Am I "Hysterical Pregnant Lady"?

So for the last four days, I have apparently been suffering from the world's longest bout of "round ligament pain." Round ligaments are the ligaments on the sides of the uterus, and as they grow and stretch, they hurt (obviously, right?). But they're usually only supposed to hurt for short periods of time, maybe a few hours at most. And they usually hurt more on the right side. At least this is what "the books" tell me-- how the hell am I supposed to know? So when mine started hurting on the left side only and continued straight through for three days, through walking, sitting, eating, breathing, and one sleepless night, I got a little tired of it- not really worried, just tired of the nagging sharp pain that feels like a constant stitch in my side. Ouch.

So I called the doctor yesterday, during regular office hours, mostly just to see what I should do about it, with a secondary purpose of figuring out if it was anything to be concerned about. We played phone tag all day and then the office closed (at 4PM!!!). So at 4:45, I'm still in pain, so I called "after hours" (at 4:45PM!!!). They had to page the doctor, of course, who listened to my symptoms and then asked me a bunch of questions, many of which I couldn't answer ("Feeling any unusual pressure in your abdomen?" Let's think about this. I'm 5 months pregnant. For the first time. How the hell do I know what's "unusual pressure"? There's a lot of pressure!). She said to try some Tylenol and a warm bath and see if it got any better, and if not, to go in to the office today.

So I tried the Tylenol (first drugs I've taken during the whole pregnancy) and the bath. And while the sharpness subsided a little, and I was able to sleep about 5 hours, it kicked up again around 4AM. This morning, it still hurt a lot when I moved the wrong way or took a deep breath or touched that spot, so I called to get an appointment. They told me that there was no room (40 appointments for one of the other docs in 6 hours-- can you believe that???) and that because I was 23 weeks, I should go to labor and delivery at the hospital (which is where we ended up a few weekends ago). I asked if there was any way to ask my doctor whether I should go there, and she had the doctor call me. Turns out that my own doctor was staffing labor and delivery today, so she told me to come on over there to check things out. I asked her if she really thought it was worth it, and she said "Well, these things are almost always nothing, but every once in a while, it's something, so we might as well just check you out."

So back to the hospital I went. Another hospital ID band. Another urine sample. Another doppler hookup to the baby's heartbeat. Another monitor to check for contractions. A nurse, a nurse midwife and the doctor, at different times, all asking me what brought me in. Another physical exam. All this for some pain in my side (nasty, persistent pain, but still). Once it was determined that I was not in early labor (not that I had suspected such) and that nothing else seemed to be wrong, the doctor said it was just round ligament pain. And she just had to bring up my last visit to the hospital (as if they were connected), saying, "Same pain, same exam, same result-- nothing's going on. If anything was, it would have shown up by now." And the nurse midwife said to me, "You know, you're going to have some aches and pains" (as if I didn't already know this). And the nurse said, "You're going home. Hopefully we won't see you again until December!"

So all of a sudden, I have become "hysterical pregnant lady" who freaks out at the slightest thing. But really, I'm not! Last time was the first time in all 21 weeks that I had called the doctor at all! This time, I called during regular office hours. I tried to get a regular appointment. I asked the doctor if she really thought a visit to L&D was warranted under the circumstances. All I wanted was for someone to tell me the source of the pain, and more importantly, what to do about it. But they sent me home, still in pain, and with what felt like a kind little chiding not to bother them again unless it was really bad.

I don't really have a point here. I'm just feeling a little misunderstood. And damn, my side hurts.

Holy IKEA, Batman!

Who knew that 20 minutes in IKEA could transform a fuzzy idea into an entire room, complete with paint? Ok, so we had to go to Home Depot to get the paint, but by the time we got there, the colors just jumped out at us. We went to IKEA just to look at cribs (which, shockingly, have gotten good reviews from consumer groups). The cribs were not really what we were looking for (they're very low to the ground, which is bad news for this Turtle Mama's bad back), but they have tons and tons of child and baby bedroom decor.

