Uppercase Woman

Health, Mental and Otherwise

I haven’t written a decent blog entry in a while. I’m all scattered and unfocused (placenta brain? anyone? helloooo?) and therefore this entry is going to be a mish-mosh of all that’s currently going on in my head. Warning: loads of pregnancy talk ahead.

My pregnancy seems to be going along about the same with some changes. My morning sickness is still awful (I’ve now been puking for 14 weeks! yee-ha!), but sometime last week I switched from plain nausea to nausea + immediate and overwhelming hunger. I’ll been fine for a while, then BAM! I am so hungry I start chomping on the leg of the coffee table. Sometimes I’m both—hungry and nauseous—and I have to eat something sweet, very, very slowly, and then I’ll feel better.

I was reading about pregnancy on Dr. Andrew Weil’s site (you’ve probably seen him on public TV—he looks like Santa in a Hawaiian shirt—and he’s an MD and a naturopath, but not a militant naturopath, and often has really interesting suggestions/info about things) that “most” morning sickness leaves by 16 weeks. That’s the latest date I’ve been told so far—and I’m not holding out much hope. I was excited to cross the 12 week mark, thinking the sickness would abate, then the 14 week one, and since I’m still sick, I’m beginning to think I’m doomed to be one of those women that is sick throughout the entire pregnancy.

While I resent this (who wouldn’t), I’ve come to the realization that I can live with it. It’s strange—I’m absolutely exhausted with feeling sick, but since it’s gone on so long, I’ve come to accept it. Especially now that I’m not getting ultra sounded every couple of weeks at the RE’s, the sickness provides proof that the babies are still in there. Of course, hearing the heartbeats with the Doppler during my prenatal appointments helps too. And last week, during the Doppler session, we actually heard one of the babies kick! Very funny.

Speaking of ultrasounds, I get my next one next Monday at the Maternal-Fetal Medical Center (sounds good and official, don’t it?). Immediately following the ultrasound is my consultation with the high-risk OB.

I’m really hoping that the OB will be able to provide me with some relief from the awful water retention and feet swelling (yeah—the new thing to complain about, now that I’ve accepted the morning sickness!). On Friday, I was on my feet a lot at work, and then had to go to a party (the launch party for a new literary magazine I’m a poetry editor of) and I had to stand for another two hours before I could go home and lay the fuck down. By the end of the night, not only were my ankles so puffy and swollen that they actually had folds, but even my thighs were puffy and I had to walk like I had a stick up my twat. Fun!

I no longer think my 20lbs weight gain is related to anything other than the fluid I’m retaining (some of it might be the twins, but not much, seriously, with what I’ve been eating).

Back in the good old days when I was a vet tech, we used to treat dogs with congestive heart failure (at a less-then-reputable clinic) by tapping their bellies (in severe congestive heart failure, fluid back up in the lungs and abdomen) with a 16 gauge needle and letting the fluid drain into a bucket. The dogs would leave anywhere from 10-40lbs lighter and feeling much better.

Since these days my toes are so puffy I actually worry that they will split open, I’d love to get drained like that. Just stick a needle in me and let it all drain out. For God’s sake.

On the high blood pressure front, someone has recommended that I try the Brewer’s Diet. The woman who recommended it said it cured her blood pressure issues. The diet has a large emphasis on protein, something I’ve struggled with thanks to the nausea (carbs are always easier to get down). I’m going to give it a try, although eating two eggs a day sounds so gross I could throw up just thinking about it…

In other health news, today I returned to therapy for the first time in a few years.

I was stuck picking a therapist from my crappy-ass insurance’s list. Thankfully, I found one right in my neighborhood, and when I called him, I knew I’d like him because of his voice (yeah, I’m like that). He was clearly older, Jewish, and sounded pudgy and sweet.

When I finally arrived at the appointment today (I was late due to address confusion), I was surprised to see a tan, fit middle-aged man wearing shorts and a t-shirt and no shoes, with a bike in his office.

I still liked him, and he says what he thinks (instead of that therapist thing of “What do YOU think?”) which could be great or could suck ass—depending, of course, on how often he agrees with me.

I’ll keep ya posted as to how it goes!

American Idiot

I think I may have done a crazy thing.

My RE has been weaning me off my progesterone-in-oil shots for the last few weeks; and I’ve just stopped them. On my own, without discussing it with anyone.

There are several reasons. First off, between the appointments with the midwife, and now the high risk OB, I can't stand the thought of more doctors. Adding to that is the fact that next week I’m returning to therapy (and you can all breathe a large sigh of relief) and the fact that work is busy now that the students are back and I have to begin planning for the Christmas shopping season (welcome to retail!), I just don’t have any fucking time to run up to the RE’s office and get my blood drawn.

