Uppercase Woman

OB Updates and other miscellany!

Darlings! I have so many good things to tell you!

First off, we saw Dr. Mama this morning. I've gained a whopping five pounds since my last visit (not bad!). He doesn't want me to gain more than another 15 or so pounds, so here's hoping I can do it. Everything else is normal, normal, normal!

He is the best OB ever. EVER. Seriously. He answered all my questions; mostly about things like position of the baby (fine, even if I can't close my legs while sitting), whether or not I'll need bed rest (not yet, but maybe), my hip pain after walking (normal for fat pregnant chicks, and sit down if it's bad), and other things.

Today's appointment was the complete opposite of the last one. Dr. Mama is such a dear he even tried to gamely defend Dr. Dismissive, but understood why we wouldn't like him. He's fine with us doing so much monitoring on our own. Currently, I check my blood sugar daily, my blood pressure morning and evening, my weight every day (big weight gains are a sign of preeclampsia), and use the doppler to check on the baby. We're going to also pick up those urine protein strips (thank you, Atkins people, for making them readily available) so we can check for protein in my urine (currently, there is only a trace).

The only sad thing is that Dr. Mama wants me to slow down my orange juice consumption (sob!), currently at about oh, a quart or two a day. He pointed out that juice is full of sugar, and even though my glucose levels are fine now, they may not stay that way and I should try, if I can, to avoid sugar in all forms as much as possible. Private note to Nancy: yeah, my doctor too. Bummer! I plan to go buy actual oranges and eat them instead. One at a time. Sigh.

After our fun times with Dr. Mama, we headed around the corner to see the cardiologist. I wasn't worried that there was anything wrong with my heart, but I was expecting to be at worst sternly lectured by the doctor, and at best to be nearly ignored.

But the cardiologist was divine. He was kind, first of alll; when he looked at my history and saw that I'd lost the boys, actually sympathy flickered across his face. Then he told me that he and his wife also struggled with infertility and eventually adopted (and sadly, then divorced). He listened to my history, agreed that I was remarkably healthy for my weight, and agreed that it would be good if I could get back to my pre-infertility treatment weight again (sigh) and get more active after this baby is born (ha!). He even laughed when he asked me how I planned to lose the weight and I said, "I'm considering anorexia."

LOVED HIM.

It was really a treat. And, my heart is just AWESOME, and he can't imagine needing to see me again.

After that, I headed off to my favorite diner to grab lunch. This diner has been THE place to go through most of my sobriety (even if some people, Catherine, thinks it's a hellhole), and I love it. Sadly, because my city has changed from a grungy place with lots of greasy spoons to a town full of sparkling expensive restaurants (how they all stay in business, I'll never know), my fave place is up for sale and may be turned into a glittering spot I can't afford in the near future. As sad as I am about the potential loss, I'm not nearly as sad as Harriet, the waitress who has been there for FORTY YEARS. She's been there so long she's actually in the menu. She waited on us today.

But, for now, it's still there, and they deep-fried my home fries like I love (yeah, I know, but WHO CARES THEY ARE DELICIOUS. Seriously). And then I got to read all of your wonderful comments to my final James Frey post, and I love you all even more.

Final, final thing I'll say about poor James: I think we all need to keep him in our prayers (if praying is a thing you do). He's hitting an awful emotional bottom now, and life sucks for him. I hope he can stay sober through it, so let's all pray that he gets the help and support he needs to get through this.

Also, keep Sarah's family in your prayers as well. Her great-uncle just passed away, and she's heading up to the funeral tomorrow. I met her uncle at her wedding, and he was absolutely hilarious. Sad day for everyone.

And my last silly detail: all of you who  (Em, I believe it was you! And you, Christy; and Angela) mentioned the TV series Firefly to me recently, thank you thank you thank you. My local cable giant is running the old episodes on-demand and I've been enjoying them tremendously. I had no idea that it was the exact same cast that was used in the movie Serenity (which I loved)! The writing is phenomenal, the production quality amazing, and the characters captivating. LOVE IT! Thank you. I'll probably watch more tonight instead of watching the idiot, I mean our president, drone on and on during the State of the Union address.

It's been too good a day. The baby is fine! You know, for now. Yee-ha! Jesus, is this post giddy or what?

OK, I lied

I know I said that my last post would be my last about James Frey, but I just. can't. help. myself.

I love you all, and have wanted to give each you big slobbery bloggy kisses at some point or the other, but I am shocked--SHOCKED, I TELL YOU--how many of you think that "it's no big deal" and "it doesn't matter, it was a good read anyway."

Really? Really? Truth doesn't matter?

