How Do You Explain Death to a 2 Year Old?

Raleigh, our amazing Chesapeake Bay Retriever died today. We knew we were on borrowed time, we just didn't expect this today. This morning I came downstairs and he was laid by the back door which he had never done - he was sleep on the couch boy. I had a bad feeling when I left for work this morning, but I didn't expect the call from Robert at 1.45. He had come home from the park and coffee shop with Poppy and found him. He got Poppy upstairs, and spent some time saying goodbye to Raleigh, before covering him.

I took a cab from work, and it was during that hour it hit me. I have spent most of career working with adults and children with cancer. I have been around death and dying for years, but I have never thought about how you tell a child about death. My pediatric patients often had an understanding of death, some even made many of their end of life decisions, but I never thought about how parents told siblings. How were we going to Poppy? Raleigh was her best buddy. Whenever we were coming home from anywhere in the car about 2 blocks from the house she would start saying "RaRa I coming" and "I see RaRa soon." On the occasions we have had to park around the corner and not in front of the house we have had to deal with uncontrollable sobs as she wailed "I see RaRa." Oh man this would be tough. And after years of talking about and dealing with death I had no idea what to do. When Raleigh had gotten sick about a month ago we had explained that Raleigh was very old and that he would soon go to heaven, and that heaven had lots of tennis balls for him to play with and he would be able to go swimming. We avoided talking about him going to the doctor - not wanting her to later associate doctors with anything bad. She often told us "RaRa poorly, legs hurting" and "Poppy take care RaRa"

So this is what happened. She was asleep, and rightly or wrongly we woke her up rather than let her wake up naturally and leave the poor dog on the couch any longer than necessary. I told her she had to be very brave, and that we were going downstairs to say bye bye to Raleigh because he had died. I told her he looked like he was asleep but he would not wake up. She petted his nose and through her "Why the hell did you wake me up?" tears she said "Bye bye RaRa I love you." The she asked to go back to bed. I took her back upstairs and Robert took Raleigh to the vet. When she did not go back to sleep I brought her into our bed and we laid down snuggled up looking up at the sky lights, and we talked about how Raleigh was in heaven. I told her that he was up high in the stars and that he would look down and see us and make sure we were okay even though we would never see him again. She piped up "Raleigh up in stars." I told her yes, then she says "Raleigh up in moon?" I said yes. She nodded in that wise way only toddlers know and gave me a big hug. So given that I am pretty much an agnostic I think I did a pretty good job on the heaven thing. We came downstairs, she didn't look for him, she grabbed a Curious George phonics book and asked me to read it. Now this is interesting - one of the little stories is about George going to the doctor. She made me read this 5 times until Robert came home and then she flew to him hugging him so tight and told him "Raleigh up in stars daddy." Then she asked to go for sushi.

On the way home she started asking for him, and we told her very quietly and calmly "Raleigh is dead honey, he is in heaven up in the stars." No fuss, no crying. We got out of the car and got to love on Cheddar our neighbor's adorable lab which made a huge difference because when we came in the house she did not look for him.

After her bath we had to read stories - and of course she wanted "dog stories" and the only one I had to hand was "Saying Goodbye to Lulu." Oh this is the one book I did not want to read. I read it twice, I cried, she kissed me and kissed me.

So we do not know what tomorrow will bring, the new day will not fill the Raleigh shaped hole on the couch, for a dog who was pretty quiet of late overall the house seems abnormally quiet now. All I can say is as hard as it was I am very comfortable with our decisions to let her see his body and say goodbye, and with the decision to not use euphemisms for death. We did not tell her that he had run away (my parents did that to me - took me about 32 years to work it out), or gone to live with another family. Yes we used the abstract concept of heaven, but I do feel as if he is somewhere watching us, playing with endless tennis balls, and swimming but that couch is awful empty.

Oh if anyone is interested this is the book - this is the link to author's website.



http://www.corinnedemas.com/books/lulu.html

Maternal musings at 16 months

I had planned to write another Poppy update when she turned 1, but as I am sure every other parent can attest the time just gets away from you, and the older they get the faster the time seems to go. I would love to wax lyrical, but have decided to revert to the something that may seem a little more clinical....and if in parts it sounds whiney I apologize, but I bet every mummy has had similar feelings.....

Mobility - AKA - appreciating the days of always knowing where she was
It is hard now to remember the pre-mobility days, but I do remember worrying that she would never progress from commando crawling to "real crawling." I can't exactly remember when she was suddenly up, and suddenly very very fast, but I know we were both really glad that we had pre-emptively childproofed. Stairs came next, she mastered going up those before she could actually walk independently. Walking happened at the best possible time. We had gone to the UK for Christmas and on December 23rd with much urging and cheering from my Uncle Stephen she walked to my mum, just 2 or 3 steps, but that was it took - she has never stopped since. She hates to be restrained, although we have made sure that she still likes to be in her stroller - we want to delay the refusal to use that for as long as possible. We have the baby reins in the closet and no doubt by the summer we will be using them. Rob was never very keen on the idea of "putting Poppy on a leash" until after daycare one day when he was unlocking the car she took off for the woods shouting "Bur...bur...bur" and signing bird!

Mouthy just like mummy and daddy
Poppy found her voice quite early - but then for a long time she did nothing. She knew mama, dada, baba, gaga but the seemed to choose not to talk, preferring that caveman communication of pointing and grunting. Robert and I are both very chatty (just in case any of you had missed this...) so it was a little disconcerting, but just like walking once she started she never stopped. It is fun trying to guess what she is saying - we know what some of her linguistic inventions mean but it was trial and error. She ate lots of cheese for a while - until we worked out that cheese just meant "I'm hungry", she also drank lots of OJ until we realized that "juice" just meant thirsty. Now she knows "shuz" (shoes), "ban" (banana), "ca" (cat), "ba' (bath), "bur' (bird), "che" (cheerios), "fush" (fish) "bye", "mama", "daddy" and "gadad" (grandad - my dad). The most embarrassing linguistic development has been "bub" which means boob and is accompanied by trying to pull up my shirt (or when we left her with my parents for a couple of days my mum's - that caused some chuckles) She has also shown quite a natural aptitude for signs and signs banana, cereal, cat, dog, change, more, eat, drink, bath, toothbrush, blanket (which I think is funny since she really never really uses a blanket), hat (something else she refuses to use), fish. She has this odd little "lubbly, lub, jubbly" thing she does when she is frustrated which is really hysterically funny.

Becoming a big girl
We finally got her off the bottle and on to a cup, but we just cannot get this kid off the boob. As I have said before I have was a reluctant breast feeder to say the least and here I am 16 months later still nursing at least twice a day. It has been hard because she has never really used a dummy (pacifier) and only sucked her thumb for a short time so she tends to use mummy as a dummy - which is proving a hard habit to break. I know she will get there, but I think we may be waiting for the time she can understand that "You are a big girl and big girls don't do this' (In the interim anyone reading this who has suggestions - please please share). She has started just in the last couple of weeks to be very selective over her clothes, which is adorable. She has become interesting in helping - she loves loading and unloading the dishwasher and actually knows where things go; she also loves the broom and the swiffer (she even has her own kiddy broom that I have found so handy for getting toys out from under the sofa)

Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom
As for solid food she is a good little eater, and an adventurous one at that. One of the best books I read after I had her was "Hungry Monkey" (http://hungrymonkeybook.com/)
and we purposely have tried to make Poppy an adventurous eater. She is sometimes picky though - her favorite foods are cheese, any kind of noodle, curry, palak tiki, rice, meatballs, fish, ham, grapes, oranges, raisins, bananas, bread and butter and of course jelly babies. She certainly likes spicy food, and strong cheeses! I am probably having way too much fun making her lunches when she is at daycare - complete with molds to turn hard boiled eggs into bunnies, fish, teddy bears - although perhaps this would be more fun if she actually liked eggs....