Ed and I knew long before we got pregnant that we would do a baby's room in a sea creature theme, given our love for crabs (see our wedding cake) and dolphins, and my karmic relationship with sea turtles (one of which bit me in Hawaii last summer). But we'd gone back and forth about how to do it. Realistic or more child-like? What kind of colors? Blah, blah, blah.

Well, one set of really colorful curtains (covered with fish, turtles, crabs, seaweed, and bubbles) later, and we had the Turtle's room all planned. We snatched up the curtains (which, in true IKEA fashion, are self-hemming with only the push of an iron!), as well as a few other choice accessories (you will have to wait to be surprised by the "AFTER" pictures), and headed off to Home Depot to get paint ("Sweet Rhapsody" and "Carolina Parakeet" are the colors of choice-- don't you wish you had the job of naming paint colors?). Sadly, the doc said no painting for me, so my contribution will be limited to taping off the trim and putting the room together after it's painted. Poor Ed's honey-do list is growing as fast as I am! (But I am eternally grateful to him for everything he does, most recently for installing a ceiling fan in our stuffy bedroom. Hallelujah! At least I'm cool while I toss and turn!).

It's amazing how quickly it all becomes real. 7 months away became 6, became 5, became 4. As relieved as I feel to have some sense of a plan for the Turtle's room, it's mostly because I feel so incredibly unprepared and perfectly out of control about everything else. I've always been afraid of trying things when I don't know if I'll be any good at them. I'm not very good at decorating. Do you think IKEA has a parenting package, too?

Before...

We have grand designs for the nursery. As experts would have you believe, you should outfit your nursery with plenty of sensory stimulation for the little tyke's development. Such advice is either pure projection or a poor diversion. The naked truth is that nursery design is the first step to healthy vicarious relationship with one's children.

Here is what the nursery looks like prior the parents making it into the room they wish they had. Sorry, dad, the camouflage green wall has to go.

The Gene Pool...

Every cloud has a silver lining . . . the silver lining in our late night scare from last weekend are these great pictures we got of the Turtle at the resulting ultrasound test. I was convinced that this child was going to come out looking like an exact replica of Ed-- after all, he's got all the dominant genetic traits. But I have to agree with him-- at least as far as these latest pictures can tell, the Hitchcocks may conquer after all...

Ed wasn't kidding when he said this kid has big feet
(and it looks kinda crowded in there, doesn't it?)

Not sure about the nose. At first, I thought it was mine because it's so long.

But it's missing the trademark bump in the bridge.

So maybe it's a Chaney nose.
But that forehead? All Hitchcock.

Turtle's giggle, age negative 4 months

Mandy's giggle, age 3
Does anyone else see the resemblance? Or is it just me?

Great Expectingtations

It’s time I joined in this here new-fangled ‘blogosphere.’ I can’t let my Turtle-mama have all the fun. I mean, she already selfishly hogs the joys of pregnancy, like the steady but random pain, the impossibility of a comfortable sleeping position, and the donation of her body to medical science every few weeks. What is a Turtle-daddy to do?

We had a bit of a scare last week as we thought that Mandy might have a risky condition known as cervical insufficiency (sometimes referred to as “incompetent cervix,” but that phrase is so not politically correct), which can lead to mid-term miscarriages. We had a late night hospital visit followed by a couple of anxious days before finding reassurance in an ultrasound. Such an event puts things in perspective. Life is so much fortune.

And in the process, we scored some more photos. We got a great profile shot and an action shot of the Turtle kicking itself in the head. We will post these soon, and they will clearly demonstrate that Mandy and Turtle are colluding to exclude my genes from this child’s DNA. The Turtle totally has a Hitchcock profile, and my god you should see the feet on that thing. The baby is going to come out ready to go snorkeling. At this point, my influence may be limited to bushy eyebrows or elongated nose hair. Life is so much fortune.

