Dreams

Last night I had a terrible dream.  In the dream I woke up to find my daughter re-hooked up to oxygen, monitors and a feeding tube.  She was tiny-all skin and bones, like her 2-month-old self, but the wires were tangled around her crib and I was completely stunned.  How did this happen? What went wrong? This isn’t how I put her to sleep last night, in her warm sleep stretchy and adorable chubbiness.  She was amazing yesterday-her first real trip to the supermarket sitting in the front of the cart (she was in heaven looking around at all the groceries, smiling at everyone who walked by, laughing at my mother), she played with her bath toys for the first time last night, and she didn’t even want to get out of her bath she was having so much fun playing.  I asked dream hubby and he said that At Home Medical (the medical supply company that provided us with all the oxygen and monitors when we came home from the hospital-more about them, later) came over at 4am and hooked her up-dream husband let them in the door.  Somehow, because it’s a dream and that’s how things work, we were in a hospital and I was screaming at a doctor who happened to be Penn (from Penn and Teller) that there was no way that Lily needed all of these devices, that she hadn’t desaturated in months, that she’d been off oxygen since November 12.  I even got my neonatologist on the phone-she called Dr. Penn an idiot.  They were running tests on Lily, taking her blood and I screamed at them that she didn’t need the unnecessary pain.  Leave her alone!  It wasn’t full out Shirley MacLaine, but it was impressive.

I don’t remember more than that because I woke up, startled.  The thing is, dreams like this aren’t uncommon.  While Lily was still in the NICU I had dreams about her dying or about the doctors taking her away from me, forever.  Once she came home, the dreams were about her choking or not breathing or being taken away from me.  The bigger and stronger she gets the less often I have them, but the being taken away from me part stays pretty consistent, and that’s because, well…that’s how it felt.  It felt like the doctors had taken her away from me (she was, after all, literally ripped out of my body-a couple of times I quoted Macbeth “from his mother’s womb untimely ripped,” but my hubby thought it was weird so I stopped), and for a long, long time, I didn’t know when I was going to get her back-I knew that, eventually, she would be mine and I would get to be her mother, but I did not know when.  No one seemed to know when.  I would lie in bed, hysterically crying on my husband’s chest, moaning that “they took her” and “I want her back,” and there was nothing he could do but hold me and rock me and try to tell me that it was going to be okay.

I had a similar reaction after the C-section: nightmares and misdirected anger.  I later explained the hurt to the hubby as the following: “I think of you as my knight, as my great protector from all the hurt and pain in the world.  And I know you relish the role because you truly believe that it is your job to protect me (he nodded in agreement). But there I was, completely helpless, literally going through my own personal version of hell, and there you were right next to me, and you couldn't make it stop, you couldn't make them stop, and you couldn't protect me.”  He finally understood.

He understood the whole time about feeling like Lily had been taken from me, had been “untimely ripped.”  He still understands about the dreams, even though he always seems to be an idiot in them (he’s really not an idiot in real life, I swear).  Dream hubby is just an ignorant, misguided man who thinks he’s doing the right thing, whereas real life hubby is an amazing, loving father who wishes he had more time with his daughter-he only gets to see her for about an hour on weekdays, and most of that time she’s in the screaming phase because it’s time to go to bed and she doesn’t want to (even at 6 months she’s capable of have a 2-year-old’s tantrum).

I’m sure that the dreams will go away or become so infrequent that they feel like they’re gone, but I don’t think that the feelings they represent will ever go away.  I’m never going to be able to forget that my child was taken away from me, but as she grows and experiences new things, I get to add to the feelings-new, happy experiences help to dull the pain of the past.

This is Lily sitting in a shopping cart for the first time-cart cover courtesy of the Factors (love you guys).  My mother said we should shove things all around her to keep her upright, so that's Lily's blanket on the left and my mother's purse on the right.  Lily's laser-like focus narrowed in on every product we passed by-here, she is staring at soda bottles (good sale on Pepsi products right now at A&P).  Despite the lack of smile at this moment, Lily had a blast.  My husband said it looks like I went shopping and picked up a Lily. I took this photo.

Baby Clothes

I’m taking a break from the doom and gloom to discuss one of my favorite aspects of motherhood-dressing my daughter like a little doll!

Lily has grown from no clothes, to preemie, to newborn, to 1-3 months and now she’s wearing 3-6.  Most babies go straight into 1-3, saving their parents shopping time and money, but the constant growing makes us very happy and I’ve become a little bit of an expert on baby clothing as well as which brands fit Lily the best.  Plus, people are constantly buying us clothes.  Here’s what I’ve learned.

Carters: the most consistently sized brand on the market.  The fit is actually true to size, the clothes are generally okay looking, the night stretchies are the thickest and the warmest that I’ve found, and the clothes can go through the washer and dryer without too much shrinkage.  The prices are also really good, especially when you can find them on sale.  Carters is always a safe bet, but not the cutest, aesthetically speaking.

First Impressions: this is Macy’s store brand.  The clothes are adorable-really really cute matching outfits and fun night stretchies.  Some of the best gifts we’ve gotten have been First Impressions outfits.  Overall, it’s pretty inexpensive, especially when Macy’s has those great sales and then you can use a Star Rewards card on top of it (those red 20% off cards)-you can buy A LOT for a little.  Here’s the downside: it runs really small and forget about the dryer-shrinks up to almost nothing.  But it’s worth it, even if your kid only gets to wear the outfit 2 or 3 times.

Little Me: I’ve found it everywhere, from Buy Buy Baby to Nordstrom to Lord & Taylor.  The brand can be a little too cutesy for my taste and the fabrics aren’t consistent-sometimes very rough and sometimes super soft.  But, if you find the right outfit, it’s beautiful.  Little Me runs big…and I mean a full size big (their 1-3 still fits at 3-6), so while it’s annoying at first because you’re like, “what the hell, did my kid shrink?” the outfit fits for a really long time and you get a lot of use out of it.

Sara Kety: you probably don’t know this one, but I guarantee that you’ve seen her onesies.  She makes all the topical, fun onesies like Save The Date for My Bat Mitzvah, the little boy tuxedo onesies, Dr. McSweety…the list goes on and on.  These are amazing gifts because they are super fun and adorable and they are true to size.

Gymboree: my hands down favorite!  Everything they make is adorable, and, more importantly, the quality you get for the price you pay is pretty amazing.  Buy things when they’re on sale and use your Gymboree Bucks.  The size is pretty consistent and the fit is true to size.  This might sound strange, but I think Lily likes their clothes the best, too.  I watch her look at the clothes and she really thinks while she’s looking at them. They also wash and dry really well.

Baby Gap:  the clothes run long and thin, which is perfect for Lily because she is long and thin.  But if your child is a different body type, you’re not going to be as successful.  I only shop the sale rack because the clothes are too expensive and they don’t have a big selection until you’re a toddler.  However, their leggings fit Lily better than anyone else’s (again, this is because of the long and thin thing). It also really depends on what their aesthetic is for that season-my daughter does not look good in oatmeal, so she basically didn’t get anything from Baby Gap for a while because they didn’t make any other colors.

Crazy 8’s: maybe the least expensive store I’ve come across, but you can feel the difference in their fabrics.  The sleep stretchies weren’t thick enough, but I did buy a bunch of leggings and shirts.  The shirts will all need to be layered because they’re not thick enough, but they are really cute.  You get what you pay for.  I think they’re a subsidiary of Gymboree which would explain the adorable design aesthetic, but Gymboree is better, even though it costs more.  Don’t put Crazy 8’s clothes in the dryer!

