No Big Deal

I have googled to my heart’s content.

I have spoken with an OBGYN specialist.

I have talked to my regular doctor.

I have talked to the nursing specialist at my insurance company.

The verdict on the Estrogen fuck-up? No big deal.


Whew! They feel that because I am already so far along, and the babies’ organs are all developed, and the fact that they are boys and not girls, that all will be fine. See – all that worrying for nothing.

What did I tell you?

I am so Lazy

I have a friend who doesn’t believe in small talk. He feels that the only conversations worth having are those that are deep and meaningful. I believe he feels the same way about writing – if you are not writing something from the soul, why bother? I have thought about this – and I am not sure I agree. Especially when it comes to writing. For me, this space is where I write whatever I am thinking – which is not always (and not usually) anything thought-provoking or full of knowledge. Much of what I write is from the very surface of my mind, not the depths of my soul. Why? I guess I am lazy. It is difficult to dig that deep every time you write. It is time consuming to take raw emotion and feeling and put it to paper without losing much of the content…if that makes sense.

I have read many journals where the writing grips my soul. I do not know if it is simply the writer’s style, or if they are working as hard as I would in order to produce anything close to comparing. But I do know that their writing makes me think and makes me feel and makes me come back for more. I love the way these writers can express themselves so clearly that I honestly FEEL how they are describing. Have you ever felt that from reading? I also know that a truly deep conversation leaves me feeling the same way…worthwhile, introspective, dreamy, and useful. I think that is a good thing.

So I am torn. Do I continue this journal as a daily account of exactly what I am thinking, exactly when I am thinking it – or do I spend time on the writing and use it to make people feel?

I have to admit that although I want to try to improve myself - write more meaningful posts, that I am truly, deep-down lazy.

I am so freaking OUT!

You are NEVER going to believe what happened today. I went to the doctor's for my weekly progesterone shot (they start them at week 20 through weeks 36). After waiting in the lobby area for like 1/2 hour the nurse put me in a room and put the shot and chart down and said she would be back. So - the lab tech came by and was talking to me and she went ahead and gave me the shot so I wouldn't have to wait any longer. Turns out it was the wrong shot. The other nurse had brought the wrong one in - and they gave me estrogen instead of progesterone. Todd and I of course googled this and here is the lovely news:

“Estradiol is in the FDA pregnancy category X. This means that estradiol is known to cause birth defects in an unborn baby. Do not take this medication if you are pregnant or could become pregnant during treatment.”

And:
"ESTROGENS SHOULD NOT BE USED DURING PREGNANCY. Estrogen therapy during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of congenital defects in the reproductive organs of the male and female fetus, an increased risk of vaginal adenosis, squamous cell dysplasia of the uterine cervix, and vaginal cancer in the female later in life."

And:
"Studies of women who received diethylstilbestrol (DES) during pregnancy have shown that female offspring have an increased risk of vaginal adenosis, squamous cell dysplasia of the uterine cervix, and clear cell vaginal cancer later in life; male offspring have an increased risk of urogenital abnormalities and possibly testicular cancer later in life. "

The doctor wasn't there - but the head nurse said she didn't know what would happen and to watch for bleeding… yeah - so I am FREAKING OUT.

Action plan: Tomorrow I am going to call my doctor and ask him about the risks of this having happened. Then I am going to call the specialist that I see once a month and ask him too. Then I am going to wish to God that I could get drunk...because, my babies could be born with man boobs. Which of course is silly - but seriously - all of the googling is bad and I wish I had not ever searched for anything. I wish I had remained blissfully anaware of the risks.

When I left the doctor's office today, I was not at all freaked out. I told my husband that what happened happened and there is nothing I can do about it, so I am not going to get upset about it. It was an honest mistake and could have happened to anyone. Hell, think about the mistakes we make every day. What if every time I made a mistake at work someone died or a baby was born with a defect - oh man the world would be full of some odd looking babies. The lab tech that gave the shot was crying, hysterical - so upset about what happened. Now I am the hysterical one. Damn, this sucks.

