Onions for everyone!

My father-in-law has been selling 25 pound bags of Vidalia onions for charity. (I don’t know what charity.) We bought bags for all our friends (I’m pretty sure they were not grateful) and of course one for ourselves.

Wow, that is a lot of onions. I have been putting them in everything for WEEKS and still we have a third of a bag left. Jambalaya, stir fries, stews, sauteed, with mushrooms. You can even just pop them in the microwave and have them plain they are so sweet.

There’s a type of seasoning salt called grillkrydda from Sweden that we put on almost everything we eat. I sure hope there’s nothing unhealthy in it because I can’t read the label but I assume since it’s Swedish it’s pretty good for you. Anyway, grillkrydda goes great with Vidalia onions (and sweet potato fries!)

There are various foods we love that we can only get in Sweden. There’s this fabulous sweet mustard; all kinds of licorice products (they are crazy for licorice in Sweden, which is fine by me); dill potato chips; the sweetest butter in the world; cheeses and breads and sausages galore; tasty, tasty ham. My husband also always eats horse while we are there just to piss me off. Also, he always goes in the sauna and cranks it as high as he can and tries to take a picture of the thermostat even in the steam to prove to people he can withstand the high temps.

You know the last time I was in Sweden I was just three-four weeks pregnant (and didn’t know it yet, but suspected because of sore breasts and plus I was really tired, as you can see here.)

It’s a good thing I didn’t go in the sauna that winter or I might have cooked Baby!

A worried friend

One of my good friends is 14 weeks pregnant (no, I’m not talking about Christy) and just got the results from her prenatal screening for birth defects. She was told she has a one in one hundred-something chance that her child has Down Syndrome, and will undergo amniocentesis later this week. This is someone who is constantly anxious and has frequent panic attacks, so this situation and uncertainty is especially difficult for her. I told her I understood those tests to have a high false-positive rate (which is why I declined them), and tried to reassure her on that note, and that amnios are extremely unlikely to cause miscarriage. I’m not sure she heard anything I said, though. She is fairly panicked.

I got the impression that were her child to be diagnosed with Down Syndrome, she would choose to terminate the pregnancy. The way she talked about Down Syndrome, it was clear she thinks of it as making a child “unhealthy” or even nonviable, and that termination was the common result of this diagnosis. What’s interesting to me about this is that I guess I don’t necessarily see Down Syndrome that way. Maybe it’s because I was familiar with people with this chromosomal difference growing up, and saw that they could form part of happy families. I know that many, though, think of it as a curse, something to be avoided at all costs, and it certainly comes with its share of difficulties. I don’t really know what I would do, how I would feel, if I were faced with this diagnosis or some other abnormality. I think it’s almost certainly a false alarm in her case, though. I’ll let you all know what happens for her.

Today is actually her birthday. I got her a play gym for the baby and now I’m not sure if I should give it to her or not.

Little eyesies

Baby had an eye exam last week. It was free through a program called InfantSEE, designed to look for early eye issues. I wanted to take Baby because I have various odd eye problems (amblyopia [lazy eye] and wall-eye [the opposite of cross-eye]) and regular ones (extreme nearsightedness and astigmastism).

My eyes look totally normal, but I can’t read at all without my glasses and basically my brain ignores the messages my right eye sends to it since my right eye is so wildly inaccurate. My depth perception should be pretty low since I’m mostly just using the one eye, but in actuality it’s not, so I can catch a ball and whatnot.

I didn’t even find out about the lazy eye until I was pregnant and had to have this emergency eye exam when I was alone at the beach 7 months pregnant and lost my glasses and had to ask the next door neighbor’s housekeeper to drive me to the eyeglass store and they wouldn’t take my prescription because it was expired (that was a fun day–alone and blind and pregnant. It ranks up there with the flat tire I had when I was 8 months pregnant–in Georgia, in the summer, without a cell phone).