OshKosh B’Gosh: we haven’t bought any OskKosh yet, but I was a diehard OshKosh kid and I can’t wait for the spring and summer so Lily can run around (she will! she will!) in those shorteralls (short-overalls combo).  They merged with Carter’s so you can get it anywhere, and everything I’ve seen has been super cute.

Ralph Lauren: we have a lot of Ralph Lauren stuff because I’m pretty preppy and because it makes great gifts.  It fits Lily pretty well because, like Baby Gap, it’s long and thin, just like Lily.  But, RL is cut REALLY narrow-we can’t button shirts up fully because they don’t close around her neck.  I’ve heard this complaint from other parents, too.  Never buy this full price! Use whatever store discount card you have, go to the outlet, or find it at Century 21.

Century 21: amazing, amazing finds! My mom comes home with bags of adorableness-Calvin Klein tracksuits, DKNY tracksuits, Little Me outfits, onesies, Ralph Lauren outfits…everything high end at low prices.  You have to be smart about it because you really could go hog wild, and there’s also a lot of crap to muck through.

Nordstrom: my mom and I went to the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale last summer as we do every summer, but this was the first time that we could buy baby clothes!  We got great deals on Benetton (which fits Lily perfectly, cut long and thin with the best proportions), Juicy (the hubby isn’t happy about this one-baby’s first Juicy tracksuit-squeal), a North Face fleece body suit (which Lily wears outside every time we leave the house), and a bunch of other things.  Nordstrom really runs the gamut between affordable and luxury (I’m never buying that $300 infant Burberry dress), but when you can get it on sale, it’s worth it because they only stock quality clothes that wash and dry well, that wear well, and that are true to size.

Children’s Place: I love their design aesthetic.  Everything is fashion at Children’s Place-seriously, hip clothes for kids. The quality is hit or miss-some fabrics are good, others are questionable, but they are always true to size.  Basically, be careful about what you throw in the dryer because it won’t always come out the same.  A lot of their clothes also have appliques, and I really like the three-dimensionality of everything.

Janie and Jack: BAH! Too expensive.  Only good for something she’s going to wear once, like a fancy party that we have to go to where the people are snooty, judge-y types.  Or a special birthday dress.

JCrew: BAH! I’m sorry, but my daughter doesn’t need a $100 cashmere sweater to constantly throw up on, thank you very much.

We have a lot of local children’s boutiques around here too, but I haven’t ventured to most of the them yet, mostly because they’re expensive, but also because it’s been very cold and I don’t want Lily to get sick.  I think I take out a lot of my monotonous boredom on planning Lily’s outfits and dressing her up as adorably as possible, as if, by sheer power of cuteness, she will make my day go by faster.

Any stores you love? Feel free to comment!

My Boobs Don't Work

My plan was to breastfeed and pump for at least 9 months-I was really looking forward to the bonding time with my child and I had seen many friends breastfeed so I knew firsthand the benefits and the realities.  The day after the C-section a lactation consultant came by my room with a hospital grade pump, lots of plastic pieces, and a whole shpiel about the benefits of breast milk-I didn’t need the shpiel, but I did need a lot of help getting the machine to work.  I should probably also mention that because Lily was 2 months early, she timed herself perfectly to arrive 9 months after that freak snow storm last October, so the hospital was packed with babies conceived when there was nothing else to do.  Lactation was overbooked and undercovered, nurses were pretty frantic and every maternity room was taken.  They even had a woman recovering in the room usually set aside for NICU parents to spend overnight visits.

You’ve probably seen a breast pump.  But, if you haven’t, there are basically these two conical, Madonna-bra looking pieces that you hold on your boobs.  They’re connected to a pump via plastic tubing and the pump stimulates the baby’s sucking motions.  I pumped and pumped and pumped, every three hours during the day and only once overnight (the social worker said that I had been through enough and needed to get some sleep-social workers are really great people).  I pumped with my sister-in-law in the room, I pumped while my father waited behind a curtain-you get the picture; I was dedicated.  By the third day, I managed 1 milliliter (prior to that, I only produced moisture).  The NICU nurse put a cotton swab into the vile and rubbed the 1 ml on Lily’s lips-tears of joy!

I also pumped in the pumping room, a room specifically for NICU moms to use.  There’s nothing like attaching a mechanical, sucking baby to your breasts in a nipple chilling, sterile room with posters all around you telling you how important your breast milk is-especially when you can’t seem to create any breast milk.  But it did help to bond with other NICU moms who were there for the same reason (shout out to “A.R.”).

We rented the hospital grade machine and took it home where I kept up my routine.  But I never seemed to produce more that 10ml per sitting, combined.  Was this normal?  This couldn’t be normal?  I spoke with lactation, but they weren’t terribly helpful.  One of the NICU nurses was also a lactation consultant, and she mentioned that fibroids (bastards) combined with a preemie could be causing low output.  After about a month of continued frustration, I thought about quitting.  Lily was growing and she was getting breast milk, exclusively, but she was only going to get bigger and pretty soon I wouldn’t be able to make enough for her.  The hubby and I thought that Lily would be home in another month (we had been in the NICU for a month already), so I decided to push through that second month with the machine.  I had to make it work!

There’s this great chapter in Tina Fey’s Bossypants where she discusses the external pressure that women get, from other women, about breastfeeding-she’s not making it up-women do really hate other women and feel it’s their job to push their agenda on other women.  Somehow, I really lucked out because my friends and family aren’t like that.  There’s no one in my inner circle secretly judging me or criticizing me because I wore the wrong jeans or I’m not a vegetarian or I don’t exercise as regularly as I should-I also almost never wear makeup or do my hair for work, and trust me, I really should at this point, but my friends don’t harass me about it.  So this feeling that I had to make it work, that I had to produce, that I had to breast feed my child…it was all coming from me.  It was just more of my own guilt, the feeling that I couldn’t do anything for my daughter, I couldn’t be a mother in any way, I had to at least be able to do this for her.  Because, if I gave it up, could I even call myself a mom?

5 weeks became 6 weeks became 7 weeks and I wanted to give up, again.  Lily clearly wasn’t coming home ‘any day now,’ and she was getting more formula than she was breast milk.  Even though she was tiny, one of the NICU nurses suggesting letting Lily breast feed.  She only did it twice, but both times were amazing.  There was this little thing completely dependent on me, staring up at me and loving me.  If everything had gone as planned and I could produce and my baby was born at term, I would be a breast feeding mama! I would never give it up, not until my child turned it away, and even then I’d probably still try to get her to take it.  And that’s when I realized that I was the one who was being selfish.  This was something I wanted for me, not something that could nourish my daughter-at least, not in the long run.  It would be better for her if I just admitted that my boobs didn’t work, at least not in a lactation capacity (they’re pretty fun in their other capacities).  So Lily got breast milk for two months, and my boobs dried up within 4 days.  And, you know what, I’m okay with it.

11 Weeks, Part 1

At first they tell you that the baby will be in the NICU for 6 weeks-it’s just a ballpark based on the average stay of a baby born between 30 and 31 weeks gestation.  So for 6 weeks you are glued to that isolette.  I wasn’t permitted to drive for a while, so chauffeur mommy drove me everywhere, especially after the hubby went back to work.

After two days Lily went from intubated to something resembling a nasal cannula, which meant we got to hold her.  I wasn’t prepared for that.  The hubby snapped a photo right as the nurse handed me the baby, and in it I look like one of those real sex dolls-mouth agape, eyes frozen in surprise, boobs jutting out all over the place, body completely stiff in terror.  The hubby calls it a look of “sheer joy.”  I call it a joy and dread hybrid.  She was so tiny-how could I be allowed to hold something that was so breakable?  And the way the nurse handed her to me-just lifted her featherweight, wrapped body out of the isolette and plopped her in my arms without warning-eventually I would learn to pick up Lily the same way, without fear and with total authority, but at that moment I was awash in trepidation.  And then there she was, asleep, resting her nothingness in my beefy arms, and it finally felt right, it finally felt like I was a mother, albeit a pretty screwed up one.  This was my baby.  It is important to note that I still didn’t feel like I “had” a baby, like I gave birth to the vomit inducing terror that kicked me awake at night.  Quite the opposite-to this day I still don’t feel like I gave birth.  I just knew that this beautiful little girl belonged to me.

