I've again been MIA and again it's mostly because we were out of town. My SIL got married and we attended the wedding in Jackson Hole, WY. The wedding was great - a big party! The best part was R in her purple bridesmaid dress. She looked beautiful! Her younger sister even did her make up - it was a whole new wife for a night and she was stunning!!!
This week R's grandmother has been staying with us. It's been great having her here and we've had a busy week playing tour guide. It's also been amusing as grandma doesn't like to turn up her hearing aid too much. It usually goes like this:
R (in a loud voice) - "they're building a new aquarium there"
Silence - as is no reaction
About 30 seconds later - Grandma - "wow there's a lot of construction, I wonder what they are building"
R - " an aquarium"
Grandma - "What?"
R - "an aquarium"
Grandma - "oh"
Grandma also got a special Saturday night treat - an ultrasound of the baby. I have been having several episodes per day in which my entire abdomen gets hard. It's not painful but rather a weird sensation in which my skin feels tight and my abdomen gets hard. It started having mid week and continued through Saturday (it hasn't happened today). On Saturday I also had some very mild cramping. I told R about this and she made me call the advice nurse. I didn't want to use my doctor privileges and thought I'd call the regular advice nurse. When the poor advice nurse asked about my history and heard about the miscarriages and being on heparin, she quickly became overwhelmed. She put me on hold while she called the doctor on call. Turns out the doctor on call was one of our RE's. He only takes regular OB call about once every 1-2 months. Upon hearing it was me, the doctor told the advice nurse to have me call him directly. He reassured me that what I was feeling was normal but he also offered to check my cervix to make sure it was long and closed. Grandma, R and I piled back into the car and headed to L&D - my first L&D trip at 18wks!
My cervix was very long and very closed according to the doctor which was music to my ears. He then did an abdominal u/s. The baby was moving all around. We also got another view at the genitals - definitely a boy! I've gotten used to the fact that I'm having a boy. I still eventually want a daughter but I'm ok with this being boy. I'm starting to feel him and it's cool thinking that my little boy is kicking me. I know grandma loved seeing the ultrasound and we love every peek at our little guy!
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
No longer a husband
First off, I wanted to thank all of you who commented on my last blog. Knowing that I'm not the only one who has experienced disappointment at finding out the gender is helpful. All of your comments have been very sweet. Thanks.
For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that I used to moonlight in a small town about 2 hours away from where I live. I would work from Friday evening through early Monday morning and cover for the 3 pediatricians in the town - meaning I'd cover the answering service, see all the babies in the nursery and in the hospital and see any consults that the ER had for me. While it meant being away from home 1 weekend per month it was great money and it allowed R to quit work and start grad school while I was chief resident. Once I started my current job (private practice in a large medical group), I gave up my weekend moonlighting job because it was too much with my current schedule and financially we were doing better.
During my weekends in the small town, I would stay with one of the local doctors and his family. They are very nice (and very religious) folks. The doctor is also the one who hired me and could decide that they no longer needed me. Since we needed the money, I didn't want to do anything to jeopardize my job (did I mention it was great money - pretty much equal to R's previous job). So I never mentioned that R was a girl. They knew all about her, I didn't lie - I just never used any pronouns so they didn't know my spouse was a wife. Luckily R's name is gender neutral and after being closeted in med school (very conservative environment), I'm good at speaking in gender neutral terms. I just never corrected them when they used the term "he" or "husband".
R and I always got a kick out if, especially since they knew about some of the infertility treatments (I had to keep the lupron in their fridge). R assumed they thought I had an infertile husband who didn't work and made his wife work weekends so he could go to school. Considering they are very Christian and have very traditional gender roles, we were always amused.