The ophthalmologist turned out to have a 3.5 month old so, naturally, she and I talked pumping. And she waved various toys in front of Baby’s face while she peered into those dark blue eyes with assorted instruments and pronounced her vision normal, 20/50, with only a slight possible tendency to lazy eye in the same right eye. Lord only knows how she determined anything on my wiggly girl, but the doctor seemed skilled.

We are to watch the possible lazy eye (by covering each eye up sometimes when playing and seeing if she gets more annoyed when the left eye is covered than with the right) and if all remains the same, Baby doesn’t need to go to the eye doctor again until she is three. She was an angel for the appointment and didn’t have too much trouble with the dilation of her eyes, either.

Miscarriage for my friend

A few weeks ago I wrote that my friend E was pregnant after a few years of trying to conceive and one IUI. It turns out that the the fetus (or embryo? or baby as I think of it) died at about five weeks and she had a D & E two weeks later instead of continuing to wait to miscarry.

I have never miscarried. There’s a small possibility that a bad spate of bleeding I had at six weeks pregnant was the miscarrying of a twin, but I doubt that. I think it was implantation bleeding, and there was just a lot of it since it had been months since my last period. However, there was a period of about 18 hours wherein I thought I had, in fact, miscarried. The doctor told me over the phone that that’s what probably had occurred. I wept and stayed in bed and stared at the ceiling; I felt like I was in an altered state. It must have been grief. When they found in the ultrasound the next morning that Baby had survived the “great flood” (as Husband calls it), it took some time to understand the news, but then I was, naturally, joyous. But the rest of my pregnancy never felt very safe or secure to me.

Still, I am not a miscarriage survivor. I don’t know what that’s like. So navigating this with my friend E has been challenging. Another friend of mine, a mother of three, did once call me very early to come over and watch her kids while her husband took her to the hospital as she was miscarrying her fourth. But she didn’t want or need much support from me afterwards–she told me her children were balm enough. And I guess everyone deals with this differently; even if I knew a thousand women who’d miscarried, that doesn’t guarantee I’d know the right way to act with E.

Before I went to the beach, I knew that an ultrasound for E had not turned up good news. They couldn’t find a heartbeat, and the fetus (baby) was too small for the dates, which they knew for sure, because of the IUI. While I was gone, she sent an email saying she had miscarried, and was okay. I wrote her back as soon as I returned, and considered sending flowers, but thought perhaps the moment for that had passed.

Well, I am certainly glad I didn’t acknowledge the miscarriage in a big way. When I talked to her last night, she railed on the people who called to check on her, on the “dead baby” bouquets she received, on how she keeps having to assure people she is fine, and they never believe her. She kept talking about the “dead white dot” on the ultrasound, on how she’s “totally over it,” on how it wasn’t a baby (though she does refer to it as a baby), and wasn’t a lost life, just a lost dream, as if that were less significant. She seemed very angry, very eager to put it behind her. I didn’t really know what to say, so I just agreed with her that other people are annoying and stupid, and repeated that I’m glad she’s fine (not sure that she is, but not going to push the issue), and talked with her about the D & E, future IUI and IVF plans, her husband’s school plans, her cats, and her cakes (from what I can tell, she seems to be baking an awful lot). I did my best not to say anything to piss her off, but I’m not sure I succeeded.

But I can see one way this has affected her: her drive to use technology to get pregnant has increased. Before this, I don’t think she would have considered IVF or many more IUIs. But now she is anticipating them as a matter of course. My sense is that having finally known the unique feeling of excitement and import that come with pregnancy, she knows for sure she wants to do it again. Best of luck to her, of course. She deserves all good things.

365 days ago I was hysterical but today I’m okay

January 2nd, 2006 was the day we got back from spending Christmas in Sweden with Husband’s family. It was my first winter there. We ate clementines and walked in the forest and watched Dr. Phil with Swedish subtitles. I surreptitiously googled “early pregnancy signs” to see what was said about breast soreness, food aversions, tiredness, stuffy nose, hot temperature body. Note that I did not look for “late period” as my cycles are irregular as a newborn’s feeding schedule, only far less frequent.

