Liam's First Spongebath...
and he's not too happy about it!
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Liam Davis McDonnell is Born!!
We'll post more details and photos and the birth story sometime soon I'm sure.
But Liam Davis McDonnell was born at 4:07 AM on Friday January 30th. He was 33 weeks and 6 days of gestation when he was born, so his birth was attended by two neonatal intensive care units. He was 18 inches long and 5 lb 3 oz at birth. His APGAR scores were outstanding: he was 8/10 at 1 minute after birth, and 9/10 at 5 minutes after birth. They say that a 9/10 is the best APGAR score they ever give, so he got scores on par with most full term babies. They are monitoring his breathing to be sure he's doing okay, but so far he is a little trooper doing very very well. We are so so thrilled and in love (with him, with each other, with the world)
But Liam Davis McDonnell was born at 4:07 AM on Friday January 30th. He was 33 weeks and 6 days of gestation when he was born, so his birth was attended by two neonatal intensive care units. He was 18 inches long and 5 lb 3 oz at birth. His APGAR scores were outstanding: he was 8/10 at 1 minute after birth, and 9/10 at 5 minutes after birth. They say that a 9/10 is the best APGAR score they ever give, so he got scores on par with most full term babies. They are monitoring his breathing to be sure he's doing okay, but so far he is a little trooper doing very very well. We are so so thrilled and in love (with him, with each other, with the world)
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Update: in the hospital, birth within next few days
I'm blogging from a hospital bed in the Prentice "antepardum" (before birth) room. This morning at 5:30 AM I went to the bathroom, and when I returned to bed I told Terry I was pretty sure my water broke. It wasn't the big dramatic gush from Hollywood, but a slow leak. I waited in bed for another hour and then by 6:30 I was sure. So then phone calls to the OB, and we were told that because I am preterm (only 33.5 weeks) we had to go into the hospital.
This is made really ironic because just yesterday the brakes on our car failed. So we were without car suddenly and with need to get downtown to the hospital. I proposed the bus. Terry laughed at me. So we called up Gabrielle because she is wonderful and amazing and had already offered to drive us to the hospital back before we bought our car and were carless. And because she's always up early. So at 7AM Gab showed up, with little Savino tucked in his car seat, and drove us down to Prentice. We grabbed some stuff on our way out (a handful of granola bars, the gatorade I'd bought for the birth bag, a bottle of water) and off we went.
Somehow I couldnt really wrap my head around the idea that this made birth imminant, and so rushing around to try to pack a full bag seemed silly. The baby was only 33.5 weeks. He couldn't come early. I had been mentally preparing for all sorts of alternatives: what if I was strep B positive and had to have IV antibiotics? What if he was breech? what if what if. But never what if a healthy, active, eating well 29 year old women inexplicably goes into labor 6 weeks early. Never that.
Because I wasnt being admitted as someone in active labor, they had me waiting in a waiting room rather than triage. At some point I had to delicately point out that if they didnt get me to a room soon I was going to puddle all over their waiting room chairs, in the middle of a gabby group of family member's who knew some other woman delivering at the time.
They monitor, they test, the poke and prod a little and confirm what now seems obivous. My water has broken.
The medical dish is that being past 32 weeks is very very good. Getting to 34 weeks is another hurdle that would be awesome. So while they arent going to do anything to postpone labor if it starts spontaneously, they aren't going to induce me until Saturday when I'm 34 weeks. they are going to give me a shot of steroids today and tomorrow to try to help speed up his lung maturation, because lungs and brain are really what he's still working on at this point. We get some pep talks about how most babies born this early catch up developmentally before they go into kindergarten. While this is meant to reassure, I can also read the flip side: it means that developmental delays are concerning enough to mention that the upside is that he will likely catch up sometime in the next four to five years. Awesome. bring on the waterworks.
It is far too easy for me to blame myself, and to search for some place where I went wrong. I tried so so hard to be a good vessel for this baby. I followed the pregnancy diet, and got lots of vegetables, protein, whole grains, citrus fruits, eggs. It was weird and inconvenient but I did it for the baby. I remained active with moderate exercise like walking the treadmill, swimming, and yoga, all the while carefully monitoring my heart rate to make sure I didn't over exert myself. And even with everything it wasn't enough. Somehow it just felt like I'd failed to do this most essential task of protecting my son and giving him a safe place to grow until he was ready to meet the world.
Because he is preterm, it means almost all of our hopes and preferences for the birth have been taken away. I won't be able to labor in a labor tub or with a birthing ball. I won't be able to walk around at all in fact, as the doc wants me on bedrest. They dont want to allow me to use alternative birthing positions because they want to be able to get a really good look at him while he's coming. So I'll be flat on my back. And it is a confusing maze of things and when your doctor is telling you it gives your son a better shot at avoiding negative health outcomes, there is little you can do but nod and pray and hope that your doctor is making the call in your best interests.
The only choice left to me is to try to avoid the epidural if I can, but at this point everything is stacked against me. Breaking the waters early makes for a harder more painful labor. If I have to be induced, they want to use an aggressive Pitocin protocol on me, which is also known for making a much more difficult labor. But it seems like the only gift I have left to give him, to spare him any exposure to drugs in the uterus, and so I will do my damnest, even with so many of the tools we have carefully cultivated taken away from me. So I will play my soothing music, imagine my happy place (campfire ring at Anokijig), have Terry for encouragement, and have the force of my will. Fingers crossed for me.
We appreciate everyone's well wishes. It is wonderful but also a little overwhelming. Please don't worry if we cannot or do not respond. We are trying to take the time we have here to prepare for all the new things that will have to do with insuring and caring for a baby who will spend time in the NICU. We have to practice the relaxation techniques and scripts that we have because that is the main tool for natural pain relief that we have left.
Please pray that the baby is all right. That he is little and young but healthy and strong. Small but mighty my mom said. And it made me think of the little engine that could. and that made me cry some more.
This is made really ironic because just yesterday the brakes on our car failed. So we were without car suddenly and with need to get downtown to the hospital. I proposed the bus. Terry laughed at me. So we called up Gabrielle because she is wonderful and amazing and had already offered to drive us to the hospital back before we bought our car and were carless. And because she's always up early. So at 7AM Gab showed up, with little Savino tucked in his car seat, and drove us down to Prentice. We grabbed some stuff on our way out (a handful of granola bars, the gatorade I'd bought for the birth bag, a bottle of water) and off we went.
Somehow I couldnt really wrap my head around the idea that this made birth imminant, and so rushing around to try to pack a full bag seemed silly. The baby was only 33.5 weeks. He couldn't come early. I had been mentally preparing for all sorts of alternatives: what if I was strep B positive and had to have IV antibiotics? What if he was breech? what if what if. But never what if a healthy, active, eating well 29 year old women inexplicably goes into labor 6 weeks early. Never that.
Because I wasnt being admitted as someone in active labor, they had me waiting in a waiting room rather than triage. At some point I had to delicately point out that if they didnt get me to a room soon I was going to puddle all over their waiting room chairs, in the middle of a gabby group of family member's who knew some other woman delivering at the time.
They monitor, they test, the poke and prod a little and confirm what now seems obivous. My water has broken.
The medical dish is that being past 32 weeks is very very good. Getting to 34 weeks is another hurdle that would be awesome. So while they arent going to do anything to postpone labor if it starts spontaneously, they aren't going to induce me until Saturday when I'm 34 weeks. they are going to give me a shot of steroids today and tomorrow to try to help speed up his lung maturation, because lungs and brain are really what he's still working on at this point. We get some pep talks about how most babies born this early catch up developmentally before they go into kindergarten. While this is meant to reassure, I can also read the flip side: it means that developmental delays are concerning enough to mention that the upside is that he will likely catch up sometime in the next four to five years. Awesome. bring on the waterworks.
It is far too easy for me to blame myself, and to search for some place where I went wrong. I tried so so hard to be a good vessel for this baby. I followed the pregnancy diet, and got lots of vegetables, protein, whole grains, citrus fruits, eggs. It was weird and inconvenient but I did it for the baby. I remained active with moderate exercise like walking the treadmill, swimming, and yoga, all the while carefully monitoring my heart rate to make sure I didn't over exert myself. And even with everything it wasn't enough. Somehow it just felt like I'd failed to do this most essential task of protecting my son and giving him a safe place to grow until he was ready to meet the world.
Because he is preterm, it means almost all of our hopes and preferences for the birth have been taken away. I won't be able to labor in a labor tub or with a birthing ball. I won't be able to walk around at all in fact, as the doc wants me on bedrest. They dont want to allow me to use alternative birthing positions because they want to be able to get a really good look at him while he's coming. So I'll be flat on my back. And it is a confusing maze of things and when your doctor is telling you it gives your son a better shot at avoiding negative health outcomes, there is little you can do but nod and pray and hope that your doctor is making the call in your best interests.