Mary Karr, author of her own memoir The Liar's Club, wrote this about the controversy surrounding his book:

"I fell in love with memoir when I read Helen Keller's in fourth grade; had it turned out she was merely nearsighted, not deaf, blind and mute, my bubble might have popped."

I was so impressed with her op-ed in the New York Times about it (I would link you, but it's gone "select" and you have to pay to read it now) that I pulled her book off my shelf and re-read it.

I was really impressed, not just by her writing style (which is amazing, and she doesn't randomly capitalize anything), but by the fact that time after time she included her sister's recollection of events and how they contrasted with her own. It gave it such a ring of truth.

I understand several things. OF COURSE memoir, as a genre, means that what is presented is only the author's memories of events. But the author of a memoir CANNOT MAKE UP THINGS THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN AND STILL CALL IT A MEMOIR. Seriously.

Memoir = interpretation of THE TRUTH.

Grrr.

I know that the reason I personally find his blatant self-serving bullshit lies so offensive is because a) I'm a writer and b) I'm a recovering alcoholic and c) I used to be a big fat liar too. When I stopped getting drunk, I had to face the truth--and sometimes the truth was that I wasn't nearly as fucking cool as I thought I was. I had to learn to tell the truth and stand by it.

SZ said it very well in her (?) comment to my last entry:

"What if you read a memoir by a woman who was going though infertility. let's say the book tells in great detail about the clomid, the IUIs, the failed IVFs, many pregnancy losses, terrible emotional pain, and very detailed harrowing passages about what it feels like to miscarry...and you loved that book because you identified with it so closely and had been through something similar, but nowhere near as bad as the poor woman who wrote the book. Let's say it gave you hope to know that someone had been through worse and came out okay.

Now, let's say it turned out the woman who wrote the book was never infertile, she in fact easily and happily gave birth to 3 kids with no trouble. How would you feel? Would you still be able to say "It doesn't matter if it's made up, it was a great story"?

I happen to believe that there's an important difference between truth and lying, and I cannot excuse a liar by saying "but it was a good story". because lies can do a lot of damage."

(emphasis is mine)

Lies can do damage, no matter how fucking entertaining they are.

Now, if you aren't upset at this, don't think I don't love you. We can disagree and still be buddies--just ask my friend Elena. M'kay? OK.

___________________________________

Good news! We can all shop at Target again (except Elena--guess you should get to boycotting--hee hee).

I absolutely SWEAR this is the last thing I'll say about James Frey

It's all lies--the root canal, the criminal past, how his girlfriend died, all of it-- and he's admitted it, so...

Told you so! Told you so! Told you so!

Ahem. OK, I'm done being twelve. Or five. Whatever.

Oprah whooped his ass good, and admitted that she made a public mistake, and I admire her for it. Almost enough to make me stop resenting her arrogance at putting herself on the cover of her own magazine each month.

Jennifer Wiener has a great take on the whole thing. Check it out.

Pregnancy Updates

Judging by the emails I'm getting, I haven't been telling y'all nearly enough about the goings-on in my uterus. So here's the 411:

--I'm currently 17.5 weeks pregnant, although it continues to feel like I've been pregnant for about sixty years or so.

--My next appointment with Dr. Mama is Tuesday, January 31. I am really looking forward to seeing him again and tattling on Dr. Dismissive. Oh, and asking him about 5,000 different questions.

--Immediately following my appointment with Dr. Mama, I'm off to visit the cardiologist to get a baseline EKG. This will complete my baseline trifecta of a 24-hour urine collection, having the ophthalmologist verify that high blood pressure hasn't caused my eyes to explode, and making sure my heart is beating correctly. I've had an EKG before but for the life of me I can't remember when or where.

--The weird freckles I got during my pregnancy with the boys are back. They are on my inner thighs, under my breasts, and in my armpits. They match the new darker color of my nipples perfectly. Does anyone else get these? Most of my Google searches on the subject turn up articles about how freckles get darker during pregnancy, but nothing about freckles that appear out of nowhere.

--This baby, and therefore my uterus, is sitting in a very different place than the boys did. The boys were high up and back, and this baby is low and in front. I can no longer put my knees together while sitting. Thankfully, I don't mind looking like a truck driver most of the time (fun especially in skirts!), but is presenting problems at movies. I'm especially dreading our next next opera; well, that's not true, quite. I'm really looking forward to the opera (it's a world premiere of a new work), but our opera house is in a beautiful old building that has the world's most uncomfortable seats EVER. Neither my wide-ass, Sarah's long legs, or Pete's manly form fit comfortably in the seats. I called about using my inheritance from my dad ($753!) to upgrade our seats to box seats (the boxes have chairs where I can comfortably resume my truck driver stance), but that will cost about $100 PER TICKET. Ah, to be rich!