Daycare - AKA We know it's the right thing to do but wow it is a license to print $$$
After seeing how well Poppy did when we had her going tot he back up daycare at work while Rob finished his thesis, and how much she loved being around my (huge) family at Christmas we decided to bite the bullet and put her in part-time daycare. We finally found a school we both loved and were thrilled it actually had a space. It is bilingual French/English and Montessori to boot! It is crazy expensive, but an expense we don't care about because as we watch her learn to play with other kids, watch her language develop along with all her other skills. A lesser reason for daycare was that Poppy was becoming a little too much like the dog - she would pant, she would try to drink and eat like him - it was really funny but at the same time...well you know what I mean!

On being a parent - AKA - guilt, neurosis, guilt, neurosis
Being a nurse is challenging at the best of times, but having a background in pediatric oncology makes you especially vulnerable to neurosis. When Poppy was tiny she had two rubbery lymph nodes at the base of her skull and I monitored them obsessively. Our pediatrician dutifully checked them out, and even acknowledged that she understood why I was so hyper aware of them. The lymph nodes went away; I breathed a sigh of relief. I still feel guilty over every bump and bruise, and have to squash the "what if that snotty nose is really ___________________ (insert your own terrible childhood disease here) thoughts.

Mommy guilt however has become a constant, and this is never helped by those few people who actually reinforce it. (I am particularly sensitive about this, so I admit I may be overreacting). Guilt about work is the hardest especially when I have to explain that we have no family in MA, so there are no grandparents or aunts and uncles to step in to help. We do have great friends who will babysit for us so we do get the odd night out, but I feel the absence of family very acutely.

Apart from the guilt of working (or the guilt I get because I am not willing to work beyond my 40 hours any more and believe me there are a few people - all women - who have issue with this) there is the guilt of raising Poppy away from her grandparents, her cousins, her aunts and uncles. Having one set grandparents on the other side of the US and the others on another continent is tough. Skype is a great thing and as she has gotten older Poppy has become more interactive with her grandparents

Love
I am still overwhelmed at times by the love I feel for this small person who pretty much runs the house. I didn't know it was possible to be so completely in love. At 2 in the morning if she is awake and just wants to chat to me, then so be it - I am exhausted the next morning but I would not swap that precious conversation for anything (the last one had something to do with a bird and a dog and she thought is was hysterically funny). She has her own sign for love, and she will suddenly stop what she is doing and look at us and smile that smile and make her sign for love. (She does this to the cats and the dog too). I have eased off on the endless spoiling - in retrospect I think some of that stemmed from an unspoken fear that we would not get to keep her (see neurosis/guilt etc). I am fascinated by her, fascinated by her little quirks, endlessly entertained by her developing sense of humor, amused by the way she will stop whatever she is doing if she hears Chris Matthews's voice (yes - he of MSNBC's Hardball) she is his youngest fan. It is a wild ride, and I know it has hardly started on the greatest adventure of our lives

Lily

Five years ago, after having a miscarriage I made the rather hasty decision to get a puppy. I can still remember that it took about 2 weeks to finally come home with one - the first weekend foray to PetCo and their adoption fair almost resulted in me bringing home a 6 month old deaf St. Bernard, but in a rare moment of sanity I resisted (he was wicked cute). It was during the second weekend trip that I found Lily, or rather that Robert found Lily. I was looking at her sister a dusty brown bundle who was almost the color of the Arizona desert in fall and winter, when Robert tapped me on the shoulder and in his arms was a jet black sausage. There is no other word to describe Lily at that age - she was a sausage.

The first night we brought her home she got out of her puppy crate and I found her the next morning curled up on a pile of books in the living room. This set the pattern for several more nights until she finally got used to the crate. From the start Lily was a challenge. We had been spoiled with Raleigh, he potty trained really fast, he never chewed, but Lily - oh Lily. Lily chewed her way through a French/English dictionary, all of my shoes, and several novels, and she adopted the spare room of our house on Fairoaks as her own indoor bathroom. She was hard work. But she was also so rewarding, if you accidently stepped on her she would yelp then sit with her paw in the air acting as if you had caused her indescribable pain - more than one friend fell for this trick. She never got used to mirrors, and would bark at her own reflection, and get quite indignant about the "other dog" in the room. She was a hussy who would happily roll over for extended tummy rubs. She never learned the command "roll over" but she knew "roly poly." She walked to heel immediately without prompting, she aced puppy classes, and she was in many ways more obedient than Raleigh. Friends who were scared of dogs warmed to and even loved Lily, she was ridiculously easy to love. She was always a "fraidy cat", she was always skittish, and no amount of training, no amount of love, no amount of security did anything to abate her fears and anxiety.



When we moved to Boston she spent every day standing on the front seat of the car, refusing to sit down much less lay down until it got dark. At rest areas she would hide behind my legs to bark at people - and in every hotel she would curl up at the foot of the bed, reveling in the treat of not sleeping in her crate.



In Boston the more tricky parts of having a dog with so many fears became more apparent. Lily was scared of trash bags, of plastic grocery bags, even pillow cases - anything you could shake in order to make room inside of it. She was scared of water bottles, would go ballistic when anyone came to the door, loud noises - car horns, construction, trucks, people talking loudly while going past the house would set off a storm of barking. She could turn on a dime, and poor, mellow Raleigh was usually the recipient of these sudden episodes of aggression. We did more training, we saw a doggy therapist, we tried Prozac, we made her walks longer, we set more boundaries. We loved her.



When we found out we were pregnant, we worried about how Lily would react to the baby, but when Poppy arrived we realized that we had been worrying for nothing. She loved Poppy from the second we brought her home, all her instincts to be protective of me switched to being protective of Poppy. She would gently take food from Poppy, sitting patiently and waiting until Poppy offered her the tasty treat. She would oh so gently take the toys Poppy offered her on an hourly basis (we would then spend the next 10 minutes chasing Lily around the house to get the toy back). Poppy would squeal in delight - plainly in cahoots with this now 70 pound barrel of a dog.



Three of four weeks ago Lily started to change; while she stayed devoted to Poppy she seemed to distance herself from us. Her days were spent upstairs on the bed, only coming down when I came home from work. She was more nervous than ever, barking more, oftentimes at nothing. She became irritable with the cats, and very irritable with Raleigh, snapping at him. We practiced watchful waiting, and on some level I began to prepare myself for the worst. This weekend it became readily apparent that Lily was really sick and that we could do no more. We gave her 5 years of love and affection that she may never have otherwise had. We gave her more chances than any other owner would have, we never gave up no matter how difficult her behavior became. We will never know what caused such a rapid decline in Lily's health, or why she had so many "issues" in her short life. Physically the vet suggested an overwhelming infection, or a tumor, what emotional scars she had, well we will never know what she was exposed to before she found herself in the shelter in Tucson, but we all agree she was exposed to some immense cruelty.



Today at 2.15, I sat on the floor with Lily in the "quiet room" at the Angell Animal Medical Center while a lovely vet administered a lethal dose of a general anesthetic. It was very peaceful; she really did just go to sleep. We donated her body to the vet school, in hope that someone can learn from her.



God speed my little Putt Putt Lily Butt. We loved you so much, and that is why we made this hardest of choices so you no longer had to suffer.

It Suddenly Hit me

My friend Adrienne just gave birth to a little boy name Abram yesterday, and when I looked at the photographs of that tiny little guy it suddenly hit me that Poppy will be 11 months on Thursday - it seem just seconds since she was such a tiny wee thing. It has really been a whirlwind since she was born, and although I plan on writing again when she hits a year the arrival of Abram prompted me to jot down a few little things I have learned....