The only choice left to me is to try to avoid the epidural if I can, but at this point everything is stacked against me. Breaking the waters early makes for a harder more painful labor. If I have to be induced, they want to use an aggressive Pitocin protocol on me, which is also known for making a much more difficult labor. But it seems like the only gift I have left to give him, to spare him any exposure to drugs in the uterus, and so I will do my damnest, even with so many of the tools we have carefully cultivated taken away from me. So I will play my soothing music, imagine my happy place (campfire ring at Anokijig), have Terry for encouragement, and have the force of my will. Fingers crossed for me.
We appreciate everyone's well wishes. It is wonderful but also a little overwhelming. Please don't worry if we cannot or do not respond. We are trying to take the time we have here to prepare for all the new things that will have to do with insuring and caring for a baby who will spend time in the NICU. We have to practice the relaxation techniques and scripts that we have because that is the main tool for natural pain relief that we have left.
Please pray that the baby is all right. That he is little and young but healthy and strong. Small but mighty my mom said. And it made me think of the little engine that could. and that made me cry some more.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Our hairy little baby
Just the other day somehow Gabrielle Ferrales and I wound up in a conversation about what the new baby's hair would be like, whether there even would be any. I realized that I have always just assumed that the baby would come out hairy. I am part Armenian, which means most of my Armenian uncles look like the missing link. I came out with a full head of black hair when I was born. Terry is a hairy little monkey himself. So somehow I just always assumed that our child would be hairy at birth too.
And now it turns out research is backing up my instincts...but for entirely different reasons.
We were reading this month's issue of Parents magazine (a Christmas gift from my mom) and came across a story reporting on a recent research study. It turns out that women who experience moderate to severe heartburn during pregnancy are 80% more likely to have a hairy baby at birth.
So between our genes and my dependence on Tums, I'd wager this kid will have some hair on him!
And now it turns out research is backing up my instincts...but for entirely different reasons.
We were reading this month's issue of Parents magazine (a Christmas gift from my mom) and came across a story reporting on a recent research study. It turns out that women who experience moderate to severe heartburn during pregnancy are 80% more likely to have a hairy baby at birth.
So between our genes and my dependence on Tums, I'd wager this kid will have some hair on him!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Baby Furniture!
My parents kindly picked up the baby's room furniture that we had bought in Racine over the holidays and drove it down to us yesterday. After much heaving and lifting on the part of Terry and Dan (my step-dad) the big pieces all made it up all three flights. Terry and I had only finished clearing out space and boxing stuff up that morning, so the living room is now stacked high with rubbermaid tubs and boxes of books that once lived where the baby will be.
Terry and Dan put the crib together and we got everything into place. After they left we started putting up some of the little touches. I put some of the baby's stuffed animals into his crib as little placeholders of childhood until he arrives (yes yes, I know they are supposed to come out when the baby gets in). We tied up the adorable elephants decoration, monkey blanket, and giraffe height chart that we bought from a women's cooperative in Ghana even before I was pregnant, and it gives the room a totally cheery wonderful feeling. I put his little clothes away in the dresser and laid out on top the beautiful layette gown that we will bring him home from the hospital in. And it just felt amazing. i LOVE being in that room now. Before bed I found myself hanging out in the doorway just looking in and taking it all in. Now as I write I am sitting in the new gliding rocker that we bought for nursing.
Each big step that we check off the list to get ready for him makes me feel more and more at ease.
Pictures of the baby's room soon I'm sure!
Terry and Dan put the crib together and we got everything into place. After they left we started putting up some of the little touches. I put some of the baby's stuffed animals into his crib as little placeholders of childhood until he arrives (yes yes, I know they are supposed to come out when the baby gets in). We tied up the adorable elephants decoration, monkey blanket, and giraffe height chart that we bought from a women's cooperative in Ghana even before I was pregnant, and it gives the room a totally cheery wonderful feeling. I put his little clothes away in the dresser and laid out on top the beautiful layette gown that we will bring him home from the hospital in. And it just felt amazing. i LOVE being in that room now. Before bed I found myself hanging out in the doorway just looking in and taking it all in. Now as I write I am sitting in the new gliding rocker that we bought for nursing.
Each big step that we check off the list to get ready for him makes me feel more and more at ease.
Pictures of the baby's room soon I'm sure!
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Baby Stuff and Registries
After much wrestling with questions of etiquette and emily post and whatnot, we've decided that we're game to do whatever seems to make things easiest on you all, our friends and family. And since we have showers coming up, people are asking where we are registered. Rather than play coy, we'll just tell you. But if you are someone who sees this as a breech of etiquette, please feel free to skip the rest of this post.
We have a registry at amazon.com and at babydepot.com. You can also shop in-store at Baby Depot, if there is one near you (there is one in Burlington Coat Factory in the Racine Mall).
The baby's room is starting to get full of the stuff that babies use. Which is a source of great comfort, feeling like we are acquiring important things for the baby. Thanks to our generous friends and family, we already have things like: a stroller, 2 moby wraps, a sling, a feeding chair, a buzzy chair, a rocker/glider, baby exercise mat/gym, baby bathtub and more. We will be purchasing the crib and changing table/dresser this month. So things are all coming together.
I recently went on a minor frenzy of trying to get the baby's clothes organized and in drawers. This lead to a little distraction of counting what we had for each time period (lots for early on). Which turned into an interesting exercise in realizing that baby sizes are really all over the map. Two different brands that both profess to be for 3 months can have totally different sizes when you hold them next to each other. What one brand claims is a size 6 months might look exactly like the 9 months in another. Some brands are built for tall skinny kids, others for short fat kids. And of course, until Baby McDonnell is out in the world, we have no idea what shape kid we are getting. All very confusing, this maze of baby stuff.
But since we have showers approaching and some folks are starting to ask us, here is my general sense of things:
CLOTHES
People seem to love to buy the little guy outfits, and we are really looking forward to dressing him up in all the adorable clothes from our friends and family. But we also want to be smart about setting up a wardrobe that will really be able to grow with the kiddo.
We do not need any more clothes in size "newborn" or "0 months." These clothes are made to fit baby's only up to 8 lbs, and many babies are born larger than 8 lbs. And you need a little extra room to fit a diaper in there. We are pretty set on footie rompers, fleece sleep sacks, and those cute fleece/furry bear suits for the first six months at least. We also have plenty of baby socks, so no need for little socks in any size.
So if you are feeling the desire to buy clothes, we would love it if you would look at stuff sized 6 months and up. Also, we really love the array of animal stuff, like monkeys, elephants, ducks, turtles etc. The kiddo has a lot of blue and brown in his wardrobe so far, so we'd love to add some more green, yellow, orange etc.
DIAPERS
Our long term plan is to use cloth diapers. They are less expensive in the long term, help prevent diaper rash, help track if he is eating enough, help facilitate potty training. Lots of good stuff. And they are good for the environment too, although frankly the selfish motivations are more attractive.
We will probably use disposables for the first couple of weeks when he is really tiny, and apparently spouting super gross sticky staining poo.
So one thing we would love to acquire are cloth diapers for the babe. You pretty much can't get enough of 'em (people recommend a supply of 24). We are going to be trying a variety of them (rather than heavily investing in one brand) because reports from diapering moms seem to be that different brands fit different body shapes better. And we won't know how our kid is coming out until he's here.
I noticed that none of the big stores stock cloth diapers, and the shipping on amazon.com for diapers from the affiliated stores is a pain, so we made a separate registry for all things cloth diaper at Cotton Babies. They offer cloth diapers at better prices than most stores and their shipping is cheaper than amazon, and being able to buy multiple things from the same store saves on shipping. They are still setting up the registry, so until then, here's a little list of stuff we'd love:
1 Bum Genius 3.0 One-size diaper (Grasshopper/Suedecloth)
1 Bum Genius 3.0 One-size diaper (Clementine/Suedecloth)
1 Bum Genius 3.0 One-size diaper (White/Suedecloth)
1 dozen Indian Prefold Diapers (Unbleached)
2 Kissaluvs Fitteds, Size 1, unbleached or color
2 Kissaluvs Contour diapers, Size NB/Small, Unbleached
1 The Try-It Kit (Indian Unbleached size Infant, Cover size small, Covers froggy pond and white size small)
1 Thirsties Diaper Cover Xsmall Melon
1 Thirsties Diaper Cover Small Ocean
3 Snappi Cloth Diaper Fastener, any colors
1 BumGenius Diaper Sprayer
We have a registry at amazon.com and at babydepot.com. You can also shop in-store at Baby Depot, if there is one near you (there is one in Burlington Coat Factory in the Racine Mall).
The baby's room is starting to get full of the stuff that babies use. Which is a source of great comfort, feeling like we are acquiring important things for the baby. Thanks to our generous friends and family, we already have things like: a stroller, 2 moby wraps, a sling, a feeding chair, a buzzy chair, a rocker/glider, baby exercise mat/gym, baby bathtub and more. We will be purchasing the crib and changing table/dresser this month. So things are all coming together.