--Another fun detail about this baby's position; I believe my intestines have already been pushed up somewhere around my chin. It's a very odd to feel farts begin in my throat.

--I no longer seem to be able to eat dinner. I have no appetite at the end of the day. I usually force myself to eat about a cup of cottage cheese for protein, and finish with the oh-so-healthy and fab ice cream sandwich. I also cannot drink anything at night but orange juice. Oh, how I love the orange juice. I could drink a gallon a day, I swear. I need to get some vegetable juice to have around because I am SO not eating enough veggies.

--The depression is completely lifted. It's such a relief.

--My weight is stable. I've gained about ten pounds total according to my scale at home. This is remarkable, especially with the fluid retention. I'm still wearing the same underwear I was wearing pre-pregnancy (although jeans are hopeless).

--I try to walk for at least ten or fifteen minutes a day, but my hips hurt when I do. Not as bad as they did with the boys, but I still have to sit down usually after a block or two.

--Fluid retention is really not bad. I can still wear my normal shoes, although my ankles bulge above them at the end of the day a bit. Worse on higher salt days, of course, and worse in the left leg.

--I haven't been swimming much. It's very hard to do ANYTHING after work; usually I'm so beat I can't move. I've also noticed that if I do swim, I become exhausted after, and sometimes it can actually steal a whole weekend day from me if I swim for an hour.

--That said, I feel best when I have one day a week I do nothing at all.

So that's the update! Any questions?

Charlie and I are beginning to feel some trepidation as we get closer and closer to that 22 week mark (which is when I got sick with the boys). I've begun to make plans with my job in case I can't be available (say, I have to go on bed rest). My job is being wonderful, of course, and will allow me to work some from home so I can extend my time off as much as I need. I heart my job. My boss actually said, "Oh, be sure to leave plenty of time to be with the baby. You'll want to do that." And he's a MAN. LOVE HIM.

Speaking of that, anyone out there want to unload a laptop for cheap? I'm gonna need one if I'm on bed rest. Not to blackmail you or anything, but no laptop, no blogging... heh.

God is just HILARIOUS

Why, you ask, do I think God is so funny?

First off, my darling husband makes his living doing various writing-type work, primarily for medical journals/publishers. He writes ad copy, edits, and proofreads anything they'll pay him to do. His newest client just added a new journal to his work load: and guess what the topic is?

High Blood Pressure in Pregnancy. And most of the articles focus on preeclampsia.

Ha ha! Aren't you laughing now? Now our evenings go as follows:

Me: (wiped out, staring blankly at television until I can reasonably go to bed)...

Charlie: Hon? Did you have your platelets tested yet in this pregnancy?

Me: Um, I don't think so. The only platelets panel they did was when I was admitted to the hospital with the boys.

Charlie: Write that down for Dr. Mama (don't you wish we were your patients? Ha!)

(more time goes by as I continue to stare at the TV, possibly reading a book during commercials, and yeah, I do that)

Charlie: This is interesting. Did you know that one of the reasons they think preeclampsia is a disease of first pregnancies has to do with the mother being allergic to the genetic material of the father?

Me: What the fuck?

Charlie: Yeah. So the body begins to reject the fetus. But after the first pregnancy, you build up an immune response, so that's why it's rare in second pregnancies with the same partner.

Me: Wow.

Charlie: Oh, wait, that's usually only people who go straight from barrier birth control to unprotected sex and get pregnant right away.

Me: Yeah, that wouldn't be us.

(and so on and so on)

I wish I could say that we've learned a lot, but it's really not any new information. I can't say too much more without risking Charlie's job (these are all unpublished papers, but the details I mentioned above are from already published studies). But isn't it funny?

Ha ha! Ha! Ha! Oy.

PS: Check out Charlie's AWESOME entry today about Roe Vs. Wade...

___________________________________

Saturday night I went to see my dear friend Sandy read her poetry at a new local (independent!) book store.  I love her work and was really excited to see her, and to go do something on a weekend that didn't involve a movie.

Charlie and I hosted poetry readings for about seven years, starting when poetry was on MTV and at Lollapalooza and was very hip and crazy and all the rage. We'd get a hundred people jammed into a bar on a Monday night and the readings would last until the wee hours. The lesbian poets would fight with the misogynist poets, and the traditionalists would fight with the language poets, and the rest of us would just get drunk and enjoy the bouts.