1. I am not a bad mum if she does not get a bath every night
2. I am not a bad mum if she sleeps in the same pajamas 2 nights running - if they are clean she really doesn't care and it saves on laundry
3. It took me 9 months to pluck up the courage to clip her finger nails and now that I clip them I swear they grow faster than ever
4. I am still horribly judgemental but only in certain instances - like when I see toddlers drinking soda, eating Doritos and junk food or when I see (and this happens often) parents smoking over the stroller
5. I do not need to change her on a changing table (believe me Boston's North End has no changing tables) I am very good at adapting...
6. I was probably one of the most reluctant breast feeders in the world yet here I am 10 months later and still only making a half assed effort to start weaning. She will likely be off formula before she is off breast milk
7. Costco's own brand formula is exactly the same as Enfamil and costs half the price - I wish I had known that 10 months ago
8. If you have a dog the baby will eat dog food at some point there is nothing you can really do to avoid it - it doesn't make you a bad mum
9. A good mum and baby group makes a huge difference
10. I can do anything on 4 hours sleep (or less)
11. Letting Poppy cry it out does not make us bad parents (we do actually love Dr. Ferber)
12. Babbling back at Poppy and having silly conversations with her in public are only embarrassing for other people - we don't care
13. I understand why J.M Barrie said that whenever a baby laughs a new fairy is born

6 month thoughts

Poppy is six months old – I am honestly not sure where the time has gone. So now I find myself reflecting on six months of being a parent. First and foremost I do love it; I honestly do not have the words to describe this, just as I don’t think I will ever have the words to describe the love I have for Poppy. I think I have said this before but it is so important it needs to be said again, I really understand when a parent says they would kill for their kid. I would kill for Poppy in less than a heartbeat. I honestly did not understand that love could be so consuming. It really does not matter how I am feeling, I can be grouchy, I can be tired, I can be angry and I just need to look at her and all of that negativity melts away – it takes one smile, one giggle even just a sideways glance. She is copying us now which is so much fun. She sees a cup she grabs it and tried to drink, we pull a face she tries to pull it - every day is an adventure! She is sitting up alone, doing baby push ups, grabbing and reaching...The dogs still adore her and she adores them, she also loves Archie the cat who is very patient with the early attempts at petting. Toy wise we are loving Manhattan Toy (whoozits) and Folkmanis puppets. Robert and I reamain utterly unrepetant about our utter lack of restraint when it comes to Poppy - we are both very aware that she may well be our only child, so yeah right now she is spoiled.

We have started solids in the past couple of months and as we have reached 6 months we are looking at ways to have her grow to be an adventurous eater. Why? have you ever really looked at baby food? It is bland and it is boring. I read an amazing book called "Hungry Monkey" and that really made me think about how in the US and UK we train our children to like bland and boring foods. So every so often we introduce a new taste - something a little more interesting and so far so good. She likes mile tikka masala sauce, she likes katsu curry, hummus, tofu, mild enchilada sauce. Believe me she liked mixed garden vegetables much more when I mixed in some katsu curry sauce!

I have to thank my moms from Isis for how smooth this has all turned out to be. Knowing so many great women who have little ones the same age as Poppy has made such an incredible difference in my life. I also love watching all of us grow as mothers, and as women. I love hearing about every milestone these babies reach, their triumphs are ours, their sniffles and tummy upsets are ours. Robert and I realize how easy it is to become isolated after having a baby but thanks in part to these great families that hasn’t happened. I also have to thank Jill and Shaun, Janet and Chris, Dana and Joe, Stacey and Jake for all their help and advice! And then there is the UK contingent..Ste and Lou, Helen and Beccy, and the mysterious of course Agnes Elizabeth...

I think it is funny that after going through so many warning lectures after I had Poppy about how I was at such high risk of post partum depression here I am not taking any anti-depressants and just feeling more content than I have in a very long time. I know I am maybe an exception to the rule regarding post-partum depression but apart from those first 6 weeks when I was just tired, frustrated and still hurting I have never felt better.

I am more tired than I though was ever possible. We went to see Alice in Wonderland – I was so excited, my parents were babysitting, we were out on a date! We had an early dinner, we settled into our movie seats with our dark glasses on and I promptly fell asleep. We haven’t tried the movie theater again – hell we haven’t tried another date yet! It seems although we talk a good game about having a babysitter we just cannot quite leave Poppy with a stranger, and of course leaving her with a friend feels like we are imposing even though given how she just charms everyone this is probably unlikely!

I have noticed other changes too – and I am not sure they are positive, but I think they may well be natural. I am so incredibly judgmental. There I said it – I look at some other parents and I judge, and I often find them lacking. I am not talking about our friends I am talking about the people I see in my regular every day activities. I see the family with the 3 or 4 year old in the stroller and I wonder why they are not making their child walk. I listen to how other parents talk to their children and I flinch. I am being honest, I physically flinch. I see so many peole with toddlers and young children not restrained in cars, or those parents who insist on smoking around their children, and please don't get me started on the soda in the bottle or the sippy cup! We were standing waiting for the T the other night listening to some (very) young moms talking to each other - every other word was an F-bomb and they were laughing because one of the kiddos had apparently said "No shit momma" - this child was maybe 3 or 4. Am I snob for being utterly appalled by this?

We are also more intent than ever on getting the hell out of “Dodge.” Last week a 14 year old was shot and killed 3 blocks from my house, on a basketball court we drive past at least 3 or 4 times a week. This is the same basketball court that has tennis courts and a playground and just a couple of weeks ago I had said to Rob, “Maybe we should bring Poppy up here one day just to play.” Not likely now. So we have started looking for houses out of the city. We are specifically looking at Manchester-by-the-Sea, Essex, Beverly and Gloucester right now, but will likely look at Scituate and Plymouth too. We are as Robert puts it “shopping by school district.” I do love the city, and yes, we could look at private schools but they are around $25,000 a year for elementary (infants) school and I don’t want to do that when we can just move to a town where there are regular schools that are just as good.

3 months, 12 weeks, 13 weeks

....it has all blended into one huge milestone. Poppy turned 3 months on Valentines Day - seriously how much cuter could that be? I am now already hitting that point where I am pinching myself because it is all going so fast - too fast. I am also pretty sure having talked to so many friends and family who are already mums that it just keeps speeding up from here on in.
So what has happened since the last note?
Poppy is growing like a weed. When we had our 2 month appointment she weighed in at a health 12 and a half pounds and 23 inches long. We weighed her yesterday at Isis and inbetween the cute outfit and the minor mad she was having she was anywhere between 13 and a half and 14 pounds - time to get the tape measure out and see if she got taller which I am sure she did! Getting her to keep her legs still long enough to measure her will however be the tricky part. She has a new nickname..."Kicky Girl" She just loves to kick her legs and see how high she can make them go and the look of utter happiness onthat little face when she does this is so incredible. She has also been busy discovering that her feet and hands actually belong to her and her hands taste way better than her dummy (pacifier). It is so cute to both of us to wake up in the early hours and hear her sucking away on her hand. She hasn't gotten her feet into her mouth yet but they are sure fascinating. The first day she found them was so funny, she was wearing a romper and the leg parts end mid-calf. She started pulling up one leg - pretending to be LL Cool J I think, and all of a sudden she sees her foot and sits there staring at it for like 5 minutes. We promptly went out and bought her the Lamazze hand and foot rattles which she completely ignores, but her sleep and play outfits that have little characters on the feet are now the greatest thing ever. She also has discoverd some toys notable Mr. Whoozit (Manahattan Toys), Mr Buzzy (Zolo fuzzi puffi) and Sophie( Vulli) - it is so fun to watch her become aware of these new things. She has also started pushing the dogs away when they get too kissy which is super cute! She is also discovering her voice lots of coos and gaas and most recently giggles, yup like her mummy she is very vocal!
I loved my mommy and me class at Isis, and I start the next one in the coming week and what makes it so much better is that there are at least 3 other moms from the first class in it. I really believe that Great Beginings stopped me from becoming depressed, to have the support of other mums with new babies of the same age as your infant is utterly invaluable. I resisted joining Isis while I was pregnant but post-partum? Best thing I ever did!
I went back to work on Feb 1st and this working full time is proving to be a challenge. Leaving her that first time wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but then Robert had actively encouraged me to go out without her while I was still on maternity leave and that really helped. The biggest challenges have been learning to pump effectively so my milk supply does not decrease, and dealing with being so sleep deprived while working. I think I have the pumping thing sorted out, with the help of Chris who is so very patient with me pumping in the office and great at reminding me to pump. The sleep thing is not so easy as I am seriously aware of how mean I can be when I am tired and of course Robert gets the brunt of my moodiness. I am trying to remember that I have spent my entire adult life learning to multi-task and I really can't expect Robert to be able to instantly do this....We are working on it - he is the best stay at home dad ever, but he is no good at house work and child care at the same time! We are starting to interview babysitters and housekeepers and this is pretty scary! I am just so glad we don't have to interview nannys! I have however rediscovered cooking, and coming home and cooking a really nice meal is not only relaxing for me, but it is also good for us as a family, and way better than take out junk. Also I lost all the baby weight and then some and I really want to keep the wieght off and maybe even lose a bit more....
Some random things I have learned? Gerber onesies are useless the sizing is so off. UK baby clothes are bigger than US baby clothes. Carters baby clothes are fab as are Just One Size and Baby Gap (US) and Mothercare, Baby Next and Marks and Spencer. Toys R Us is hideously expensive - compared to other places. Boston is very unfriendly to wheelchairs and prams and pushchairs - the bus is impossible, I am yet to brave the green line and the ramps in the mall basically mean you are going the long way round!

