Chit-Chat

Sunday afternoon, the time when our neighbors' kids play soccer outside all afternoon, and the Scotts watch football. Today it's the Ravens versus Arizona -- and if I could get the game on TV, I might also be watching the Steelers play. D is at the game in Baltimore, having hosted a big tailgate from breakfast sandwiches through Arizona fajitas for lunch (matter of fact, I wish I could have one of those right now). Right now, I'm sure that he and his Dad are hollering at the top of their lungs, cheering on the offense, which looks much better than it has lately.

Meanwhile, I'm home, keeping Oscar the cat company. He had his claws taken out on Friday, and the poor kitty is still all drugged up, currently spread out on the master bedroom floor in a sunny patch. He seems to be okay, and the vet said everything went all right -- I guess I just feel extra sensitive lately to anyone who is recovering from surgery. It's good he's home, though; he was so ticked off at the vet, just hissing at everyone and looking like some kind of wild creature. Even if I say so myself, as soon as he was back with me, Oscar calmed down and started to relax into healing, licking his poor wounded paws and sticking his hindquarters in the air for a rub. The vet suggested we keep him sequestered somewhere for two days, just to make sure he didn't run around too much and re-open his wounds (they're sealed with surgical glue, just like I had on my neck).

The other day, D's grandma noticed my scar from the cervical surgery for the first time. She said, 'For some reason, I expected it to be in the back.' In fact, the scar fits rather nicely into a normal skin fold on the front of my neck. I told her that the surgeon said it is possible to go in from the back, but that for some reason I no longer recall they prefer the front. All I remember is the nuisance caused by the need to move my esophagus and windpipe out of the way to get to my spine from the front; for weeks I had weird swallowing issues and my mouth and throat made all this extra, gooey mucus to try to smooth over the trauma. Glad that's over! I have another recent scar, too -- on my right big toe, where I had bunion surgery in February -- the bones shaved, realigned, and screwed together with what looked on the X-ray like comically large screws. The toe hurts a little, now and then, usually only because the arches of my feet have completely collapsed with the loosening of pregnancy. Funny to think now about how much I complained during the recovery from the toe surgery.

And soon -- 8 weeks from last Friday, on November 16 -- I'm going to undergo another serious surgery, and incur another scar, when I have a C-section to get Abigail out. I am really not looking forward to the procedure, but I am so excited to meet the baby girl!! I am hoping that the discomfort and pain of recovery will be overshadowed by the challenges and thrill of getting to know our new baby. At the very least, maybe my recent surgery experience will have taught me that this, too, shall pass.

In the meantime I am going to try not to worry about the C-section, and instead focus on getting as strong and healthy as I can before Abby comes. Monday through Wednesday of this last week, I had a very strong few days -- long, involved workouts, walking more easily without the walker, just generally feeling energetic and empowered. It was a great feeling, but I overdid it a bit. By Wednesday night, my rib cage, low back and "upper belly" were just as sore and stiff as could be; that feeling of having an iron corset came back. On Friday, my physical therapist told me to listen to my body, and take a few days off to relax and not exert myself too much. Usually you don't have to tell me twice to relax -- it's one of my best subjects. I was a little disappointed this time, though, to give up that brief feeling of strength and power. Soon enough . . . I am completely convinced that once Abby Jane joins us, my neurological problems are going to evaporate, and I will be able to focus on bringing my strength back.

Tonight D and I are supposed to go to the Genesis concert atthe MCI Center in DC. It's very odd -- if you want handicapped seating (which I'll need in order to be able to get to the seat), you have to just buy whatever ticket you can, and then on the night of the concert you go to a particular office at the arena and see what seats they have available. You could easily buy tickets like ours, row L in some high section, and then end up in the front row of some handicapped section somewhere -- or you could find out after you arrive that there is nowhere to sit, and have to go home. I have learned a lot about what it's like to be disabled in our society -- I'd say the number one lesson is that I couldn't possibly do this without D's help.

The soccer game outside has just ended, and the 2d quarter of my game is already here. Todd Heap just made his first catch -- he's my favorite. It's time for me to find some lunch. Sorry to be rambling a bit today. I have a lot on my mind, but none of it is very organized right now. I just wanted to say hi, and catch up a bit. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Imagine

On September 18, the U.S. Senate passed the Mental Health Parity Act of 2007 (S 558), legislation requiring health plans to cover treatment for mental illness on the same terms and conditions as all other illnesses. The bill now moves to the House, where efforts are underway to move it forward later this fall.