In the beginning, I was there every day.  Some days I was there all day long, only leaving the NICU to get lunch when they closed for shift changes and sterilization procedures.  Or to pump in the adjoining pumping room (more on that to follow).  Or to calm myself down in the discharge lounge and eat the single serving sized Jack & Jill ice cream cups that the hospital kept stocked in all its fridges.  I tried to kangaroo every day-kangaroo is when you lay the baby on your chest, skin to skin, and cover yourself in warm blankets to keep the baby warm.  I wasn’t very good at it-it’s hard enough for me to sit still under normal circumstances, but every couple of minutes I would doze off and then shake myself awake.  I was petrified that I would drop the baby.  And then there were all the wires and the IV lines snaking out from Lily’s tiny body-I knew if I moved just one inch in the wrong direction I could accidentally pull something and hurt her.  Did I mention the crippling anxiety about Lily’s situation that caused me to weep uncontrollably if I was near her for too long?  You’re supposed to kangaroo for an hour, and I could barely make it 20 minutes without staring into the void and willing a nurse (with my mind) to check on me because I couldn’t handle it, I just couldn’t handle being there at that moment holding her nothingness and knowing that there was nothing that I could do to make her better or bigger or stronger, that only time could do that and I was useless.  I was meaningless as a mother because that’s what mothers are supposed to do-they’re supposed to care for their children-and I couldn’t do that.  I had failed.  It was my placenta that failed and this was all my fault.  Did I mention the guilt?  Even though the doctors kept trying to assuage it, kept reminding me that nothing was actually wrong with Lily (she wasn’t sick and she wasn’t in any danger), that she just needed to get bigger, and that as she got bigger, everything would resolve itself (lung growth and development, etc…), I couldn’t help but be overcome with the sense that I had done something wrong.

See, the reason this all happened, the reason Lily was born early, the reason for the IUGR (intra uterine growth restriction) was because ¼ of my placenta had died.  The OBGYN showed it to the hubby when he removed it during the C-section.  It was coated in this white, filmy stuff that I’m guessing looked like tripe but since I didn’t see it, and since my hubby isn’t so great at describing things, who knows if that image is correct.  It was my fault-my body had failed my child-and there wasn’t an answer as to why.  I need to have some tests done to find out if it will happen again, but it could also have been a random virus.  “Woo-hoo” I shout, sarcastically.

What we learned early on-babies born at Lily’s gestation:

·         Are often treated for chronic lung disease-it doesn’t mean that they have lung disease, but their lungs aren’t fully developed, and it turns out that the treatment is the same.  By the time she was discharged, it was gone.

·         Do not like to be rubbed or touched-their skin is very sensitive. Instead, they like to be contained-so you should cup your hand and provide a little pressure to her body instead of instinctually rubbing or patting her.

·         Develop acid reflux-it’s pretty much the plague of the NICU.  She would only sleep on her belly (prone) because it was the only way that she was comfortable.  This is true to this day-I can not get her to sleep on her back, despite all the ‘back to sleep’ warnings.

·         Have apnea, and not just sleep apnea.  They literally forget to breathe at any point in the day.  You have to remind them, gently shake or bounce them, to get them to breathe again.  The gentle reminder always works, but it’s scary as fuck when it happens and the alarms all go off and then she turns blue and you don’t know what to do.

·         Are a lot bigger than she was-Lily had a long road ahead of her.

Lily didn’t go home after 6 weeks-it took 11 weeks and then a second stay of 2 days before she was really home for good.

And Then There Were Fibroids (I Told You They'd Be Back)

My fibroids had been assholes throughout my pregnancy.  Don’t know what uterine fibroids are?  Well, they’re non-cancerous tumors that, believe it or not, the majority of women over 30 have, but most will never know about them.  Mine were the special annoying kind.  One was located on top of my bladder, making me think I had a U.T.I. for a few weeks, and then another one developed.  By the end there were 3 of them.

As your uterus grows and swells from increased blood flow, so do fibroids.  They grow and grow and grow until they get so big that they outgrow their blood supply and die (degenerate).  And they don’t always die in one shot-nope, it could take a couple of tries.  I’ve heard horror stories of women, late in their pregnancies, in the hospital on narcotics trying to cope with the pain of degenerating fibroids.

One of my fibroids was so large that I could feel it on the outside of my body.  No joke.  I could feel the roundness of it, poking at my bladder, growing up my side as my tummy got larger, sometimes even vibrating (and not that good kind of vibrating)-and then it started to degenerate.  By the end of my 2^nd trimester through my 3^rd trimester, every 3 or 4 weeks, I would feel this horrible pain on my side, sometimes sharp and sometimes dull, but always present.  I didn’t get out of bed-I would just stay in my room for the weekend or the 2-day period until the pain subsided.  I thought it was done degenerating-sadly, I was wrong.

The hubby took paternity leave Lily’s first week in the NICU, and by the end of that week (Lily’s 1^st week birthday), I was in the E.R. with suspected appendicitis.  I woke up that morning with some extra pain in my belly.  I thought it was because the drugs had finally all worn off, but as the pain increased and I couldn’t physically stand, we became worried (especially after the NICU nurse told me that this wasn’t normal).  I called my OBGYN and he had me come right over.  First he checked my uterus (stupid plastic dildo) then palpitated my stomach-the pain had moved from side to center, and my doctor was very worried.  He called ahead to the E.R. and told them to accept me immediately-he was worried I had appendicitis.

A week post-partum and a newborn in the NICU and there I was, sprawled out awkwardly on a gurney in an E.R. hallway because there were no more rooms available, while nurses took blood and asked what was wrong-I was in so much pain that my position kept alternating between standing, sitting, lying down, hunched over, etc...  Hormonal and miserable about the possibility of being further kept from my child, I just cried and begged to be able to see my daughter.  I mean, she was just upstairs, in the same hospital-couldn’t I be evaluated upstairs?  At one point even I knew that I was being hysterical, but I couldn’t stop myself.  My mother sat on the gurney while the hubby called his family from outside the E.R.

The next step-drink barium so they can do an MRI.  Here’s the deal.  I’ve never done a shot-never, never in my entire life.  I downed a beer once and it was the worst experience because it tasted like swill, old, carbonated piss. I’m not good at taking medicine if I don’t like the taste.  So what makes you think that I’ll be able to drink 2 bottles of this chalky, white, milky, disgusting, throat coating, vomit inducing crap?

Turns out the pain was from the fibroid finally degenerating.  The E.R. doctor seemed surprised that I was able to handle the pain without narcotics, and he was more than happy to prescribe anything I wanted.  He also seemed surprised that my OBGYN didn’t pick up on this one, especially since I had a history-strike 3 (or 3 million) against my OBGYN.  I should also mention…the E.R. doc was pretty damn cute.  Never hurts have something pretty to look at.

I climbed into a wheelchair and the hubby elevatored me up to see the baby. 