Tea Party Terrors

I am quite fascinated by Sarah Palin - she is remarkably ill-informed and uneducated yet she is adored by a seemingly large group of Americans. I laugh everytime Tina Fey impersonates her on SNL, but as a laugh there is a tickle of fear in the back of my brain, a scary what if scenario...What if she did get elected to high office at some point? What is she becomes truely influential? At the same time I have wanted to see if she is maybe just incredibly charismatic and that is why she has so many fans. Her Facebook page has > 1 million fans, she is always on the news...I am also intrigued by this Tea Party Movement (I really hate using title case for this since I think it gives them some legitimacy). What is their appeal? Is it just like Sarah in that they are always on the news? Is it because they shout so loud?

So how to do this? Ah yes those "patriots" the Tea Party came to Boston today and their key note speaker was Sarah herself. In preparation for this (working on a know thy enemy theory) I went to the Tea Party Express page and to the FB page dedicated to the event in Boston. I did upset a couple of people and I was called a sarcastic twit - oh well guilty as charged. So off we went - me, Robert and Poppy on a bright sunny morning to Boston Common. it was shockingly quiet, especially since before we left the house we breifly polluted our living space with Fox News who said that 30,000 people were expected. When we got to the area where the rally was being held there was the expected number of white people with their signs declaring President Obama a communist/socialist. decrying the government for the bailout, for the overall current econiomic state, the health care reform bill etc etc etc - nothing unexpected there. They weren't terribly loud, just generally milling about waving flags with snakes on them (apparently a flag from the American Revolution). There were some vendors selling scary t-shirts (see photos), there were the expected number of white supremacists and bikers, and in the distance it seemed there were speakers. here's the thing the accoustics were dreadful so you really couldn't hear much unless you were tight up front with the press. There were the anti-teaparty folks who had the best and most inventive signs.

So do I actually have any answers to my questions? No - I could barely hear what Sarah Palin had to say although the line "We'll keep clinging to our guns and constitution and you can keep your change" was disturbing, and obviously designed to make the crowd scream in joy - which they did. The tea party folks really did nothing to make me want to hear what they had to say - they just reinforced what i already thought that they are ill-informed, ignorant and yes they are homophobic and racist. They are shouting for lower taxes, smaller government - meaning less government involvement in their lives, they want more freedoms (as the government denies them this apparently). So here are my questions - yousay you want less government control and more freedom , but you don't want people who disagree with you or who do not fit into your belief system. But you want unemployment benefits, and judging by the majority of people I saw today, you freely use social security and medicare all provded by the government/taxes. Many of you I am sure used public transport to get to Boston Common today - on roads paid for by the government/taxes, and your children go to schools paid for by the government/taxes. You want to see a doctor when youare sick, but don't want universal healthcare. You want these things - but you shout for lower taxes and less government control so do you want schools to be more financially strapped than they are already, do you want roads to fall apart, to you want no social security or medicare? What are you going to do if you have a catastophic illness? For those who were there with their children - what are you going to do if your child gets a catasrophic illness? What if you give birth to a child with a serious illness? You will certainly be screaming for health care should that happen. Not one of you complains about the money that was poured into the Iraq war - a war which was started under false pretences. Not one of you admits or recoginises that the financial collapse happened on GWB's watch and President Obama is trying to dig us out of that bloody big hole. You are all very happy to tell those of us who disagree with you to go to Canada or Europe if we want to maintain our support for the President and if we believe in him. Here's a thought - if you hate the USA so much why don't you leave? As one sign said "If you want less government go to Somalia."
While the crowd today was not a big as Fox news would have us all believe I am nervous enough to say to all my rational friends, do not listen to these people, and please do not blindly agree with them, they are potentially pretty dangerous.

3 months

3 months, 12 weeks, 13 weeks ....it has all blended into one huge milestone. Poppy turned 3 months on Valentines Day - seriously how much cuter could that be? I am now already hitting that point where I am pinching myself because it is all going so fast - too fast. I am also pretty sure having talked to so many friends and family who are already mums that it just keeps speeding up from here on in.
So what has happened since the last note?
Poppy is growing like a weed. When we had our 2 month appointment she weighed in at a health 12 and a half pounds and 23 inches long. We weighed her yesterday at Isis and in between the cute outfit and the minor mad she was having she was anywhere between 13 and a half and 14 pounds - time to get the tape measure out and see if she got taller which I am sure she did! Getting her to keep her legs still long enough to measure her will however be the tricky part. She has a new nickname..."Kicky Girl" She just loves to kick her legs and see how high she can make them go and the look of utter happiness onthat little face when she does this is so incredible. She has also been busy discovering that her feet and hands actually belong to her and her hands taste way better than her dummy (pacifier). It is so cute to both of us to wake up in the early hours and hear her sucking away on her hand. She hasn't gotten her feet into her mouth yet but they are sure fascinating. The first day she found them was so funny, she was wearing a romper and the leg parts end mid-calf. She started pulling up one leg - pretending to be LL Cool J I think, and all of a sudden she sees her foot and sits there staring at it for like 5 minutes. We promptly went out and bought her the Lamazze hand and foot rattles which she completely ignores, but her sleep and play outfits that have little characters on the feet are now the greatest thing ever. She also has discoverd some toys notable Mr. Whoozit (Manahattan Toys), Mr Buzzy (Zolo fuzzi puffi) and Sophie( Vulli) - it is so fun to watch her become aware of these new things. She has also started pushing the dogs away when they get too kissy which is super cute! She is also discovering her voice lots of coos and gaas and most recently giggles, yup like her mummy she is very vocal!
I loved my mommy and me class at Isis, and I start the next one in the coming week and what makes it so much better is that there are at least 3 other moms from the first class in it. I really believe that Great Beginings stopped me from becoming depressed, to have the support of other mums with new babies of the same age as your infant is utterly invaluable. I resisted joining Isis while I was pregnant but post-partum? Best thing I ever did!(The prozac bottle is still unopened)
I went back to work on Feb 1st and this working full time is proving to be a challenge. Leaving her that first time wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but then Robert had actively encouraged me to go out without her while I was still on maternity leave and that really helped. The biggest challenges have been learning to pump effectively so my milk supply does not decrease, and dealing with being so sleep deprived while working. I think I have the pumping thing sorted out, with the help of Chris who is so very patient with me pumping in the office and great at reminding me to pump. The sleep thing is not so easy as I am seriously aware of how mean I can be when I am tired and of course Robert gets the brunt of my moodiness. I am trying to remember that I have spent my entire adult life learning to multi-task and I really can't expect Robert to be able to instantly do this....We are working on it - he is the best stay at home dad ever, but he is no good at house work and child care at the same time! We are starting to interview babysitters and housekeepers and this is pretty scary! I am just so glad we don't have to interview nannys! I have however rediscovered cooking, and coming home and cooking a really nice meal is not only relaxing for me, but it is also good for us as a family, and way better than take out junk. Also I lost all the baby weight and then some and I really want to keep the wieght off and maybe even lose a bit more....
Some random things I have learned? Gerber onesies are useless the sizing is so off. UK baby clothes are bigger than US baby clothes. Carters baby clothes are fab as are Just One Size and Baby Gap (US) and Mothercare, Baby Next and Marks and Spencer. Toys R Us is hideously expensive - compared to other places. Boston is very unfriendly to wheelchairs and prams and pushchairs - the bus is impossible, I am not ready to brave the green line and the ramps in the mall basically mean you are going the long way round!