I recently went on a minor frenzy of trying to get the baby's clothes organized and in drawers. This lead to a little distraction of counting what we had for each time period (lots for early on). Which turned into an interesting exercise in realizing that baby sizes are really all over the map. Two different brands that both profess to be for 3 months can have totally different sizes when you hold them next to each other. What one brand claims is a size 6 months might look exactly like the 9 months in another. Some brands are built for tall skinny kids, others for short fat kids. And of course, until Baby McDonnell is out in the world, we have no idea what shape kid we are getting. All very confusing, this maze of baby stuff.
But since we have showers approaching and some folks are starting to ask us, here is my general sense of things:
CLOTHES
People seem to love to buy the little guy outfits, and we are really looking forward to dressing him up in all the adorable clothes from our friends and family. But we also want to be smart about setting up a wardrobe that will really be able to grow with the kiddo.
We do not need any more clothes in size "newborn" or "0 months." These clothes are made to fit baby's only up to 8 lbs, and many babies are born larger than 8 lbs. And you need a little extra room to fit a diaper in there. We are pretty set on footie rompers, fleece sleep sacks, and those cute fleece/furry bear suits for the first six months at least. We also have plenty of baby socks, so no need for little socks in any size.
So if you are feeling the desire to buy clothes, we would love it if you would look at stuff sized 6 months and up. Also, we really love the array of animal stuff, like monkeys, elephants, ducks, turtles etc. The kiddo has a lot of blue and brown in his wardrobe so far, so we'd love to add some more green, yellow, orange etc.
DIAPERS
Our long term plan is to use cloth diapers. They are less expensive in the long term, help prevent diaper rash, help track if he is eating enough, help facilitate potty training. Lots of good stuff. And they are good for the environment too, although frankly the selfish motivations are more attractive.
We will probably use disposables for the first couple of weeks when he is really tiny, and apparently spouting super gross sticky staining poo.
So one thing we would love to acquire are cloth diapers for the babe. You pretty much can't get enough of 'em (people recommend a supply of 24). We are going to be trying a variety of them (rather than heavily investing in one brand) because reports from diapering moms seem to be that different brands fit different body shapes better. And we won't know how our kid is coming out until he's here.
I noticed that none of the big stores stock cloth diapers, and the shipping on amazon.com for diapers from the affiliated stores is a pain, so we made a separate registry for all things cloth diaper at Cotton Babies. They offer cloth diapers at better prices than most stores and their shipping is cheaper than amazon, and being able to buy multiple things from the same store saves on shipping. They are still setting up the registry, so until then, here's a little list of stuff we'd love:
1 Bum Genius 3.0 One-size diaper (Grasshopper/Suedecloth)
1 Bum Genius 3.0 One-size diaper (Clementine/Suedecloth)
1 Bum Genius 3.0 One-size diaper (White/Suedecloth)
1 dozen Indian Prefold Diapers (Unbleached)
2 Kissaluvs Fitteds, Size 1, unbleached or color
2 Kissaluvs Contour diapers, Size NB/Small, Unbleached
1 The Try-It Kit (Indian Unbleached size Infant, Cover size small, Covers froggy pond and white size small)
1 Thirsties Diaper Cover Xsmall Melon
1 Thirsties Diaper Cover Small Ocean
3 Snappi Cloth Diaper Fastener, any colors
1 BumGenius Diaper Sprayer
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Third Trimester: Checking in on Baby's Development
During my first trimester I found myself frequently checking the online sources where it described the week by week development of little baby mcdonnell. I suppose both because the pregnancy was so new to me at that point, but also because during that period the baby is growing and changing so quickly. Buy lately I realized that since entering the final stretch -- the third trimester -- I haven't checked in on what our little guy has been up to in there. So here's a brief recap:
By week 29 he was moving side to side and tumbling around. Most babies are still head up at this time, but sometime in the next few weeks he will move head down and remain that way until birth (as of the most recent OB visit, they have confirmed that the baby is already head down. What a good baby. No more worries about a breech birth). His little senses are developing, and he is already sensitive to changes in light, sound, taste, and smell. Some studies show that babies have likes and dislikes for particular tastes or odors already!
By week 30 he was nearly 3 lbs and a little over 15 inches from head to heel. His head is finally in proportion to his body, and getting larger to accommodate all the brain development that takes place in the third trimester. His little eyes will track a light source shone on my belly, and he may even reach out to touch it. We haven't experimented with this one yet, but it sounds fun to try. His hair may finally begin to develop. I was born with a full head of dark hair (thanks to my Armenian roots), and Terry is a furry dude, so I'm thinking our kid will have some nice hair on him. Finally, by week 30 he can produce tears, even in the womb.
By week 31, he finally started slowing down the physical growth spurt from the end of the second trimester. He won't put on a ton more length, but he will pack on the weight in the upcoming weeks. Bones are growing and hardening. The major organ development is focused on the brain and the lungs. The lungs are the last organs to really get their act together, which is why every additional week inside makes him better prepared to breathe when he finally meets the world. Researchers also say that babies may move to the rhythm of music, and even exhibit preferences for some musics over others. I suggested today to Terry that maybe we should play the little guy some classical music before bed each night. He said he thought our son might be more a fan of German hard metal. We shall see.
And as of today the little guy has officially completed his 32nd week. On average, babies of this age are about 3.75 lbs and a little over 16.5 inches long. All five senses are working, and baby is busy trying them out inside. They say that their movement is supposed to slow down a bit by this stage because he's running out of room, but our little gymnast is still going strong.
By week 29 he was moving side to side and tumbling around. Most babies are still head up at this time, but sometime in the next few weeks he will move head down and remain that way until birth (as of the most recent OB visit, they have confirmed that the baby is already head down. What a good baby. No more worries about a breech birth). His little senses are developing, and he is already sensitive to changes in light, sound, taste, and smell. Some studies show that babies have likes and dislikes for particular tastes or odors already!
By week 30 he was nearly 3 lbs and a little over 15 inches from head to heel. His head is finally in proportion to his body, and getting larger to accommodate all the brain development that takes place in the third trimester. His little eyes will track a light source shone on my belly, and he may even reach out to touch it. We haven't experimented with this one yet, but it sounds fun to try. His hair may finally begin to develop. I was born with a full head of dark hair (thanks to my Armenian roots), and Terry is a furry dude, so I'm thinking our kid will have some nice hair on him. Finally, by week 30 he can produce tears, even in the womb.
By week 31, he finally started slowing down the physical growth spurt from the end of the second trimester. He won't put on a ton more length, but he will pack on the weight in the upcoming weeks. Bones are growing and hardening. The major organ development is focused on the brain and the lungs. The lungs are the last organs to really get their act together, which is why every additional week inside makes him better prepared to breathe when he finally meets the world. Researchers also say that babies may move to the rhythm of music, and even exhibit preferences for some musics over others. I suggested today to Terry that maybe we should play the little guy some classical music before bed each night. He said he thought our son might be more a fan of German hard metal. We shall see.
And as of today the little guy has officially completed his 32nd week. On average, babies of this age are about 3.75 lbs and a little over 16.5 inches long. All five senses are working, and baby is busy trying them out inside. They say that their movement is supposed to slow down a bit by this stage because he's running out of room, but our little gymnast is still going strong.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Lead and formaldehyde in baby clothes? Oh my!
So even the early beginnings of trying to learn to be a parent already have me a bit exhausted about all the dangers lurking out there. Lurking in totally stupid places. Like my kid's clothing.
A mother's group I participate in alerted me to new legislation that the US is looking to pass requiring testing of all children's clothing (under age 12) to be certified lead free. Lead is primarily a concern where plastics are used, because it can be used in the plastics production process, so authorities are mostly looking at zippers, appliques, and other plastic parts on kid's clothing.
While this is a great idea at face value, the way the legislation is written will almost certainly drive small scale at-home producers (Wammies: "work at home moms") out of the market because they cannot afford testing costs, and will also decimate thrift stores and the used clothing market, which many lower income families rely heavily on. The law would apply broadly to all categories of clothing, including those for which we have zero reason to suspect the presence of lead, like certified organic undyed cloth.
So that one is a big catch 22. Meanwhile, this big, possibly problematic bill will likely go through to protect against lead, while at the same time there is another totally awesome flammable carcinogen and neurotoxin that is merrily sitting in baby's clothes: formaldehyde.
Yucko. In my mind formaldehyde is associated with dead bodies and nasty cigarette additives. But clothing? apparently so. Especially clothing made in China.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency characterizes formaldehyde as "a colorless, pungent-smelling gas, [that] can cause watery eyes, burning sensations in the eyes and throat, nausea, and difficulty in breathing in some humans exposed at elevated levels (above 0.1 parts per million)...It has also been shown to cause cancer in animals and may cause cancer in humans."