So I went back up there this weekend. Although I hadn't worked there in a while, they really needed someone because one of the doctors is off in a far away land trying to bribe people to believe in his God with medical care. (Sorry but I have major issues with medical mission work - these people already have their own cultural beliefs and who are westerners to come in and impose their God on them in order for them to receive much needed medical care). So get to my point (3 paragraphs later), I worked up there and again stayed with same family (minus the husband who is in Africa). Much to my amazement, the wife mentioned something about "will R try to get pregnant"? Holy good god - I had no idea what to say to that. I got all flustered which is very amusing considering I'm totally out at my regular job and in my everyday life. It was like being in high school all over again and coming out. I quickly made some comment about R having infertility problems as well and changed the subject. After 1 1/2 yrs of her referring to R as a man, how did she figure it out? I'm still so confused. The irony is that I'll probably never see them again because I have no plans on working up there again. Oh well, now they know, he's really a she.
For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that I used to moonlight in a small town about 2 hours away from where I live. I would work from Friday evening through early Monday morning and cover for the 3 pediatricians in the town - meaning I'd cover the answering service, see all the babies in the nursery and in the hospital and see any consults that the ER had for me. While it meant being away from home 1 weekend per month it was great money and it allowed R to quit work and start grad school while I was chief resident. Once I started my current job (private practice in a large medical group), I gave up my weekend moonlighting job because it was too much with my current schedule and financially we were doing better.
During my weekends in the small town, I would stay with one of the local doctors and his family. They are very nice (and very religious) folks. The doctor is also the one who hired me and could decide that they no longer needed me. Since we needed the money, I didn't want to do anything to jeopardize my job (did I mention it was great money - pretty much equal to R's previous job). So I never mentioned that R was a girl. They knew all about her, I didn't lie - I just never used any pronouns so they didn't know my spouse was a wife. Luckily R's name is gender neutral and after being closeted in med school (very conservative environment), I'm good at speaking in gender neutral terms. I just never corrected them when they used the term "he" or "husband".
R and I always got a kick out if, especially since they knew about some of the infertility treatments (I had to keep the lupron in their fridge). R assumed they thought I had an infertile husband who didn't work and made his wife work weekends so he could go to school. Considering they are very Christian and have very traditional gender roles, we were always amused.
So I went back up there this weekend. Although I hadn't worked there in a while, they really needed someone because one of the doctors is off in a far away land trying to bribe people to believe in his God with medical care. (Sorry but I have major issues with medical mission work - these people already have their own cultural beliefs and who are westerners to come in and impose their God on them in order for them to receive much needed medical care). So get to my point (3 paragraphs later), I worked up there and again stayed with same family (minus the husband who is in Africa). Much to my amazement, the wife mentioned something about "will R try to get pregnant"? Holy good god - I had no idea what to say to that. I got all flustered which is very amusing considering I'm totally out at my regular job and in my everyday life. It was like being in high school all over again and coming out. I quickly made some comment about R having infertility problems as well and changed the subject. After 1 1/2 yrs of her referring to R as a man, how did she figure it out? I'm still so confused. The irony is that I'll probably never see them again because I have no plans on working up there again. Oh well, now they know, he's really a she.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Finding out
Earlier last week R told me she didn't want to find out the sex of the baby. What??? This is from my wife who needs to know everything. She goes on line to find out what happens on TV shows (mostly Survivor) before she watches them. Our friends have nick named her scoop because she always has the inside scoop on things and all of a sudden, she doesn't want to know? It totally threw me off. Had she said that she didn't want to know from the beginning, I would have been ok with that but now it was too late, I was mentally prepared to find out. We tabled the conversation with her saying, "well just give it some thought".
The next day I had my OB appointment. This was my first appt with the actual OB (the 12 week appt was with the nurse practitioner). We weren't scheduled for an u/s, it was just a routine appt - we had a plan to try to convince our OB to scan me. We had never met this OB (I had recently picked her out based on a recommendation from a colleague) so we had no idea if it was going to be a hard sell. While in the waiting room I asked R if she really wanted not to know the gender and I was relieved to know that she had come back to her senses and absolutely wanted to know.