The website for NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, will help you send an automatic email (or letter) to your House representatives urging them to pass the bill. For those who are electorally challenged, you don't even have to know who your reps are -- they figure it out for you!! After you send the email or letter, the web site gives you the opportunity to send a notification email to 6 friends if you want.

The link where you can do this wonderful stuff is the NAMI Legislative Action Center, at http://capwiz.com/nami/home/.

It might be easy to think of those who would benefit from this legislation as just crazies, or hopeless types. Maybe some of them are -- but I think many would be "normal' people who suffer from depression or anxiety, or have other issues that could respond well to therapy. Imagine if people could actually afford treatment! Imagine if mental illnesses were thought of in the correct way -- as just illnesses that can be treated, and deserve to be covered by health plans -- the stigma might evaporate, and that would be a really wonderful thing.

Each Part Gets a Present

I'm in full-on nesting mode. I've been baking, cleaning out the pantry, cross-stitching Christmas ornaments, for crying out loud. This always happens to me at the outset of autumn, as I've mentioned, but this year it could be an enhanced effect due to the baby's imminent arrival. Anyway, I like it. :)

This week is a big birthday week. D and R were born on the same day, September 20, exactly 32 years and 10 minutes apart. We've already had one party and will have two more, plus a romantic (I hope) dinner for two. I've just finished wrapping the too-many gifts I bought, and writing in D's card. I know I overdid it, but when it comes to D I am just so bursting-full of love and gratitude that I want to give him everything in the world. And when it comes to R, I have a hard time prioritizing the various facets of him -- the budding fisherman, the instinctive engineer/builder, the boy who loves honeybees, the Batman . . . so I end up making sure each part gets a present. I am very sure that D will like most of his gifts -- there's one I'm a little uncertain about. After the fact, I'll let you know how it went.

Physically I am having a really good day, for some reason. Maybe it started with a night that I almost slept through. It was the least-disrupted sleep I've had in quite a while, and I woke feeling rested. I also felt strong, though. I walked around without the walker all morning -- the bathroom looks really empty when there's no walker in it; for a minute I couldn't figure out what was different about it. I did a long set of my physical therapy exercises, adding a few dumbbell exercises for my triceps (which are oddly weaker than the other arm muscles) and some swinging kicks to strengthen my hip flexors. With luck maybe I'll get a little muscle tone back before I have to start all over again with recovery from a C-section incision. Then, as I've already told Dave, no one is ever coming near me with a scalpel again, I don't care what parts of me start to fall apart. (It's one of my character flaws -- I resort to blustery, posturing stubbornness when I'm nervous. I just can't believe that I will have had 3 operations in the course of 10 months!) Anyway, today is a good day. I wore myself out with all that exercising, and I had to rest a bit, but I'm back digging around for my brother's home-baked bread recipe.

A couple of quick reviews: I like the new BBC sci-fi show called Torchwood, and also the new iteration of Doctor Who. I'll admit, I'm a sucker for the BBC; I love the naivete of mediocre production values and I love a good accent. Torchwood takes place in Cardiff, of all places -- how can I resist? I've only seen one episode of Torchwood so far, and it lacks the intelligence of Doctor Who at its best, but the heroine, Gwen, is irresistible.

Because I know most of you don't give a flip about SF, Welsh or otherwise, I'll add that I'm loving two new books. One is called Full Catastrophe Living, by the well-known western meditation expert, Jon Kabat-Zinn. This is apparently the 15th anniversary edition of the book, which is sort of a substitute for the renowned course in stress reduction that K-Z pioneered at the University of Massachusetts. The course, which is 8 weeks long, includes breath-focused meditation, the "body scan" relaxation exercise, and some simple yoga. The book, like the course, is designed for anyone whose life could use some stress reduction (who couldn't?), whether because of chronic pain or illness, recovery from injury or surgery, addictions, or just that ubiquitous-but-deadly fight-or-flight response that never goes away in the modern world. I've had some personal experience with meditation before, but I had never managed to develop it into a long-lasting, daily practice. Ditto for yoga, although I enjoyed both activities and found them very effective. This time, I truly hope I can develop this discipline for myself (obviously I'm not really doing any yoga right now, with the mermaid objecting in my belly), because fundamentally I believe that I am only going to achieve real health and wholeness when I can tackle the mind-body thang.