The World Health Organization states "exposure to formaldehyde in concentrations of 20 parts per million can cause eye, skin and nasal irritations, asthmas and cancer." So how much was found in baby clothes?
Up to 18,000 ppm. That's right: A New Zealand study found levels of formaldehyde in baby clothing and blankets that was 900 times the recommended safe levels. In fact, the lowest level found in the study was 230 ppm, still more than ten times the level considered safe by WHO, and many times greater than the level the EPA says can cause problems. And in the US we have absolutely no laws against this, no laws requiring that people be warned of the presence of formaldehyde, no agency testing clothing routinely or randomly to assure safety.
So I sorted through our baby clothes and about 2/3 of them are, of course, made in China. Some of it is unavoidable I suppose. The recommendations are to air clothing out, and to wash it (leave it to soak over night) to reduce concentrations.
Awesome. So if I am lucky the clothes we put our kiddo in might just pickle the little guy.
More sources:
World Net Daily
Ask.com
SAF Baby
A mother's group I participate in alerted me to new legislation that the US is looking to pass requiring testing of all children's clothing (under age 12) to be certified lead free. Lead is primarily a concern where plastics are used, because it can be used in the plastics production process, so authorities are mostly looking at zippers, appliques, and other plastic parts on kid's clothing.
While this is a great idea at face value, the way the legislation is written will almost certainly drive small scale at-home producers (Wammies: "work at home moms") out of the market because they cannot afford testing costs, and will also decimate thrift stores and the used clothing market, which many lower income families rely heavily on. The law would apply broadly to all categories of clothing, including those for which we have zero reason to suspect the presence of lead, like certified organic undyed cloth.
So that one is a big catch 22. Meanwhile, this big, possibly problematic bill will likely go through to protect against lead, while at the same time there is another totally awesome flammable carcinogen and neurotoxin that is merrily sitting in baby's clothes: formaldehyde.
Yucko. In my mind formaldehyde is associated with dead bodies and nasty cigarette additives. But clothing? apparently so. Especially clothing made in China.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency characterizes formaldehyde as "a colorless, pungent-smelling gas, [that] can cause watery eyes, burning sensations in the eyes and throat, nausea, and difficulty in breathing in some humans exposed at elevated levels (above 0.1 parts per million)...It has also been shown to cause cancer in animals and may cause cancer in humans."
The World Health Organization states "exposure to formaldehyde in concentrations of 20 parts per million can cause eye, skin and nasal irritations, asthmas and cancer." So how much was found in baby clothes?
Up to 18,000 ppm. That's right: A New Zealand study found levels of formaldehyde in baby clothing and blankets that was 900 times the recommended safe levels. In fact, the lowest level found in the study was 230 ppm, still more than ten times the level considered safe by WHO, and many times greater than the level the EPA says can cause problems. And in the US we have absolutely no laws against this, no laws requiring that people be warned of the presence of formaldehyde, no agency testing clothing routinely or randomly to assure safety.
So I sorted through our baby clothes and about 2/3 of them are, of course, made in China. Some of it is unavoidable I suppose. The recommendations are to air clothing out, and to wash it (leave it to soak over night) to reduce concentrations.
Awesome. So if I am lucky the clothes we put our kiddo in might just pickle the little guy.
More sources:
World Net Daily
Ask.com
SAF Baby
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Recovery from Sickness Redux
As a child I was sick every winter, like clockwork. I just assumed it was totally normal for every kid to get Strep throat and/or the flu every single winter season. I was in college before I discovered that wasn't really true. I don't know if I just have the world's wussiest immune system, or if my mom the nurse brought stuff home from work, or if it was a combination of the two. But I have really never been seriously puking sick since I went away to college.
But since being pregnant I have been sick twice. Now I know that this is nothing compared to women who endure terrible morning sickness for months. But it is still no fun. And both times have been precisely the same.
So fair warning, what follows is the play by play on being sick and getting better. Feel free to skip the rest of the post if this strikes you as weird or undesirable. I post it mostly because before I got pregnant I was under the impression that you got some super immune system action. It made all sorts of biological sense to me: what a great evolutionary adaptation. Keep moms from getting sick while pregnant. Turns out this is yet another one of those big fat lies. So I add "more likely to get sick" to the list of minor inconveniences of pregnancy, along with "hello indigestion" and "hello cavities."
So I have gotten sick in the same way twice since being pregnant. Here's how it goes:
Wake up at 5 AM puking brains out. Continue to puke every 45 minutes to an hour. Reach the stage where there is nothing left to puke and start the bargaining process. "Come on, I've got nothing left here. Can't we be done?" Discover how fun and exciting it is to heave nothing but stomach acid.
In between periods of active sickness, lay flopped over on bed in semi-comatose state.
Be instructed by OB that I have to hydrate. As directed, wait 1 hour after puking and then take tiny sips of water every 15 minnutes. Discover that even a teaspoon of water will provoke a new era of puking. Joyous.
Be instructed that I have to keep some form of liquid down, because if I go 8 hours without being able to keep liquids down, I have to go to the hospital to get IV fluids. Boo.
The first time I got this stomach virus was right when I entered by second trimester. The second time was yesterday (Saturday) during an epic snowstorm on the day I was supposed to travel to Racine to say goodbye to my half sister Bridgette, who is a reservist shipping out to Iraq. I was heartbroken to stay home.
And I felt even worse asking Terry to schlepp out into the crazy snowstorm to bring back gingerale, gatorade, and jello. Have I mentioned before that he is like the best husband ever?
At noon, finally able to keep down small sips of purple gatorade. Learn a new slavish product devotion to gatorade, which I was previously not a fan of, but which I can tolerate much better than water when sick.
I was desperately thirsty like a dying man crossing the Sahara. I watched the clock just waiting for time to pass so I could safely (and greedily) take another sip. Eventually felt good enough to go out to the couch and be amused by hulu.com and netflix in between naps.
Discovered what the body feels like when it is a car with no gas. It turns out that subsisting for a day on the 200 calories, hydration and miscellaneous stuff in one bottle of gatorade makes one feel pretty darn sluggish and out of it.
Today feeling much much better.
But since being pregnant I have been sick twice. Now I know that this is nothing compared to women who endure terrible morning sickness for months. But it is still no fun. And both times have been precisely the same.
So fair warning, what follows is the play by play on being sick and getting better. Feel free to skip the rest of the post if this strikes you as weird or undesirable. I post it mostly because before I got pregnant I was under the impression that you got some super immune system action. It made all sorts of biological sense to me: what a great evolutionary adaptation. Keep moms from getting sick while pregnant. Turns out this is yet another one of those big fat lies. So I add "more likely to get sick" to the list of minor inconveniences of pregnancy, along with "hello indigestion" and "hello cavities."
So I have gotten sick in the same way twice since being pregnant. Here's how it goes:
Wake up at 5 AM puking brains out. Continue to puke every 45 minutes to an hour. Reach the stage where there is nothing left to puke and start the bargaining process. "Come on, I've got nothing left here. Can't we be done?" Discover how fun and exciting it is to heave nothing but stomach acid.
In between periods of active sickness, lay flopped over on bed in semi-comatose state.
Be instructed by OB that I have to hydrate. As directed, wait 1 hour after puking and then take tiny sips of water every 15 minnutes. Discover that even a teaspoon of water will provoke a new era of puking. Joyous.
Be instructed that I have to keep some form of liquid down, because if I go 8 hours without being able to keep liquids down, I have to go to the hospital to get IV fluids. Boo.
The first time I got this stomach virus was right when I entered by second trimester. The second time was yesterday (Saturday) during an epic snowstorm on the day I was supposed to travel to Racine to say goodbye to my half sister Bridgette, who is a reservist shipping out to Iraq. I was heartbroken to stay home.
And I felt even worse asking Terry to schlepp out into the crazy snowstorm to bring back gingerale, gatorade, and jello. Have I mentioned before that he is like the best husband ever?
At noon, finally able to keep down small sips of purple gatorade. Learn a new slavish product devotion to gatorade, which I was previously not a fan of, but which I can tolerate much better than water when sick.
I was desperately thirsty like a dying man crossing the Sahara. I watched the clock just waiting for time to pass so I could safely (and greedily) take another sip. Eventually felt good enough to go out to the couch and be amused by hulu.com and netflix in between naps.
Discovered what the body feels like when it is a car with no gas. It turns out that subsisting for a day on the 200 calories, hydration and miscellaneous stuff in one bottle of gatorade makes one feel pretty darn sluggish and out of it.
Today feeling much much better.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Little Drummer Boy
We have officially entered into the era of banging on things. He's figured out how to open the kitchen cabinets. He loves playing with the wooden spoons. Infant fun ensues.
