numbers are MUCH better now thanks to new medications and advances in respiratory support. I have a special place in my heart for the March of Dimes as my favorite rotations in med school and residency were in the NICU. I was always the most comfortable there. I loved the science of neonatology, the practice, and the families. I was always amazed how a family who had a unexpected preterm birth could rise to the challenges of NICU. It is not always easy for them, more like a roller coaster ride with its ups and downs, and these families were some of the strongest I met. Had I not had some scholarship obligations to fulfill that required me to practice general pediatrics, I would be completing the second year of a three year fellowship in Neonatology right now. I have not completely ruled out going back either, although I think it will be much harder for me to go back than had I gone straight through. I will say walking onto the field on Sat and seeing all of the team shirts and signs with pictures of premature babies, some who were there that day and others who lost their battle brought back a flood of emotions for me of how much I miss my contact with that world.

So, I was walking on Saturday for Matthew, for all the babies I have cared for, for those I now only through the computer, and for all the babies that never had the chance to fight. I can't wait for next year.

Blind as a Bat

So the aforementioned glasses seem to be missing. I have NO idea what happened to them. Then only thing I can think of is that they fell out of my bag when I was getting out of my car and are now being worn by someone in West Philly. Saturday, I took a trip to the optometrist to have my eyes refracted since the last time I went was in October of 2004, otherwise known as the last time I lost my glasses. Well, not lost per say, more like left in a hotel room in Pittsburgh. My eyes have never been that bad. I only first started wearing glasses in graduate school. I guess once I started to study, it had an effect. Imagine my surprise when the Dr. put up the eye chart and had me cover my left eye and I could not read the chart AT ALL. Apparently, my eyesight has changed dramatically for the worse. Some of it may be due to pregnancy, but not all. I had been getting migraines behind my right eye lately, which was the weaker eye. I was chalking them up to pregnancy sinuses but maybe it was actually eye strain. We'll see. So if you happen to be in the heart of West Philly, and see someone walking around with black and green frames, let them keep them. I have cool new frames now. The downside....I can see the dust in my house much clearer.

Too Cool

I am so cool I am sitting in my office with my sunglasses on. Why? I left my glasses at home somehow. I must have put my sunglasses on (prescription) and instead of putting my glasses in my bag, I left them on the counter.

Ugggghhhhhh

Art?????

This literally makes me physically ill. This girl is trivializing pregnancy and miscarriage. And Lord knows what irreparable damage she has done to her body, although from the articles I have read she does not seem to care. I acknowledge that I am not the most outside of the box thinker but can someone please explain to me how this is art?????????????????

Lessons

Things I learned today....

If you have synthetic hair, aka a weave, you use boiling hot water to curl it, not a curling iron. If you spill said water, you will get second degree burns.

Seriously, I asked why they did not use a curling iron, and they looked at me like stupid white girl. Which, admittedly, I am.

I hate people

I have lost my faith in mankind......again.

I work in an inner city clinic where the vast majority of our patients are underprivileged to say the least. They also are suspect to many of diseases of the inner city. We have an alarmingly high asthma rate. It is due to many factors, poverty, poor living conditions, mold, cockroaches, and the fact that at baseline, Blacks have a higher risk for having asthma.

Anyway, we try to see our pediatric asthma patients at least every 3 months, to check on their medications and make sure we do not need to adjust anything, as well as to do teaching. Well, as you can imagine, we have a small percentage of patients who actually show up for these appointments. So, we resorted to bribery. We sent out postcards and asked our patients to bring it in during their asthma visit for a free gift. Nothing big, just stuff from the dollar store, but we are trying to get the kids in and see how many people respond to our mailings as we have done many mailings in the past reminding people to schedule asthma visits with little response. Tonight, I had a grand mom (who has custody) bring in 2 kids aged 3 and 4 for their asthma visits with her postcard in hand. Great. The kids keep talking about their prize. I finish the visit, go to get the toys and they are GONE! GONE! They were in the closet in my office where I have a bunch of other crap including cream samples, formula, and nebulizers. I look everywhere they could possibly be and they are nowhere to be found. I am disgusted. The grand mom was really understanding and we will get toys for the kids but I felt like crap. I HATE promising kids stuff and then falling through. It makes you look like I liar and kids remember. I never lie to them. If they need a shot, I tell them. If it is going to hurt I tell them, in a nice way of course. It is way better to be honest with them. Who knows who stole the gifts, but we have had issues with the cleaning staff in the past. All I know is I hope they really needed them.

Tagged

I have been tagged by Busted to list 6 unimportant things about me. I am terrible at this stuff but I will give it a shot.

1. I read magazines back to front. All the time. Not sure why or how it started.

2. I used to have a deathly fear of downward escalators. I would seriously walk to the other side of the mall to find stairs. It took years to get over it.

3. I have a great memory for birthdays. I wake up and remember it is someones birthday whom I have not spoken to in years. Phone numbers I stink at.

4. I have a pointed ear and a rounded ear.

5. I am a Christmas freak! I love it! I have been known to play Christmas music in the summer and I start baking in early November.

6. I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime anyhow.

I never send out chain mail so I am not going to tag anyone, but if you are reading and feel like sharing...go for it.

11 weeks

I am 11 weeks pregnant today. It seems like I have been pregnant for a long time yet few people know and I have a LOOOOONG way to go. I had my first OB appointment yesterday which went well. Although, I really think that there needs to be an alternate pathway for infertility patients. A weaning process if you will. It is just not right to go from ultrasounds with every visit to smile from the Dr and assurances that everything is ok. We want proof lady! She was able to find the heartbeat with the doppler after the nurse failed to do so. I was going to rip it out of the nurses hand to do it myself, but I thought that may not have made the best first impression. The Dr. did say I could come in whenever I want to listen. We actually have one at my office but I need to figure out how to steal it away from the medical assistants without question. Poor Frank, though, he did not come with me yesterday and he is used to the procedure at the RE office. His first question was how much did it grow from last visit. Hmm, not sure, no ultrasound. I set up my nuchal translucency ultrasound for 4/24 so we will get another look then.

Death by Alarm Clock

I love my husband, I really do. He gave me a wonderful birthday yesterday, and is generally the kindest person I know. It is unfortunate then, that I am going to have to kill him. We have very different sleeping patterns. I go to bed early, he sits downstairs and fights sleep for as long as possible while finding dumb shows to watch on TV. I will give him that last night was the NCAA Championship game, but it is an every night occurrence. Come morning, I get up when my alarm clock goes off. I may not be happy about it, but I get up. Frank, on the other hand, sets his alarm for about an hour before he plans to get up and continually hits the snooze button. Sometimes, I have to hit him for him to reset the alarm as its buzzing turns to shrill, rapid tones the longer it goes. This goes on for at least 6 cycles. Then, out of nowhere, a song will start blaring from his cell phone, his back up alarm he likes to call it. The end result is Frank still sleeping and now late and me wide awake an hour early and both of us cranky. It would be justified manslaughter, right?

AMEN

This is hysterical!

It is a must read if you also do not believe for one second that J Lo had no infertility treatments.

Pretty as a picture

I came home today to a freshly painted living room, stairs, and upstairs hallway. We hired painters to do the work since neither Frank nor I are spectacular painters (as evidenced by all the other rooms we have done). It is really amazing to see the ceilings perfect and no splashes anywhere. I told Frank he should have taken the day off to just observe. They should be completely done tomorrow.
Of course, this means we need new living room furniture, right?