They haven’t called, so I guess I’m not in trouble. The babies are fine, so I’m not too worried on that front.

But I probably could have handled this in a slightly smarter way.

____________________________________________

I’ve gotten great advice and feedback from people about the high blood pressure and the water retention issues I’ve had. I’m so grateful to everyone that responded.

One person mentioned HELLP Syndrome. This is a variation on Pre-Eclampsia, and can start earlier in pregnancy. It’s important to make sure your platelets are normal, and that you are not excreting protein in your urine.

Thankfully, I’ve got none of those symptoms. Just excessive water retention. More than I’ve ever experienced, actually. I can feel it even in my thighs. It’s so weird, walking around feeling like I’m walking on water balloons.

One of the best suggestions I got was to swim. That soaking in water forces your body to process the fluid as urine (yeah!).

So this weekend, I’m going to the YWCA near me, and getting a fucking membership, and swimming. I promise.

____________________________________________

I won’t go on another political rant, but I just wanted to give a shout out to the fab boys of Green Day.

As anyone who watched “School of Rock” knows, rock-n-roll is all about STICKING IT TO THE MAN.

Green Day's new song, American Idiot, does just that. It's exactly what rock-n-roll is all about.

God Bless Green Day.

Politics, Fat, Blood Pressure, and a Wedding

While camping this weekend, in the lovely low green mountains of Pennsylvania, my husband and I saw a bulletin board promoting Bush-Cheney that we haven’t seen in the mostly democratic city we live in. It said:

Boots or Flip-Flops? Vote Bush-Cheney!

Uh, ok. First off, I’m so sick of hearing about John Kerry and the flip-flopping issue. If anyone took ten fucking minutes to research it, they would find that a) unlike our President, Mr. Kerry thinks about things and allows new information to inform his opinion (therefore, he occaisionally changes his mind), and b) many of the issues he’s apparently “flip flopped” on were actually bills that he voted against because of bad riders attached, and once those riders were removed, he approved the bill. Sheesh.

Secondly, BOOTS? Does he mean cowboy boots, or the boots of all the soldiers that have already died fighting his Iraq war? The war that has NOTHING to do with terrorism or 9/11?

I’ll take Flip-Flops over boots any day.

Bill Clinton recently said on The Daily Show, “When Americans think, the Democrats win.” In our current climate of fear and patriotism, there is not much chance that we are thinking this year. Many of us are just reacting to the environment of fear we’ve lived in since September 11.

There was another politician that used a similar theme back in Germany in the 1930’s. Doesn’t anyone remember Hitler shrieking at the German people—

“Butter or Cannons?”

And the Germans yelled, “CANNONS!!!”

And look how that turned out.

Come on people. THINK.

_____________________________________________________

We had another visit to the midwife today. I wasn’t surprised when she told us that we would have to work in partnership with the high-risk obstetrician that backs up this team of midwives. Basically, we’ll have to do both—see the midwives, and also see the high-risk doc.

Oh, and there was a slightly scary moment when she couldn’t find the heartbeats. But she did, and they’re both still beating.

Three things have determined that I have a high-risk pregnancy. The twins; my weight; and my blood pressure. At my RE’s, I had several high blood pressure readings (that I think, frankly, were wrong). I’ve never had high blood pressure before (I’m one of those annoying fat people with a cholesterol level of 130 and perfect blood pressure). Today my pressure was 140/80, which is high for me, and the midwife thinks the OB will put me on blood pressure medication.

Sadly, it won’t likely be the diuretic kind, which would be great, since my legs are so swollen with fluid that by the evenings the skin around my ankles actually hurts because it’s stretched so tight.

Like I said, I wasn’t surprised. The flow of the river has been moving toward using a high-risk doc anyway. I know most women carrying twins don’t even consider using midwives; they go right to the high-risk doc. Luckily, the midwives swear that this particular doctor is wonderful (plus she’s a woman, something I wanted) and she’s affiliated with the same place we got our CVS testing done, and I really liked the feel of that practice.

My weight was up another six pounds, bringing my grand total to 20. I was surprised—I was very active this weekend while camping—canoeing, swimming, chopping wood, setting up camp, etc (yeah, it nearly killed me)—and during the last couple of weeks I’ve been working a lot and not eating much.