(Originally written 12/12/09)
(Originally written 12/12/09)
Merry Christmas from Liam
(this post was written 12/23 but for some reason didnt post, so I'm posting it now).
I would have loved to do a professional photo shoot to capture Liam at this age. He is so completely darling. He lavishes everyone with these wonderful high-watt baby smiles. He crawls, he pulls up. He is curious and adventurous and sweet.
But we didn't have the extra cash to splurge on a photo shoot, though I hope to do pictures for his one year birthday if we can find a photographer with reasonable rates whose style we like.
So instead here are the fruits of several different efforts over a couple of days. It was more complicated than I thought. I had to wait for a day that was bright and sunny because the flash
He seems to learn new things daily. We've been working on self feeding since he was about 8 months old. He seemed to take a long time to figure out the pincher grip. But in the last week it has taken off like wildfire. Now at breakfast he likes to hold the spoon and try to feed himself. Left to his own devices, he sort of taps the spoon on top of the oatmeal and puts it into his mouth. With some copiloting from me, he can get food on the spoon and into his mouth. Though sometimes halfway to his mouth he gets so excited about it all that he flaps his arms a bit and the oatmeal flies all over the place.
Speaking of flapping his arms, the first night at my parents house for Christmas he learned how to wave buh-bye. It isn't super precise looking, but if you wave at him (and he's in a good mood) he'll flap his hand back at you. If he flaps his hand at you and you wave back then he beams a giant smile, amused that he can get adults to do something.
At the visit to my parents we also discovered he knows how to climb up stairs. We don't have stairs at home so we have no idea how long he has possessed this skill, but we were all sitting downstairs with the toy box playing and then he took off towards the stairs. I followed him, and when he got there almost without hesitation he started clambering up. Of course, he has so idea how to go down. His idea of going down is to turn around and try to crawl straight down.
Since we've gotten to Grandma and Pop McDonnell's house, he has really stepped up his mastery of self feeding. Now at lunch I just put the hunks of food on his tray and he picks it up and gobbles it down (today was veggie chili, so pieces of cauliflower, corn, potato, carrot and beans). He likes to go up the stairs at this house, and each stair has a different snowman sitting on it. All sorts of exciting things for little hands to play with.
I would have loved to do a professional photo shoot to capture Liam at this age. He is so completely darling. He lavishes everyone with these wonderful high-watt baby smiles. He crawls, he pulls up. He is curious and adventurous and sweet.
But we didn't have the extra cash to splurge on a photo shoot, though I hope to do pictures for his one year birthday if we can find a photographer with reasonable rates whose style we like.
So instead here are the fruits of several different efforts over a couple of days. It was more complicated than I thought. I had to wait for a day that was bright and sunny because the flash
He seems to learn new things daily. We've been working on self feeding since he was about 8 months old. He seemed to take a long time to figure out the pincher grip. But in the last week it has taken off like wildfire. Now at breakfast he likes to hold the spoon and try to feed himself. Left to his own devices, he sort of taps the spoon on top of the oatmeal and puts it into his mouth. With some copiloting from me, he can get food on the spoon and into his mouth. Though sometimes halfway to his mouth he gets so excited about it all that he flaps his arms a bit and the oatmeal flies all over the place.
Speaking of flapping his arms, the first night at my parents house for Christmas he learned how to wave buh-bye. It isn't super precise looking, but if you wave at him (and he's in a good mood) he'll flap his hand back at you. If he flaps his hand at you and you wave back then he beams a giant smile, amused that he can get adults to do something.
At the visit to my parents we also discovered he knows how to climb up stairs. We don't have stairs at home so we have no idea how long he has possessed this skill, but we were all sitting downstairs with the toy box playing and then he took off towards the stairs. I followed him, and when he got there almost without hesitation he started clambering up. Of course, he has so idea how to go down. His idea of going down is to turn around and try to crawl straight down.
Since we've gotten to Grandma and Pop McDonnell's house, he has really stepped up his mastery of self feeding. Now at lunch I just put the hunks of food on his tray and he picks it up and gobbles it down (today was veggie chili, so pieces of cauliflower, corn, potato, carrot and beans). He likes to go up the stairs at this house, and each stair has a different snowman sitting on it. All sorts of exciting things for little hands to play with.
Liam Imitates! Pbbblllltt!
(Originally written 12/11/09)
The stupid baby books said that around six weeks the baby would begin mimicking. If we stuck our tongue out, the baby would also stick his out. We tried and tried, but he just kept looking at us, and no mimicking occurred. I began to think it was all a farce, but then when I visited my friends Wenona and Eric with their new baby Zane, sure enough little six week old baby Zane would play mimic face, sticking tongues out when one of us did.
In the back of my head I was a little worried that Liam would never imitate, because imitation is a really big part of how you teach a child to do new things. But then one day Terry was sitting in the rocking chair in Liam's room, and this happened.
Its like the moment of contact with alien life in a good sci fi movie: imitation is the beginning of advanced communication.
I am hoping this will also be the beginning of him imitating different sounds, or even starting to pick up baby signs. We've been baby signing to him for more months than I care to admit now, and it isnt entirely clear that he understands them or has any desire to sign back. I hope this interest in imitation games will lead to bigger things in the future. I was always hoping (ok, in my head it was "sure") that he would be baby signing by christmas. He'll do things in his own time, but I'm so eager to actually communicate more with him and learn what he is thinking about.
The stupid baby books said that around six weeks the baby would begin mimicking. If we stuck our tongue out, the baby would also stick his out. We tried and tried, but he just kept looking at us, and no mimicking occurred. I began to think it was all a farce, but then when I visited my friends Wenona and Eric with their new baby Zane, sure enough little six week old baby Zane would play mimic face, sticking tongues out when one of us did.
In the back of my head I was a little worried that Liam would never imitate, because imitation is a really big part of how you teach a child to do new things. But then one day Terry was sitting in the rocking chair in Liam's room, and this happened.
Its like the moment of contact with alien life in a good sci fi movie: imitation is the beginning of advanced communication.
I am hoping this will also be the beginning of him imitating different sounds, or even starting to pick up baby signs. We've been baby signing to him for more months than I care to admit now, and it isnt entirely clear that he understands them or has any desire to sign back. I hope this interest in imitation games will lead to bigger things in the future. I was always hoping (ok, in my head it was "sure") that he would be baby signing by christmas. He'll do things in his own time, but I'm so eager to actually communicate more with him and learn what he is thinking about.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Update
Thanks to everyone who was concerned about us. Your loving thoughts are very much appreciated.
I am feeling much better now. A tiny bit of lingering issues yesterday through this morning, but almost totally 100% now.
We still don't know exactly what caused the problem. The hospital was only able to rule out the most dire and concerning potential causes. At the recommendation of the attending physician, I took a benedryl in case it was an unknown allergen provoking my asthma (which usually only goes off for competitive sports, cats, or dogs). My mom, the smartest nurse I know, also recommended that mold could possibly have gotten into our cool mist humidifier, which would then vaporize the mold spores for me to breathe in, so we havent run the humidifier the last two nights either.
Whatever it was, I'm glad to be back to breathing normally again, and only coping with the usual pregnancy discomforts.
On an unrelated note: Edy's Chocolate Peanut Butter cup is the best ice cream ever created. I just thought I would put it out there. Because after a lunch of vegetable packed chili (including pureed kale and diced cabbage to get my darn greens) I sort of deserve a treat, right?
I am feeling much better now. A tiny bit of lingering issues yesterday through this morning, but almost totally 100% now.
We still don't know exactly what caused the problem. The hospital was only able to rule out the most dire and concerning potential causes. At the recommendation of the attending physician, I took a benedryl in case it was an unknown allergen provoking my asthma (which usually only goes off for competitive sports, cats, or dogs). My mom, the smartest nurse I know, also recommended that mold could possibly have gotten into our cool mist humidifier, which would then vaporize the mold spores for me to breathe in, so we havent run the humidifier the last two nights either.
Whatever it was, I'm glad to be back to breathing normally again, and only coping with the usual pregnancy discomforts.
On an unrelated note: Edy's Chocolate Peanut Butter cup is the best ice cream ever created. I just thought I would put it out there. Because after a lunch of vegetable packed chili (including pureed kale and diced cabbage to get my darn greens) I sort of deserve a treat, right?
Monday, January 5, 2009
10 things I learned on an unexpected trial run to the hospital
Nobody freak out. I appear to be, as far as anyone can tell, totally fine. But mix the word "pregnant" with the word "hospital" in any way that isn't about delivering a baby and it gets people pretty riled up. Me included I suppose.
So this all started Saturday afternoon when I noticed it was a little bit more difficult to breathe. Then I woke up Sunday morning around 5:30 gasping for breath. Once I got myself calmed down enough to take slow shallow breaths, propped up on a mountain of pillows, I was okay. I still couldn't get a full breath, and it hurt to breathe into more than half of my lung capacity, but I knew I was getting enough oxygen anyway. So I laid like that for two hours or so--trying to get back to sleep without success--until Terry woke up and we got ready for mass.