That part lasted about a year and a half, and then poetry stopped being cool, and the readings became filled with people who read right out of their journals, and when you asked them about their editing process they said, "Editing process?" or, worse, "I don't believe in changing anything, man, it comes out the way it should be, man. Raw and honest and true, man!"

In other words, it began to SUCK. After Charlie and I got sober we made it about two years before we had to stop or we were going to purchase guns and whip them out at the first person that got on stage and said, "I just wrote this this morning..."

Saturday's reading was nowhere near that bad. All the poets had books out by a local press, so they were all a little more experienced. But I still found it very hard to stay in my seat as I waited for Sandy to go on (and I totally wanted to bolt when she was done!). Some poets are just not good performers, and these days I nod off during pretty much everything, so I found it hard to stay awake. They had free wine and beer at the reading and it looked like it would have REALLY helped the poetry considerably (you know, if I was willing to fuck the rest of my life up the ass). Sarah and I couldn't look at each other because we'd start to crack up. Sarah's hubbie Pete couldn't even stay in the store; he kept taking cigarette breaks.

As we left, we swore we would never do that again.

But because God is so funny! Ha! I got a call on Monday morning from a lovely women that runs a local poetry group and she asked if Charlie and I would be willing to read for her...

Ha!

Of course I said yes. It's wonderful that she ever thinks of us, since we are so far removed from the 'scene' now. Plus I'll probably just read some blog entries. Heh.

____________________________________________

The last reason that God is so fucking funny?

I have a goddamn cold.

Grrrrrrr.

Blog Bites Ass

Everyone has something they don’t like about themselves. For years now, I’ve been slowly chipping away at the worst of my behaviors, carefully crafting a rough butterfly out of the hunk of smelly crap I was when I got sober ten years ago.

I’ve had two reasons for wanting to change; first off, I was sick of hurting people I love, and secondly, I was sick of hurting. When I acted like an asshole, the person I hurt the most, universally, was myself. I still feel like complete shit when I act out, although it's more subtle now. Often the people I end up apologizing to don’t even know what I’m talking about. But I know. And it hurts.

But a few lingering asshole-y behaviors remain. Two, in particular, kick my ass every now and again. Like, you know, today.

First off: my big fucking mouth. I say (or, perhaps, type in a blog) lots of shit without thinking first. The other night I was talking to Elise’s husband and he was telling me that our town’s urban planning folks invited him to head up the newly formed Design Committee. Without thinking I said, “That’s odd. I thought they’d ask you to do something that utilizes your talents.”

Yeah, I really said that. When he looked confused, I covered my ass by saying, “Well, you don’t have any design experience!”

Sigh. What I meant, of course, was that his expertise is mainly in finance and real estate, and I thought that he’d want to do something along those lines. What I should have said, of course, is “That’s so fucking cool!” and then SHUT THE FUCK UP.

My second issue: I am a big fucking SNOB. Seriously.

The members of my maternal family are all snobs. My grandfather had a PhD in Musicology. He was a major opera snob. My grandmother got her master’s degree by the time she was 21 years old, in the 1930’s. She also spoke six languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese). Their house was full of books (many of which I inherited). My mother finished her PhD in geography the same year I graduated from high school. I was raised without a television, and read out my local library within two years of each move (thankfully, we moved a lot). Perhaps, reading all of this, you can understand a little better why I find something like the Wiggles so insipid. Because I am a snob, snob, snob.

I believed that my family and I were smarter than most people. My family frequently pointed out the shortsightedness and foolishness of others. The way I rebelled in my family was by not going to college (oh, there was that little alcohol thing in there too, but I digress) after high school.

So, you add all of this up, and mix in old rage and grief, post-partum and post-loss depression, toss in my father’s family and bam! You have the entries I posted in my blog after my father’s funeral (I’ve deleted them, so don’t go lookin’ for ‘em).

After my dad divorced my mom, his life took quite a different tack than ours did. He’d been a middle-class kid (his father was a postal worker and his mom a teacher), but spent about twelve years in the military. He struggled with his own alcoholism, and chose as his home an area that by my snob-ass standards could only be described as desolate and impoverished. He became sick from exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam, ended up on disability, and as a result became unnaturally poor. My father’s other kids grew up in a much harsher world than I did.

When I went to Shreveport for my dad’s funeral last February I was overwhelmed with feelings. I barely knew my father—I’d met him exactly twice as an adult—and at the funeral I felt, in all honesty, like a freak, and like I didn’t belong there. My brother and sisters were so warm and loving to me, yet I still felt like an outsider in my own family. I’d only met them all once, after all (when my sisters were eight and twelve, and I think my brother was 19 when I met him). They didn’t really know me and I didn’t really know them. I’d lost the boys just four months before and was angry and raw and bitter as shit.