My Ever-Expanding Ass

Last night I slept like the dead. Why would we ever use such a morose saying? First of all, my heart kept beating and I continued to breath all night – and miracle of miracles, I am actually up and about today – so I suppose that the dead and I don’t have as much in common as that phrase might imply. I simply slept very well, which is new for me.

I have been having LOTS of trouble sleeping…falling asleep is easy most nights, but then I am awake only a few hours later and find it OH SO HARD to fall back to sleep. That is until morning when I should be getting up…then I am able to fall asleep easily. Figures.

Well last night I went to sleep around 10:30, woke up 1:30 - went back to sleep, woke up at 3:30 – went back to sleep, and slept in until almost 7. That is a serious record for me. I didn’t lay staring at the clock for even a second…I love that. However for some reason – and someone PLEASE explain this to me – I am still tired. What is up with that????

In other news, I am now officially 5 months pregnant. And, I am still working out! Go me. I actually made it to weight class last night and was able to survive most of it. I plan to go Thursday too if I am not too sore. I have been walking on days I don’t go to the gym, so hopefully I won’t end up in too bad of shape after this pregnancy… I am already so huge for me that I cannot see if any of this is helping…but I am hoping. For the first time in my life my legs look FAT. It makes me sad. My legs were the one thing that I could always count on – that and a flat stomach. My ass could get huge…but I always had great legs. Not so much now. I am meeting our friend Cellulite lately and I will tell you – I don’t like him. Not one bit. Bad friend.

OOOH – today starts my progesterone shots. Isn’t that exciting? Once a week for the next 16 weeks I get a shot in my ever-expanding butt. I. Just. Can’t. Wait.

What to do...What to do...

I am 5 months pregnant tomorrow. It is hard to believe. Only 1 more month of work, and then I am off until the babies are here, which hopefully will be around mid-July. Around 12 weeks of not working before we have babies…what will I do with my time? My husband and I were talking about that yesterday – I am not much of a TV watcher. I don’t have a lot of hobbies. I am a fairly active person.

I imagine 12 weeks of taking it easy will be interesting to say the least. I plan to clean a room a day and keep up with laundry as long as things go okay. Other than that, I have NO idea what to do. Yard work would be fun, but may not be a good idea. I want to avoid early labor, not encourage it. I can read, draw, watch movies, catch up on surfing my favorite sites…

What else is there to do if you are trying to be calm and not exert yourself? I don’t like to knit. I am not all that crafty. I don’t get into decorating or shopping. I only cook for the sake of eating meals.

Wow this will be funny. I see a lot of laying by the pool and reading in my future.

Bad Pregnant Lady!

How much snot can a nose produce in 24 hours?

The amount is ENDLESS.

I have gone through 3 boxes of Kleenex this week. Which is insane. All of the used-to-be soft skin between my nose and upper lip is now sandpaper and I look like Rudolph. Stupid cold. I know I am getting old when a cold reduces me to a whiney, bitchy, moping, in-bed-for-4-days, pile of snot and Kleenex. I am sure work thinks I am an out for sympathy. I have only shown up for 1 day, and made it all of two hours before retreating home to the sofa where I proceeded to whine to the dogs and drink more grape juice than a person should in a year.

Today? Cold status = moved to my chest, which really has no room in it due to the HUGE BOOBS brought on by the HUGE belly full of babies. I now have the lovely smokers cough, which wakes the in-utero (is that a word?) regularly – and they don’t appear happy about it.

Me: cough, hack, wheez

Babies: kick, roll, kick really hard

Me: ouch

Babies: laughing uncontrollably feeling vindicated

I can only imagine what folks in public would think. Aw, look at that pregnant lady... oh my god, she must be a smoker. Bad pregnant lady. BAD!!!!!

So that is my life this week.

Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

That's what little boys are made of.

Two boys.

We found out last week at our 18 week sonogram, and despite my daughter's denial, the doctor has said that he is 100% certain of it, and even pointed out the boy parts - which I could almost see.

Huge Ass

Have you heard of Dolly Madison Zinger’s?

