Prenatal Clinic of Maladies

[April 20, 2010]

Well. It turns out that the second trimester is all the peace we're going to get. Now that's over. Seriously, like three days into the third trimester where we were ready to let out a sigh of relief a new turmoil reared its ugly head. The last six weeks of doctor visits the news kept getting better and better. The last Dr. even predicted a possibility of a full-term natural birth. That's out. Wednesday Carey started having contractions. Not painful going into labor contractions, but just the top of her uterus started flexing and becoming hard for a bit and then softening again. Thursday she attended an OT conference and while sitting there downloaded a contractions app for her iPhone. She started having tons of them. She left the conference early and I picked her up down town to go see the nurse practitioner for an immediate visit. As soon as Carey pulled herself up onto the exam table she started crying. The Nurse Practitioner waddled in and took a seat where she would remain, barely moving during the entire examination/consultation. SHE WAS ENOURMOUS. Like one step away from being one of those immobile, sticky-seated to a couch people in a trailer park making her dirty-faced kids sponge bathe her in between soap operas and various five course dinners. She had cool shoes, though. They were this kind of Velcro ninja pair. But maybe they just looked cool because her calves were covered in some space-age wrap that also gave a ninja look. But come on! How am I supposed to trust a health professional that is clearly so unhealthy? Also, her voice sounded like a cross between Carol Channing and over the top southern baby-talk. Imagine that voice repeating "vagina" over and over. I mean for the most part, she was well-informed, but she mostly told us all of the awful horrible things that could happen i.e. contractions increasing in frequency, they become painful, labor starts, and a major premature baby and all the horror that goes along with that. This crap we already knew! The baby's heart rate was good. The Doppler microphone and amplifier thingy proved that. Ninja-Tubs checked the cervix to see if Judah had dropped into the canal ready to get out of there. But she couldn't feel it. She kept going in deeper and deeper until her whole arm was practically up there making Carey her own personal muppet. That was a good sign, though. Strong cervix and still way up there. But Carey kept going back to the crying. Baby-talk Carole Channing even at one point said, "Oh I wish there's something I could say to make you feel better... vagGIna." The solution was for Carey to go on modified bed rest for the weekend popping Ibuprofen every six hours and if the contractions increased to over four an hour, some pill with a name that sounded macabre would be administrated. Carey and I called it Nightshade. Also, the Nurse Practitioner was adamant about no sex and to "rest the pelvic floor" (no intrusions in the vaGIna area...oh Hello Dolly!). Also, orgasms cause contractions. Not really a big deal at this point. That area of our lives has been mostly on hold lately anyway. What's one more weekend, right? Carey worked a half-day Friday and then chilled Saturday while I worked. Sunday morning I furiously prepared for our house warming party. Pretty much straight until Jen C and Bex came to help us out. Dan and Toby were over Friday night to watch Gentlemen Broncos (good!) and Fantastic Mr. Fox (awesome!) and to cut meats, cheeses and veggies for the party. Being on "bed rest" meant that during the party Carey had to sit on the couch while I replenished the food and gave the house tours. The whole thing was kind of a blur to me, but overall good. People dug our house and really liked the dining room table I made. I joked probably one too many times that the the house party was actually a ruse to mask the real reason for inviting people over: the opening exhibit for my hand-crafted table.

Oh, back to Fatty Channing, jumbo nurse. After we got the Rx and got home from the doctor's, we were pretty bummed. Nervous that at any minute the baby could drop. Scared that the end result of these contractions would result in an early baby and therefore a child with life-long physical and developmental issues. Carey had a question about how often to take Ibuprofen and so she called back the clinic and got the fabulous enormo lady again. While on the phone, the good nurse informed Carey not to worry so much about having a premie baby anytime soon. If the contractions got worse they'd just have her be on full bed rest, give her medications and just wait until week 36 when all medications needed to be stopped. Really? Is that so? Why the mother effin F didn't she tell us this when we were in the office? You know, when we were all worried and Carey was crying. STUPID! Let me ask you this. A couple comes in with early (super early) contractions. They are truly distraught. What is it exactly, do you think, they are worried about, fatty genius? Un-freakin-believable. How did she miss telling us this in the first place? Carey kept defending her (I still don't know why). Carey thinks that this might have been explained throughout the consultation. Bits and pieces here and there that would end up with a single idea. Yeah, I don't think so. Still we were relieved to hear that. A follow up doctor's visit was scheduled for Monday. And here's where the pattern of maladies continued (if you include the chub-a-lub nurse).

The nurse who checked us in (who've we've seen several times) was all sniffly, plugged-up nose with a cold. She also informed us she was on a new diet (Carey brought chocolates for everyone which she refused one when offered.) She was all spacey probably from either cold medicine or lack of energy from the new diet. She did the Doppler thing to check Judah's heartbeat. This wasn't the first time, by the way. She had the microphone dealy on Carey's right side. She couldn't find a heartbeat. Carey and I gave each other a knowing look. There's no baby over there, is what we should have said. Judah, being attached to the left side of the bicornuate uterus hung out on the left side of Carey's abdomen. She finally figured it remembering all the other times she'd done it. Next came fangoria doctor.


The doctor assigned to us that day was a middle-aged, nearly tanorexic, trim blondie-mom. At first she appeared perfectly fine. Free of injury like what we'd come to expect of our physicians. Then she looked at us head on. It appeared that quite recently someone had stabbed her 52 times with an ice pic in the left eye! Blood red everywhere. There was a yellow circle surrounding the cornea, which looked like it could fall out any second leaving behind just a bloody ball in her eye socket. It was truly horrifying. Like if she made a scary face to go along with her evil eye, we would have screamed and fled the premises pulling fire alarms along the way out. Unhealthiest health clinic I've ever been to. Anywho, the doctor came to the same conclusions as Samurai Blimp. But she also gave some concrete guidelines. These contractions aren't going away. Carey could either spend her energy seeing six clients a day or stay home all day and be domestic. With Carey already going on unpaid maternity leave when Mr. Baby arrives, we need all the money we can get right now. And Dr. Bloody Eye was very explicit about non-activities, as well. No sex. Orgasms cause contractions. Hmmm. Let me repeat that because I'm not sure I'm properly communicating the gravity of this situation. ORGASMS CAUSE CONTRACTIONS! NO ORGASMS! Shut it down, people! It's over! All my grand hopes for the third trimester preggers horniness are not only gone, but the whole thing is shut down. Orgasms cause contractions. If only it were the other way around - Contractions cause orgasms. If that were the case, she could finally catch up to me. So not only do I have to wait on her hand and foot mornings before work, evenings after work, and weekends in their entirety, but I also don't get any reward for being so nice. Because, as it turns out, I'm not actually all that nice. I expect to be reimbursed for my generosity. It's true that I prefer a clean house, but let's be honest here. It's always in the back of my mind when I do something nice for Carey. It's not only to keep her happy, but to get me a little sumpin-sumpin, you know what I'm sayin? Basically, I'm being forced into being nice for nice sakes only. And that sucks. I feel like I've heard somewhere that pregnancy is this wonderful thing. Why am I being lied to all the time?