So I handled it the only way I knew how: I spun funny and bitter tales of the experience, and I blogged about it. My stories were cruel, using humor and words to carve up my siblings and their lives. I made fun of how my dad died, I made fun of my brother-in-law, my nieces and nephews, and even my sisters (somehow, my brother remained rather unscathed. Don’t know how that happened). I made fun of where the funeral was held, the funeral home, even the whole state of Louisiana.

I was funny, I was scathing, and I was unrelenting.

A month or so after the funeral, my middle sister read my blog and took me to task about it. I apologized, probably rather insincerely, and promptly forgot all about it.

My youngest sister found my blog this weekend, and she read last year’s entries. She was, as you can imagine, angry and heartbroken. She felt betrayed and embarrassed that I put all those things into words for anyone to see, on the Internet.

And what could I say? She was right. I was an asshole.

A few of you brave blog readers asked, back then, if perhaps I’d want to reconsider what I’d written. I blew it off. I was in so much pain—from losing my boys and my father, even though I’d lost my father years and years before, suddenly he was really, truly gone—that I couldn’t be empathetic and considerate of other people. I just didn’t have it in me at the time.

But I do now. And looking back, I realize that I no longer feel that same way. There are certainly cultural differences between us: I don’t hunt; I’m crazy-liberal; and I will, most likely, never ask my kids to call me “Ma’am.” But you know what? My hunting brother-in-law is a great father to his kids, and a supportive husband to my sister. My youngest sister’s kids are the best-behaved children I’ve ever seen. My middle sister has managed to turn her life completely around, more so even than I have, after surviving horrors I can only imagine. All three of my siblings grew up without much of a mother. Who am I to judge?

As a family, we have hurdles to cross. We didn’t grow up together. The thing that could have held us together (my father) didn’t, and can’t now of course since he's gone. It's up to us, and all we have left is the oh-so-fragile relationship of blood; love is something we have to work at and build on. I do not need to slow this growth with my bitterness and harsh judgments.

So, Didi and Biggy, I’m so sorry. You got the short end of the stick, and an asshole for a big sister. All I can say is that I’m working on it, and I’ll try to do better. I love you both—really—honest.

And for everyone else, beware the power of the blog! I’ve been at this nearly two years now and I’m still learning how to navigate the murky waters of my own truth and other people’s feelings. My advice? Tread lightly, and carry a very large delete key. And learn when the fuck to use it.

 

Random Thoughts Friday!

Dear Trace Adkins:

While you enjoy your ride to Billy Ray Cyrus land (he of the "Achy Breaky Heart) , a word of advice... Honkytonk Badonkadonk is a cute song, sure (sample here, scroll down). But if you are going to plug the song with a rap-style booty video, I suggest you use women in the video that actually have booties. Because dude, the scrawny women in your video have absolutely nothing to shake, or if you like, badonkadonk. See the video here.

__________________________________________________

It might seem like a mediocre fluff movie from the preview, but Queen Latifah's new movie Last Holiday is a lovely movie with a big heart and actually rather spiritual. I'm not saying it wasn't completely predictable, because it was. But even so, each scene went just a little differently than I'd expected. And some of it was hilarious, and some of it touching. If you have a television, you know the basic plot: Queen Latifah plays a woman who finds out she's dieing. Her life before the diagnosis can be summed up beautifully by this detail  (I don't think it will ruin the movie to tell you this): she spends her evenings cooking elaborate gourmet meals she photographs before feeding it all to a neighbor kid--while she eats a lean cuisine.  After she gets her diagnosis, she flips through her album of meals, moaning, "Oh, I should have eaten that. And that."

__________________________________________________

I don't know how the weather is where you are, but it's freaking me the fuck out here on the East Coast. It's mid-January and we're all walking around without coats because it's sixty degrees and sunny. Bizarre. But there's no global warming! Polar bears are drowning because of a lack of ice, but there's no global warming! Penguins are starving because a big iceberg broke up, but every thing's fine! Nothing to see here! Move along! 9/11! 9/11! 9/11!

__________________________________________________

Karen  already covered this topic, but it's driving me CRAZY that the press are so damned excited about Angelina's first child! Except for her other two kids (that Brad has just officially adopted), who aren't "real" because they are adopted. The other night I saw a fucktard reporter say to Angelina's father (who she is estranged from, but that's another story) "Aren't you excited to finally be a grandfather?"

Asshats.