Going Home Without a Baby

Until the modern era, the business of having a baby was extremely dangerous.  Between infant mortality rates, undiagnosable problems in utero and maternal death in childbirth (Downton Abbey spoiler...do not read this until you've finished Season 3...I cried, cried my eyes out for Cybil and Tom, not just because of how heart-wrenching it was, but also because of how realistic it was for the time period), becoming a nun seemed like a good option.  Nowadays, you expect to go to the hospital and come home with a baby.  But the fact is, it's not always true.  I do know women who gave birth to still born babies-I hope that I never know their devastation.

By the end of the 3rd day post-baby, I was ready to go home.  I wanted a bed and different clothes.  I wanted an uninterrupted night's sleep-I promise, my temperature and blood pressure doesn't change over the course of 3 hours.  As I was packing the charge nurse came in to do my exit paperwork.  "Just so you know, we've been evaluating you over the past couple of days and we just want to let you know that you are very low on the spectrum for getting postpartum depression."  How do you react to this?  I mean, I noticed that the nurses were all asking me the same questions and writing down parts of my responses, but I didn't realize that they were evaluating me.  And how did they come up with this miraculous prognosis?  Did they stay up with me while I cried at night?  Did they accompany me to the NICU when I realized that after about 10 minutes I couldn't look at my daughter anymore because I was too scared?  Could they tell the difference between healthy adjustment and complete numbness?  "Oh, okay," was the only response I could muster.

Like a miscarriage, I don't think you can understand what it's like to go home without your baby unless it has happened to you.  You sit in the lobby, waiting for your car, and you watch the other new parents go home with their babies strapped into car seats, the babies wearing their "take me home" outfits, and you know that you have the most adorable "take me home" outfit on hold at the baby store and you wonder if your child will ever be able to wear it.  Everything inside of you collapses or liquefies or dies, just dies.  Your heart aches in that cliche way that pain is described-and you realize it's a cliche for a reason, like jokes about Jews being cheap, because sometimes it's true.  Those parents, they carry balloons and flowers and the husband holds open the door and the mom climbs in back to sit with the baby and here you are just silently dying inside because you can't cry in public.  Once I was alone I cried out everything that had liquefied inside of me.

My parents took me back to the hospital later that evening so I could see the baby again.  

A Little Bit of Background

So while all of, well, everything, was going on...there was a lot going on in the background.

Bed-rest
About a month prior to giving birth, I was placed on modified bed-rest.  Basically, 10 minutes of moderate activity followed by sitting down.  There was a lot I couldn't do, so my mom dug out my grandmother's old travel wheelchair out of the garage and the hubby and I used it whenever we needed to.  It was also June and I work in a non-air conditioned building.  My administrators were really great about making sure I was always in an office (which is air conditioned) or on a first floor room that maintained some level of cool.  Stairs were starting to become an issue, too.

I gained more weight from weeks 20-30 than I did from weeks 1-20.  This was aided by my mother!

Living at Home
The hubby and I had been house shopping for a year-and we were finally in negotiations for the perfect house, when the owners pushed back the closing date (they did a lot of other terrible things and I wished death on them many times throughout the whole process).  So, instead of moving into our new house, we moved back home with my mom.  On the plus side, there was central air conditioning! The hubby had a very long commute, but my mom stuffed us to the gills, so that was nice.  My mom also become my chauffeur-which she stayed for quite a while.

We finally closed on our house on a Monday, did all the demolition that needed to happen on that Tuesday and Wednesday, then that Friday I had the baby.  My mom and hubby had to tell the crew what happened.  The contractor was shocked and the painter actually cried (they are really good guys).

Renovating a House
Renovating a house is a very large project, and I'd been doing a pretty good job so far.  I had most things picked out or decided on before the baby came-mostly because my mom was chauffeuring me around everywhere.  But once I was "off the job," so to speak, decisions came to a screeching halt.  I couldn't leave the hospital bed and run to the kitchen guy to figure out a shelf problem.  I would add this issue to the category of 'rich people problems.' But I still don't recommend doing any household renovation while you're in your 3rd trimester.

Hospital Recuperation

Recovering from the surgery is emotionally and physically exhausting.  While you're still in the hospital, everyone wants to come visit you and the baby.  Only family was allowed into the NICU, so the hubby led a train of parents, siblings, aunts and uncles through the halls of Valley Hospital.  My sardine sized room was filled with people and flowers and stuffed animals, but no baby.  At night, I could hear the woman next door soothing her crying newborn and the emotional pain felt like it could rip open my c-section stitches.

The first day the hubby pushed me to the NICU in a wheelchair-I couldn't walk all the way there.  Hell, I could barely stand up.  The rules: your baby doesn't want to be touched, don't stroke or caress your baby, do not make loud sounds, do not tap on the isolette, you can not hold your baby, you can not kiss your baby.  I was also on a lot of drugs that, within 12 hours, had me vomiting and shitting my brains out, simultaneously...apparently percocet is not for me.

Lily-still intubated, but she found me pretty much immediately. I took this picture.

Over the next couple of days (insurance paid for 96 hours), I gained the physical strength to walk all the way to the NICU.  The hubby got to go home and shower and get at least 1 good night's sleep.  Valley was amazing-it was like it was run by a staff of Jewish and Italian mothers who wanted to feed you and fuss over you and do anything they could to make your stay more comfortable.  And the post-baby spa shower was the best shower I've ever taken in my life.  No joke-they had a rain-shower head and jets shooting out from the wall.  The whole spa shower was enormous with fresh linens and a place for the hubby to sit while I was soaping my bandages.

It all comes across as vain-going on and on about a shower and food and being treated like a goddess while my daughter was across the hospital in an isolette, trying to regulate her breathing.  Did I mention the drugs?  Well, I was on a lot of them, and I was also having a lot of trouble understanding what was actually happening-I knew that I had a baby, but it really didn't feel like I did.  My stomach was enormous and I only wore hospital gowns-I didn't feel right putting on my own clothes (and we didn't have any of my own things for a couple of days because, at 30 weeks, we didn't think we needed to pack our hospital bag yet).  I was stuck between 2 very strange emotional worlds: one world was hyper rational and the other world was so numb that even my surgical pain couldn't convince me that everything was real.

My Little Preemie

People ask me what Lily looked like when she was born, and I often explain that she looked a lot like she does now, just in miniature.  She was two and a half pounds and 15 inches long, tiny blonde hairs covered her entire body (lanugo), her skin was pretty see-through, her arms were straight out and her legs were straight down because she didn't have joint fluid yet,  she had an umbilical line which fed fluids and other yummy concoctions straight into her body, she was covered with monitors, and she was screaming-or screaming as much as a tiny thing like her could.  It was more like yelping, I guess, and these foam bubbles gathered on her lips. (The screaming started once they removed the tube-the babies can't scream while they are intubated.)

Photo courtesy of the hubby-I was in the recovery room while the hubby followed Lily into the NICU.  He showed me the pictures once he returned to my side.  

Lily was only intubated for 2 days which was a pretty big miracle (they only intubated her has a precaution so that they could stabilize any other issues). She wasn't even supposed to be able to breathe yet.  Do you remember that commercial, I don't remember if it was for donations for St. Jude's or another children's hospital, but the father was talking about how small their preemie was and he said that he could fit his wedding ring around the baby's arm?!  Well, that's pretty close to what Lily was like when she was born.  Her head was the size of my fist, smaller than my husband's fist, and frightening to look at.

Here's the thing about my daughter: when they first brought her into the NICU, she hit a nurse.  I mean, really whacked the crap out of the nurse so hard that her (Lily's) gauze hand wrap flew off her hand and went halfway across the room.  So when they wheeled me into the NICU, I was greeted by a slight Irish brogue telling me how feisty my daughter was.  Even in my drug induced haze I appreciated the sentiment.  And then we settled in...for an 11 week stay.

Let the Massive Panic Attack Begin! I Mean...Congratulations, It's a C-Section!