Reflections of seven weeks of motherhood

This has turned into something of wild ride. I am loving it, I am amazed on an hourly basis by what Poppy does - even the more shocking and smelly things....Watching her suddenly start to recognize us both is amazing as is every little milestone. We got the best Christmas present ever in the shape of her first very sweet smile and by luck more than judgement I had the camera by me and caught that event forever. She is a very sweet baby, and on the whole she is pretty mellow, but when she does pitch a fit wow we know about it! She is very vocal - from her screams when she is wet/hungry/frustrated to her wonderful little noises - babbles, coos and these little sighing sounds she makes after nursing and when she is falling asleep.
She is working very hard on rolling over and can get part way to her side already, so we are rapidly developing lightening reflexes and eyes in the backs of our heads. She is developing definite likes and dislikes - she hates Enfamil Restfull formula which we tried to make nights easier, but she loves the taste of gripe water and infacol. Good job on the latter two as we are now using Woodwards Gripe Water which we have to get from the UK and it costs a bloody fortune - but for her gas to go away and her hiccups too makes it so worth every penny. She just loves the dogs and is very patient with their frequent checks to make sure she is still the same baby - she even tolerates the kissing. She did not like her bouncy seat, and I am now inlcined to agree with my mum in that maybe she was just too little for it, but she loves her fabuous princess swing and she especially loves the lights and sounds mobile that it has - she watches it with absolute fascination. She loves Goodnight Moon and the songs "Consider Yourself", "It's a Fine Life" and "Oom Pah Pah" from Oliver and "Edelweis" and "My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music. She loves her bath, but hates being dried off, she loves the quilt Adelle made for her for tummy time, but is not so fond of the baby gym. She loves riding in the car - put her in the car seat and two minutes later she is asleep. She is quite the restaurant star - sleeping through brunch, lunch and dinner throughout Boston.

So how are mummy and daddy doing? We are getting there - we have days where we are like Guantanamo Bay prisoners due to sleep deprivation, and no matter how many jokes I make about having chronic insomnia, that really is nothing compared to how the deprivation feels. Daddy gets frustrated with me because between being tired and way hormonal every Type A personality trait (read obsessive) has been magnified 110%. I am trying to step back and accept more help but it is harder than I thought when my instincts make me want to do it all myself. I am going back to work in a couple of weeks so I need to really start working on this so I don't drive all three of us insane. I love watching Poppy when she sees her daddy and her little face just lights up, as does Robert's - he is already such a great daddy.

It hasn't been easy - and there are a few things I would go back and change if I had to do this all again. I would never have been induced - I would've gone for an elective C-section which probably would've minimized the complications I had post partum. I did not expect to be as sick as I was or for recovery to take so long - even today I am still sore. I am working through some of the residual anger and frustrations surrounding her birth and the post partum care. I have started going to a mommy and me group at Isis and knowing that I am not the only one who is stressed and anxious and filled with self doubt is a huge relief.

Having my parents here during the delivery and initial post partum period was a blessing as Mum and Dad took care of the house and the dogs while we were in the hospital, and also they just (as my mum puts it) "potter on" doing things in the house so it was clean and tidy without messing with how we like things too much. It was a god send especially when Robert was finishing classes and I pretty much was spending every day on the couch banned from going up and down the stairs.

As much as we enjoyed the holidays in hindisght we should never have agreed to host the family - it was way too much for both of us. I had a particularly hard time, and had a complete meltdown on Christmas Eve. It would probably have been far more sensible of us to put our collective feet down months ago and say that we didn't want eveyone here because it would be too much to be host and hostess just 5 weeks after her birth, and to have visitors after Christmas after we had time to estbalish routines, and after I was fully recovered. But what can you do? Asking one set of granparents to wait to visit while the other set got to be there from the start would just look as if we were playing favorites.
Now we are starting our New Year as a new family, and look forward to the joys and challenges of being parents.

Home Sweet Home

Finally! We finally got discharged last night! I am so thrilled to be back in my own little house trying to set up our own little routines.
The last couple of days on Blake 13 stayed quite eventful - and finally Ally (the doc who delivered Poppy) put her foot down made the nursing staff take Poppy to the nursery and I got a total of around 12 hours sleep - wow what a difference. Afebrile, no longer throwing up, feeling like a real person all of a sudden, happy to push on with the breast feeding, happy to talk to doctors....And then those words "let's get you home today - what meds would you like to go home on?" I was a little stunned at first - and stare at the doc and ask her "Well what do you think? I have no idea what antibiotics I need"
She laughs and apologises - she was actually talking about pain killers and anti-emetics. So I came home with dilaudid, zofran and cipro. It was quite a joy to be off all the IV antibiotics - they certainly trashed my veins!
So now I no longer feel quite so much like I got hit by a Mack Truck what do I really think about the past week? Okay first of all it is a total miracle - every second that I look at Poppy my heart skips a beat and I cannot believe that we created this perfect tiny creature. I am fascinated by her expressions - it is like every emotion known to man will play across her face in the space of 1 minute. She is incredibly alert, always looking at things, always staring, always watching. I know she can't see properly yet, but watching her try is so fascinating to me. Would I do it all over again? I honestly don't know - Was she worth it? Absolutely.

How do I really feel about the mother-baby unit where I spent the past week? Well not an an awful of of change there. I had a couple of incredible nurses - Ellen and Karen were the total stand outs, they were the ones who really seemed to listen, who really wanted to be there and who really did a good comprehensive job. I saw an awful lot of sitting around the nurses station - after all I guess usually people aren't sick down here - just 48 hours for a vaginal delivery and 96 for a standard c-section then home.

The lactation consultants? Well I saw I think 3 of them - they all told me something different - but only one didn't do the whole "You must dedicate yourself 100% to breast feeding." Poppy's pediatrician was actually the best resource as was the doctor who wrote my discharge orders yesterday. It would have been so much better had someone taught me how to pump - or how about thsi actually brought inthe pump my pediatrician kept requesting so that I could've pumped and kept my supply up.

The other mother-baby education involved a lot of reviews of post-partum depression. I was up to "Post partum depression lecture version 4.0" by the time I left. I kept telling everyone - I have already established care with the peri-natal psychiatry service - this includes Betty Wong who literally wrote the book on the subject.

All the education was very rushed, and I found this worrisome. I have plenty of resources - I have mommy friends, I know where to find out information, but what if I didn't have all of that? Wow I can really understand how people fall through the cracks. There is a stack of brochures you get on arrival, but I didn't look at them until late yesterday, and hopefully you can ready at better than an 8th grade level otherwise you wouldn't understand. The verbal information we got was not followed up to see that we understood - and the one thing that really struck me was how nobody ever asked "How are you doing right now - are you feeling up to recieving this information?" One "educator" actually stood in the doorway and talked at us across the room because she didn't want to wear a mask - and given the MGH policy right now that means she declined to get the H1N1 vaccine.

But inspite of all that venting - the main thing for me is that we are home, we are doing just great, Poppy is my little superstar. Oh and the dogs have totally accepted her into the "pack" When I was feeding her last night sitting on the side of the bed Raleigh had to be laid right behind me - just keeping an eye on the proceedings, and both dogs get so upset when she cries.....

Seriously? More complications...are you kidding me?

So it is Wednesday and I am still in the hospital....boo hiss and I am likely to be here until bloody Friday....on post partum which is just annoying me and making me the patient everyone complains about......

The story so far...