__________________________________________________

I don't know about you, but I can't WAIT to see Underworld: Evolution tonight. I love me a movie with hot people wearing leather and shooting and biting each other. Yee-ha! I loved the first one and have seen it five million times (thanks, HBO). Sarah and Pete are coming along too. I asked Sarah if she'd seen the first one, and she said, "No, but it doesn't look like it matters."

Poor Sarah. She always forgets she's dealing with a sci-fi/fantasy/horror nerd with me. Besides, Underworld actually has one of the most twisty, convoluted, and detailed plots of any vampire movie I've seen. I insisted on making her read the entire plot by instant message. And I keep wanting to call her to tell her details I forgot. Yes, I'm a fanatic.

__________________________________________________

Johnny Cash is currently outselling all other country singers except Carrie Underwood (who?). Not surprised. Charlie and I are currently obsessed with Johnny Cash. I fully expect our child to be born singing "Folsom Prison Blues." That should make the nurses laugh, eh? "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die..."

__________________________________________________

Charlie and I recently babysat Elise's daughter for a couple hours. We were forced to watch over an hour of an atrocity called The Wiggles, an Australian export that should be returned. If I had to hear that stupid pirate Captain hoot one more time I was going to have to blow up the TV. I don't understand the tendency in children's videos and cartoons these days to be so goddamn manic, and what's with all the fucking YELLING? Mr. Rogers didn't yell. Captain Kangoroo didn't yell. Our kid is going to think it was born in 1970 because I'm going to find videos of all the nice quiet and happy things I watched as a kid. Sheesh.

I know many of you are going to say I'll feel differently when I have a kid. And maybe so. But seriously, why would I make a child watch something that hurts me? Plus, it looks like none of them actually play any instruments; there are TONS of kid videos with actual musicians playing actual musical instruments; I'd prefer those, me thinks.

In defense of The Wiggles, I know Elise and her husband actually enjoy them. I'm not claiming that they are bad or hurtful (some of the songs are cute), so I don't mean to sound judgemental if you are a fan. It's just me. But I'm declaring my house a Wiggles-free zone.

___________________________________________________

Have a great weekend everybody!

Broke The Streak, and other things

Ladies and gentlemen, after four months of morning sickness with no actual tossed cookies, this morning... Well, the cookies were tossed. Or the cheerios. Aren't you happy to have that picture in your head?

Lately I've had little if any morning sickness. Usually I feel fine, except that around nine every night I begin to feel like I have a brick in my stomach and only large amounts of orange juice make it feel better.

The last little problem, dear friends, goes back to my stuffy nose and dry mouth pregnancy-related issues. See, the nose stuffiness has become nearly manageable with the following crazy regimen: oodles of chemical nose spray (no lectures--please), saline mist, sleeping propped up on three pillows, and breath-right nose strips. I can usually, now, make it through the night ok.

The dry mouth issue has been combated with a series of products: a dry-mouth mouthwash, dry-mouth toothpaste, and this absolutely disgusting but awesome dry-mouth ointment you smear all over the inside of your mouth. It's all really helped. I no longer wake up choking because my mouth is so dry I cannot swallow, or awake with my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

However, one minor issue remains. Once I get up and shower, my nose becomes unstuffed and I begin to have lots of post-nasal drip and oh! isn't that fun. But every single morning, one stupid fucking piece of snot, well-hardened by the nose spray and the mouth dryness, slides down the back of my throat and comes to a rest RIGHT ON MY GAG REFLEX. *Don't read any further if you feel like tossing cookies yourself.*

I then begin clearing my throat, attempting to dislodge it, and then I begin coughing, and then, next thing you know, I'm gagging. Usually this all happens before I eat breakfast, so I have an empty stomach when I'm choking and gagging. But today I overslept a bit, and ended up eating my cheerios before this entire process began. Hence the puking.

I'm at a loss. I'm going to go see my general practitioner, just to see if she has any suggestions.  But I really don't know what else to do.

God, this part of pregnancy sucks. So much for being more positive. Heh.

_________________________________________

Last night at a meeting, Charlie and I met a couple who, in August of 2004, lost their daughter eight and a half months into a pregnancy. One day there was a heartbeat, and the next day there simply wasn't. They have no idea what happened.

The woman was speaking, and she spoke about how awful losing faith was. Except, for her, she meant losing Faith: her daughter's name was Faith. She spoke about how hard it was to talk to God during that time, but how much she believes that it was God that carried her through without drinking, and God that helped her recover.