I kept having breathing problems for the rest of the day. But I didn't know quite what to call it. Shortness of breath seems to imply that you aren't getting enough oxygen. I was pretty sure I was getting enough. I didn't feel dizzy or anything. But I just could not draw a deep breath and every time I tried, or just forgot to breath shallow, I had this burning ache in my lungs. Being somewhat naturally inclined not to make a fuss or be "that patient" who calls about every little thing, I think Terry and I were both inclined to just tough it out and call during regular business hours on Monday. But when I hopped on the internet to search a little on difficulty breathing in pregnancy and hydrocortisone and breathing (because I was recently put on Hydrocortisone). That is when I learned my first new thing:
1. Difficulty breathing is one of the conditions when you are always always supposed to call and check in with your OB.
2. Difficulty breathing is also one of the signs for an allergic reaction to hydrocortisone.
So now a little more freaked out, I call the off hours answering service. Wrestle with a surly phone operator who is being sort of a rude ***** to me. Lose my composure and start crying in response to rude operator. As a result still crying when Dr. Gupta calls me back about five minutes later. I rejoice that it is my beloved OB Dr Gupta who just happens to be on call. I describe everything that has happened in the last 24 hours and try to include as many details as I can to help explain it. Could it be the hydrocortisone? (Turns out no, not in small topical doses). I have asthma, but this feels nothing nothing like any asthma attack. This feels nothing like any breathing problem I've had before.
Gupta, bless her heart, says that if I am concerned she is concerned. And that particularly with my family history and risk factors for clotting, she wants to get me looked at to run a few tests, make sure I and the baby are getting enough oxygen etc. So off we go in our trusty little 1995 corolla downtown to Prentice Women's Hospital. Where I learn another new thing:
3. Each of the departments in this facility is world class. But the communication between departments totally blows.
This was a theme that came up again and again, but I first learned it because when I said to the main desk that I had been instructed to go to the 8th floor (Labor and Delivery) they pointed me through the triage first (which is where you have to go if you are, well, actually laboring and delivering at that moment). We sat in triage for 30 minutes while they tried to work out how to enter me into the system, what to do, where to send me etc. I found myself glad that I wasn't actively short of breath (or of oxygen) because I likely would have been passed out on the floor before they figured out how to print my bracelet out. Finally L&D just told them to send me upstairs without entering me into their system the way they normally would for the flow of delivering women.
Up in L&D we got placed in one of their smaller triage rooms (rather than the spacey hotel quality delivery rooms). We had an incredible warm funny nurse named Amy who hooked me up to all sorts of gadgets that go boop: a continuous electronic fetal monitor, a contractions monitor (just for good measure, I wasn't contracting) and a "pulseoximeter" that went on my finger to make sure oxygen was circulating through my system. She also took my blood pressure and then left the cuff on for a while, so that was dangling there for a bit too. Right away I learned a few more new things:
4. Black ankle socks with yellow thread is not a good look with a sexy hospital gown. Looking at my black socks at the bottom of my bare calves kept making me think of hollywood movies of wall street executives getting caught cheating on their wives.
5. Prentice has some truly amazing nurses. I was concerned by their 94% epidural rate that they would have nurses who just wanted bed-bound compliant patients, but I felt so reassured by every nurse and resident that we met and now feel excited and confident about delivering at Prentice.
6. Electronic fetal monitoring is a giant pain in the tukus. They strap these two belts around your rotund abdomen, but the minute you move around they stop getting a good reading. So if I was reclining it would read the baby's heartbeat just fine, but if I sat up cross legged it got nothing. I can tell this is going to be a pain during delivery, but it was not something I couldn't cope with. They have pretty firm policies on fetal monitoring at the hospital, and it doesn't appear that opting out is an option. The only way you can even get extended intermittent monitoring (3-4 minutes every 15-30 minutes) is before you are 4cm. Once you are in active labor they have a firm every 15 min policy, which seems more trouble than just wearing the darn things all the time.
They had me take a few hits off an inhaler because the resident felt that my symptoms, combined with my history of asthma, seemed most indicative of an asthma problem. The inhaler helped temporarily, but if only gave me more air before I hit the painful part, it didn't take the pain away. And even though four hits would have been enough to pull me out of a full-on vision-starting-to-black-out attack back when I was playing sports, the four that I took in the hospital only helped for about an hour, and then I was right back where I started.
The resident was in favor of a CT scan to be sure that I didn't have a pulmonary embolism, or blood clot in my lungs. But bless Dr Gupta she said she wanted to run the less invasive less risky test first to try to get a diagnosis on the basis of that. So I was ordered down to have an ultrasound done of my calves, where I had previously had some bad pain after flying for Christmas, to see if there was any evidence of blood clot remnants down there that might have broken loose and gone to the lungs. And so I discovered two more things.
7. Dr Gupta reaffirmed my belief that while she is committed to being sure dangerous medical conditions are ruled out, she is consistently in favor of the least invasive, least risky intervention possible to achieve the important goals of maternal and fetal safety. Go Gupta!
8. When you have to be transferred from one dept to another within the vast complex of Northwestern Memorial Hospital (of which Prentice Women's is but one part) you have to wait (and sometimes wait and wait) for a "transport person" to come and get you, who wheels you in your little gown through a labyrinth of poorly-lit underground tunnels. This whole transport business added a considerable amount of time to our visit. But on the upside, all the transport guys we met were friendly and chatty and we felt like old friends by the time we arrived at our destination.
So we got the ultrasound done of both my calves and she was incredibly thorough, really seemed to be an expert at what she was doing, and found no evidence of clots. So we wait another eternity for transport (seriously about 40 minutes) to arrive and then we are zooming back to L&D.
When we get to L&D once again we discover that communication between departments is not so hot. The L&D folks can't find any report of what she just did, so I just have to verbally report to them that she told me she found no evidence of clots in either leg, but she had said she could only find clots or remnants, but if a clot had previously been there and broken totally free then she would not be able to detect that.
Thanks to transport taking so darn long, we get back to L&D at 7:10. Which sucks because it means Dr Gupta is no longer the OB on call for my practice. We are now dealing with Dr Shaw, who is totally nice and wonderful in her own right, but there was something comfortable about having my Gupta on the case. We have now been there since 3 PM.
More sitting. The residents and nurses in L&D are changing shifts at 7:30, so now I meet a new resident (also super nice and awesome) and a new nurse (ditto). We do a little bit of catching up on the case, and the new resident decides to get back on the phone with Dr Shaw and evaluate whether the risks of a CT scan is worth the benefit of ruling out Pulmonary Embolism, which is the big thing that would be concerning for someone like me, with my history, who is having breathing problems.
The resident explains the risks to me. Words like "childhood leukemia" get spoken far more often than I would ever like to hear them. Essentially the big risk of exposing a fetus to radiation is childhood cancer. In the first trimester there is also a risk of birth defects and miscarriage, but at 30 weeks I was safely past that. She explained that at high levels of exposure--5 rads or more--babies had a higher chance of developing childhood cancer, but according to her those numbers were still so slim it meant going from a 1:3000 chance to a 1:2000 chance. I found myself thinking I'd like that extra 1000 people standing between my kid and his chances of cancer. But she also explained that the full radiation to my lungs would be 1 rad, 1/5 of what was shown to cause any problems to the baby, and that furthermore the baby would not be directly exposed to the full rad. They would lead shield my abdomen.
Terry and I talked. I called my mom for what she thought. I wished really hard that it was still Gupta making the call, and then I cried. We decided to have the test. Because if I really did have a PE, that would be life threatening to me and the baby.
So more interminable waiting. Because it turns out that radiation has a set of demands they want met before they will scan me. So the L&D nurse (now Brenda, a warm but take-charge woman) has to put an IV port in me for the scan, and has to draw a vial of my blood to send to the lab to confirm that my kidneys are functioning well enough to handle whatever contrast dye they use in the test. So Brenda is setting up all these needles and sharp business on the tray next to my bed, and I am sort of confronting a fear I have been cultivating lately of needles, but of IVs in particular. So this is going to be my test run. Brenda lands my vein in her first try, which is exciting because I don't have large veins and often RNs have to stick me multiple times. And the gauge of the IV needle is huge. You could drive a tonka truck through there. So the IV gets in place and taped down. And I discover another new thing.
9. I hate having the IV line there. It is just as annoying as I thought it would be. It is like a constant low grade sting. Like the physical version of the whine of a mosquito. I just couldn't figure out how to totally ignore it despite my good efforts. And although Brenda told me it was all in my head, that the tube was flexible and I could have full range of movement, I just wasn't comfortable moving my arm around while that thing was in, and it felt more uncomfortable to bend it. I could tell I would be annoyed as all get out if I were trying to go through active labor with that thing. So I asked the nurses about refusing the port unless medically indicated and they all said yes yes it was totally an option. Woohoo!