Seriously, the amount of food I eat now would not have sustained me prior to pregnancy. I would have been hungry all the time. So why my weight keeps going up and up and up while I’m eating less than my skinny best friend, I just don’t know.

One interesting thing has happened with all of this though: I’ve hit the wall. I’m done being fat. Once this pregnancy is over, I’m going to embark on yet another weight loss journey. The difference, this time, is that instead of wanting to be thin, which has always been my motivation, I’m just fucking sick of being fat.

I’ve never felt this way, this absolute certainty that it’s time to get real and lose the weight. It feels very different. Obviously, I don’t plan to do it while pregnant, but once my body belongs to me again, I plan to begin treating it with respect, and to get back in shape and lose weight. I want to be healthy for my boys, and I want to be at a normal size.

I’m just done.

Of course, the fact that I’m going to be in my best friend’s wedding sometime next year is a motivator too… I’m so excited for her! She met this guy through work, developed an email friendship, and then slowly fell in love… He’s British, but currently lives in France, and is frantically figuring out how he soon he can move here. I love the guy, and am so happy for her I could just scream.

Enough from me today. How are all of you?

Parenting Dilemas, or this is going to piss some people off

So I’ve been doing a little reading about parenting. Not much, mind you, but a little. A little about Attachment Parenting, a little Ezzo and Ferber (the antichrists of the Attachment Parenting world), and a handful of blogs by parents of both twins and singletons.

I’ve decided I must be a horrible person. Attachment Parenting sounds impossible to me.

First, because I don’t really want to co-sleep with the twins. It’s not because I’m afraid that I’ll crush them, or anything like that. It’s partially because one argument against it--that the babies smell their mother and wake up more often--kind of makes sense to me. It’s also because I’m a difficult sleeper, in the best of circumstances, and I promise I’ll be the worst kind of mother if I’m not at least moderately rested (I know enough not to expect well rested). I think they should be in the room with us, at least at first, even possibly in those “attach to the bed” bassinets, but not in the actual bed. I must confess, though, that if we were only talking about one baby, instead of two at once, I could reconsider.

Secondly, I’m going to return to work as soon as my job needs me to. I admire the hell out of Mother of Twins and Indigo Girl and I am so impressed with their ability to be home all day every day with their twins. I’m not cut out to do that. I’m afraid if I’m left alone, all day every day, with screaming babies, I will turn into Susan Smith and drive my children into a lake. Plus, I’m the only one in my house with a full-time, outside-of-the-home-job—the job that will be providing cool things like health care benefits to these kiddos. My husband is a freelancer, and my schedule is a little unusual, so we’ve figured out a system with only part-time day care or nanny time, so that I can work and my husband can continue to take care of his mother with Alzheimer’s. I’m so scared that this makes me bad mother material. I also realize that once they are here, and I’m madly in love, that returning to work will feel like tearing out my heart. But staying home isn’t an option.

Thirdly, and this is the worst thing possible—I’m just not sure about exclusively breastfeeding. I’ve studied it, I’ve read lots and lots about it, and I’m still just not sure that it will work for me. I certainly plan to do it for the first few months, especially when they first come home, but after that, I’m not sure. We’ll get a good pump, and I’ll pump my gonzo boobs to death (they really are huge now, I can’t IMAGINE what they’ll be like with milk in them), but we may give them bottled breast milk just as often as we put them to the breast. Even worse, if we need to, we might even supplement—gasp!—with formula. I’m going to let circumstances, not the ideals of the La Leche League, determine what we do.

I don’t object to wearing the babies in a sling, in fact I think that rocks, and I would love to be able to home school. I want to answer their every cry and be there for them when I can. But the rest…I’m just not comfortable with.

What’s wrong with me? My mother was a hippie, for Christ’s sake. I should be so all over this stuff. I do know this—if I lived in a village or commune type setting (like my mom and I did when I was 5 and 6), where there are lots of mothers, and everybody breast fed everyone’s babies, I could do it. In that kind of setting, there is constant support and love for both mom and babies.

But I don’t live in a world like that—I live in a house, in a major East Coast city, and my husband and I are going to be doing this primarily alone, with a little help from friends.

Ezzo (the Babywise dude) and Ferber (the train-your-baby-to-sleep-on-a-your-schedule dude) don’t sound all that wacko to me. My neighbors did the Babywise method, and it’s amazing how well behaved their son is, and how easily he goes to sleep at night. Of course, they are also ministers in some wacko Christian cult, but you know. They are very pleasant people.

As in all things, I imagine that my primary goal will be to strike a balance with all these different parenting methods, and to try to just be the best mother I can be. After all, what else can I do?