I felt like I got hit in the chest when she spoke. I feel like the reason I survived losing our sons is because of people; my dear friends in real life, and of course the hundreds of you here in the computer. I still feel that God abandoned me during that time and left me stranded and alone. You know that footprints poem (oh, how I hate that poem)? I've always felt like the reason that there was a single set of footprints during the hardest times in my life was because God found something else to do for a while--like maybe check out a movie, or run to the drug store or something.

But listening to this woman speak reminded me that my God often works through people. I wouldn't let God in, so God sent people to help me instead.  You know, maybe. It's better to believe that than the alternative, isn't it?

I realized, too, that while listening to her that I cannot visualize a simple and easy outcome to this pregnancy. Yesterday I met with  my boss to discuss what we'll do if I have to go on early bed rest, because I am assuming that will happen. Here's what I see: bed rest, emergency c-section, NICU. I do NOT see 38 or 40 weeks of a successful pregnancy and a routine vaginal birth. Or even a routine non-emergency c-section. It's doomsday scenario only, for me.

One asshat at the meeting approached me afterward and told me I should do guided meditation and visualize myself holding my baby (asshatness aside, she did ask me first before she gave me the suggestion, and I told her to go ahead, so, you know, my fault). Ok, you know, whatEVER, but it did make me realize that I can rarely picture that happening. It's nearly impossible for me to get that image to materialize in my head.

The lingering shadow of infertility and loss is dark indeed.  Jodi Picoult in her book Vanishing Acts (which I'm currently reading) said, "you eventually make the decision to divide your life in half--before and after--with loss being that tight bubble in the middle. You can move around in spite of it; you can laugh and smile and carry on with your life, but all it takes is one slow range of motion, a doubling over, to be fully aware of the empty space at your center."

Right now, I can't stop focusing on the empty space at my center long enough to really welcome the life that is currently swimming right below my heart (another line I stole from Jodi). I feel like that part of me is broken. Sometimes at night when Charlie and I listen to the heartbeat, we just keep the machine on and listen to the kicks and whirls of the baby moving around. And in those moments, for the briefest second, I find myself smiling and laughing and hoping. In those moments I can see us with our baby.

I'm glad I heard her speak last night. Her honestly helped crack my shell a little bit, allowing some darkness to escape and some light to get in.

Thank God.

Business and other things

Things are going pretty well. I had a lovely weekend, even though I didn't see Sarah at all (very rare). Charlie and I got to hang out a lot, and it's good for us to reconnect. We actually watched the Golden Globes last night in their entirety (I know, Elise, I know. I take it all back), and Charlie's commentary nearly made me pee on the couch (when I saw Rachel Weisz's dress*, I said, "What is she wearing?" and Charlie paused, looked at it a moment and said, solemnly, "I believe it's lettuce.")

Over the weekend I've begun to think that some of the twinges and twitches I'm feeling in my uterine area are actually the baby moving. I'm not sure; I had only just begun to feel the twins move at about 19 weeks (although last time the placenta was anterior--in the front of the uterus--making it harder to feel, and this time it's posterior), and the flutterings stopped about two weeks later since of course one of the boys had already died at that point (they believe that the spasming of placenta blood vessels, a side effect of preeclampsia and high blood pressure, led to his death). Anyway, whether or not I have felt the baby move yet, it's obvious that it's growing mightily; the heartbeat is stronger and you can now hear the valves of the heart working (so it's thump-thump, thump-thump, instead of thump thump thump thump. Ok, it makes sense to ME).

I looked up how I was doing when I was 16 weeks pregnant last time, and all in all, I'm doing much, much better. While I have a lot of fluid build-up in my legs, it's nothing like it was last time. Sometimes I've been pretty lax with my salt intake; for instance,  I've discovered recently that I cannot, alas, eat lox any more; one serving is my whole day's salt allotment. Sigh. One of my FAVORITE things. Since I stopped the lox, my legs have been much less swollen.

Alright, I'm rambling, and I have some link business to take care of!

____________________________________________

One of the great blessings of my job is that I get to meet some extraordinary women artists. One of them is the incomparable Denika.  Denika was a student here, and spent two years working for me in my shop. We became good friends, mostly because she is as cynical and sarcastic as I am. She's moved far away, but GOD BLESS EMAIL, we've stayed in touch. She's now selling her fabulous work on-line, so it's accessible to all of you! Please go check it out. If this baby is born, it simply must have one of her wild critters. This one, perhaps. Or this one. I think these are perfect for offspring of the bitter infertile, don't you?

___________________________________________

Why I love the Internet, or, things I wouldn't know about without it...

--Have any of you heard of the fetish of feederism? I hadn't either, until I saw it mentioned here (a great feminist and fat acceptance blog). If only I'd known about it! I would have taken erotic photos of myself over the last three years chronicling my weight gain and made some dough. Oh well.