My first nurse down here was totally bamboozled by my PCA and just horrified that I still had it - after all it was 24 hours post delivery - I snapped at her "Yeah but I didn't get the PCA until 12 hours post delivery" Then we get into the whole Poppy spending the night in the nursery so mum and dad can finally sleep - that was like asking someone to put Poppy on Ebay.....Finally she agreed to her going down on the condition that she is back by 6 promptly and that "Mom you must try harder to breast feed"

I was very good - I tried very hard and we were able to breast feed and I was very proud of myself and of Poppy. My day shift nurse was really nice and really patient and worked really hard to get us established with the breast feeding. Poppy is such a trooper she just kept going at it! What I didin't realize is that breast feeding also gives mum a bit of a milk coma too - I would be feeding her and would start zoning out big time.

This was around the time I also realized that percocet is not a good drug for me. Robert had gone to Whole Foods in a valiant attempt to make me eat and I was feeding Poppy, and just getting into that nice zoned out state when I heard a man's voice in the room - I look around nobody there. Must have been referred noise from another room. Then I feel the bed moving, and see someone sitting in the chair - I blink and it's all gone. I ignore it putting it down to being tired and my body dealing with all these changes.

My uber perky night nurse comes in and we go through the plans for the night which includes Poppy spending 3-4 hours inthe nursery so I can have 3-4 hours undisturbed sleep - that was like negotiating peace in the Middle East! So the little Kennedy family settle in for the night Poppy is sparked out, and mum and dad are not far behind. I fall asleep only to be jerked awake in what feels like a few minutes later from a beyond hideous night terror - I mean I couldn't remember where I was, I felt like I had to claw my way back. I call in Perky Jess - who was actually really great and promptly got my pain meds changed from percocet to dilaudid - phew. Nightmares go away, hallucinations stop....my sanity is returning....

Poppy comes back at 5.15 - it's all good. I am still marvelling all the time at how utterly perfect she is....My day shuft nurse is incredible - I am being a very good patient again - not being snappy, asking good questions....just enjoying it. The only downshide is the endless visits from the Nurse Practitioners and the Social Worker (seriously a social worker?) all of whome want to discuss post partum depression with me.

The what feels like disaster strikes! I start chilling - teeth chattering, body shaking chills. Oh this is so not good. They treat conservatively at first until at 6pm with tylenol on board I do it again - and this time get up to 101.5, and I honestly feel that I am going to die. This spike buys me blood cultures, a CBC, and triple IV antibiotics. I stop being a good patient. My night nurse was useless - I mean absolutely bloody useless. First of all after coming on shift she never checks my vitals - no temp, no BP nothing.....I am dozing intermittently and finally get some decent sleep after my pain killers kick in. The nurse returns at 3 am for the next round of antibiotics and I am half awake listening to her grumble about how using the syringe pump is too complicated...wow that instills confidence. So all 3 meds go to gravity - including undiluted gentamicin which when it wasn't going in how she wanted she tried to push it........I get up to go to the bathroom and promptly start chilling and rigoring again. I get back into bed, take my temperature - after all even pressing my call light does not garuntee any speed on the part of this woman. My temp is 100.9. Nice huh? And this nurse still hasn't gotten the antibiotics in....I am given tylenol and my "lovely" nurse just gave me a look and handed them to me without a word and left...An hour later I rechecked my temperature and was reprimanded for being neurotic by my day shift nurse - yeah right - she was also reprimanded by me for the simple fact that common good clinical practice is to recheck a temperature an hour after tylenol...

Later on I found out that the night shift nurse did not document the fever..nice huh?

I worked with a nurse in Tucson in peds who later went into post-partum and although we were never friends she was the only person I wanted to talk to - she was the only person I wanted to be my nurse...So Regina Lord if you ever stumble on this blog, you were the only nurse at that time who I felt I would have been able to trust.

Poppy's arrival

Oh it was along bloody day. Bearing in mind I cannot remember much of it. Thank God for Robert, Nessa and my parents that's all I can say they have some how managed to keep me sane through all of this. So let's see.....
Day shift nurse was very sweet - that was the problem - a tad too sweet and a tad to deferential. No offense to all our wonderful MD friends but this nurse really needed to shout at the OB residents....So I already had that one tube in to dilate things - it worked somewhat got me (we thought) to 6cm. YAY excitement abounding in room B1468.Then crash...5cm dilated and contractions slowing down again. At this point I had declared myself Rachel from friends - y'all remember the episode where she had Emma and loads of other women come in and deliver before herand her abor lasted 47 hours? Well that was me.....
So after the first dilator is removed something is put in to actually measure the contractions and see if they are adequate - "Well duh" my magnesium addled brain is thinking "If they were adequate I would not still be sitting here". So in it goes, and up goes the rate of pitocin....oh joy.By this point because of the anti-diuretic effect of the pitocin my cankles have now spread and I am a solid block of edema from my toes to my belly. I have a pounding headache and am just getting meaner and grumpier and insane - once again due to the magnesium. I take a nap - and although I wake up I keep my eyes closed while I listen Nessa basically tell the nurse that we moved into ridiculous at hour 44 of NOT progreesing. Now I know what to say to the attending. I wake up (funny how that happens.....)just as the attending comes in and I tell her that I am done - that I just cannot keep doing this, that I cannot keep hearing all the platitudes of "But look on the bright side Mrs. Kennedy your baby is very happy" and that if it wasn't for the epidural I would go home. I was sobbing by this time. I felt so ill and so miserable.

Then whoosh.....

Anesthesia are there giving me more meds in to the epidural and that was utterlt terrifying - like I couldn't breath, and also throwing up but I could't totally feel it.....
People are handing Robert and Nessa sets of scrubs
Off we go to the mythical "end of the hall" at 5.15pm. I don't even know that they have started anything surgical by the time at 6pm exactly Miss Poppy Elizabeth Marie makes her very very welcomed arrival into this world. I am laying there enjoying the function returning to my arms while everyone else is sayig how perfect she is....BAH! I can't see her! Then I get a peek and I thought my heart was going to explode. I don't even have enough words to explain how it felt to see this little face peeking at me. I hear everyone going back and forth about heights and weights - in cm and kg - means nothing to me at all! Finally someone says 8.8 pounds, head c ircumference 15 inches and around 20.75 inches long. All that is heard in the OR is "Holy shit!" Oh - that was me....

Oh but now after a couple of days to recover we have this gorgeous tiny creature and she is all ours and I cannot believe it. She is so alert - wants to look at every thing, loves to be held, seems to have finally taken to breastfeeding. She just had her hearing test that she passed with flying colors. She did have a positive Coombs so we are watching for jaunduice - but none so far - we put her in the window all the time when the sun is shining. Who needs a bili light? She is also incredibly mellow - I cannot even explain how calm this tiny thing is. She fusses for maybe 2 or 3 minutes and then she is done.

I am working on making photos visible to everyone - we have nothing but time since I do not get discharged until Wednesday and I have it on very good authority that today is Monday - things have gotten blurry.....

So to all of you who have followed our wee adventure thank you so much for your love and support

The long haul to Poppy

Arrived at 8.30pm at Blake 14.....

Alex is here - YAY. And Nessa now comprehends the utter hotness of the boy.

Met "interesting' nurse at 9.00pm and I use the adjective interesting very loosely.....expressionless and sadly somewhat devoid of a personality - kind, efficient, but not exactly chatty which is tough when your patient has a gob like mine and is accompanied by Nessa and Robert and we're all a bit giddy and treating this like a school field trip of some sort. We really were not taking this very seriously at this point.

The examinations begin but at least right now they are being done by Alex - thank God and not for the reasons y'all are currently entertaining but because the resident is a little FLK and looks about 13 and the med student is about 10.

We start the misoprostol well...that made things change...Oh my lord......this is painful. Apparently my baseline was around 12 - and now I am hitting 65..this is all apparently measurements of the intensity of my contractions.....
A mini ultrasound by med student then one by resident to check Poppy is still head down - while I keep cracking that I know exactly where her feet are so I can assure them without the scan of her position!

First serious bout of swearing occurs at around 1.30am (Friday)
Awaiting Alex....awaiting pitocin...awaiting epidural.....anxiously awaiting Poppy
Oh and excuse the profanity but this effin well hurts.