The other book is The Nursing Mother's Companion, by Kathleen Huggins. I started reading another book on breastfeeding before I received this one as a gift (thanks, Ellen!) -- this one is much better! Less preachy, less crunchy, more specific, more detailed . . . I really like it. Maybe I can eventually meditate while breastfeeding. :)

There Was Cake!

What a lovely shower (thank you, Deb!)!! It was a presents kind of shower, not an advice kind of shower, so I had no C-section horror stories, either. My husband was even happy to see me after being away doing fantasy football stuff with his pals. All in all, a perfect day!

A Basketball Busting Open the World

Today is my baby shower, thrown by Dave's mom and stepmom, and by my dear friends Deb and Loralee. [I'll bet there's going to be cake! I could really go for some cake.] It is a testament to the power of tradition that anyone would throw a party for a 38-year-old mother to help her and her husband outfit their nest for a new baby. I'm not suggesting that the expense involved in acquiring all the baby stuff isn't significant, even for us, nor that I'm not glad of the help, but my situation feels a long way from what I have to assume was the original intent of baby showers, to help a young mother starting out to be able to afford cloth diapers and a cradle for the little one.

Unless the original plan really wasn't about buying things at all, but about disseminating information (accurate and otherwise) from the experienced mothers to the newly preggo. Before the predecessors to The Girlfriend's Guide and What to Expect (would that be Dr. Spock?), I suppose a gal relied completely on her female family members and friends to give her the kind of advice and information that the all-male obstetricians of the time probably didn't know or didn't think pertinent. I certainly have been to those kinds of showers before -- always as a single girl with no immediate plans for motherhood. Single girls with no immediate plans for motherhood should be exempt from having to attend baby showers (sorry Nichola, Ellen, Cara, et al who will be there today). Maybe I was not a typical case, but I always used to feel vaguely sick after attending those advice-heavy types of showers. I was not ready to hear, or think, about those things yet.

Then I had a transforming experience. I witnessed a live human birth. I was living in Charlotte, and my dear friend Andre, a fellow attorney I'd recruited from Duke (we like him anyway), was going to spend two days away in Raleigh taking the bar exam, while his wife Stacey was very pregnant. Their obstetrician assured them it would be at least two more weeks before Baby Jalen was interested in emerging, so they agreed Andre should go take the test. Being a clueless but well-intentioned friend, I told Andre to give Stacey (whom I'd barely met) my phone number in case she needed anything. (I was thinking a pint of ice cream, or some cocoa butter or something.) He did so, although he pointed out that Stacey's best friend was nearby so it would be fine.

Of course you realize I got the call. At work one day, Stacey called. She was having contractions. They were pretty close together, and she wasn't sure if she needed to go to the doctor (the doctor?? what were we thinking??), but she just wanted to give me a head's up in case she might need a ride later -- much later. Her best friend, you see, was out of town for a one-day work event. Knowing enough to know that I didn't know anything (and Stacey seeming equally clueless), I raced down the hall to Sally Higgins, who'd given birth multiple times without even any drugs. As far as I was concerned, she was Mother Nature. After I explained the situation, Sally said I should go get Stacey and take her straight to the doctor -- or the hospital. I called Stacey and told her I was coming.

After finding their apartment (a minor miracle because my car's gas tank was fortuitously empty), I found Stacey on the phone with her mother -- who I've since learned is not the most reliable woman -- talking herself out of going anywhere. By now the contractions were just over a minute apart, which was enough to give me a heart attack, but Stacey and her mom seemed to think that if she just stayed calm, the contractions would stop on their own and the baby would wait a day or two for Andre to come home.