I will spare the details of my 24-hour in hospital bed rest.  Suffice it to say, it was replete with many trips to the bathroom (I was in my 7th month after all, and I had to pee every hour, if not every half hour, and I had to tell the nurse when I did this because I was hooked up to round the clock baby monitoring), a couple of emotional breakdowns, visits from my OBGYN and the neonatologist, almost no food (which is just cruel for a pregnant lady), lots of injections (some for the baby, some for me), a visit from "B" who brought the best slippers ever (I was recognized in the hospital for weeks as the slipper girl), an ever-present hubby who never left my side (unless I sent him to get the nurse so I could go to the bathroom), my mom, secret emails to my sister who was on a cruise in Sweden-she purposely scheduled the trip in July since I wasn't due until September, leaving plenty of wiggle room in case the baby came early-they were secret because my mom didn't want my sister to worry, phone calls to hubby's family, and, about 1-hour prior to delivery, my dad-he caught a plane from L.A. to Kennedy-we told him to come to Newark since we were in New Jersey (he didn't listen)-he was stuck in traffic, hence arriving 1-hour before the baby was born.

Something very important you should know about me-I am highly medically phobic.  Anything needle or surgical related sends me somewhere on the panic attack spectrum.  When I was 19 and needed wisdom tooth surgery, my father drugged me just to get into the oral surgeon's office-and I really like my oral surgeon (his name is Bart...doesn't get better than that).  I have the best dentist in the whole entire world, and he knows to just let me cry it out when he says I have a cavity.  I never even had blood work done until I was 27 or 28 and landed in the E.R. with a mysterious, hellish pain in my abdomen.  Both the hubby and the tech had to hold me down in order to draw blood.  I've since gotten better about it, but even a flu shot can raise my heartbeat, cause me to sweat and shake, or make me cry in anxiety-ridden fear.  Often in public.  I have no shame. At the hospital, I explained my issue to the social worker, my OBGYN and the neonatologist-I wasn't worried for the baby.  Logically, I knew that the baby had a 99% chance of ultimately being fine (after a NICU stay), and that the fact that she was a girl would bode her well.  I had read the book-I knew that her lungs weren't fully developed yet, I knew what type of treatments she would need-I was prepared.  I wasn't prepared, however, for the surgery.  I wanted to be out, completely out, general anesthesia, not alert-I wanted to go to sleep and then wake up and be told that she was born.  The social worker agreed-both the doctors said "no," that it was too risky for the baby.

Here's how a c-section works.  You are in your room, surrounded by all your loved ones, when a nurse checks your vitals and then walks you down a long hallway (I negotiated that if I wasn't allowed to be unconscious, the hubby had to be there every step of the way, even the ones where husbands weren't normally allowed-they granted this request).  The nurse and my husband partially dragged me down the hall.  Once in the operating room, your doctor explains the procedure for anesthetizing your body.  They sit you up on the table and have you bend forward at the hips.  Your nurse holds your arms as the anesthesiologist inserts a needle into your spine and then they quickly rotate your legs onto the table.  From then on it's full steam ahead-you are a piece of meat on a table and they pretty much ignore you.  Now imagine a hysterical woman screaming "No, I can't, please, wait, slow down," crying and shaking, and that's just how my c-section started.

I remember the rest of the surgery in little patches-I was having a full blown panic attack, so I don't think that I'll ever be able to remember everything.  There was my doctor telling my husband to get me to stop shaking, there was me throwing up over my shoulder to my left and looking to the side for help and seeing the anesthesiologist doing nothing to help me even though he clearly saw me vomit (his shift ended mid-surgery and the moment the new anesthesiologist entered the room, he saw the vomit and cleaned up my face and arm), there was this sickening feeling in my abdomen as I felt the pressure of the doctors moving around inside of me, there was the baby's scream as she exited my body and the elated feeling that she wasn't supposed to be able to breathe on her own so this was a very good sign, there was the neonatologist bringing the baby to my face for me to see and kiss her but I couldn't and I couldn't even open my eyes to see her because I was turned to the side and still vomiting (the neonatologist had the baby give me a "kiss" on the non-vomit cheek), my hubby crying tears of joy and taking pictures, the convulsions and almost electric shock like twitches coming from inside me as the doctors put me back together, asking my OBGYN to stop for a minute because I needed a break, his response of "if we stop now you're going to bleed out," and the eventual taping up and wheeling out to the recovery room.

My husband, a multitude of doctors and nurses, the entire NICU staff, and both of my parents saw my daughter before I did.   At the time, I didn't even care.  None of it was real.

Intrauterine Growth Restriction

Chances are that you've never heard of intrauterine growth restriction and that's okay because it's not that common.  If you want to get technical, here's the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrauterine_growth_restriction.  You can also Google it and read the horrifying articles.  Basically, it means that the baby was small, way too small, and had stopped growing.  How is this diagnosed?  Well, routine sonograms (check), but more importantly, they check your placenta and the umbilical cord to make sure that blood flow is normal.  Somewhere between this appointment and the previous appointment, blood had reversed-flowing from the baby back into me-and this caused the baby to stop growing.  My placenta was failing and the baby was going to die if we didn't get her out.  I was in my 30th week.

So the least professional doctor in the entire world is sitting across a conference table telling me all of this, still showing way too much thigh, and my mother bursts into hysterical tears.  She calls Dr. Dad who, on speaker, has a vaguely medical conversation (only vaguely on least professional's end-she even spoke to my dad like a Valley Girl), and then least professional attempts to give us directions to Valley Hospital (see, I told you she would try to give us directions-the directions were crap, by the way-my mother drove and I calmly navigated).  I didn't cry.  I barely even reacted.  I don't know how much of it actually sunk in, mostly because it was hard to believe anything this woman said to me while her boobs were staring at my face.

While navigating and remaining calm and reminding my mother to stay calm I also called hubby-he hopped a train out to Ridgewood.

A Co-Managed Pregnancy

Because I was termed 'high risk' due to the miscarriage, my pregnancy was co-managed by Maternal Fetal Medicine, a division of Valley Hospital with an enormous office in Paramus.  The office itself was pretty freaking awesome-spacious waiting room with lots of up-to-date magazines, enormous and comfortable exam rooms, on site phlebotomist who was fantastically understanding about my bone crushing medical phobias, genetic counselor who, after seeing our blood work  pretty much guaranteed that there was no way on the planet that Warren and I could have a genetically fucked up kid (no, we would have to fuck her up on our own, thank you very much), and very reasonable office hours.  Plus, our insurance covered mostly everything, so getting to see the fetus in the lap of luxury was a pretty good experience.  Until it wasn't.

At Maternal Fetal Medicine, the sonographer has to run all the data by the in-house doctor before you get to leave.  And because I was 'high risk,' that meant doing comprehensive fetal measurements every time.  One-hour long sonograms are not that fun-mostly because you have to pee the whole time-but also because the technicians aren't always that friendly and even though you try to strike up a cheerful conversation, you spend most of the time staring at the ceiling or neurotically obsessing over the amount of times she's measured the cranium and OH MY GOD, something must be wrong because she's getting another head measurement and this can't be good, holy crap.

Nothing was 'wrong,' so to speak, until around week 20something (in the mid to late 20s), when the technician asked the doctor to come speak with me.  Her information was puzzling: the baby was measuring small.  Not scary small or troubling small, but smaller than they would like.  Maybe our dates were off.  But, worst case scenario, something might be wrong.  She recommended having me come every 2-3 weeks so we could continue tracking the baby's progress.  She reassured me that I didn't need to freak out, but she wanted to see me more often.  Now, if that information wasn't scary enough (and, by the way, this was the appointment I'd gone to by myself-normally hubby or mom would be there), the doctor, as a person, was not reassuring.