It turns out it wasn't that hard to convince our OB to do an u/s. R made a light hearted lesbian comment and viola, we had an instant sisterhood bond with her (she's also gay) and out came the u/s machine. It had been 4 weeks since we last had seen the baby and it's amazing how big it's gotten. It's so cool to see it moving around. As for gender, we got some great crotch shots. The OB said she couldn't quite tell which really confused us b/c it was pretty obvious that we were seeing boy parts. On one shot (of which we didn't get a picture) there appeared to be the 3 lines of a girl but on all the other angles, there was clearly a penis. I couldn't resist and made the comment "first penis I've ever had in me" which was mostly only funny to me. So in the end our OB concluded that although it looked like a boy, she wasn't quite sure. The boy parts could be umbilical cord parts but I'm not buying it. I'm working out of town this weekend and had one of the OBs at the small rural hospital that I'm working at scan me but we couldn't tell on their 1840's u/s machine.
Because this is a blog and I started this blog to be able to express myself without fear of judgement, I'm going to share my thoughts with you all. I hate to say this and know that I sound like such an ass for even thinking this (especially after all that we've been through) but I was initially a little disappointed that it was a boy. I think my desire to have a girl stems from my really close relationship with my mom, I want that mother daughter bond. (It was just me and my mom until I was 10, then she married my dad (really my step-dad but I don't know my bio dad) but he was a chef so he worked most evenings, so it was still just me and my dad. My little brother is 13 years younger than me, so that wasn't really a factor). I have all sort of irrational fears about being able to love a son as much and also about raising a man. I wished we had more male friends (regardless of the gender of our child) as I want our kids to have strong male role models. I'm starting to get over my disappointment and realistic thoughts are setting in... yes I'll love him no matter what, yes I'll be a good mom to a boy, yes somehow we'll teach him to pee standing up and yes, somehow we'll hopefully raise a good man.
The next day I had my OB appointment. This was my first appt with the actual OB (the 12 week appt was with the nurse practitioner). We weren't scheduled for an u/s, it was just a routine appt - we had a plan to try to convince our OB to scan me. We had never met this OB (I had recently picked her out based on a recommendation from a colleague) so we had no idea if it was going to be a hard sell. While in the waiting room I asked R if she really wanted not to know the gender and I was relieved to know that she had come back to her senses and absolutely wanted to know.
It turns out it wasn't that hard to convince our OB to do an u/s. R made a light hearted lesbian comment and viola, we had an instant sisterhood bond with her (she's also gay) and out came the u/s machine. It had been 4 weeks since we last had seen the baby and it's amazing how big it's gotten. It's so cool to see it moving around. As for gender, we got some great crotch shots. The OB said she couldn't quite tell which really confused us b/c it was pretty obvious that we were seeing boy parts. On one shot (of which we didn't get a picture) there appeared to be the 3 lines of a girl but on all the other angles, there was clearly a penis. I couldn't resist and made the comment "first penis I've ever had in me" which was mostly only funny to me. So in the end our OB concluded that although it looked like a boy, she wasn't quite sure. The boy parts could be umbilical cord parts but I'm not buying it. I'm working out of town this weekend and had one of the OBs at the small rural hospital that I'm working at scan me but we couldn't tell on their 1840's u/s machine.