(This next part was dictated to Robert hence the "new sentence" bits
04:30 - Epidural in. Thats a weird sensation, but Fentanyl is my new best friend. Ummm...where do I go next...Ummm... Pitocin started. The epidural is a PCA one so I get to hit it when the contractins really hurt so it is duly christned the "contraction contraption."

New Sentence.

Damn should of had more to eat.

07:00 - Boo hiss. Alex's shift finished. Still only 3 centimeters dialated. But yay, Nurse Qualude has gone home, and my new nurse Connie is fab. Even if she won't feed me. A very long day of increasing Pitocin and trying to make this stubborn child of ours to finally make an appearance.

15:30 - More inducment hardware added, which is impossible to explain, but it involves balloons. Thanks to one of the new attendings the procedure turned out to be quiet amusing.

19:00 - New team of docs seems nice, if not insanely young. New nurse Diane is also fab. Still no baby. Possible this is all just a bad case of gas. Pitocin now maxed out.

00:30 - OMFG! I seem to have actually progressed. Starting to get queasy. Will likely have water broke around 03:30.

Watch this space for details.

PS - Would be demented were it not for my fab hubby and our 'Nessa (who is also fab). Hubby dicatated this, so ignore anything that says we changed our minds and her new name will be Clymenstra Arbitron Kennedy.

Complications - part 1

It has been quite the week! I started with headaches and nausea/vomiting this time last week, and by Monday was generally feeling pretty yucky with serious cankles and puffy little fingers, weird vision things.... Luckliy I have the best OB in the world (he is also insanely hot and a real sweety) who really listens to his patients. He ordered labs including a 24 hour urine collection (that was fun....). So my blood work showed I was a bit dehydrated but nothing too bad, but I still didn't feel better. Thursday I saw a midwife who thought it was a migraine - and the weird visual things I had were an aura. Fair enough...but really I felt so crappy I was an awful historian and since I didn't really like the midwife that much I wasn't inclined to be talkative.
Today I had to drop of my big jug of pee and see the OB - now this was a totally different experience. The nurse was fab- Allie was her name - and the doctor (Dr. Erin Tracy) was also lovely - and they really listened. So I got to spend a few hours hooked up to a monitor (that was seriously cool) for Poppy's heartbeat and for contractions, with IV fluids running. The fluids and 10 mg of reglan made me feel a whole lot better. So a fab midwife (Autumn) said we could go home - and then right as I was getting ready the 24 hour urine result came back and yep - I have pre-eclampsia (p-e).
So what is the plan from here? I think when we see the lovely Alex (my regular OB) on Tuesday of next week we will be having a serious discussion about inducing me - as he has already told me that given my age, other risk factors (1st child, family hx of p-e) he will have a low threshold for induction. I have a feeling that this time next week we may well be posting the first pictures of Miss Poppy Elizabeth Marie Kennedy.

We are a little tired of Yawkey 4 - we are averaging 3 days a week up there. So far this week it has all been scheduled which is so much better than last week! Monday we had another ultrasound and Poppy is continuing to grow, her little heart is bopping along nicely and seeing her breathe is really quite fab. She is also very wiggly still - and just loves to give me a good kick to remind me that she is still very much there. The scan was perfectly normal.....
Today we saw Alex (McDreamy) - and since my BP was "perfect" he is going to let me go one more week before I get induced. The plan now is: Friday we have a non-stress test, Monday we have another scan and we will also see Alex. Then provided Poppy doesn't have other ideas we will be admitted and induced on Thursday Nov 12th in the evening.
Of course this is all dependant on me being a good patient - and reporting any issues - like BP spikes, more vision problems, really severe headaches etc. If I have any escalation in pre-eclampsia symptoms I have to be induced earlier.....Right now it is just such a relief to have a definitive plan - gives both me and Robert a feeling of control over all of this.
One really cool thing about waiting is that my mum and dad will be here when she is born

Nausea, neurosis....first trimester insanity

I am 10 weeks today. So how is it going? I have been so nauseous , I really didn't expect it to be as bad as it has been. My cravings have kind of gone crazy too. Those early days of wanting as much red meat as I could cram into my face have long since passed and I am very definitely off red meat, in fact I seem to be off meat altogether. I am enjoying cheese and crackers, and apples, oh and ice cream - but meat just isn't doing it for me.

The neurosis is driving me crazy, and I wonder if it is just anxiety because of the miscarriage in 2005 and my guilt associated with that and with 1995. Every twinge, every ache in my belly sends me running to the bathroom expecting bleeding, followed by this overwhelming relief when there is no bleeding. I then start berating myself very quietly for being stupid and worrying unnecessarily. So it is something of a vicious cycle. I don't want to be the expectant mom who calls the clinic every 5 minutes fussing and fretting. I guess I just never expected to be this scared.

Today has been particularly bad. I woke up as usual to pee, and expected my boobs to be totally sore as they usually are when I get up in the middle of the night. Unfortunately the stabbing pain in my eye distracted from the boobs. I squinted in the bathroom mirror (without my glasses) and could see quite easily that the left eye was red and puffy. Crap. My first thought was I had somehow managed to scratch my eye in my sleep...I went back to bed and tried to ignore it but it just kept waking me up. When Robert (in the throes of end of semester anxiety) got up at 4 I asked his opinion so then it was quick shower, in the car and off to the ED with a swollen, injected sticky eye. I leave almost 2 hours later somewhat reassured that I have no corneal abrasion, no HSV in my eye just an old fashioned case of conjunctivitis.

I called the 4-BABY line just to let them know, then spent the rest of the day getting more anxious (the anxious hubby did not help...a word of advice think before you speak in early pregnancy as the hormone insanity may make you tell your husband to just leave you alone and if he is anxious he will think that you want him to leave forever - man that took some sorting out...)and I have finally emailed the delightful Dr. Quaas pretty much begging for a 10 week ultrasound just to reassure me that everything is fine. We'll see.

I thought I was actually prepared for this part (I have devoured the Girlfriends Guide to Pregnancy eschewing What to Expect....) and I have decided that there is no way to prepare for this level of hormone induced insanity. Think PMS, then take those feelings and multiply them by about 100. You will hate everyone, your husband, the ass who parked his Navigator at exactly the right spot on the street to make getting your car off the driveway almost impossible, the lady in the grocery store who will not put down her cell phone to speed up the process of bagging her groceries, just about everyone except for the dogs and cats who remain quite lovely at this point.

The Thing We Brought Back From NYC

So, this all starts around the week of March 2nd. My mouth tastes like I have been sucking metal, everywhere I go I can smell Calstat - which is really weird when I am on the train...Great - it's more new and weird PMS symptoms I think, although I don't actually get any weird mood swings or the general PMS psychosis i have had in recent months - I am not kidding - I have been a total crazy person....To this day I do not know what made me buy the pregnancy test, although I am inclined to go with the absence of the mood swings. There I am on March 10th, peeing on a stick and waiting for the inevitable "not pregnant"........ it doesn't happen - it says "pregnant." I almost stop breathing - I doubt the accuracy. I take the stick and the incredible result downstairs and show Robert. It seems like we did it...The next morning I pee on the stick again - still positive. I get an order for an HCG - yup definitely pregnant. I get an appointment with an Ob-Gyn, and I get discharged from the fertility clinic - seems we won't be needing their help after all...WE DID IT! WE DID IT ALL ON OUR OWN!

So we are now 8 weeks - and although I am now constantly nauseous and gagging intermittently I am beyond happy, we both are. it is such a miracle. I am of course still nervous, but my HCG is great and last week we had our first ultrasound and there it was a tiny little peanut with a super incredible heart beat. It is so freaking excited....So not only did we bring great memories back from New York City we brought home a baby....So miracles do happen in NYC! And this will be the last Fertility Schmertility posting...now it will be a monthly update as we progress through this amazing adventure.

Oh - as for the mind body stuff - yeah - I lasted that first week and never went back - so not my thing...