Maybe I am biased because of Dr. Dad and his friends or just my dad's medical persona...but this was the least put together doctor I had ever seen in my life.  Her hair was completely askew, her clothes were unprofessional (putting it lightly...I saw a lot of thigh and way too much cleavage), and she had no authority in her voice.  It was like an overweight, black Valley Girl having a bad hair day was talking to me about my baby, and I didn't even trust her to give me directions to Paramus Park Mall (a few weeks later she tried to give me directions somewhere else, and they were incomprehensible-first impressions are always correct).

So of course I panicked and went to see a specialist (actually, the doctor who delivered me and who was good friends with my mom and dad).  We drove to Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx and met with Dr. "D" who quickly became my favorite person in the whole world.  He thought everything was fine and our dates were incorrect (even though he was wrong about this I still love him to death), but more importantly, he said, in delicate and understanding language, that my OBGYN sounded like a real moron and of course I could have one diet soda a day-everything in moderation.  Did this apply to frozen yogurt too? "Of course." I could've reached across the desk and kissed his aging Haitian face, that is, I could've done that if my father hadn't already changed the conversation to the good old days when he and Dr. "D" were both working at Einstein-ah, the early 1980s in New York City, the Bronx to be precise-who the hell would ever want to reminisce about that?

What followed was a debate between me and my parents about where and who would deliver the baby if something did go wrong.  I wanted to stay with my OBGYN and Valley because, even though I was starting to dislike him, my OBGYN had treated me the whole pregnancy and Valley had a level 3 NICU.  My parents voted for Dr. "D" and the Bronx.  The debate ended once I reminded them that, "I have no idea where the hell I am right now, I have no idea how to get here, and there's no fucking way that hubby can figure out how to get here."

Two weeks later while at Maternal Fetal Medicine I was sent to the hospital-something was very wrong.

What to Expect When You're Expecting

You expect vomit-and I vomited a lot, from week 8 to about week 18.  Even though everyone said the vomiting would stop around week 12, my body took that as a challenge and continued to vomit harder and stronger.  And even after the vomiting stopped, I was pretty nauseous most of the time. I actually lost weight during my first trimester, not unusual based on my level of upchucking.

The nausea was bad...almost worse than the vomit, because once you threw up, you actually felt sorta okay.  Many a morning I threw up in my bathroom and was out the door 10 minutes later to go to work.  But the all day nausea was terrifying.  And motion made it a lot worse. Do yourself a favor-don't get on a plane or a cruise ship while you're in your first trimester.  The flight attendants were lovely and let me stand pretty much the entire time, often pacing up and down the aisle adjacent to the bathroom, but all flights come to an end, and you can't make a cruise ship stop rocking.  You also can't always get to a bathroom because cruise ships are freaking HUGE.  The hubby spent a lot of time hanging out with my brother-in-law, exploring zip lines in Belize, and tequila tasting in Mexico.  He had an amazing trip.  I either slept on a fully reclined pool chair or holed up in our state room, watching "Something Borrowed" for the millionth time and wondering why, with such a great cast, the movie was so terrible.

There was also exhaustion.  As my sister can testify, a normal date with me and the hubby, and her and her hubby, consisted of going out to dinner or a movie, followed by watching me fall asleep on the couch-and this was pre-pregnancy! So it was to no one's surprise when I started sleeping around the clock.  Every moment was an opportunity for sleep.

Pregnancy brain is a real thing.  My hubby loves to tell this one specific story: we were both in our galley kitchen (NYC kitchens are tiny and airless), and he handed me a plastic Fairway bag and asked me to put it away. We all have a bag of plastic bags in the kitchen, right?! So in my mind, I put the bag in the bag of bags.  I looked up and hubby was hysterical laughing. Apparently, and I had to be shown it to believe it, I opened the utensil drawer, shoved in the bag, then shut the drawer.  I also forgot nearly everything I did or said-the Google calendar became my best friend and computer generated confidante.

My nose was a blood hound and it made me never want to eat, never ever ever!  I eat chicken probably everyday of my life.  It's yummy and healthy and easy and not terribly expensive.  And then, BAM, food aversions.  I couldn't stand the taste, the thought of, the texture or the smell of chicken.  I couldn't cook it and I certainly couldn't be anywhere near it.  You know what I did want, every moment of every day?  Pizza. And the thing is, I actually don't like pizza. I'm that weird girl in class who always voted for a bagel party instead of a pizza party.  The hubby was in heaven and he quickly gained 10 sympathy pounds.

I could cry at the drop of a hat and I had zero control over my emotions.  You know those ASPCA commercials with Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" playing in the background?  Yeah, I was bawling, BAWLING the second it came on.  I had to change the channel.

And the fun thing was, all these early pregnancy symptoms that usually go away during your 1st trimester leaving you to the brilliancy and glowy heaven of your 2nd trimester...yeah, they didn't go away.  I was miserable and I was going to make everyone miserable with me.

On the plus side...no migraines and no I.B.S.  Good thing too, because I wasn't allowed to take my migraine drugs.  OBGYN said he would give me narcotics if I ever got one.

That's Emma Watson covering my beautiful sleeping face aboard whatever Royal Caribbean ship we were on. Photo credit goes to my sister.  Oh, and that's my brother-in-law napping next to me.  I purposely cropped him out of the picture, except for his very loud swim trunks.

V is for Vomit

Alan Moore said V is for Vendetta.  He was wrong! V is for vomit.  Vomit in my hair, vomit in my NYC sized bathroom, vomit in the parking lot of the Maternal Fetal Medicine facility, vomit in a plastic 'vomit bag' in my car on the way to work, vomit at work, vomit in my kitchen because I couldn't make it the 700 sq feet from the kitchen to the bathroom, vomit at my parents' house, almost vomit everyday at 2:05 in "S"'s face (she still thinks the sight of her makes me nauseous)-and when I wasn't vomiting, I was so nauseous that I thought I would vomit, in front of my classes, in bed while I slept, on the couch staring morosely at the TV, walking down the street, on the subway, in a cab, the entire time I was at hubby's cousin's bridal shower (that day was a living hell for me, and I almost puked in a garbage can on Washington in Hoboken, right next to Carlo's Bakery-gotta give something to the tourists)...forget restaurants or movies.  I couldn't go anywhere.  I think all the media outlets should leave Princess Kate the hell alone because I understand how she feels, and she has it way worse than I did.  Oh, and my priceless OBGYN refused to prescribe anything to deal with the nausea.

The best vomit story: On our way from NYC to Maternal Fetal Medicine in Paramus, I started getting really nauseous.  I opened the windows and did some breathing exercises, and although it stabilized, it was still there.  I did have breakfast that morning, Fruit Loops, and on the days when I ate breakfast, I didn't normally throw up.  So we're driving and we get close.  Really close.  We turned on the building's street, and I told hubby to pull over.  I got out of the car, bent over, and nothing happened.  The nausea disappeared.  We pulled into the parking lot, parked the car, opened my door, then fell knees first onto the pavement where I puked multi-fruity colored goodness all over the parking lot.  I was on all fours, my knees were cut up under my denim pants, and hubby stood to the side, quietly laughing.  He thinks it's funny when I throw up.  (He laughed every time I puked.)  Sometimes, I really hate him.  A lady in the parking lot ran over to make sure I was okay, and when I explained, "I'm okay, just pregnant," she said, "It's okay-we've all been there.  It'll go away eventually."  I love her.

I knew I was having a girl.

Also, hubby's grandma took one look at me at that bridal shower and proclaimed, "you're having a girl."  Never argue with 90-year-old wisdom.