In the end, I convinced Stacey to let me drive her, on fumes, to her obstetrician. I waited for about 5 seconds after she went back inside the office before she came back out and said the doctor told her to go to the hospital (how stupid we were!!). I prayed all the way there that the car would keep running on magic, and half an hour later, I was sitting with a woman I barely knew watching The Fresh Prince, having witnessed her being given an enema and the changing into the hospital gown. Stacey had spoken to Andre at his lunch break, and they decided that as this was the last day of the exam, he would stay and finish before hightailing it the three hours home to Charlotte. I don't remember if I tried to make small talk, or not. I remember what I was thinking, though -- I was recalling cavalier conversations with friends about having a baby by myself, if Mr. Right didn't come along. The air of fear in that room was palpable, and I suddenly very much doubted I'd ever want to have a baby by myself.

Fairly quickly, Stacey decided to ask for the epidural. That seemed to slow everything down, and we watched a couple more sitcoms before the doctors and nurses started bustling around -- I guess she had dilated, or whatever. This girl was tough, let me tell you. She didn't even whimper through those contractions. Maybe she was like me -- loathe to show weakness in front of a near-stranger. Before I knew what was happening, I was holding one of her legs, the nurse the other, and we were really in for it. The baby waited, though, and Andre suddenly burst into the room, looking like the hounds of hell had been chasing him. I made to leave but Stacey, in her drugged-out stupor, insisted that I stay. Now the only place in the room to sit (which I emphatically needed to do) was at, as they say, the wrong end of the table. I sat, and the Jamaican woman doctor was saying, "Get me some better scissors -- these ones are dull." She had started the episiotomy, only to find the scissors wouldn't cut. I watched her get out a hypodermic the size of a knitting needle and aim it down there, and I had to clamp both hands over my mouth not to yelp aloud. Finally, that part was done, and I stared transfixed at all the glop and blood soaking the floor and the sheets, watching that tiny scissored space like it was the sun, and then he came. The words "all of a sudden" don't measure up in this instance -- it was like being hit by a lightning bolt. From that tiny little space, that sore little focus of all the medical attention, that neither Stacey nor Andre could see, came a GIANT, blue head, looking like a basketball busting open the world, and then the rest of him came, and then there was Jalen. My hands came free, and I shouted, "OH MY GOD!" (I'm not proud.) I wasn't thinking of the miracle of life, or praising the God that let Andre get there in time. All I was thinking of was the impossibility of something that HUGE coming out of a place that small.

As the nurse bustled Andre and Jalen over to the examination center for weighing and cleaning and things, the doctor turned to look at me and laughed. She looked a bit like Dionne Warwick, and sounded a little like Sebastian, the lobster from The Little Mermaid. "Ha! Look at you! We'll have you in here soon for your turn, don't worry, young lady." I felt green. "I," I said, shaking my head slowly for emphasis, "am not doing that." And oh, did I mean it. From the bottom of my soul, I meant it.

Afterward, my hands shook for about two hours, even through the bourbon I had when I got home (for medicinal purposes). And for the next couple of years, at every baby shower I attended, I told the story, usually with the rapt attention of the guest of honor. I remember Tracy Stouse, however, a pal of mine, stopping the story early on at her shower. "Shut up," she said. "Some things, I don't want to know."

Well, it's now my turn, just like Dr. Lobster said, but as it turns out, I am not doing that, at least not if things go as planned, because I'll be having a C-section instead. I'll never forget Jalen's arrival, though, and I'm sure that, like Stacey, I'll be a little out of it for the birth of my own child. Nobody better try to tell me any C-section horror stories today, though. Like Tracy, I don't want to know; I adapt to unexpected situations much better than I handle the anticipation of a known, frightening event. I wouldn't mind some advice -- just give me advice about things I can control, like how to swaddle a kid or what kind of binkie to use (and why I'm supposed to call it a "binkie"). You can give us presents if you want. And hopefully, there'll be cake of some kind. We'll all get through it, just fine.

By the way, Jalen's in third grade this year, and Andre is in his eighth year of practicing law in North Carolina.

Superoptimal

Sorry, I've been a little lax lately with the blogging. I am still having a lot of trouble sleeping, and it is making me grouchy, sad, and very stiff. Thanks to anomalous crowding of their appointment schedule, I also haven't had physical therapy in two weeks, which is probably part of why I'm so sore. The good news is, I've been walking pretty well -- the other evening I was walking around without the walker a bit and other than a slight waddle caused by my sore back and enormous beach-ball belly, you'd really not know I was having problems. I am a little more balanced, and the herky-jerky stuff seems much reduced. Now, I feel like the problems are mostly weakness and stiffness. Of course, weakness seems more and more an issue, the heavier and heavier I get.