They are this little white snack cake filled with white fluffy stuff and covered with what looks like fire engine red food coloring and coconut. And OHMYGAWD they are good. And – the package of three that is served ala the vending machine at work contains a mere 480 calories. How do they fit that many calories into tiny food? I cannot eat those evil cakes or my ass will become the size of TEXAS..so I merely look at them and wish I were having triplets so that I could justify that many horrible empty calories.

Sick. I know.

Time - Please STOP

It is 9:00pm on a Thursday.

Im soaking in the bathtub after a particularly long day, doing nothing but being a vegetable, when I hear a very odd noise coming from my bedroom.

My 13 year old daughter is laying on the floor with the dogs, listening to her iPod…singing at the top of her lungs. Now, it is not the best singing you will ever hear, but to me it is wonderful – perfect – fantastic. And, it made me cry. I sit here and cry quietly, listening to her being the most happy 13-year-old I had ever heard.

Just the thought of her being with me, 10 days ahead of us with nothing to do but goof off and play, without a care in the world – makes me so incredibly happy. For once I am the one watching one of those perfect moments with my child, not just reading about someone else’s experience, or hearing about something a co-workers child had done. I am the one experiencing something fantastic and memorable and touching and beautiful.

I sit there listening, wishing this moment would never end, and wishing more than anything that I could stop time.

Does Nothing Fit Anymore?

A friend of mine brought me some of her no-longer-needed maternity clothes. They were fantastic – designer, cute, almost new, expensive – and guess what? They didn’t fit. All of the tops are too small because I now have a chest bigger than the state of Idaho. It is true. I have to have them flown around wherever I go. Ok – well that part isn’t true, but still – they are HUGE. So, I found myself at the useless-clothing-only-good-for-9-months maternity store last night looking for tops. I just can’t get over how expensive everything is. Expensive and BORING. I have lots of cute clothes – and I can’t wear them. It is driving me nuts.

I finally decided on a skirt and top at one store and a top and pair of capris at another store. This morning I put on one of the tops and pants and they were 1) way too big and 2) one was tearing at a seam. What the F? What happened to this clothing since last night? Did I freaking shrink? Now I have to take them back. That is how I want to spend my evening – in hell once again.

What did you miss?

If I did not already have two children, well on their way to adulthood, I would be terrified of the days, weeks, years to come. I would worry that I would be a bad mother, that I wouldn’t know how to take care of one baby, let alone two. I would worry that they would be born early and not get to come home with me. I would worry about finding the right daycare, choosing the right diapers, feeding them the right food. I would stress over their first cold, their first shots, when to get their pictures taken. I would think constantly about ways to get them to sleep more, be healthier, grow faster. I would worry about all of these things if these were my first children, but since they are not I am only worried about a few things.

I am worried about missing them growing up. I am worried that when they are 12 or 13, I won’t remember what they were like when they were 1 or 2. I worry that I will be so busy and tired that I will miss moments that I can never get back. This is a concern that I didn’t have with my older girls – because I didn’t know to watch out for it. I didn’t know how quickly the time would fly and how much would slip by without me capturing it in my mind to think about later.

I look at my girls now and they are so wonderful, so perfect. I love them unconditionally more than can be expressed in words – ever. And when I think about things I would do over if they were just now newborns and our whole lives were in front of us – I don’t think about using cloth diapers instead of pampers, I don’t worry about the effects of the first flu-bug that bit them, I don’t ever wonder what difference similac would have made instead of the formula they were on. I think about every day of their little lives I can remember and get sad when I realize there were times that were so difficult that I just can’t remember them anymore.

I somehow let those late nights pacing the floors with their little teary eyes looking up at me escape my memory. I don’t wish I had more sleep – I wish I had more time with them – just like they were…screaming or crying or just staring at me wanting to be loved. I wish those times were still here in a way or that I could remember them better…

So – with these two on their way, I have not given but a brief thought to what type of bottle to use, or what daycare they will go to. I have not considered what formula they will drink or begun to dream of a schedule that will get me sleep. I am looking forward to every single minute of their being…I can’t wait to hear the crying, to see the grumbly little faces staring at me in the middle of the night when I have not slept for days. I am so looking forward to cuddling with them, and walking with them, and watching them simply breathe.