A few months before I had had a visit with the RE who, after a year of having me as his patient, concluded that I would not become pregnant without Clomid or some other ovulation-inducer. I hadn’t ovulated in at least 6 months, according to my temperature chart. Given this, I certainly did not expect a spontaneous pregnancy. Yet I Felt Different.

As soon as we got back to the United States I went to the store and got a two-pack pregnancy test as well as food for if I was pregnant (salad) and if I wasn’t and needed to be sad and eat for comfort (tater tots and ice cream).

But salad it was! I just cried and cried for days. I was totally off my rocker. When I called my mother to tell her, she thought I was trying to tell her someone had died. I’m still not sure why I was so whacked out to discover the pregnancy–some combination of overwhelming surprise and overwhelming worry. At every turn in the pregnancy I was convinced something horrible would happen; after all, I was used to NOT having a baby and wanting one, but I was NOT used to the idea of actually conceiving and carrying a healthy child.

But thank goodness I did.

Birth and first days

What happened was this:

I went in for a BP check on Friday the 18th as I’d had some borderline high readings which were always followed up by bloodwork which was normal. This time it was pretty high (I think something like 150/100) so they sent me to labor and delivery. They were also concerned about my gaining 3 lbs. in 3 days for no good reason and my sudden carpal tunnel.

At the hospital I was on bedrest with monitoring (fetal heartrate and contractions and blood pressure) all day. My blood pressure stayed high (but generally not that high). That night around 8:30 they decided to do a 24 hour urine collection to do a definitive diagnosis of preeclampsia. Of course I had to stay in the hospital all that time (they gave me a sleeping pill; none for my husband, however, poor thing). Finally that Saturday night when the results came in I was diagnosed with mild preeclampsia. They wanted to do a c-section right then (baby was still breech, as determined by ultrasound, although I knew just where her head was–but anyway that’s why the c-section and not an induction).

The c-section was pretty scary. There was very little time to prepare myself mentally from when they told me they would do it to the surgery. I don’t feel like reliving it, but I have to say it felt very sacrificial. But compared to the breastfeeding problems, I barely even care about the actual birth experience. Baby was born at 10:39 PM that Saturday night, at 37w5d, yet still somehow 8 lbs. 8.5 oz!

I didn’t get to hold the baby for at least an hour after the birth, after she’d had her bath and been weighed etc. She was very much asleep when I did. I actually don’t remember much of the first 24 hours other than that at the time I described them as the worst time of my life. I was on magnesium sulfate for the preeclampsia and was crazily exhausted.

But the overwhelming issue was: couldn’t get the baby to latch. Oh, so many people tried shoving my nipples various ways into a very tired, very angry baby’s mouth. But nothing doing. At six hours old they told me that if I didn’t give her formula, I would be endangering her life. I was barely conscious at the time but pretty sure that wasn’t right so called a friend to come and advocate for me (Husband had no idea what to do). She helped get them off my back a little, but when Baby was 24 hours old and had still not really latched, I consented for Baby to have some formula. The nurse sat on a couch in my room not too close to me with my husband and fed her untold amounts (I asked her just to give 1 ounce, but I don’t think that’s what happened). And so the nipple/flow preference began.

At the 24-hour mark we were allowed to move from Labor and Delivery to the Mother/Baby ward, where we finally had a nurse who helped us get the baby latched on. Her name was Joy and she was so calm and quiet and helpful. She set us up with an SNS, too, to help baby realize something nice was supposed to happen to her mouth and tummy when we were nursing. But she was so tired and so was I.

That next morning, a Monday, we finally saw a lactation consultant (really just a nurse, not an IBCLC, but I didn’t know it at the time). She showed us cup feeding and brought out the nipple shield (24 mm). I was so grateful for that nipple shield! It really helped us get the baby to latch on better. But she was still incredibly sleepy, even with constant efforts to keep her away (head rubbing, feet tickling). She just wanted to sleep. And she was losing weight. Monday night she was 7 lbs. 13 oz., down from 8 lbs. 8.5 oz. I now know this wasn’t a very dramatic weight loss–fairly normal–but at the time the nurse freaked me out about it. More formula. And baby was developing jaundice.