We watch TV for a while, which includes the not-so-good international dance competition hosted by that Lord of the Dance guy, followed by a much more entertaining episode of Fraiser. Eventually kidney labs come back a-ok and transport is called and once again we are back through the maze to the radiation department. We sit and wait even though the department is totally dead. Not much is happening on a sunday night elsewhere in the Northwestern Hospital complex, although L&D was still relatively busy with about 15 women laboring. When the radiation technologist comes to take me away for the first time I have to be separated from Terry.
She wheels me into a little room with the big giant Cheerio machine that is the CT scan. She explains that I have to take my necklace off and that the doctor will be in shortly to explain the test to me. The necklace is a little silver charm of a baby boy that my mom gave me for Christmas. I take the necklace off while I wait in the room alone, and somehow looking at that little silver charm in my palm, and the big giant machine, and being without Terry, and my emotions go crazy. I'm not sobbing, but I have tears rolling down my cheeks. I have done everything I could to avoid unnatural crap during my pregnancy. We only drink organic milk now. I went three days with a continuous crippling migraine before I took so much as a single tylenol for relief. I haven't had caffeine at all. And here I was about to expose my son to radiation that might, however slim, increase his chances of childhood cancer.
They explained it all to me, shielded my protruding belly with lots of lead, and then into the Cheerio I went. The dye made my hands feel incredibly warm, but thankfully no nasty metallic taste in my mouth. I had tears on my cheeks the entire time I was in the Cheerio.
When I got wheeled back out to Terry I really lost my composure and started crying. At this point I was tired, because I hadn't really slept well the night before because of the breathing trouble. I was starving and running out of energy because I had a bowl of brothy soup for lunch at 1 PM and had now been at the hospital for more than 7 hours with only a small pack of trail mix from the vending machine. I was emotionally exhausted from having to make decisions that potentially placed my son at risk. I was just at the end of wanting to deal with all of that. And Terry was amazing. He got me tissues and a garbage can. He was comforting and confident and warm. He was perfect in every way. Eventually he even got me laughing. And that is when I learned the last best thing:
10. Terry is the most amazing partner I could have ever asked for. They broke the mold in every way when they made my husband. I have no idea how I got so lucky to have someone like him to love. I do not even have words to say how grateful I am that he is the one by my side both when things are wonderful but also when things are bad.
The tests for PE came back negative, so they sent me away saying that they didn't know what was causing my breathing problems, but that they had ruled out causes that were immanently life threatening. We had parked at 3 PM. We left at 11:44.
So this all started Saturday afternoon when I noticed it was a little bit more difficult to breathe. Then I woke up Sunday morning around 5:30 gasping for breath. Once I got myself calmed down enough to take slow shallow breaths, propped up on a mountain of pillows, I was okay. I still couldn't get a full breath, and it hurt to breathe into more than half of my lung capacity, but I knew I was getting enough oxygen anyway. So I laid like that for two hours or so--trying to get back to sleep without success--until Terry woke up and we got ready for mass.
I kept having breathing problems for the rest of the day. But I didn't know quite what to call it. Shortness of breath seems to imply that you aren't getting enough oxygen. I was pretty sure I was getting enough. I didn't feel dizzy or anything. But I just could not draw a deep breath and every time I tried, or just forgot to breath shallow, I had this burning ache in my lungs. Being somewhat naturally inclined not to make a fuss or be "that patient" who calls about every little thing, I think Terry and I were both inclined to just tough it out and call during regular business hours on Monday. But when I hopped on the internet to search a little on difficulty breathing in pregnancy and hydrocortisone and breathing (because I was recently put on Hydrocortisone). That is when I learned my first new thing:
1. Difficulty breathing is one of the conditions when you are always always supposed to call and check in with your OB.
2. Difficulty breathing is also one of the signs for an allergic reaction to hydrocortisone.
So now a little more freaked out, I call the off hours answering service. Wrestle with a surly phone operator who is being sort of a rude ***** to me. Lose my composure and start crying in response to rude operator. As a result still crying when Dr. Gupta calls me back about five minutes later. I rejoice that it is my beloved OB Dr Gupta who just happens to be on call. I describe everything that has happened in the last 24 hours and try to include as many details as I can to help explain it. Could it be the hydrocortisone? (Turns out no, not in small topical doses). I have asthma, but this feels nothing nothing like any asthma attack. This feels nothing like any breathing problem I've had before.
Gupta, bless her heart, says that if I am concerned she is concerned. And that particularly with my family history and risk factors for clotting, she wants to get me looked at to run a few tests, make sure I and the baby are getting enough oxygen etc. So off we go in our trusty little 1995 corolla downtown to Prentice Women's Hospital. Where I learn another new thing:
3. Each of the departments in this facility is world class. But the communication between departments totally blows.
This was a theme that came up again and again, but I first learned it because when I said to the main desk that I had been instructed to go to the 8th floor (Labor and Delivery) they pointed me through the triage first (which is where you have to go if you are, well, actually laboring and delivering at that moment). We sat in triage for 30 minutes while they tried to work out how to enter me into the system, what to do, where to send me etc. I found myself glad that I wasn't actively short of breath (or of oxygen) because I likely would have been passed out on the floor before they figured out how to print my bracelet out. Finally L&D just told them to send me upstairs without entering me into their system the way they normally would for the flow of delivering women.
Up in L&D we got placed in one of their smaller triage rooms (rather than the spacey hotel quality delivery rooms). We had an incredible warm funny nurse named Amy who hooked me up to all sorts of gadgets that go boop: a continuous electronic fetal monitor, a contractions monitor (just for good measure, I wasn't contracting) and a "pulseoximeter" that went on my finger to make sure oxygen was circulating through my system. She also took my blood pressure and then left the cuff on for a while, so that was dangling there for a bit too. Right away I learned a few more new things:
4. Black ankle socks with yellow thread is not a good look with a sexy hospital gown. Looking at my black socks at the bottom of my bare calves kept making me think of hollywood movies of wall street executives getting caught cheating on their wives.
5. Prentice has some truly amazing nurses. I was concerned by their 94% epidural rate that they would have nurses who just wanted bed-bound compliant patients, but I felt so reassured by every nurse and resident that we met and now feel excited and confident about delivering at Prentice.
6. Electronic fetal monitoring is a giant pain in the tukus. They strap these two belts around your rotund abdomen, but the minute you move around they stop getting a good reading. So if I was reclining it would read the baby's heartbeat just fine, but if I sat up cross legged it got nothing. I can tell this is going to be a pain during delivery, but it was not something I couldn't cope with. They have pretty firm policies on fetal monitoring at the hospital, and it doesn't appear that opting out is an option. The only way you can even get extended intermittent monitoring (3-4 minutes every 15-30 minutes) is before you are 4cm. Once you are in active labor they have a firm every 15 min policy, which seems more trouble than just wearing the darn things all the time.
They had me take a few hits off an inhaler because the resident felt that my symptoms, combined with my history of asthma, seemed most indicative of an asthma problem. The inhaler helped temporarily, but if only gave me more air before I hit the painful part, it didn't take the pain away. And even though four hits would have been enough to pull me out of a full-on vision-starting-to-black-out attack back when I was playing sports, the four that I took in the hospital only helped for about an hour, and then I was right back where I started.
The resident was in favor of a CT scan to be sure that I didn't have a pulmonary embolism, or blood clot in my lungs. But bless Dr Gupta she said she wanted to run the less invasive less risky test first to try to get a diagnosis on the basis of that. So I was ordered down to have an ultrasound done of my calves, where I had previously had some bad pain after flying for Christmas, to see if there was any evidence of blood clot remnants down there that might have broken loose and gone to the lungs. And so I discovered two more things.
7. Dr Gupta reaffirmed my belief that while she is committed to being sure dangerous medical conditions are ruled out, she is consistently in favor of the least invasive, least risky intervention possible to achieve the important goals of maternal and fetal safety. Go Gupta!
8. When you have to be transferred from one dept to another within the vast complex of Northwestern Memorial Hospital (of which Prentice Women's is but one part) you have to wait (and sometimes wait and wait) for a "transport person" to come and get you, who wheels you in your little gown through a labyrinth of poorly-lit underground tunnels. This whole transport business added a considerable amount of time to our visit. But on the upside, all the transport guys we met were friendly and chatty and we felt like old friends by the time we arrived at our destination.
So we got the ultrasound done of both my calves and she was incredibly thorough, really seemed to be an expert at what she was doing, and found no evidence of clots. So we wait another eternity for transport (seriously about 40 minutes) to arrive and then we are zooming back to L&D.
