Jinx November 28, 2007

I do not want to jinx the house of Charlotte and S, but we are coming dangerously close to being a boring pregnancy blog.

You better keep reading people.
Thursday will be 18 weeks and I think we are finally starting to bond with the baby. Having a decision made about the amnio helps, as does S’s growing belly. Two weeks until the big ultrasound, which is the first tolerable TWW we have had.

We can only hope that the drama of known donors, IUI money woes, frozen inseminations, OPKs, monitors, shots, Clomid, peeing on sticks, miscarriages, D&C’s, inseminating using a friend issues, oddly shaped sacs, subchorionic hematomas, 1st trimester fears, and chomosomal abnormality testing, is over. O V E R.

unexpected news November 27, 2007

Unexpected good news. Unbelievable. Our downs odd have changed to 1/900! They were 1/342.

The trisomy odds are now 1/250,000 and neural tube defects are 1/45,000.

This means no amnio. The reliability rate for these statistics as part of the quad screen (which is different from just doing the nuchal translucency test at 12 weeks) is 94%. Amnios are only 98% accurate. That is good enough for me. Honestly though, I am a little sad not to get the yes or no from the amnio. But I can live with 1/900, and I was not living well with 1/342.

Plus, Space Monkey is alive (S felt the little bugger again last night) and probably really truly does not have downs syndrome.

I’m trying to let some good news sink in.

Big ultrasound where we find out boy or girl is TWO WEEKS from today.

I heart Beckett November 26, 2007

1. The results from the blood test are not in yet. Fucking labs. they should have been ready on Thanksgiving. Nothing today. Makes me mad. Must wait another day and pretend to be S calling the doctor. At least they think she is the annoying bitch.

2. Seeing the Unwelnesses (Bri, Wes and Beckett).

They are such lovelies. All of them. Smart, funny, authentic. You can talk to them about anything : poop, your mother in law, your darkest depression, candy, bad fashion. And that wonderful baby is so well mannered. I got smell his head and everything. Plus I got to meet Bri’s family. Always interesting to meet a friend’s family. Anyway, what can I say about the Unwellnesses? Bri and Wes adore each other. They fight about who gets to hold Beck. If we were not pregnant I would have found the lovefest a little gross. Just kidding. Really. They never illicit that jealousy in me, pregnant or not. It makes me happy to spend time with people who are totally in love with each other and their baby. Seriously, they are people of substance, and I heart them.

3. More to come tomorrow about Christian grandparents and lab results (please random lab in`New York, fax the damn paperwork.)

more to come, and please help me lie November 24, 2007

we have had an insanely busy, bordering on not relaxing, week off. hence, no blogging. but boring life will return next week so i will have lots of updates about seeing Bri, S’s Christian grandparents, what LM wants to name the baby, AND on monday, the results of the 3rd part of the quad screen which will determine whether we get an amnio.

also, i got a carpool lane ticket which was totally my fault, but it is INSANELY expensive so i have a court hearing on monday to contest it. yes, yes, i’m going to hell but lets move on. i set it up because i can’t afford the ticket, but i don’t have a good excuse, yet. i believe that saying there was a dangerous driver in front of me “so i swerved” then got back into the correct lane is very common and might be lame for the judge to hear so i’m trying to come up with something better, but i can’t. if you are devious, smart, helpful, or a good liar (or all of the above), PLEASE help me come up with a good excuse.

and yes, i do feel like a giant asshole for getting this ticket in the first place.

I threw my motherf*cking back out November 20, 2007

Bowling. Bowling is the devil. And who throws their back out? Whatami 70? So I walk around all stiff and slow and S has to wait on me. That part is nice. Paybacks, you know? And it was possibly worth it because I got to see my 3 year old son in bowling shoes, putting his little fingers in a bowling ball and wobbling over to the lane where he would drop it and then squat down and push it with both hands.

As we were walking towards the bowling alley from the parking lot he saw that we were close to an arcade that he likes to stand at the door of and watch all the blinking lights.

He said “Mama, why is the bowling church so close to the arcade?”

Totally worth throwing my back out. Also, we are buying Thanksgiving dinner from a yummy bakery instead of making it because I can’t cook and S is a bad cook on top of being a pregnant vegetarian.

Bowling church. Hah.

life is rich November 17, 2007

We are off to see Complicated Mama (WTF), Rocket Man, and their three kids this weekend. And we don’t need sperm. Yay! This is our first visit since the time that worked, on vacation with them, which also happened to be WTF and RMs darkest hour in terms of new baby hell also known as chronic sleep deprivation. Needless to say that was not a great vacation for anyone, and the last thing they wanted to be doing was providing sexy late night donations to us. But, knock on all wood in the universe, we don’t need to do that with them ever, ever, again. Now we get to oogle the new baby, now 5 months old and rub S’s shockingly large belly, and have great fucking cuban food, and also have a memorial service (adults going to a river near their house with pinwheels) for CM and RM’s baby who died at 22 weeks, also named Charlotte.

We will let the wind blow the pinwheels, say a blessing, and return home to a house full of living babies (five total) theirs, ours, and one on the way.

so November 15, 2007

heard the heartbeat = good.

undecided about the amnio = bad.

not so bad, just more waiting which i must buck up for. S really wants to wait for the results of todays blood test. we get the results next week. no early amnio. S and I got in a fight about it all last night. me feeling like i have no say, her feeling alone in the decision (however that happened). navigating these decisions are never easy for us.

but i am actually doing okay. i am resolved to wait until next week to make the decision, and i’m attempting to be relaxed (hah!) about whether we get the test. 1/342 isn’t sounding likely to me today. so i’ll roll with that.

16 weeks, quad screen November 13, 2007

Tomorrow we have our monthly prenatal appointment where we will discuss, for the 3rd time, getting an amnio. S is totally in the middle. I am leaning towards doing it. But honestly my feelings about terminating are changing as S’s belly gets bigger
and Space Monkey has graduated to an ‘apple’. An apple. Termination at this point just makes my blood run cold. It didn’t at 12 weeks, but it does now. Anyway, I think I want/need to just know. But it is up to S and she is characteristically undecided.

Thursday is the 3rd part of the quad screen, another blood test. Results will come during Thanksgiving week, at which point we will make our final decision regarding the amnio, which will happen (if it does) at 18 weeks, and we will have the results at 20 weeks. I have seen a baby (WTF’s, now known as Complicated Mama) born dead at 22 weeks, and I must tell you that it was a baby, not a fetus, not kinda-mostly-a-baby, but an entire baby. So I know, for us (my language, for me and S only), that termination at 20 weeks would be killing a baby. Killing it because we didn’t want to deal with it’s disability. It just makes me want to puke all over the keyboard.

Ugly. Anyway. Tomorrow we get to (knock on wood - there is no way I’m taking that for granted) hear the heartbeat. Oh! S felt the baby move the other day. Then again yesterday. She said it felt like a tiny fish making a sharp turn. I think that is EXACTLY what it feels like.

pee ess: thanks for all the website advice!

I’m so dumb November 12, 2007

hey I just realized that on my website I’m giving out info I would not give out on this blog, so I had to take the post down!! Oops. Sorry about that. But thank you so much for your fab suggestions, I’m making lots of changes. If you want the password email dosmamas@gmail.com and I’ll give it to you and that password will stay the same for future PW protected posts.

Protected: I have a cake website **with more questions November 11, 2007

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