Because this is a blog and I started this blog to be able to express myself without fear of judgement, I'm going to share my thoughts with you all. I hate to say this and know that I sound like such an ass for even thinking this (especially after all that we've been through) but I was initially a little disappointed that it was a boy. I think my desire to have a girl stems from my really close relationship with my mom, I want that mother daughter bond. (It was just me and my mom until I was 10, then she married my dad (really my step-dad but I don't know my bio dad) but he was a chef so he worked most evenings, so it was still just me and my dad. My little brother is 13 years younger than me, so that wasn't really a factor). I have all sort of irrational fears about being able to love a son as much and also about raising a man. I wished we had more male friends (regardless of the gender of our child) as I want our kids to have strong male role models. I'm starting to get over my disappointment and realistic thoughts are setting in... yes I'll love him no matter what, yes I'll be a good mom to a boy, yes somehow we'll teach him to pee standing up and yes, somehow we'll hopefully raise a good man.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Monday, June 04, 2007
checking in
We just got back from a week long "vacation" at my parents house in Miami. I have vacation in quotation marks because it really wasn't a vacation. We originally booked the trip several months ago. My little brother was graduating from high school, so our plan was to attend his graduation and then R and I were going to take a little vacation and maybe head down to the keys or some other nearby beachy location for a few days. Our plans changed when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had her schedule her mastectomy for the day after my brother's graduation so that I could be there for her. Instead of a beachy location, we spent our time in Miami in a hospital. My mom however is doing great! It doesn't look like the cancer spread to her lymph nodes (still awaiting the final path report but the prelim report was negative), so she won't have to undergo chemo! I'm so grateful for that - she was petrified of chemo. She could care less about having to have a mastectomy but really didn't want to have chemo. I brought her home the day after surgery and within 2 days she was almost back to herself - even wanting to clean the house. Her 2 sisters are also visiting from South America and she really needs to milk this and have them clean the house but that's not my mom's style. Seeing her back up and around the house (and not taking pain meds) made our departure yesterday much easier on me.
It feels so good to be home. Because my aunts were visiting, they had my old room (bigger bed) and R and I slept in my brother's room (smaller bed). His bed sucks. Not only is it small (some weird size where most full sheets are too big), but it's hard. Sleeping on our king size deluxe pillow top bed last night was so nice! R was such a trooper throughout the entire trip. For the most part, she had to hear my aunts speaking Spanish the entire week (my aunts do not shut up - and I'm one who talks a lot but OMG, my aunts were driving me nuts and I could understand what they were saying). She also sat in a hospital all day, without internet access and with a very pissy me - I was being torn in all directions - my aunts, my mom, my mom's cell phone (which did not stop ringing - I think half of Miami and all of Colombia called) and then there was R. My dad's way of dealing with things is to not deal, so he decided to work on the day of my mom's surgery. Thus R's English speaking partner wasn't there. I think R might have been the only person in the entire hospital who didn't speak Spanish.
In better news, I only threw up twice and only had 3 bouts of nausea during the entire week! My belly also grew (and not just from my dad's cooking - he's a chef, a damn good one). I had packed for Miami on Thursday night - I tried everything on before I packed it. We arrived in Miami on Saturday and half of the clothes that I had packed no longer fit. I was very amused!
I will be 16 weeks on Wednesday! OMG, that's 4 months along! I'm really starting to believe that we will be having a baby this year. Congratulations to all the recent "take home babies" - Jennifer's girls, WTF's girl and little baby Riley!
It feels so good to be home. Because my aunts were visiting, they had my old room (bigger bed) and R and I slept in my brother's room (smaller bed). His bed sucks. Not only is it small (some weird size where most full sheets are too big), but it's hard. Sleeping on our king size deluxe pillow top bed last night was so nice! R was such a trooper throughout the entire trip. For the most part, she had to hear my aunts speaking Spanish the entire week (my aunts do not shut up - and I'm one who talks a lot but OMG, my aunts were driving me nuts and I could understand what they were saying). She also sat in a hospital all day, without internet access and with a very pissy me - I was being torn in all directions - my aunts, my mom, my mom's cell phone (which did not stop ringing - I think half of Miami and all of Colombia called) and then there was R. My dad's way of dealing with things is to not deal, so he decided to work on the day of my mom's surgery. Thus R's English speaking partner wasn't there. I think R might have been the only person in the entire hospital who didn't speak Spanish.
In better news, I only threw up twice and only had 3 bouts of nausea during the entire week! My belly also grew (and not just from my dad's cooking - he's a chef, a damn good one). I had packed for Miami on Thursday night - I tried everything on before I packed it. We arrived in Miami on Saturday and half of the clothes that I had packed no longer fit. I was very amused!
I will be 16 weeks on Wednesday! OMG, that's 4 months along! I'm really starting to believe that we will be having a baby this year. Congratulations to all the recent "take home babies" - Jennifer's girls, WTF's girl and little baby Riley!
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