Danger Will Robinson

There are a lot of things that you can and can not do while pregnant.  Most people know that you can't smoke or drink-not a problem as I don't do either of those things.  Plus, turns out you can drink now, just in extreme moderation, and not at the very beginning or the very end of the pregnancy.  You can't eat cold cuts unless they've been heated to steaming, on the off chance that you get e-coli (asked Dr. Dad about this one-he said the chances are sooooooo slim, that after my 1st trimester he force fed me a sandwich-we were in an airport and our flight was so delayed that feeding me was a requirement).  I wasn't worried about fish or seafood because I don't eat that either, and I don't drink coffee or tea, so that was easy.  But I do drink soda...lots and lots of diet soda, sometimes with caffeine and sometimes without.  According to my OBGYN, no fake sugars in pregnancy! So, bye bye diet sodas. (Also bye bye most frozen yogurts...sad face.)  This website was great for laughing at and debunking some of the do not's-it also explained a lot of the do not's, which helped tremendously.

I was good.  I was impeccable during my 1st and 2nd trimesters, mostly because I was so neurotically scared that I was going to lose the baby (hey, it already happened), that I followed every single rule.

Wanna know another rule...no antibiotics! Ordinarily this wouldn't be an issue, but as a frequent U.T.I. sufferer, antibiotics are a must.  So when I got a U.T.I. at the very beginning of my pregnancy, I was given the only thing they could give me-a very low grade antibiotic which, according to Dr. Dad, wasn't even an antibiotic-it was more of a preventative. So I wasn't surprised when the U.T.I. came back and I had to go on another round, which led to a yeast infection, while I was on a cruise, to Mexico.  And let me tell you, you don't know discomfort until you're on a cruise, in Mexico, pregnant, beyond nauseous, dizzy, with a yeast infection.

Turns out my OBGYN diagnosed the U.T.I.'s wrong anyway.  At first he thought I had an ectopic pregnancy, so I had to go to the hospital for another stranger to stick a plastic dildo up my vagina.  When that didn't pan out he gave me drugs, which gave me a yeast infection but didn't take away the nagging pain on my bladder.  Then, he realized I had uterine fibroids that were pushing against my bladder and I never needed the antibiotics to begin with.  There will be more about the fibroids as they caused other issues, misdiagnosed by my OBGYN, later on.

Waiting for a Heartbeat

We decided we wouldn't tell our families about the pregnancy until we knew that the fetus was more viable-we were waiting for a heartbeat.  I made an appointment with my OBGYN and he wanted to see me right away because of the previous miscarriage.  Apparently, this was categorized as a 'high-risk' pregnancy.  The hubby couldn't make it to the appointment on such short notice, and we figured that it was too early in the pregnancy to hear a heartbeat anyway, so my mom came with me-I needed moral support.  Do you know how they check on pregnancy during your first trimester? They stick this HUGE dildo up your vagina and move it around (painfully, I might add) in order to get the best view.  Very uncomfortable. So you have your legs in the stirrups, a strange man staring at your crotch, an enormous piece of plastic up your vagina and your mother up by your head when you hear this muffled lub/dub, and you realize, there's a heartbeat!  We told parents, siblings and my best friends.

But the phone calls weren't jubilant like they were last time.  They were cautious, but hopeful; quiet, but forceful; scared, but excited. There was a strict gag order in place and we held our breaths.

Are We Pregnant?

Something else they don't tell you about miscarriages-you are most fertile after you have one because your body viewed being pregnant as a sudden homeostasis, and it wants to get back to that homeostasis.  Plus, medically speaking, it's no longer frowned upon to get pregnant right away, either.  My OBGYN said something to the effect of "let's see if we can catch that next egg."  I should've switched practices then and there, but I was too traumatized.

Once the bleeding subsided, hubby and I figured we should track my ovulation because we had no idea when or how my cycle would start up again.  We had sex at the "appropriate time," ONCE, but we really didn't think anything would come of it.  In my haze of mourning, I thought getting pregnant again as soon as possible would somehow erase what happened and bring me back to happy happy land.  People grieve in different ways.  Having sex during Christmas Break seemed like a good way to deal with everything.  I mean, as Jews, there really isn't much else to do around Christmas, other than eat Chinese and go to the movies.

New Year's day we had another couple over to hang and have dinner, watch the football game and just catch up.  "Mr. and Mrs. R" were a lot like us-same age, married around the same time, living in Manhattan, and talking about having babies.  Preface: "Mrs.R" likes to drink.  I don't mean that she's hooked to a bottle of Jack Daniel's-her drinking is not a derogatory comment.  Quite to the contrary; aside from my hubby, "Mrs.R" is the most fun drinker I know! She is absolutely hilarious with only half a glass of wine, so we asked ahead of time what she would like.  When "Mr.R" gave some half-baked excuse that "Mrs.R" had too much to drink New Year's Eve, I immediately knew that she was pregnant.  I went out and bought a bottle of Martinelli's sparkling apple juice just in case they had an announcement for us.  I was determined to put the "G" jealousy behind me and be positive for my friends.  The hubby and I decided that if they didn't make an announcement, we would hold onto the bottle for whenever we were pregnant.  They didn't say anything, but "Mrs.R" was pregnant (I'm always right about these things), and as it turns out, so was I.

Later in the week I had a dental appointment, and I knew that they needed to take x-rays.  I figured, what the hell, and I took a pregnancy test.  There was one very blue line and then one very faint blue line next to it.  I didn't think it was right, so 24 hours later I tried another test.  One very blue line and then a quasi-faint blue line next to it.  I was very confused.  I called my mother who, hilariously, said "Get a test that says 'pregnant' or 'not pregnant.'"  It said pregnant.  This time, we told no one, other than my mother who already knew because I clearly needed counseling over which pregnancy test to buy.

The Aftermath

I can write about this now, because it was over a year ago.  This was post-Thanksgiving 2011, so I have enough dissonance to think about it clearly and rationally.  At the time, I couldn't put a sentence together.  I could only cry and feel like I was being punished for something, like some cruel cosmic hoax was being played on me and I didn't know what I did to deserve it.  The thing is, I don't drink-really, never-and I don't smoke or do any illegal drugs-I've actually never even tried drugs. I'm a teacher and I actually enjoy working with teenagers (seriously, I think they're awesome). I pay my taxes and donate to charity and I'm not a bitch (at least, not all the time) and I'm a very loyal friend and I'm good to my family...I'm actually pretty easy going and I didn't deserve this.  You know who deserves this?  Assholes.  Assholes and people who think they're superior but who are really total pricks; assholes who defile their bodies their whole lives and manage to get pregnant without really trying (looking at your Courtney Love); assholes who cut me off on the highway and cause near accidents in order to get ahead of me, but who eventually end up next to me due to the traffic ahead of us; assholes who cheat and lie and don't contribute to society-that's who deserves this.  Assholes like my OBGYN (trust me, there will be major rants about him), who tries to console me by saying, "Well, at least this means that we know you can get pregnant." Fuck you, asshole.  Take my word for it when I say that was one of the worst possible things that a man could have said to me.  And he followed it up by telling me it was good that the fetus evacuated completely because that meant that I didn't need surgery to remove any pieces that might be left inside my uterus which could cause an infection.  Wow doctor man-thanks for informing me about a horrifying alternative that I don't have to deal with, but it's so nice that you think this is a good thing!  Men are idiots.

Later that day I got a flu shot.  I didn't feel like canceling that appointment.  I still needed a flu shot regardless of my newly non-pregnant status (I hate that even in my irrationality I was still rational). The flu shot doctor was unbelievably sympathetic-I wish he was my OBGYN.