New York New York

The following took place in February 19th - 21st
This was my first trip to NYC - we went down to see Lynn off on her year long MSF adventure in India. I was quite intrigued by the city - and even walking around on my own I didn't feel threatened at all - nothing like Philly. We stayed at the New Yorker - got a sweet heart deal on the room even though it was Fashion Week - bless this crappy economy!
I saw the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Broadway, Times Square, Central Park, 30 Rock - took lots of pictures....We had pizza at Lombardi's the first pizzeria in NYC - it was so fab....
And we got spend time with Lynn who we will both miss like crazy, but we are so incredibly proud of her for doing this amazing thing.

I'm becoming an American

The following occured on January 28th 2009.

It is a very weird weather day. It starts snowing right as we leave for Lowell - and we are still not sure why my swearing in ceremony is all the way by the New Hampshire Border when everyone else we know was sworn in at Fanueil Hall or even the State House (even better Fenway...but it is below 0 and it is January so I can let than one go ..a bit...). So off we go not thinking that driving just 40 some miles could be such a grand adventure...Seriously thank God we had Nessa's Jeep - we had to use 4WD on the damn freeway the snow got so bad. Then we get to itty bitty Lowell and have to park 4 blocks from the place where the ceremony is and it is now almost a blizzard...and it's too late to reconsider. The Man said I need to be there so I am there!.
We get to the convention center (well not really, more like a theater) and I can't even sit with Robert - he is way up in the balcony while I am sandwiched (in the yellow seating area) with 2 people who have seriously tiny bladders and I have to get up every 5 minutes so one of them can pee. I mean come on! There is a blizzard outside so there are no refreshments (as one guy from immigration so cheerfully points out and I think "well there is bloody Dunkin' down the street go and buy lots of coffee - they turned up for work today even if the concession stand folks didn't")
And so we start texting each other:
Rob: "Yay! Crying child by me!"
I send back a photo of me poking my tongue out.
Then the immigration folks start asking the folks who are being sworn in for interpretation abilities - and I am not talking weird languages here I mean they want Italian interpreters....
We wonder how everyone passed the test as you have to be kinda old to be able to waive the English language part of this whole process. But it gets better - they tell us as the whole auditorium is getting restive that the judge who is going to be doing the ceremony isn't leaving Boston until 11am - it is 10, there is now a blizzard, and even without the blizzard it took us almost an hour to get here.
Robert says: "And the result is.....how hard is it to get a judge here at 10am?"
Seems very hard...the texts get more profane as we start making inappropriate Sesame Street jokes and some comments I am really not comfortable repeating in public....but seriously we were there by 0900 and the judge didn't get there until noon??? Holy Cow!
Robert says: "Because our government is dysfunctional - welcome to America"
I have to get up yet again so the small bladders can pee...and I get told off by some officious little man about how this is a courtroom blah blah blah blah blah.....but as Robert says after I text him about my own personal official
"Judge ain't here then this is NOT a courtroom. It is the f...ing future venue of a Pink Floyd cover band"
And we get into a discussion about them confusing the Pink Floyd dudes with the Sesame St show that is also about to be showing there. Of course I mistype and apologize for being an Oscar the Couch.....and the reply is
"Oscar the "crouch" .....hehehehe...that was funny. Not as funny as Oscar the Crotch...but still"
And so it goes on until the judge finally shows up and after 3 hours of waiting with nothing to drink...not even a glass of water (wow maybe this is a reality TV show about what it was like at Ellis Island circa 1800.....) I get to pledge allegiance and all that fun stuff and I file out and get a certificate with some unknown bureaucrat's signature on it and guess what I am an American.

And you know what in spite of everything I am so thrilled - I finally did it, and I did it under a President I actually believe in. I am an American Girl.

Putting the mind, the medicine and the body all in one place

So I sit there and I realize I am one of the very few women sitting alone except for Gloanna (name changed) and maybe one or two others. This is opening night at the institute and because of that spouses and partners are allowed and encouraged. Good luck with mine - he has school until 19.30 and this all is a bit touchy feely group therapy for him.
How do I feel? Well I tried to be so clinical but found my heart pounding, my mouth dry and my fight /flight drive in over drive...so do I punch the smug women with their dull husbands or do I just run out, grab the big check I wrote and forget this as stupid and desperate?

We watch a power point - now that did make me super relaxed and I did nod off but after that it was all get in a circle and let's divulge and share about anything except pregnancy....I'm sorry but shouldn't that be part of this? Shouldn't we talk about those infertility feelings? Apparently not. Oh and then just to make this so much more stressful and uncomfortable we have an "assigned" buddy. Seriously looking around the room we are all mature and professional women do we really need to be assigned friends by the soft spoken group leader?

So I try really hard to do what I am told, but is just like JPN 201 all over again. I cannot meditate alone - I find the spot on the floor that need to be cleaned right then, or I just drift off and think about what I need to do at home and at work. And because I don't do what I have been told to do I feel like a failure and wonder again why I am putting myself through this?

Is the weekend any different -well really no. We have to go the grocery store, the gas station, the car wash, pick up N from the airport...run run run. Sunday I feel good I do 30 mins of Wii Fit and at least an hour of the dance and other random shift your arse Raving Rabbids game on the Wii. I don't eat crap, but as ever I can't sleep so here I am ...and as bad as this makes me sound I am drinking myself to sleep....Oh and by the way I know it doesn't really work - but allow me something I can put false hope into.....

Another fertility schermility rant....

So it has been a year since the first time I hoped and thought that I was pregnant. So I am still hoping and praying. I stopped thinking several months ago as I have come to the conclusion that when I get nausea it is just psychosomatic - my own little bit of wanting to be pregnant crazy.
The big news I guess is how on board Robert is with having a baby, although I am dreading his fussing somewhat - he will so be wrapping me up in cotton wool. The irony in this being he is the one who always says pregnancy is natural and not an illness.

In other posts I have explained our plans - with the clomid, then the shots then IVF. It is all terribly overwhelming really. I am working like a demon on the Wii Fit and (I know this sounds really stupid) Raving Rabbids TV Show also on the Wii - it has the best dance work outs and a great one for your waist and your arse - but you have to play that one to really understand. I am trying to watch what i eat, but lately that is not much thanks to my psychosomatic nausea.

We both continue to hate what the tabloids have done to pregnancy and childbirth (although I still buy them so I guess I am complicit in their behavior). I am not trying to sound like a crazy 1950s housewife but even when I was a teenager (in the 1980s) having a baby at 16 or 17 wasn't bragged about that much, and it was a scandal. I can still remember the first girl in my year who got pregnant it was so horrifying to us all. Yet today we have Jamie Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin all having babies, and their parents are all so very proud of them, and the tabloids are just waiting to offer them 100s of thousands of dollars for the first pictures. (On a slightly sarcastic note we think Miley will be next....). The rate of teen pregnancies has increased in the past year and I have to wonder if it isn't the constant bombardment of "bump watches" and young girls who are idolized by the tabloids for the ability to reproduce.
I thought that I was avoiding this on the TV - after all I am at work when Tyra and Oprah are on and I really don't watch E! any more and then last night's ER happened.

Let me back track.

After a week of nausea and knowing that we timed things just right we did and early pregnancy test (1 day early) which was negative and I was surprisingly calm about it especially as we do have the plan in place know.

So I settled down to watch the dramas of the ER unfold - and what does it start with? A miserable Angela Basset staring despondently at a white stick. Ah - way to rub it in NBC. A career woman who miscarried at 3 months who now can't get pregnant (oh and she is over 40). Fast forward to her sitting with the OB doc who is telling her all the horrible statistics - her FSH is too low for any fertility clinic to take her on blah blah blah blah blah...Robert turned it off. He was just furious as was I. If you look at the whole Angela Basset back story - successful career woman, loses a child to leukemia, then has a miscarriage then can't have another child. It was handled with all the grace and sensitivity of a sledge hammer to the head!
To me the message it sent was that older women who have established, professional careers cannot have children, should not have children - or quite simply they just waited too long and were selfish about getting that career so they don"t actually deserve a child.

Am I overreacting - oh without a doubt I am, but I actually do feel a little justified. These portrayals and stereotypes of successful women do nothing for women. Yes, they show that a woman can be a successful physician, but she has to sacrifice everything else for that. Oh and I still hate Angelina Jolie......