When we get to L&D once again we discover that communication between departments is not so hot. The L&D folks can't find any report of what she just did, so I just have to verbally report to them that she told me she found no evidence of clots in either leg, but she had said she could only find clots or remnants, but if a clot had previously been there and broken totally free then she would not be able to detect that.
Thanks to transport taking so darn long, we get back to L&D at 7:10. Which sucks because it means Dr Gupta is no longer the OB on call for my practice. We are now dealing with Dr Shaw, who is totally nice and wonderful in her own right, but there was something comfortable about having my Gupta on the case. We have now been there since 3 PM.
More sitting. The residents and nurses in L&D are changing shifts at 7:30, so now I meet a new resident (also super nice and awesome) and a new nurse (ditto). We do a little bit of catching up on the case, and the new resident decides to get back on the phone with Dr Shaw and evaluate whether the risks of a CT scan is worth the benefit of ruling out Pulmonary Embolism, which is the big thing that would be concerning for someone like me, with my history, who is having breathing problems.
The resident explains the risks to me. Words like "childhood leukemia" get spoken far more often than I would ever like to hear them. Essentially the big risk of exposing a fetus to radiation is childhood cancer. In the first trimester there is also a risk of birth defects and miscarriage, but at 30 weeks I was safely past that. She explained that at high levels of exposure--5 rads or more--babies had a higher chance of developing childhood cancer, but according to her those numbers were still so slim it meant going from a 1:3000 chance to a 1:2000 chance. I found myself thinking I'd like that extra 1000 people standing between my kid and his chances of cancer. But she also explained that the full radiation to my lungs would be 1 rad, 1/5 of what was shown to cause any problems to the baby, and that furthermore the baby would not be directly exposed to the full rad. They would lead shield my abdomen.
Terry and I talked. I called my mom for what she thought. I wished really hard that it was still Gupta making the call, and then I cried. We decided to have the test. Because if I really did have a PE, that would be life threatening to me and the baby.
So more interminable waiting. Because it turns out that radiation has a set of demands they want met before they will scan me. So the L&D nurse (now Brenda, a warm but take-charge woman) has to put an IV port in me for the scan, and has to draw a vial of my blood to send to the lab to confirm that my kidneys are functioning well enough to handle whatever contrast dye they use in the test. So Brenda is setting up all these needles and sharp business on the tray next to my bed, and I am sort of confronting a fear I have been cultivating lately of needles, but of IVs in particular. So this is going to be my test run. Brenda lands my vein in her first try, which is exciting because I don't have large veins and often RNs have to stick me multiple times. And the gauge of the IV needle is huge. You could drive a tonka truck through there. So the IV gets in place and taped down. And I discover another new thing.
9. I hate having the IV line there. It is just as annoying as I thought it would be. It is like a constant low grade sting. Like the physical version of the whine of a mosquito. I just couldn't figure out how to totally ignore it despite my good efforts. And although Brenda told me it was all in my head, that the tube was flexible and I could have full range of movement, I just wasn't comfortable moving my arm around while that thing was in, and it felt more uncomfortable to bend it. I could tell I would be annoyed as all get out if I were trying to go through active labor with that thing. So I asked the nurses about refusing the port unless medically indicated and they all said yes yes it was totally an option. Woohoo!
We watch TV for a while, which includes the not-so-good international dance competition hosted by that Lord of the Dance guy, followed by a much more entertaining episode of Fraiser. Eventually kidney labs come back a-ok and transport is called and once again we are back through the maze to the radiation department. We sit and wait even though the department is totally dead. Not much is happening on a sunday night elsewhere in the Northwestern Hospital complex, although L&D was still relatively busy with about 15 women laboring. When the radiation technologist comes to take me away for the first time I have to be separated from Terry.
She wheels me into a little room with the big giant Cheerio machine that is the CT scan. She explains that I have to take my necklace off and that the doctor will be in shortly to explain the test to me. The necklace is a little silver charm of a baby boy that my mom gave me for Christmas. I take the necklace off while I wait in the room alone, and somehow looking at that little silver charm in my palm, and the big giant machine, and being without Terry, and my emotions go crazy. I'm not sobbing, but I have tears rolling down my cheeks. I have done everything I could to avoid unnatural crap during my pregnancy. We only drink organic milk now. I went three days with a continuous crippling migraine before I took so much as a single tylenol for relief. I haven't had caffeine at all. And here I was about to expose my son to radiation that might, however slim, increase his chances of childhood cancer.
They explained it all to me, shielded my protruding belly with lots of lead, and then into the Cheerio I went. The dye made my hands feel incredibly warm, but thankfully no nasty metallic taste in my mouth. I had tears on my cheeks the entire time I was in the Cheerio.
When I got wheeled back out to Terry I really lost my composure and started crying. At this point I was tired, because I hadn't really slept well the night before because of the breathing trouble. I was starving and running out of energy because I had a bowl of brothy soup for lunch at 1 PM and had now been at the hospital for more than 7 hours with only a small pack of trail mix from the vending machine. I was emotionally exhausted from having to make decisions that potentially placed my son at risk. I was just at the end of wanting to deal with all of that. And Terry was amazing. He got me tissues and a garbage can. He was comforting and confident and warm. He was perfect in every way. Eventually he even got me laughing. And that is when I learned the last best thing:
10. Terry is the most amazing partner I could have ever asked for. They broke the mold in every way when they made my husband. I have no idea how I got so lucky to have someone like him to love. I do not even have words to say how grateful I am that he is the one by my side both when things are wonderful but also when things are bad.
The tests for PE came back negative, so they sent me away saying that they didn't know what was causing my breathing problems, but that they had ruled out causes that were immanently life threatening. We had parked at 3 PM. We left at 11:44.
Friday, January 2, 2009
New Year, New Belly Button
The New Year has gotten off to a bang and a fizzle, although not everything went according to plan. The fizzle was me laid up on the couch for all of New Years Day. No hang over, but there are just some things in pregnancy that can strike and make you uber uncomfortable, but they are better not discussed in polite company. The fun part was that for New Years Eve (our last ever sans kiddos! gulp!) we decided to host a nice little dinner party. Our dear friends the Ferrales couldn't join us at the last minute because Gabrielle caught a stomach virus from her toddler, and we were all sad to miss them. We still had five couples who made the trek out through the freezing Chicago weather to join us.
Over Christmas I found this fantastic dress at the limited and was uber excited that it not only fit me while pregnant, but it sort of looked like it was supposed to work on a pregnant belly. A new red cocktail dress was all the incentive I needed to get a little dressed up for the occasion, complete with some fun and festive hair feathers that we found downtown at H&M.
Once I'd decided to go fancy, there was no holding me back. I got to set our table with our fancy wedding china and crystal champagne flutes. Woohoo! And it seemed appropriate to celebrate with the breakables since kiddos on the horizon make that all the more difficult. And I was totally pleased with how gorgeous the table looked all decked out.
I wimped out on making the planned salmon neopolitans for lack of time and energy, but we still put together a fabulous trio of pasta sauces (Batali's lemon jalapeno, alla vodka sauce, and sausage Ragu) to serve on top of some fantastic homemade fettuchini that Terry prepared. Friends brought appetizers and dessert.
We played some games, briefly had a conga line going, and then celebrated the countdown with a big bottle of champagne (nonalcoholic white grape juice for me).
And well, as for the new belly button, sometime on New Years Day Terry looked at my belly and said sweetly "Look, you still have a little belly button." To which I replied, "What?! Where did my belly button go?" And to my shock discovered and my growing belly has pretty much pushed my little belly button from normal and concave to just about flat. I suppose the next step is that pregnancy outie belly button.
Over Christmas I found this fantastic dress at the limited and was uber excited that it not only fit me while pregnant, but it sort of looked like it was supposed to work on a pregnant belly. A new red cocktail dress was all the incentive I needed to get a little dressed up for the occasion, complete with some fun and festive hair feathers that we found downtown at H&M.
Once I'd decided to go fancy, there was no holding me back. I got to set our table with our fancy wedding china and crystal champagne flutes. Woohoo! And it seemed appropriate to celebrate with the breakables since kiddos on the horizon make that all the more difficult. And I was totally pleased with how gorgeous the table looked all decked out.
I wimped out on making the planned salmon neopolitans for lack of time and energy, but we still put together a fabulous trio of pasta sauces (Batali's lemon jalapeno, alla vodka sauce, and sausage Ragu) to serve on top of some fantastic homemade fettuchini that Terry prepared. Friends brought appetizers and dessert.
We played some games, briefly had a conga line going, and then celebrated the countdown with a big bottle of champagne (nonalcoholic white grape juice for me).
And well, as for the new belly button, sometime on New Years Day Terry looked at my belly and said sweetly "Look, you still have a little belly button." To which I replied, "What?! Where did my belly button go?" And to my shock discovered and my growing belly has pretty much pushed my little belly button from normal and concave to just about flat. I suppose the next step is that pregnancy outie belly button.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)