Which brings us to yesterday's 28-week ob/gyn visit. I am gaining weight right on track, which is good -- considering how good I am at gaining weight when not pregnant, I thought my body might run totally amok under these circumstances, but luckily it appears not to be. This could be because random foods make me want to hurl, and because there is no room inside me for an actual stomach, so I don't eat very much at any one time. Mind you, I'm still huge, but I feel like it's kind of normal-pregnancy huge and therefore comforting rather than alarming. I am just sort of hoping that the way back to a normal-sized body will make itself apparent to me in a few months.

Anyway, the visit was good. I am healthy, all the things I bitched about are apparently normal (insomnia, heartburn, swelling, etc.), and although we haven't scheduled it officially yet, we planned Abby's arrival for November 16. Very odd, putting your baby's birth into your Family Time calendar, even if it's only in pencil, but I guess that's our reality, hers and mine. After Dr. Fraga (who was wearing my favorite pair of Manolos of hers -- creamy, spike-heeled sandals-- while I sported very snazzy Birkenstock sandals that are creasing my water-balloon feet), we went to Georgetown for my sonogram. Dr. Collea, the maternal-fetal medicine guy Fraga studied under (and therefore referred me to), did the scan himself, because Dr. Fraga had asked him to clarify something on last month's report that had us all a little freaked out -- the baby's heart was listed as "suboptimal" and there was something called an "echogenic somethingorother indicating a possible chordae tendinae." Fraga didn't know what this meant (which offended me a little), and she kept insisting that it was probably nothing even as she set up the consult with Dr. Collea. D and I, meanwhile, had watched the tech do the sonogram with the supposedly suboptimal heart, and we didn't notice any double-takes or bad vibes on her part; on the contrary, she kept commenting on how good everything looked and cooing to the baby as if she were lying in a fluffy bassinet instead of floating in amniotic darkness. Because everything had seemed fine then, D and I weren't too worried about Abby's heart, either, but we were still very pleased when Dr. Collea shooed bad thoughts with a wave of his hand, saying, "Oh, no, no, it just means that it was hard to see all the parts of the heart because of where the baby was lying, and the echogenic thing is completely normal and no big deal." Whew. Then he did a scan which, although it wasn't quite as maternally gooey as Giselle's had been, nor really as skillful (after all, she does this all the time), showed a perfectly healthy and happy little girl bubbling around in there, although she might have her daddy's RLS . . . she kicked up a storm. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the Chick-Fil-A sweet tea I guzzled on the way to the hospital. He also did something cool, which was to explain how she is situated in there, which I find hard to get just by looking at the screen. She is breech right now; her back runs along my left side, her feet are down south (or sometimes up by her head -- she appears to occasionally practice a jackknife diving move, or maybe she's doing a deeply skillful Folded Cobbler's Pose), and her head is probably what's squishing my stomach. She likes to grab her toes, or, if she's sleeping, put her hands curled up by her face, like her mama does.

So, we've got a perfectly fine little girl -- well, I say little, but not really. She is 2 pounds, 11 ounces, about 11 ounces bigger than average for her age, and my uterus measures about 2 weeks bigger than it should (if you know what I mean -- the measurement with a tape measure from your coochie to the top of your uterus is supposed to be the same as the number of weeks pregnant you are, by some amazing DaVinci-esque type of divine symmetry). She's a big baby. I could have told you that, even though I lack objective comparisons. I can just tell.

Abby likes sweet tea. She also likes the Irish lullaby, Toora Loora Loora. She likes the middle of the night, when I am trying in vain to fall back asleep (I can't remember the last night that I didn't see 2 or 3 a.m., wide, wide awake). And I like to think that she likes the way the kids kiss her through my belly, or hug her goodbye at the end of a visit. I know it won't always be smooth sailing once she's out here with the rest of us, but for now, I'm satisfied.