The most frightening thing about having a child is the realization that I have less than five months to become an adult. And at 36, I am being asked to grow up way too fast. (Actually, the most frightening thing is contemplating raising a child in modern America, but that is way too somber a topic for my first post.) Thankfully, I’ll have the opportunity to live vicariously through my child(ren). I’m so glad that he/she will get to achieve all of things that I never did.

Actually, I’m only 85% serious when I say that. To prove it, I am trying to write a children’s book for the Turtle that tells the story of Tally the Turtle, whose journey is about accepting its gifts and dealing with consternation of other turtles and pond creatures, who expect the turtle to be, well, in a box. The problem is that this story has been written a thousand times and every year, Disney and/or Pixar release a new version. That and I can’t draw. I have a great first line though, and when I am 15% finished, I will quit.

Today, we buy wallies. Ocean-theme wallies.

The Turtle Shell-- Part I (Weeks 1-20)

20 weeks: Now we're talking... but a bit exaggerated (taken after a big meal!)

16 weeks-- OK, maybe there's something in there...

8 weeks-- Is she really pregnant?

"The Thinker"

So yesterday was the 20-week ultrasound. Check out the spine on that thing! While the Turtle appears to be taking more after its pensive father in this photo, the doctor said it has a "chubby tummy and long legs." Ed later told someone that meant it was taking after me. . . "right now." I told him he was lucky he added the "right now" to the end of that thought . . .

The ultrasound was exciting, as they always are. We were there for a good 45 minutes while the tech probed around and took what seemed like a hundred pictures of the Turtle's parts from all angles. At one point, as she was trying to get it to move into a certain position, she kept rapidly poking my belly with the probe -- I found myself thinking, "Stop trying to tell my kid what to do! Maybe it doesn't want to be in that position . . ." We heard the glub-glub of its heartbeat, saw it open and close its mouth (very turtle-like, actually), and watched it wriggle around to avoid the treacherous probe. . . Almost like being in its first school play, I'd say-- lots of performance pressure.

But the Turtle took it all in stride-- the doctor says it looks beautiful, is measuring about 5 days bigger than the pregnancy dating does (fingers crossed for a surprise birth in NC over Thanksgiving-- then it can claim to be a real "Tar Heel bred" unlike its imposter mom and pop!), and weighs about 14 oz. so far, which is right on target-- in the 97th percentile . . . go Turtle!

Today I saw my regular OB for my monthly checkup. I was a little concerned because according to my scale, I'd gained about 6 pounds since my last visit-- I wasn't sure if this was too much for only 5 weeks. I've completely stopped paying attention to how much I consume-- quite frankly, these days, I'm happy to get anything larger than a piece of fruit to fit in there comfortably, so I pretty much eat whenever I feel even remotely hungry. Well, now she's got me worried that I still haven't gained ENOUGH weight! She said that I'm halfway through the pregnancy and I've only gained a total of 8 pounds, and she expects me to gain at least 25 over the whole shebang. Of course, I'm thinking, "I gained 6 pounds in one month! At that rate, I'm going to gain another 30 before this thing is over!" But she didn't seem to notice that part.

Anyway, I think I'll just stay the course-- eat when I'm hungry. I hardly have the time or energy to count every calorie (for the first time in my life, in order to make sure I'm eating enough, not too much!). I really do need to eat more nutritious foods, though. We've both had some really busy months, so quick and easy has become our staple. This often means very few vegetables (although I'm pretty good about fruit). Poor Turtle. According to "the books," it is now swallowing amniotic fluid, so it can taste what I'm eating. Ed, of course, is using this as new leverage to get me to eat spicy foods, bless him. A losing campaign, I'm afraid. But I will try harder to eat better these next few months.

We'll take some new belly pics tonight and post the collection later-- 8 weeks/16 weeks/20 weeks-- the progress is pretty amazing!