--Have you heard about the Rape Condom? Worn like a tampon, it's barbed on the inside, and once "used" requires removal by a hospital. So not only does it stop a rapist (not until mid-rape, sadly) but also helps identify them afterwards. It also acts as a female condom and can help prevent the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmited diseases. For sale in South Africa.  Rape is a huge issue in South Africa, child rape in particular, possibly because there is a rumor that HIV can be cured by raping a virgin. Some call it "barbaric", but I suspect that those folks are all MEN. I think it's actually pretty cool.

So, what cool things have you learned from the Internet?

*I searched everywhere for an image of her dress and can't find one. Just trust me--it was green and ruffled and BAD. I'm sure these ladies will mention it soon.

Trying NOT to be an asshole

I meant to write this post yesterday, but after I got back from the ophthalmologist, my pupils were dilated so hugely that I couldn't see anything that wasn't dark and twenty feet away from me. So the whole computer thing was out.

You will all be happy to know that my eyeballs have NOT exploded as a result of my high blood pressure and bout with preeclampsia. They are perfectly healthy and have nice tiny little blood vessels in the back. Ahem.

Thanks to so many of you that de-lurked. I promise I will write a post about addiction soon, but today I wanted to answer your other questions: what are the names we're thinking of, and do I want a boy or a girl.

I realized the other day that my fear and anger has made me more bitter than I like. I have become the kind of person that no one wants to ask, "How are you doing?" Why? Because I tell you.

When asked how I'm doing, I vomit a vile mix of self-pity, anger, resentment at bitterness on you. I tell you how tired I am, how fat I feel, how often I want to vomit. How much I hate eating low-salt. How much I hate being pregnant.

When someone says, "Oh! Are you excited?" I launch into a lengthy description of our experience with pregnancy last time, and make sure to grind into their heads how hopeless I feel about this pregnancy.

And the best one, of course, is that when someone says, "Do you want a boy or a girl?" I say, "I want a baby that's not dead."

While that might be true, all it does is make the questioner uncomfortable. It's unfair. They often don't know my history, or if they do, they think that this new pregnancy is something to celebrate precisely because of our loss last time.

Why am I so eager to deflate their happiness? Because I'm an asshole, that's why. And because it's protective; my anger and bitterness is curled defensively around my heart, saving me from hurt and pain. But it's bullshit--if I lose this pregnancy, it's gonna fucking HURT, and I won't have saved anything. I will just have succeeded in sapping the joy out of every room I enter, and saved myself not one iota of grief. It's stupid. Pointless. I want to stop.

This week, I've felt like I'm finally snapping out of the horrid depression that settled over me during my last pregnancy, and only got worse after we lost the boys. The hopelessness is fading. I realized that the way I've been acting has actually fueled that depression instead of combating it.

As silly as it sounds, I have decided to make a concerted effort to be more positive. Of course, that's easier now that I'm feeling just oh so slightly better. But I think it's worth it. Instead of saying, "I'd like a baby that's not dead," I can say "Happy and healthy, that's all I ask." See the difference?

So, with a tiny dose of hope, a dash of joy, and a smattering of optimism, I am happy to share with you my hopes and ideas for names and gender.

As to whether I prefer a boy or a girl... All my life, since I can remember, I've wanted a daughter. It's just what I've pictured in my head. However, unlike my last pregnancy where I experienced some sadness about only having boys, I'm much less married to the idea of a girl. While I still see a girl in my head, and Charlie and I tend to refer to the noises we hear on the doppler as "she," I will be just as happy to have a happy and healthy boy. Honest. 

We've always known the name we'd use for a girl is Victoria Anne. Charlie had an older sister who was exposed to thalidomide in utero and only lived for a few days, and that was her name. Also, his grandmother and my mother are both Ann(e)'s (I prefer the Anne spelling, because I am a snob and a bit of an anglophile), so it covers a lot. We will call a girl "Tori" for short, and yes, it's all Tori Amos's fault. I would never have thought of shortening Victoria that way without her.

As for a boy, I really like John Henry Charles. John was my father's name, and while he might not have been much of a father to me (ok, he was not a father to me at all) I do love the name and the family tie. Charles is after Charlie, of course, and his father too. Henry is just for fun, and we would call the boy Hank because HOW FUCKING CUTE IS THAT.  Plus, I love the John Henry reference, being the daughter of a folk singer and all.

So there you go. A new, happy, shiny me. Heh. But don't worry. I'm still bitter and angry about Alito. Promise.