The Beach and Birdy

We had our last beach hurrah of the summer this weekend, at Grandbob's house in Bethany Beach. This summer, beach preparations have been more fun because both kids can remember from one trip to the next what the beach house is like, which fun things we do there, and similar important concepts. Last summer I feel like I spent many hours on several occasions explaining to R what a "beach" actually is. This year, we pulled out the beach bag and R said, "Oooh! I LOVE the beach! I LOVE Grandbob's beach house!" I wanted to hug him with gratitude for his little developing neural pathways. This year, I only needed to spend some time explaining (or choosing not to explain) the difference between the "ocean" and the "sea," the fact that sharks would not bother us on the sandy expanse or in water that covers only our toes, and the distinction between "popsicles" and "lollipops."

S faced off against her most stubbornly bossy new friend (read: kindred spirit) in the form of J, our friends' Jean and Chris' 4 year old daughter. She was a little juggernaut in white miniskirts and S was obviously flabbergasted by her encounter with a littler girl who would not only not kowtow, but who stood up for herself-- loudly and effectively. Watching S try to work it out was, I say with some measure of guilt, rather amusing. First the two of them just raised their voices, trying to out-shout each other. Then, they started insulting: S said to J that she was "just like Veruca Salt, who is the baddest kid ever in all the bad-kid movies," but J won that round when, unperturbed by Wonka references, she told S she simply wasn't her friend. S dissolved into hiccupping tears and told any grownup who would listen. The only incident that actually disturbed me was when they began arguing about the Steelers and the Ravens, with their little fingers pointing at each others' noses: "The Steelers are no good!" "But, the Ravens are just mean!" Jean and I both found this disturbing and annoying, mostly because these xenophobic football impulses originated with the respective fathers, who were schlepping beach stuff and therefore didn't have to endure the consequences of their brainwashing. Unfortunately, after Jean and I bellowed and threatened until the girls backed off, both of the men were actually more disappointed to have missed the catfight than they were contrite.

R loved the waves this time. D took him out into the deeper water and held him up as they swelled up and down. My little blond sea sprite came running up the beach afterward to tell me about it (I did manage to watch, although I cringed a lot because it constantly looked as though D was about to drown), slowly bouncing up and down with his knees bending: "And all the big waves came, and they went UP and DOWN and we went UP and DOWN and I was in all the big waves!!" For the record, D assures me that despite appearances to my panicked eye, he never went beyond where he could easily stand, having learned last year in the Chesapeake Bay that trying to tread water while holding a kid is not his idea of fun.

S likes the water, too, but she still prefers either playing imagination games in the sand (like "finding" buried treasure -- usually after having buried it first) or, even better, finding new kids to talk to. She and J battled over sand buckets and who kicked in whose sand-hole, and each constantly ordered the other to play the game she was playing. It reminded me of trying to be effective at the office while working with someone who just rubs you the wrong way. What a disappointment that kids have that issue, too.

Oh -- a very important book recommendation. Waiting for Birdy, by Catherine Newman, is a really, truly, amazingly wonderful collection of essays about the year during which the author was pregnant with (and newly mother of) her second child, Birdy, while raising her three-year-old son, Ben. This is, I gather, mostly a compilation of Ms. Newman's columns called Bringing Up Ben and Birdy, which she wrote (writes?) for BabyCenter.com. Check out some columns here: http://www.babycenter.com/search/showResultsForContent.htm?cTab=ARTICLE&queryString=birdy

Waiting for Birdy made me cry, laugh out loud enough that I looked around sheepishly as if Oscar the cat might be glaring at my lack of poise (which in fact he often does), and, at one, point, spit out my milk. The best part is, I think it would have made me do all those things even if I weren't pregnant. The writing is full of crazy-perfect metaphor, and the author's experiences are just universal enough to make you love her, just organic-crunchy-no-TV-pacifist-lefty-New-England enough to make you feel a little awestruck. It helps that she's not rich because she's a writer. Even if she makes her own organic baby food and feeds her toddler tofu cubes, it's hard to hate someone whose furniture is from the Salvation Army and whose Christmas ornaments are all gifts from in-laws. Plus, she doesn't send one iota of smugness your way. She is genuine, and her various friends, who appear in cameos, usually saying the things you're thinking, like, "Um, yeah, there are drugs to help you with that," are all people you end up wanting to meet. Ms. Newman is also a total ball of neuroses and anxieties, wrapped up in passionate love for her family. And she's a really good writer. Even if you don't remember being pregnant or never want to have kids, read the book!