Wednesday, the day after being discharged, we had to go to the hospital for another bilirubin level check. We got the news the jaundice had increased, and we had to put Baby under lights which would be brought to the house. The pediatrician told me to stop nursing and just save any milk I pumped, but my milk still wasn’t in. All this time I had been pumping sporadically (too tired to do it much, not knowledgeable of how often it should be done) and just getting saplike drops of colostrum in the shields or on my nipples, which I or my mother or husband would finger-feed to the baby in her sleep. I stopped nursing attempts and just formula fed for the two days Baby was under the lights. I kept thinking that once we just got past the jaundice, once my milk came in (it took 6 days), once the baby woke up a little, we would be okay on the breastfeeding.

When my milk finally did come in, and the baby finally came out from under the lights, I had no engorgement. I heard no swallowing when baby nursed. If I hadn’t been pumping I would never have known the milk was in–my breasts felt totally the same. The baby was nursing all the time, but kept falling asleep. I called the lactation consultant at the hospital who told me the lack of engorgement just meant that the baby was removing all I was making and that all was well since I saw milk in the nipple shield, and that sometimes it is just hard to hear the baby swallowing, and that newborns are sleepy but nurse a lot. I thought I had a marathon nurser and was so pleased she was doing it. At that point I was delighted.

For two days she just nursed–no formula, no pumping–and though I never felt any engorgement, I figured I was okay and vowed that my baby would never have formula after her first week of life, and was proud that she was nursing after all that trouble.

But then came the weight check. Baby had lost even more weight. Losing weight in the second week of life is not normal. The pediatrician said I had to supplement, and so I did. I started pumping again and got barely anything, and then I discovered that the big problem was my low supply (eight of an ounce per breast per hour–not anywhere near enough).

I was nursing/bottle-feeding/pumping for a while, but now am mostly just pumping and bottlefeeding (we threw out the cup early on as it was too hard to know how much she was taking and took so long). She’s on mostly formula.

So, that’s where we are.

Preparing for birth

We have the Karp book, The Happiest Baby on the Block, which emphasizes swaddling, so we were definitely going to try that.

My OB said the same stuff as my pediatrician relative about getting Baby ready and the breathing thing (minus the info on sea level). She said if she has trouble with transition there’s always the NICU for a couple of hours. If no troubles, then rooming-in.

Only a little more than week left till the scheduled c-section, and I am so ready. The misery of nine months pregnant. I’m only 37 weeks but measuring 41. Still breech.

I’m starting to worry about breastfeeding, even though my pediatrician said 99% of people have no trouble. I have PCOS though which apparently can cause supply issues, but the OB says there’s no way to tell until after a week or so, so not to worry about it yet.

Still, I really want to be successful at it. The hospital and my pediatrician both have LCs though so hopefully I’ll be okay if there is trouble. I’ve spoken to a lady at LLL and she gave me some good advice on breastfeeding after a cesarean, like asking not to have sedatives along with the IV so you aren’t so groggy, and how the IV fluids can make your breast tissue extra swollen so it makes it harder to latch on, and how to solve that. Husband has been assigned various reading material on breastfeeding so he can help with it. I hope he reads it before baby comes!

We finally got the car seat in, though I want to get it checked by a professional, and basically all the stuff is set up, though I still don’t really know what we will do about sleeping arrangements. We have a crib and 3 (!) bassinets (presents) so we have options. I know I want to be in the same room as baby, which I can do even with the crib as there’s a twin in the nursery. I guess even so I should get a baby monitor but from what I understand you are attached to your baby 24/7 for the first while so a monitor wouldn’t be necessary.

ONLY TEN DAYS TILL THE BABY COMES! I have GOT to finish up some projects at work. Can’t believe I’ve put it off for so long (I’ve been working from home for the last week or so).

I didn’t know I should be worrying!

Apparently having PCOS can make it hard to make enough milk!

How did I not know about this? I just looked it up because on a message board someone mentioned they couldn’t breastfeed due to PCOS.

I talked to the OB who says not to worry, it should be fine. But still!