Here's the thing about miscarriages-they happen to 1 out of 3 women.  Really.  That's 33.3infiniti% of women in this country who have experienced at least 1 miscarriage (researchers think even more women have them but don't realize-just like miscarriage number 1, we just think it's a heavy period, but it's really something else).  It's never discussed-no commercials on TV (and you know they put everything on TV-have you seen the "Hail to the V" commercials?-PS, I love them), rarely a scene in a movie (except the movie I went to see right afterwards, "Young Adult," which was a great movie, but the scene when she talks about her miscarriage fucked me up so bad-I wish I had known about that ahead of time), and it's never openly discussed around the dinner table or holiday meals.  I was so ashamed and so hurt I could barely reach out to the people in my life who had experienced it-I spoke to "G" and she was mega supportive and I spoke to "B" and she was amazing-they had been there.  I found out later that I knew a lot more people who had miscarried, but they were like me-ashamed and angry at their bodies, completely internalizing something that was not their fault.

Here's the other thing about miscarriages-if it hasn't happened to you, you just don't and can't understand.  I think the same thing is true about going through a divorce.  My poor mother tried so hard, but she honestly couldn't relate to having a miscarriage.  Neither could a lot of friends.  It doesn't help when a friend says, "Oh, my mother had one."  You don't mean it to be, but it sounds flippant.  I'm not angry-never have been angry at a friend who said this oft repeated line.  It was the best way you could relate and I appreciate the effort.  I hope you never have to go through this, but I'd be happy to talk to your mom-she gets it.

Here's a third thing about miscarriages-men get over them a lot faster than women do.  A friend just had a miscarriage, and the thought of it brought everything back.  Every horrifying moment and painful cramp just ripped through my body all over again at the mention that someone else is going through it.  I had to call my husband at work to calm me down and then I hugged Lily so hard that she yelped.  My hubby is amazing-I am extremely lucky in that department and I make sure that he knows just how much I appreciate him.  But, within a week, he was done mourning.  I wasn't done mourning until after our daughter was born.  And even then it still hurt to think about it.  In that sense it's like a break-up-how you don't really get over an ex until you start seeing someone new.

Here's the last thing about miscarriages-I hope it never happens to you.  Really.  Even if you are an asshole.

I think it was a boy.

Miscarriage Number 2

Seeing as we didn't know that I had a miscarriage, we just thought we were having trouble getting pregnant.  We had been trying since May and there we were, in the fall, still not pregnant.  My friend "G" got pregnant with her second, and I was so jealous it was eating me up like crazy-it was her second and we still couldn't get pregnant with our first!  I stopped being jealous a month later when she had a miscarriage.  It happened while I was with her, too, and I've always felt some type of karmic pang for my immediate jealous reaction.  Even though, rationally, I knew that I had nothing to do with it, I resolved to stop feeling resentful of all the other people I knew who were getting pregnant.  "G" got pregnant again very quickly and had a very happy and healthy baby boy about a month after we had Lily.

We found out that we were pregnant in very early November.  Two blue lines-the most beautiful sight I ever saw.  Even though I eventually threw away the pregnancy test in a fit of hysterical mourning, the memory of those two blue lines floods my system with waves of happiness.  This was what we wanted and it was real and it was ours and we were overjoyed.  We called our parents and our siblings and my best friends.  I also called the doctor's office and said that the pregnancy test said I was pregnant and asked if I needed a blood test to confirm (hey, that's what they do on TV), but the doctor said if the test said I was pregnant, then I was pregnant.  We scheduled an ultrasound which showed a fetal pole, but no heartbeat.  The doctor assured me that everything was normal, I was only about 4 or 5 weeks long.  We scheduled another appointment for 3 weeks later.

Clues that maybe something was wrong even though the internet assured me that it wasn't necessarily the case: no nausea whatsoever, no food cravings or food aversions, no weight gain, no hyper super sniffer,  no mood swings, and no exhaustion.  Still, it was early in the pregnancy.

My birthday is in November, and that year was my 30th, so the hubby threw a HUGE party and all friends and family were invited.  I sat there all night with this happy little secret in my head and smiled more than I usually do.  You should see the pictures-I look like a deranged clown.  We had made our families swear to keep the secret and they did a pretty good job (even though my dad was talking to hubby's dad about the pregnancy at the party).  We even managed to keep the secret through Thanksgiving at hubby's aunt's house, but we told his grandmother.  It seemed right at the time.  Two days later, I miscarried.

At first there was a slow, dull cramp, but as time went on the cramps got more and more painful and the blood got darker and darker.  I knew what was happening.  Even though my doctor said that you never know until the ultrasound, I knew.  I didn't even need to make an appointment because the miscarriage timed itself perfectly with that 3-week check I already had scheduled.  The hubby was less reluctant to believe that it was over.  He was holding out hope with all his masculine might.  That night I experienced the most physical pain I've ever been in in my adult life.  It felt like my body was ripping in two and my back was on fire.  Exhausted, I got up to pee and there, in the toilet, was my baby; just a mass of blood and cells and tissue, which after a quick examination by hubby was whoosh, flushed away.  We were both crying.

Miscarriage Number 1

We didn't realize that miscarriage number 1 was a miscarriage until I was about 4 or 5 months pregnant with Lily, our currently 6-month-old bundle of awesomeness.  It's all hindsight, right?!  What should have been clues: my June period was extremely light, I gained 10 pounds between June and July, all in my midsection, causing me to not fit into the dress I had planned on wearing to my cousin's July wedding (it's okay, the alternate was beautiful, and the wedding was in Denver, so it's not like I had to impress any of my snobby New York friends), while in Hawaii on our honeymoon in July, everything smelled-the ocean smelled like raw sewage, the hotel lobby was overwhelmingly pineapple-y, and there was a store that I couldn't even pass because the perfume stench was so overwhelming it made me want to throw up (and this was in Wailea-the gold coast of Maui's pristine beauty)-oh, and I was eating like a heifer.  What...I'd never been pregnant before! I didn't know that my already super sniffer nose would turn into a blood hound.  Plus, I'd been withholding prior to the wedding, so I deserved to indulge a little bit (I ate an entire bag of Hershey's macadamia nut Kisses in two days...damn, I was blind).

When I got my period at the very end of July it was a whopper...mind numbing cramps, extra heavy...I was down for the count.  I figured that my body just hated me.  It's not like we're on good terms anyway, so this was my body's retaliation for lying on the beach, swimming in the ocean, getting a massage, etc...I am never allowed to have fun because I always end up paying for it.  I'm used to my body's retribution being I.B.S., so this was a different sticky wicket (I should also mention that I'm obsessed with all things BBC).

But, we didn't realize any of this at the time, so it never really phased us.

Getting Pregnant

I come from a line of fertile women. Or, I've been told that I do. My great maternal grandmother had a few children, but only my grandmother survived into adulthood (we're talking the 1910s here, so this wasn't uncommon). And considering she and her husband were cousins, and cousins with the same last name, I think that's pretty remarkable. My maternal grandmother had three daughters, all while she was in her late 30s and early 40s-and for the 1950s, that was unusual, so the fact that she and my grandfather were so successful is pretty impressive. My mother had no trouble getting pregnant with either me or my sister (seeing a pattern of all girls), so she didn't think that I would have any problems.

Hubby and I got married in April, and we were determined to get pregnant on our Hawaiian honeymoon that July. Two miscarriages (one confirmed, one suspected), one miserable pregnancy, and one premature emergency c-section later, I am mom to a beautiful little girl. It's been a journey, and I hate when people use phrases like that. It has fucking sucked would be more accurate, and it still really sucks sometimes, but it gets better everyday. We are lucky.

 So here is our story-past, present and future.